Category Archives: Les Guis

Sunday 2nd May 2010 – As you may well have noticed by now …

… I spend an awful lot of my time on these pages bemoaning the “great clear-up” of French hedgerows and fields in the 1990s that saw thousands and thousands of interesting old French cars depart for the smelter – a national tragedy.

If I were still with Nerina, she would be quite pleased because our summer holidays in the 1980s consisted of us going to France and me abandoning her in a country lane while I leapt over a hedgerow armed with my old Cosina to snap something interesting that I had found.

old car hedge st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceSo today was just like old times as I travelled along a road down which I have travelled hundreds of times before, did a quick double-take over something that I have never noticed before, did a u-turn through the traffic and disappeared over a hedge into a field, armed this time with my Pentax.

I’ve no idea what it is as I couldn’t get close enough but the long bonnet, wings and running boards puts it at the late 1950s at the latest. It’s restored a little bit of my faith in rural France anyway – I don’t know how I could have missed this vehicle considering all the times that I’ve driven down here.

Strangely enough, I was on my way back from an agricultural machinery surplus sale at St Gervais d’Auvergne. I’d been to see if there was anything worthwhile for me to buy for here but it was a waste of time. Just probably 20 items for sale, most of which was heavy stuff. There was a tractor for sale – a huge thing – made in 2006 and the price they wanted for it was €46000. God alone knows how much it must have cost when new. Who says farmers are poor and impoverished?

old car vintage renault Type R2161 lorry puy de dome franceAt the same time as the agricultural machinery sale, there was also a vintage vehicle exhibition. That was really the main reason why I’d come out this morning.

However, it wasn’t all that impressive. There were all of about 10 vehicles on display, most of which I have seen at other shows in the neighbourhood. This is a Renault lorry of the early 1950s and I think that it might be a Type R2161, the famous 2.5T

I bumped into Liz and Terry too – they were fuelling up at the petrol station across the road. That was the highlight of the visit to St Gervais d’Auvergne.

Back at the footy, Pionsat’s 3rd XI were playing Effiat. Effiat are propping up the division and so this was a match that Pionsat couldn’t afford to lose. The game was arranged for two weeks hence but Effiat asked if it could be moved forward, to which Pionsat agreed. Of course this weekend is a blank weekend in the calendar (it’s a bank holiday) and so no other matches are being played. And cynics might think that in this desperate struggle at the foot of the table Effiat have decided to play today so that they can reinforce their team with players from their 1st and 2nd XI.

Indeed, the team that took the field bore no resemblance at all to the team that Pionsat beat back in December. The players were younger, fitter and keener.

fc pionsat st hilaire fcpsh effiat puy de dome ligue de football league franceBut once again, Pionsat not only had a full team out (including one player from the 2nd XI who needed some match practice), they could afford the luxury of Eric, Jerome and Marc on the bench – 3 stalwarts of the team.

Another regular from the team couldn’t get a game and Thomas of the 1st XI and one or two others had turned up “just in case” the 3rd XI was short-handed, but they weren’t needed.

fc pionsat st hilaire fcpsh effiat puy de dome ligue de football league franceAnd they weren’t needed indeed.

Pionsat matched them ball-for-ball and with the luxury of 3 keen players on the bench giving the tired legs of the defence a rest every so often Pionsat prevailed by 2 goals to 0. And quite right too – they really did play well.

The season is over for them now and they ended up finishing 6th out of 10 – a far cry from where they were at the end of November anchored at the bottom of the table. They’ve struggled along in fits and starts but kept on going when things were against them. And a couple of unlikely results have helped them, as well as a good goal difference. Strange as it is to say it, losing 6-1 to Manzat was something of a triumph as 2 weeks ago Manzat beat another team at the foot of the table by a whopping 19-0.

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Saturday 1st May 2010 – Yes, I was right

It was a bank holiday today. And everywhere was indeed closed, as I found out when I got to St Eloy les Mines this afternoon. It’s quite ironic in a way – it’s the fete de travail, the festival of work, and so everyone celebrates the festival of work by … errrr … not working.

So with St Eloy being closed I came back here and carried on with what I was doing before I went out – namely “badger all”. as you know, bank holidays count as days of rest for me and I never do anything.

It’s rained as well – 4.5mm, which means that in the past two days we have had 14mm of rain. Now given that the footprint of my verandah is about 4.5mx1.5m, which gives a surface area of 6.75 square metres, and 1 cubic metre is the equivalent of 1000 litres, then to get 1000 litres off the verandah of the roof and into the water butts I need 149mm of rain (that’s right, isn’t it, Krys?). so 14mm of rain has given me 94.5 litres, which is about 20% of my capacity (I have 2×230 litre water butts). Some of the plants are starting to go berserk and I don’t reckon it will be long before I can start eating my radishes.

And no footy tonight either. I was at a loss for things to do. Still, the big grudge match tomorrow – bottom-of-the-table clash between Pionsat and Effiat. Kick-off 15:00 and not to be missed.

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Friday 30th April 2010 – Well I was wrong about the rain.

We didn’t get 10mm at all. In fact we had a mere 9.5mm, most of which came around midday. So I nipped downstairs and uncovered everything so that everywhere can get wet. I uncovered the cloche but forgot to cover up the thermometer in there and now that’s wet too – I’ll have to see about drying it oit.

I stayed in, did some work on the computer in the morning and then started the unpacking. I’ve managed to put it (or most of it, anyway) away and I can actually see the floor no without walking on anything.

With the weather having cooled down I went to training tonight and had a good run around for an hour and 15 minutes. It’s totally worn me out, which is a good sign. It shows that things are doing something. And I managed to have a shower too, which is another good reason for going. Clean bedding tonight!

But no footy on Saturday – it’s Labour Day! They don’t even think that the shops will be open either. That will be an inconvenience. On Sunday the 3rd XI are playing Effiat in a right bottom-of-the-table encounter.

But right now, I’m off to bed before I fall asleeep.

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Thursday 29th April 2010 – It’s just been raining.

The first time for about three weeks. And I can’t say I’m sorry as the soil is bone-dry and it’ll be playing havoc with my plants. Mind you, I bet we haven’t had even 1mm because it didn’t sound like much. 10mm would nicely water the garden and refill all of the water containers. That would be quite useful.

In fact today has been a gardening day. I planted all of the beans that have been germinating and set some more for planting in a few weeks time and then transplanted the carrots. That took me nicely until lunch and after that I started on sowing the seeds for the May planting, sorting out the remainder of the germinating seeds and then catching up on whatever from the March sowing that hadn’t taken. There’s tons of stuff now but I am concerned that quite a lot of whatever I sowed back in March doesn’t seem to have sprung up. I do remember some things being slow but I’m sure they weren’t this slow!

I’ve also run out of potting soil so I hope LIDL still has plenty left. I’ve used 5 sacks this last couple of weeks. It’s actually stuff that’s been composted commercially elsewhere – every so often I pull out a lump of plastic and the other day an entire Snickers wrapper. So at least it’s all ecologically-friendly. But someone seems to thing that at the dechetterie at St Eloy les Mines you can help yourself to the composting that they do there. That has to be worth an investigation. I’ll take an empty dustbin with me next time I go shopping.

Back at the ranch my little 3d animation has come to a halt as I plumb the depths of a free tutorial I have found – “Make Interesting Objects From Combinations of Base Shapes” – like circles, spheres, tubes, flat surfaces and the like.
Lesson n°1 is “Make A Set Of Barbells For Your ….. errrrr ….. Strongperson”. Pass the bucket, please.

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Wednesday 28th April 2010 – Today was busy.

This morning first thing I had to go round to Michael’s. He’d just come back from the UK and bought me 10 kilos of oats. And as he was off again this afternoon I needed to rescue them (and pay him) before he went.

Back home I had time to plant some of the seeds that Clare had given me before leaping aboard Caliburn, my trusty steed, and heading off to St Gervais d’Auvergne to meet Liz and go on to Gerzat to record our radio programme. And of course to meet this photographer guy who wanted not just to photograph us but to interview us too. It seems that in the Combrailles we are becoming major news and our publicity is reaching its height. Yes, we are going to be the feature article in … errrr …. a free advert-type newspaper in the Combrailles with a circulation of about 350.

Not quite Le Monde or Paris Match I know, but we remain confident that one day we will be there. I’m eagerly awaiting the day that we will be asked to open our first brocante or be the guests of honour at a concours de belote.

Back at St Gervais d’Auvergne Liz and I went for a coffee or two and discussed our plans for next week. We are going to hit the Chambre de Metiers et de l’Artisanat in Chamailles and get all our business affairs in order. Neither of us has received our formal inscription of our business registrations despite having had an acknowledgement almost a year ago. High time we did something about it.

Back here I planted all of my early potatoes. And I think I’m going to run out of room for the lates and so I’ll have to invent something about that. And I should have gone to football training this evening but today was the hottest day of the year and it’s still 25 degrees up here even with all of the windows open. That’s not a temperature for someone of my age and my level of fitness to be running around. But the weather is supposed to break tomorrow or Friday morning, with rain (the first since April 9th) and a major drop in temperature. If that holds, then training at the Friday night session is a distinct possibility.

Now where have I put my footy boots????

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Tuesday 27th April 2010 – Well, I finished …

… my tract on distance learning. Normally we can get through one page of dialogue in the 5 minutes that we have, and by the purest coincidence the tract that I prepared was exactly 4 pages long and with breaks in the right place at the end of each page. Now how about that?

But a depressing feature of this article was that I sent a whole heap of e-mails out to all kinds of institutions involved in distance learning, making it quite clear that I was offering some kind of free air time to those organisations concerned.

And do you know how many of these organisations took the trouble to reply? JUST ONE

And do you know what their reply actually said? “Thank you for your recent email.  I am writing to confirm that it has been passed on to xxxx, Head of Media and Public Relations and she will reply to you in due course”. And seeing as we are in the studio tomorrow recording, it will of course be far too late for her contact to do any good.

But one thing that I am learning, and learning quickly, is that there is no such thing as a recession. There are loads of customers queueing up at places with loads of the folding stuff waving around, but British (and some other) companies just can’t be bothered to get off their collective derrieres to go and get it. Employees far too busy on their Social Networks during working hours to actually do any work. And when the place goes t|ts-up as it inevitably does, then there are all the tears and the weeping and the pleading. And in the meantime the customers are fed up of waiting and have p155ed off elsewhere.

Just trawl through the pages of this blog – especially during the summer of last year when I was in the UK – and see exactly what I mean. I know that if there was the slightest possibility of getting my organisation or business some free air time to a whole host of captive customers I would drop everything to do the necessary. It really is unbelievable.

Next stop was down to Liz and Terry’s to see how the not-very-patient was doing and to plan the remainder of our radio programmes – such as the events for the month. And here was another thing – we have (as you can probably imagine) abandoned our idea of contacting the local government offices for information as they can’t be bothered to reply either and instead we have approached regional Government for their assistance. They very kindly sent us an extremely useful booklet with all kinds of helpful information. But as we were scanning through it, it didn’t look quite right. Colser examination revealed that it was the booklet for …. errrr …. 2008.

I tell you what – I am getting thoroughly sick of this. It must be dreadful trying to do this kind of a job for a living – with 90% of all enquiries going unanswered, 5% replying too late, 5% when they do reply not taking it seriously. Invited guests who promise to attend suddenly disappearing and leaving us holding the baby.

And do you know how much Liz and I get paid for doing all of this? Absolutely nothing at all. And there’s no expenses budget either. We travel at our own expense, pay for our own phone calls and the like. And last month at the studio they didn’t even offer us a cup of coffee, despite the plainest of plainest hints.

Yes, it isn’t easy being famous and my hate goes off to everyone else who has made it to the top like Liz and I are going to. They talk about dogged perseverence, sheer bloody-mindedness and all these other characteristics that are essentials for stardom and having been celebrities for just a couple of weeks, we can understand exactly what they mean.

And that reminds me, said her, abandoning yet another good rant for the moment – we have to wear our best bib and tucker tomorrow because we are going to be photographed by the press.

In other news my 3D modelling has been restarted now that I’m home. And I did manage to find a freeware canoe so that my characters stranded on the beach could paddle off to safety. Had I not managed that they would have been up the creek without a paddle. But as I was preparing their getaway I came across a freeware flying bathtub.

Now isn’t that much more exciting? it can take my characters onto a whole new plane.

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Monday 26th April 2010 – It was another good day today

And I didn’t miss any of it really seeing as how I had another early morning phone call. So having dealt with that and having breakfasted I then missed almost all of the decent weather by having to come up here to work. It seems that our guest for this month’s radio programmes has gone AWOL and it’s too late to arrange for anyone else.

So I had to have a rummage around in the darkened corners of my mind and I’ve come up with a lively topic – FURTHER EDUCATION. Liz and I can talk about that for hours as we both have experience of it. And with people desperate to fill in their spare time it seemed to be a good option.

There are four categories too, which will fit in nicely with the four weeks –

  1. GCSEs and A Levels
  2. Higher Education
  3. Vocational training
  4. Learning for Pleasure

and so I have been researching.

I had a break for a few hours and did some more unloading of Caliburn. You can’t move up here for stuff now. I had a rummage through the tools that were in the LDV and remade the toolbox contents in Caliburn with the best of the stuff. When I had my taxis 25 years ago I used my tools an awful lot – hardly surprising given the cars that I had, and many of those tools from those days had found their way into the mobile toolbox. And strange as it is to say it, just feeling those tools and feeling just how comfortably they fitted into my hands again  – it was just like meeting up with good old friends.

Normally I don’t go in for the pretentious prose and garbage and that kind of thing, but it really was something extraordinary.

But on the subject of vocational training I met Elodie at the football. She’s quite cute and I have a soft spot for her. I hadn’t seen her on the tills at Auchan for a while, and she told me she had left and was now back in full-time education. One of the courses she is taking is in shorthand-typing and having learnt of Terry’s injury, she suggested that it might be a career opportunity for him.

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Sunday 25th April 2010 – It was one of the nicest …

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire sayat argnat ligue de football league puy de dome france… days of the year so far, and we had another footfest as the season draws towards a close. We weren’t supposed to have one though – it should have been last night but Sayat refused to play at 18:30 so the match had to go on today.

It was a 2-2 draw which was something of a disappointment, especially as Sayat were awarded a penalty (from which they scored) for a handball in the area that everyone else in the ground except for the referee would have said was “involuntary”.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire sayat argnat ligue de football league puy de dome franceBut the equaliser was a superb goal. Little Matthieu playing all on his own in attack (and he’s normally a full-back) struggles with three defenders and a keeper to get into a good position. His shot is blocked and rebounds to Didier who hasn’t scored a goal in all the time I’ve been following the team, and he simply lifts the ball over everyone and into the net. He’s absolutely delighted as you can see, and who can blame him?

The keeper’s trick of lying down and hoping that the referee stops the game didn’t work, and rightly so as once the goal was awarded he was running up and down like a spring chicken.

Mind you, everything happened so quickly that I doubt that the referee would have had time to stop the game even had he wanted to.

I missed the first two goals though because I was at Chatel-Guyon watching the 3rd XI. And for once all of the chickens came home to roost and they were well and truly thumped – something that has been on the cards for a while.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire chatel guyon puy de dome ligue de football league franceDespite everything that I have said and all the “advice” that I’ve been handing out that has stiffened the defence over the last 15 months, we welcomed back into the centre of the defence Lord Lucan and Martin Bormann and they played with what I call the “Lego” formation – they all go to pieces in the box.

And if that wasn’t enough we had a chase the length of the field by one of the Pionsat players, clearly enraged by an “off-the-ball incident” and deciding to have a little friendly word with the Chatelguyon no8. And no amount of whistling by the ref was going to stop him. What is even more ironic is that the Pionsat player doing the chasing is a member of the French Police Force. How about that?

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome ligue de football league franceIn between the goals, we had more entertainment too. Another one of the Pionsat players had a real go at the ref about the award of a free kick.

This went on for ages and called for some restraint, in every sense of the word. It’s nice to see the Pionsat players showing such … errr …. passion during a match. It shows that they care about the match and the performance but I wish they would reserve it for when they have possession of the ball – the round plastic thing that they kick, I mean, and not one belonging to one of their opponents.

After the 3rd XI match Chatelguyon’s 1st XI had a game. You might say that the 1st game was the “warm-up act” and you wouldn’t be wrong about that. Things certainly got heated out there in that game.

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Saturday 24th April 2010 – I’ve just watched …

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire cebazat puy de dome ligue de football league france… this ...errr....interesting football match this evening.

We had all kinds of blood, guts and thunder for 90 minutes, and played almost entirely between the two penalty areas. Matthieu in the Pionsat goal had to be at his best to claw away a free header from the corner and the Cebazat keeper had to save two weak shots, but that was the sum total of the attempts on goal.

Yes, I'm back at home after all the excitement of Friday evening in Brussels. And what with the late finish getting everything ready last night, I didn't make it home all in one go. I ended up having an overnight stop at Clamecy where I froze to death in a layby (yes, it's still perishing cold at night)

Still, the one thing about that was that it made me have an early start, and I didn't lose very much as I stopped for the weekly shopping at the Carrefour in Moulins.

I was back here by the early afternoon and promptly crashed out for two hours on my sofa. That set me up nicely for the trip down to Pionsat and the football tonight.

As Golden Earring once famously said, "it's good to be back home".

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Monday 19th April 2010 – I BET THAT YOU ARE …

.. all wondering what happened to Monday’s blog entry when you looked last night.

The answer to that is that at the time that I would normally be on the internet, I was asleep in the back of Caliburn in a layby somewhere between Troyes and Chalons-sur-Marne.

Some kind of emergency has declared itself in Brussels. There are a couple of things that needed to be done here and so I was obliged to hit the road and head north.

Something that rather disrupted my day as you might expect. I had all kinds of plans for things that I was going to do.

But it was a good job that on Friday I had emptied out Caliburn and given him a good clean-up. It was a simple matter then to check the oil and water and sling a pile of stuff into the back.

And with a flask of coffee, a pile of butties and the usual stuff to nibble, I hit the road and that was that.

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Sunday 18th April 2010 – A record day today.

60.6 degrees in the heat exchanger – the hottest since 21st August. 44.3 degrees in the verandah – the highest since 8th September. The 15 litres of water in the black bucket with the pane of glass on top – that reached 36 degrees,hot enough to shower with. 22.3 degrees up here in the attic (it’s still 21.3 degrees in here now!). You can see what kind of a day we have had.

birdwatching centre ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de sancy puy de dome franceBut if you peer carefully through the volcanic ash (or click on the image to see a full-size pic) you can make out the Puy de Sancy in the distance. 1886 metres (or about 6000 feet of it) and it’s still heavily-laden with snow. So summer hasn’t quite a-cumen in yet.

I’m in my favourite spot at the viewpoint near St Gervais d’Auvergne on the way to see the not-very-patient and to drop off some scaffolding tubes. And also to pick up some football boots that he won for me on eBay, which was very nice of him and much appreciated.

And had I had the football boots with me earlier I would even have had a game of football because something happened today that has never ever happened before and probably won’t ever happen again. Pionsat’s much-maligned 3rd XI arrived at Neuf-Eglise with not only a full complement, but also 3 substitutes and another player who didn’t make the team but came along to watch the match with his boots “just in case”, making 15 in all – and the opposition could only put out 5 players! How about that?

Now if a team cannot field a minimum of 8 players it forfeits the match, loses a point and has to pay a fine equivalent to the travelling expenses of the opposition etc etc. And believe me, there are some teams that enforce this rule to the letter. But other clubs are much more friendly about it and so it was decided that
1) everyone would pretend that the match took place with an effective complement for each team (and there was a frantic hunting around for medical certificates and official identity cards so as to make the team sheet look correct)
2) Pionsat were credited with the score that they would have had had they won the match by forfeit
3) Pionsat’s 3 substitutes plus the spectator and also a volunteer from the starting 11 were loaned to the 5 players from Neuf-Eglise so that they would have sufficient players to start the match.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire neuf eglise puy de dome football ligue de foot franceAnd as I said, had I had my boots with me I would have got a game as well, which would have been quite nice. I didn’t think until afterwards that I should have volunteered to referee the match now that I’m qualified.

We ended up having a nice leisurely friendly match of 10-a-side, which Pionsat ended up by winning 3-1. I wish more matches could be played in such a friendly atmosphere as this – especially when Pionsat’s 3rd XI can win them.

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Saturday 17th April 2010 – We had another footfest tonight.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire pontaumur puy de dome ligue football league franceWe started off at 18:30 with Pionsat’s 2nd XI playing Pontamur. They lost 3-1 but that is something of a triumph as earlier in the season Pontaumur gave them a good spanking.

And the result was something of a travesty. Pontaumur had no more than about 5 shots on target whereas Pionsat spent the whole match peppering the Pontaumur goal – with the woodwork and the Pontaumur goalkeeper working overtime, as in this photo where the keeper pushes a header from Christophe round the post.

After that, the 1st XI played Miremont, and they won 4-1. That was something of a disappointment as in the away fixture, while I was watching the match at Pontaumur, Pionsat won by an astonishing 12-1.

There was quite a big crowd too – the fine weather bringing out the supporter in their … er …. pairs. It really was a beautiful day though – the temperature in the heat exchanger reached 51.5 degrees and the 15 litres of water reached 32 degrees – almost hot enough to shower with.

I went down to the Post Office at 11:40 to post a letter, only to find that it closes at 11:30 on Saturday. And so off to St Eloy for whooping where I spent next to nothing – a record €0:00 in LIDL. I planned to look in on this new megashop that’s just opened but would you believe it – it closes between 12:00 and 14:00 ON A SATURDAY for lunch. Some people just don’t want any custom.

This afternoon I went for an hour or two and socialised with my new neighbours. Now that makes a change – me socialising. And that was the sum total of my day.

But at the football Max was there. He’s the secretary of the club as well as being captain of the 3rd XI.
He asked me “does your mate Terry fancy a game of football on Sunday? we’re short-handed.”
“Shorthanded on Sunday?” I queried. “That’s nothing. Terry has been short-handed for almost a week!”

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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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Thursday 15th April 2010 – Tonight’s image …

ford cortina mark 5 gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome france… is another aerial shot, and you can see what I have been doing today. I’ve lengthened the path down in front of the raised beds and filled the base with rubble. And then I’ve filled in the path between the new large bed and the two other beds just below it.

I’ve also done the path between the megacloche and the raised bed in front of it. Those two paths have been made of rubble with a layer of slate on top.

The piles of rubble on the ground floor inside the house are getting smaller and smaller and that is real progress. In certain places you can even see the floor now!

But I’m well-impressed with all of this. I started at the beginning of March so it’s all taken a mere six weeks to accomplish. It’s hard to believe that back in early March it was all looking like this.

Moving the chassis of the Citroen 2CV I found another adder. And again I moved my hand before it could react. Grahame thinks that they must be slow worms, but certainly not. I listened closely to it and it was definitely going “two plus two equals four – three plus three equals six”.

And that reminds me “groan” … ed of the mother who rang up the school to speak to her son’s teacher.
“What kind of maths is this that you are teaching little Johnny? He’s been sitting here last night saying things like ‘two plus two; the sonofabitch is four – three plus three; the sonofabitch is six’ et cetera”
“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning words like that” replied the teacher “but I’ve been trying to get him to say ‘the sum of which is …'”.

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Wednesday 14th April 2010 – I’ve finished all of the beds in the garden

raised bed gardening les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see the last one just here on the right of the image.I can’t go any further for to the right are some fruit trees, behind me is the scrap Ford Transit van and to the left of the raised beds are the old Ford Cortina and the diesel w123 Mercedes 240D. And once we get round to next winter I can think about moving all of the vehicles elsewhere.

But 9 raised beds is enough for now, what with the megacloche as well – you may remember that last year it was just 8 raised beds.

There’s a caravan window across the megacloche for the moment. My tray of radishes and my container of carrots are underneath it hardening off ready to be planted. I needed the space in the greenhouse for the April sowing of seed, which I also did today. But nothing much seems to be germinating and that’s pretty disappointing. I’m sure it didn’t take this long last year.

15 of us at football training tonight. We started off with a few laps around the pitch and then had a game of quick-passing football. After that it was a heading match and then we finished off with a 7-a-side game. There was a new player there tonight – someone who I hadn’t seen before. A big guy, bald and a little on the senior side and called Christophe, which is bound to complicate things as there are already more Christophes than you can shake a stick at.

It reminds me of the old days with the Cheese Hall pub in Crewe. If you wanted a labourer or two to help on a job you would stick your head through the door and shout “Paddy”. You’d be trampled to death in the stampede.

But I digress.

There’a a goalkeeping crisis in the club right now – just one fit keeper for all three teams … “I bet he’s busy then” – ed … and this Christophe is someone who somebody else knows who retired from playing a few years ago but he’s been enticed out of retirement to keep goal for the 2nd XI for the next few weeks while Francois, Michael and Philippe recover from their injuries.

But this training lark – I’m miles off being match-fit and at my age I doubt if realistically I can get back into the right kind of fitness. But there is hope for me yet. If Tomi Morgan can crack it in the Welsh Premier League at his age then I can do it in the 14th level of the French pyramid at two and a half years more.

The proof of the pudding will be when I wake up tomorrow morning and see how the bones feel. I did notice that I was running much more freely tonight, and that’s a good sign.

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