Category Archives: noz

Saturday 3rd November 2012 – I’M NOT HERE.

Well, not all here anyway, and that shouldn’t surprise anyone, should it?

I’m in one of these cheap unit-hotels in Clermont Ferrand, having a weekend away from home.

There is in fact a very good reason for this.

This evening FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI have a night match at Ceyrat, way out the other side of Clermont-Ferrand.

And I can’t believe that I’ve never been to a Pionsat night match away from home.

Tomorrow, the 2nd XI have an away match early afternoon at Miremont, just outside the north side of the city.

Seeing as it’s almost 100kms back home and then back 80kms at lunchtime tomorrow, it was hardly worth going home. And a little break would do me a world of good too.

So just by way of a change, I set out this morning to visit all of the shops at Mozac, the big shopping centre outside Riom.

It’s nothing special compared to Montlucon, but it’s different and at least all of the shops are right next to each other and not scattered across the town.

My luck was well and truly in too. There’s a bankrupt-stock kind of shop there and I found exactly the wire netting that I need to make my bean and pea frames, after all this time of looking.

And I also found a set of three decent tyre levers. I only have small ones for things like wheelbarrows and pushbikes, nothing suitable for motorbikes and cars.

The NOZ though is much smaller but they did have a decent selection of DVDs and so I treated myself to 5 for these long winter nights. At €1:95 each it’s cheaper than the cinema.

At the football, FC Pionsat St Hilaire could only muster a scratch team – it’s not easy travelling all the way down to Ceyrat for a 20:00 kick-off if you’ve been working until 19:00.

As for the game, there is no denying that the Espoirs Ceyratois were technically a much better side.

However FC Pionsat St Hilaire rode their luck, especially with François brilliantly saving a penalty late in the game.

But the team hung on and the score ended up a lucky 2-2 draw. And they all count as we know.

What was even more interesting was that I was not the only supporter to have come to cheer on FCPSH. A couple from Riom who have a weekend cottage in Pionsat and who attend almost all of the home games were here too to follow the team.

This is becoming infectious, isn’t it?

Finding food was the next difficulty. I cant believe that even in Clermont-Ferrand everything closes at 22:30. I had to drive for miles until I found something.

Eventually though I did manage to persuade someone to rustle up a vegan pizza and now I’m sitting here and eating it.

Then I’m off to bed.

-6

Tuesday 2nd October 2012 – I HAD A GOOD …

… and profitable day out in Montlucon today.

Not the least of the reasons being that a chance visit to the LIDL came up trumps with another 5 packets of these LED light strips. That’s all that I shall be needing anyway for the foreseeable future.

So having picked up Rosemary’s window at Lapeyre we went off to Brico Depot. I bought a tarpaulin to go on the ground where I’m clearing, and I also priced up a whole pile of other stuff that I need for this concreting that I’ll be doing (yes, I have another Cunning Plan).

No suitable wood for shuttering though – I’ll have to have some cut at a sawmill.

Grand Frais, the Fresh food place came up trumps with everything that I need for my pickling, except the malt vinegar for the shallots, but then again at NOZ they were selling white vinegar flavoured with tarragon and that will do just as nicely.

So after dropping off Rosemary’s window and helping her with her shutters I came back here and did a little tidying up in the barn.

I found the other missing sledgehammer and a few other gardening tools, and I also worked out why the desk light in the barn, over the battery bank, isn’t working. Seems that the wire has become disconnected and its probably been like that for years too.

So when I finished that I took off the flourescent light and fitted one of these LED strip lights in place.

At first I was disappointed but then I realised that I had disconnected the good batteries and I was trying to burn some old ones, and I had a reading of just 7.8 volts.

With 12 volts it should be pretty impressive I reckon, but that’s for another day.

-3

Saturday 16th June 2012 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY.

In fact I went to Montlucon.

And even though I had a late-ish start I was still out and round and back earlier than usual.

The impetus was that you my remember me receiving a text to say that my new front door needs picking up, and if I didn’t get a wiggle on I would lose it. So offI went to pick it up.

It’s not very substantial at all, being just a sheet of double-glazing with a wooden frame around it, and it’s not going to be used for ages yet. But the reason why I chose it when I did, for those of you with short memories, is that it’s the same style as the windows that I bought for the house and the range was discontinued at the end of March.

The fact that it was the cheapest double-glazed door has nothing whatever to do with the argument, of course.

My luck was in too. At the Amaranthe health food shop there was some soya cream that had gone past the sell-by date and so they were giving a carton away to each customer. That will do very nicely for a mushroom and onion fried rice later in the week.

At at the rubbish shop (NOZ, for the benefit of the foreigners) they were selling a load of flavoured rice milk at just €0:75 a litre. There’s a nice long sell-by date on those and so of course there are now none left in the shop.

Almond-flavoured rice milk on my breakfast muesli – that has to be the way to go.

And Dammi if I didn’t find some of this on sale at NOZ as well.

It’s a multi-vitamin, multi fruit drink. And I had a good look at the list of ingredients and, sure enough, it contains vitamin B12. being a vegan as you know,
I have lots of issues about my vitamin B12 intake so I’m always on the lookout for different food items that might contain it.

And with a name like this, it ought to be good too!

It was piping hot too – hottest day of the year for me and so I really fancied a swim, but I had left my swimming trunks back at home. Never mind – Auchan was having a sale and so for €5:00 I treated myself to a pair of new ones.

I took the plunge and went to the Centre Aqualudique at the back of Montlucon. I’d heard a couple of good reports about it.

And it was certainly a far cry from Neris-les-Bains – tidal pools, a fast-flowing current, bubble-massage seats in the pool. And many more people there than at Neris so there was much more to see.

Ohhhh yes – I still chase after the women. The problem is though that at my age I can’t remember why.

€5:00 admission though – and that’s quite a difference from €3:20, and nothing like as intimate. I’ll just have to save the Centre Aqualudique for special occasions such as midwinter when it’s far too cold to be at Neris-les-Bains.

At the Brico Depot I bought 4 demi-chevrons and 3 sacks of sand. And you might be wondering why. The demi chevrons because I want to put shelves up in this cupboard downstairs and I want to do it the next time the weather is bad, without having to wait for a trip to the sawmill for the wood.

And the bags of sand?

There’s some sealing joints that need to be made on the roof of the lean-to that I fitted earlier this year. I’ve no sand here and so I need to dig out the Sankey trailer, change the wheels, trundle down to the quarry, load the trailer, bring it back here and bag up the sand.

With having the sand here I can have the job finished before I’ve even changed the wheels on the Sankey.

But I hate the people at Brico Depot. I loaded up Caliburn and then went off to pay for it “you need to bring your vehicle here” said the girl in the office. Walking 20 metres was clearly too much for her.

And so I brought the vehicle to the door and she came out – and then started chatting to a fork-lift truck driver.
“When you can spare me the time, if it’s not too much trouble for you” I said, and so she shrugged her shoulders to the driver and slumped over to me to check my load.
Yes, the staff at Brico Depot needs a collective smack in the mouth. It’s just like being back in Belgium and how I hate that country.

Back here I sat down to watch a film and the next thing that I remember was that it was 20:00. A long time since I’ve crashed out like that too.

And for the football we watched a team of bouncing Czechs pole-axe their opposition to advance to the next stage of the UEFA Nations Cup.

-1

Saturday 23rd April 2011 – I haven’t done much more today either…

… although I have made an important discovery. Acting on information received (from Henri at Radio Tartasse as it happens) I managed to track down the railway station for the ligne economique, otherwise known as the tacot, at Durdat – Larequille about eight or so miles from where I live.

And here it is, with grateful thanks to the owner who gave me permission to photograph it.

For those of you who haven’t been following my blog for all that long, you probably won’t know that back at the turn of the 20th Century the Département of the Allier was honeycombed with railway tracks belong to the Lignes Economiques, a system of metre-gauge railways that ran all over the place.

I say that they “ran all over the place” and that isn’t an exaggeration because they very rarely ran anywhere near the villages that they were supposed to serve and the one here at Durdat is well over a mile from the village. In fact one early commentator described the railway stations as “seeming to have the purpose of just adding decoration to the countryside“. The engines wheezed and coughed and spluttered around the countryside, gaining the nickname Tacot, which is French for an “old banger” or “rattletrap” and by 1950 or so they had been all swept away by road transport.

You can see, if you look carefully, the outline of the railway trackbed just in front of the station building.

The line, which ran from the lime kilns at Marcillat to the steel mill at Commentry, was the first to go – being abandoned in 1932 when the standard gauge line from Montlucon to Gouttieres arrived at Marcillat.

And, ironically, the main line was closed in 1939 due to wartime circumstances and never reopened for passengers, meaning that Marcillat was isolated as far as passengers were concerned long before the rest of the ligne economique system was abandoned.

I’ve found most of the stations and some traces of the line but the station at Durdat-Larequille was always elusive, until Henri told me where it was.

All of this came about because I was in Montlucon shopping today. I’ve stocked up with food and all kinds of things, as well as almost everything to finish the water butts (Brico Depot is hopeless) including the nylon stockings for making my sand filters. Why ever didn’t I think of Noz before?

A swim at Neris on the way back, fit the new tap onto the water butts, and that was me, done. But there I am saying tat Brico Depot is hopeless – here they are after all this time of me harassing them and here they are now stocking BULKHEAD FITTINGS – the hollow threaded tube that you pass through the sides of water tanks. I’ve been nagging them about these for ages and now they finally carry them. This will make my life so much easier.

But in Montlucon I had two interesting encounters. A guy at LIDL stopped me and asked me “is that your van outside?” and so we had a long chat about wind turbines and solar panels and he’s coming to see me next week.

There has been a lot of discussion just recently about advertising and people have different opinions about different things, but for me, having corporate colours and a corporate logo, and having clothes that match the van for the colours and the logo – that seems to work for me.

And then on the Brico Depot car park, Julie and Rob came over for a chat and to tell me that they want me to go over and chat to a friend about solar panels. Having a vehicle that is a distinctive shape, a distinctive size and a distinctive colour – that seems to work too.

People can see me coming a long way off, and at the very least it gives them plenty of time to hide.

-4

Friday 19th March 2011 – I didn’t get my early night last night after all.

I was just on the point of going to bed when someone who I hadn’t spoken to for a while came on line. We had quite a bit to talk about and what with one thing and another it was almost 04:00 when I went to bed.

And so I crawled out of my pit at 08:00 feeling like death, and went to Montlucon. It was a big mistake to get my windows fron Lapeyre. I need an empty van for when I go back to Brussels, and while we got these windows in, getting them out on my own without breaking them – that will be something else.

It was gardening day at LIDL and so I have 6 more fruit trees for the Liz Ayers Memorial Orchard, a pile of seeds, and some onion sets, seed potatoes and seed shallots. I shan’t abandon the garden entirely this year. At Noz I spent a fortune, mostly on DVDs and I now have 5 or the 6 Don Camillo films, starring Fernandel. I really enjoyed the books when I was at school and I saw one of the films once and that was just as good.

At Brico Depot I set a new world record by buying nothing at all, but I was in tears nevertheless. Door Strips in Brico in Belgium €10.73 – same one in Brico Depot here €3:49. White Spirit there €3:89 – here €2:09. And it was all like that. I don’t know how they can get away with it in Belgium, I really don’t.

But I’ve made a conscious decision that now that I’m a little more financially sound, first thing that I’m going to be doing is to improve my diet. And to that end I bought a few things that I wouldn’t normally buy such as half a kilo of grapes (which I munched on the way home) and a little packet of sugar-free sweets.

I didn’t go swimming – I was too early and in any case I was whacked. So back here to crash out for a couple of hours. And it was a mistake to eat the grapes and the sugar-free sweets so quickly as I was in … errr … some discomfort for a while.

I went to the footy too this evening. Pionsat’s 3rd XI playing the league leaders so you would normally expect a hammering, but the 2nd XI have no game tomorrow and so there were several … errr … discrete changes to the team line-up, And although they had yet another makeshift goalkeeper (who did really well and I was surprised by that) they had a 2nd XI centre-half playing and it was amazing how much it stiffened the defence.

Pionsat actually won 2-1, with two disputed goals. One was scored by three players cantering off down the pitch while everyone else was waiting for the offside flag. I was in no position to judge but one of their spectators thought that the ref got it right.

I’ve been saying all along that there isn’t much wrong with Pionsat’s 3rd XI that a real goalie and a couple of decent players in key positions can’t put right, and it was proved right tonight.

p>Pionsat’s second goal was a penalty – a clear foul, no mistake about that, but as to whether it was in the area, all I can say is that I was almost level with the area and the Bromont players had some of my sympathy. After that, the match became a little naughty and we had a running feud down each touchline for a while.

Still Bromont should have buried the game and they only have themselves to blame for losing it. Clean through on goal three or four times and one shot round the post, one off the bar, and two straight at Stephane (and didn’t he do well to hang on to them with forwards charging in and he’s never played a real match in goal before?)

But now I’ve had a doze this afternoon, it’s 04:00 and I can’t sleep at all. Crazy.

Saturday 3rd April 2010 – I didn’t feel much like it this morning.

I woke up with the alarm, just by way of a change, and heard the rain pouring down on the roof (15mm we had today). What a way to start the day! So after a while of vegetating I heaved myself out of bed and set off for Montlucon. Late

At Carrefour they were selling baby lettuce plants – €1:95 for 12 and that’s a bargain so I bought two dozen seeing as mine haven’t taken yet.

I also went to the huge sports shop – Decathlon – to buy some football boots. But firstly they were mostly sold out of the popular sizes. I tried on a couple of pairs of boots my size but they weren’t half tight and pinched my feet like mad so I asked the footwear assistant which ones she recommended for wider feet.
“How should I know?” was her helpful reply. “You’ll just have to try them all on and find out”.
As if I don’t have anything better to do! So that’s Decathlon crossed of my shopping list with their crap customer service.

Noz was quite interesting and I spent a few bob in there too – nothing special (except a proper tray small enough to go through the door downstairs amd with high edges to stop me spilling stuff). There were a few good films – an old black and white Study in Scarlet and a copy of Douglas Fairbanks’ silent movie The Three Musketeers. I passed on the obviously interesting and highly relevant Women In Cages and the astonishing “Dracula in Pakistan”. “A rare film from the archives of Hollywood” it said in the trailer. Well, what more can anyone say?

Next stop of course was the Auchan and I was behind a woman who had spent almost €200 at the checkouts. she couldn’t find her carte de fidelite so she said to the cashier “Put the points on that gentleman’s card” – meaning me! That’s not something that happens every day either.

At Brico Depot I had an encounter with a woman and her daughter. They were looking at dowelling and just happened to catch me on the head with a length.
“Look out!” cried the daughter to her mother. “You’ve just given that man a coup de baguette“.
“It’s okay” I replied. “I used to be married”.
“Ahhh” said the mother. “You’ll know all about coups de baguette then”.
Now my sense of humour has been described as “special” and so I was absolutely astonished to find anyone – let alone a French woman – who was on my wavelength. And imagine my further astonishment when 10 minutes later I collided with the same females.
“We meet again” said Mum
“Yes” I replied. And if you are still here in 15 minutes you can help me load my van!” I was rather loaded up with wood at the time.

But who should I bump into but Simon who was also looking for wood. It’s nice to meet friends and have interesting chats, but why just then? I was onto something with that woman I was sure.

But anyway Simon helped me load up Caliburn and we had a coffee together afterwards.

I told him about my adventures in the swimming pool last week and explained that I was off there right then, so he made sure I had his mobile phone number in case there was another swimming match.

I went to the baths via Virlet to pick up the village’s defibrilator (you never know – there might have been a swimming gala again) and I was half expecting to see a heavy contingent of medical personnel and a tonne of ice ready to dump into the swimming pool in case the water boiled, but no – my luck wasn’t in and I just had a quiet swim with the usual 20 or 30 people who go there.

But there is a swimming gala on Sunday afternoon 11th April. Unfortunately for me Pionsat are playing away so I shall either be at St Gervais or Charensat. But if anyone would like to join me for a rain dance on the Saturday night they will be more than welcome.

-1

Saturday 6th March 2010 – Well, we’re back.

We had a football match tonight – the first since early February, and only the second since mid- December. Pionsat’s 3rd XI played Beauregard Vendon and were one man short, yet they scored five goals – and still finished on the losing side.

But back in December you remember that Gregory Richen turned out for the 3rd XI as he was unavailable for his habitual 1st XI game and scored 2 of their goals – well that seems to have started a fashion for Christophe Larue who also plays for the 1st XI in attack is unavailable tomorrow so he turned out for the 3rd XI this evening and scored all five goals.

All of this in thoroughly freezing conditions that are threatening snow. As if we haven’t had enough!

Also back is the Pentax – unrepaired and still struggling along. I’ll be happy though when someone round here pays me a pile of cash they owe me and I can think about a replacement.

I went shopping around Montlucon today and did the usual rounds. Some 12 volt LED bulbs at €3 each at Noz and a max-min thermometer at €4.99 from Vima were the highlights. Piles of gardening stuff including my seed potatoes (earlies and normals) and two blazing rows at Brico Depot – firstly when the girl in the building material section tried to sell me the wrong (and more expensive) plasterboard despite being told, and secondly when they refused to open the bulk purchases till so I had to struggle with an enormously-loaded trolley up a shopping aisle. Someone in the car park helped me get the wood on Caliburn’s roof rack to which I replied “it’s a good thing that the customers are more helpful than the staff!”

And then a freezing cold ( and I mean COLD) hour in the swimming baths only to find that the private shower was out of order. That put the tin hat on the day.

But I’m clearly moving in the wrong circles, much to my regret. As you know, at Noz I browse through the CDs and DVDs that they have on sale (I bought two twin-packs of Bela Lugosi films for 69 cents each pack today) and saw a CD entitled “Handel’s Organ Works”. Well, so does mine but no-one ever wrote a song about it!

+13

-14

Saturday 23rd January 2010 – I didn’t sleep through the alarm this morning.

I had all three going off in close proximity and that’s enough to awaken the dead – such as the OUSA Executive Committee. It’s well-known that they spend most of their meetings sitting round a table holding hands and trying to contact the living. So much so in fact that Caligula and her horse’s predecessor was once heard to say
“Is there anybody there? Knock once for yes – and twice for no“

So after I heaved myself from my stinking pit I made a coffee and went chaud-pied round to the Intermarche to find out why they hadn’t rung me (or Liz, for that matter) about this famous flight in a chopper.
“We didn’t have time to ring everybody” the manager wailed. And me, having amongst my many and varied talents the ability to read upside-down, noticed that in general all of the people with a French name had been contacted, and none of the people with a foreign name had been contacted.

So we just turn up a l’improviste tomorrow. well, we’ll see.

Then it was off to Montlucon and shopping. Apart from the usual items I bought a pile of plasterboard, a load of wood and some more insulation. I’ll be starting on the cupboard on the first floor next week if it’s too bad to work outside. And learning from the work in the attic, I won’t be wallpapering it. In one of the cheap shops (the VIMA) they were selling indoor crepi (that’s the cement-based paint for brick and stone walls and looks a bit like fine pebble-dash) for €9:00 for 15 litres so I’ll be covering the plasterboard in that.

I also bought 12 x 3-metre lengths of shuttering for concrete. That’s 175mm by 25mm rough-cut and cheap. I’ll be making my raised beds for the new vegetable plots with that. The current raised beds are 1.33 square – these will be 1.50 square and I have enought wood to make 6 of them. I can salvage the others in due course. I like raised-bed gardening.

In the other cheap shop (the NOZ) they were having a DVD clearout with titles as low as €0.78. I spend €20 in there on seven or eight DVDs, including a copy of “the Definitive Barclay James Harvest”.

Now see if you can guess what the first track of this DVD is? Yes, you’re right. It’s “Mockingbird”. Barclay James Harvest is another one of these 1970s groups that lost its way after the first 4 or 5 albums and the early stuff is incredibly good. But no matter how good the group might be, it will always be remembered for “Mockingbird” and that’s one of these tracks a bit like “Hotel California”, “Freebird” , “Stairway to Heaven” and a couple of others. A reasonable example of a group’s output but by no means the best, and totally ruined and spoiled by being played and played and played to death.

BJH has done much better stuff that “Mockingbird” and thankfully “Medicine Man” is on the album. But where is “Galadriel” ? And where is “For No-one”? And about half a dozen others that I can think of? This is going to be some “definitive Barclay James Harvest” but at least it only cost me €1:99.

On the way back I noticed that is was 17:00 just as I was passing through Neris-les-Bains. So I went for an hour in the swimming baths. Twice in 8 days! I’ll wash myself away at this rate.

+11

-14

Wednesday 30th December 2009 – You may remember …

… a few weeks ago that I was in Neris-les-Bains looking for a shower (of course they were all in Milton Keynes but the less said about the OUSA Executive Committee the better) – anyway, here’s a pic taken there in the dark earlier this evening.

In the dark???

Yes, I had just come out of the swimming baths where I had a really good soak (and I’m not taling about anyone from the OUSA …. “you’ve done that already” – ed) but even so, I was only in there for an hour.

So what was going on?

This morning I braved the torrential rainstorm that we were having (we had 21mm of rain today and it’s still going) and went to Montlucon for Caliburn’s new tyres. And of course, now that we have two new ordinary ones on the back and two expensive snow tyres on the front it isn’t ever going to snow again, is it? That took me to midday and so I went for a wander around NOZ, the grot shop, where I bought a pile of cook-in sauces, and then to the Auchan where in between all of the shopping I bought 2 DVDs in the sale, at €2.99 each. One is the John Wayne classic Fort Apache and the second is the legendary Return Of The Pink Panther. Easily the best of the Pink Panther films and that by a long chalk too. So imagine my consternation, if not horror, at Christmas 2006 when I discovered to my chagrin that the film was for some unaccountable reason not included in The Pink Panther Film Collection (6 Disc Box Set). And here it is, at €2.99!

That took me to about 13:50 and I was planning to go home then but I was irresistibly lured to Brico Depot, and wasn’t that a big mistake? I was rummaging around looking for cable connectors as I’m not very happy using chocolate blocks. I saw some things that looked suitable and asked to speak to a vendor. And waited. And waited. And waited. eventually someone appeared, served a few other people, and then came over to me.
“Is it you who is looking for assistance?” she asked
“Yes, for about 15 minutes” I replied petulantly.
“Well, I’m all on my own” she said
“So am I” I stated “so why don’t we get married so that we can be together?” No wonder they all hate me in these French shops.

But that wasn’t even half of it. Every so often they have what are called “arrivages” – products that they buy in specially and are priced to sell. And on offer today were kitchen worktops – 1800×600 for all of €15:99 instead of the usual €49:99 or so. Most of the colours were pretty awful but there was one that caught my eye – a kind-of false marble effect of light grey, white and pink speckle. I need just under three for my kitchen but this is also the colour that will go nicely in the bathroom, which, you may recall, for reasons of other products having been bought in Brico Depot’s clearance sale and also a pile of second-hand tiles I have lying around, is going to be … errr … pink. Anyway, I need about four of these lengths all told – and they just happened to have four left.

I also need some 500mm pine shelving to make the bases of the units in the kitchen. Three of these in fact, and they just happened to have three left. So even though I am a long way away from making my units I now have a lot of the stuff that I need. I also have a wallet that is considerably lighter.

At the cash desk there was this ever-so-sweet young girl cashing up. She had a really difficult job looking for the barcode labels.
“They’ve been put on in the wrong place” she lamented.
“I bet it’s all Pierre (one of the guys who works there who plays football for Pionsat)’s fault” I replied
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“Ohhh yes, he plays football for our local team“.
“He was in my class at school” she chirped.
The world is getting too flaming small for my liking.

And so, having left Brico Depot at 16:15 that was how come I ended up leaving the swimming baths at Neris at 18:20. And I encountered a cat – a huge black moggy – in Neris. it came for a stroke and a cuddle and even let me pick it up. It’s a long time since I’ve stroked a nice pussy like that and it was ever so contented and looked set to stay there for ever. I really must get a cat when I settle down. But then a car pulled up across the road, a woman got out and went through the gate and up the path towards the front door of this house, and Minou leapt out of my arms and legged it up the path after her. Cupboard love!

I was musing earlier, like I do every so often. In the comments section of this blog, yours truly (who lives in France and is white-skinned) was discussing with Rhys (who lives in the USA and is white-skinned) have been having a discussion about where is the best place to leave a bomb in a Boeing 747. Now just imagine if we lived in the UK and were brown-skinned? we would be hit with a “possessing information likely to be of use to terrorists” and “conspiracy” and hurled into Belmarsh before you could say “Al Qaida”. Such is the situation in the UK at the moment and it’s a reflection of the racist nature of the society that the UK has become due to the level of fear and of hate that Gordon Clown and the B Liar have stirred up. And they call it a “free country”. Doesn’t it make you laugh?

And in other news, hello and welcome to Kate who has found her way here. Kate was part of a group of miscreants which which I was associated back in days of yore in the Open University and we all had many exciting adventures in the OUSA Conferencing system. It’s nice to “see” you after all this time.

+12

-8

Saturday 5th December 2009 – I’m all nice and clean for a change.

90 minutes in the swimming baths at Neris today followed by a nice warm shower – did me the world of good and when I change the bedding in a few minutes it will be wonderful. I’m going to have a nice lie-in as well tomorrow morning and make the most of it.

Montlucon shopping this morning, and I spent a fortune. Mind you, much of that was stuff for Christmas so it’s not unexpected. But I didn’t get myself a present though. Strange as it may seem, I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted and there definitely isn’t really anything that I need. I did however find some interesting DVDs in NOZ, the cheapo rubbishy shop that sells all kinds of end-of-range stuff. Their music selection is at times pretty good. Most French people haven’t heard of many obscure British or American musicians – that’s how I managed to buy that Nice triple-album a couple of months ago. But today, in the music DVD selection they had a huge collection of DVDs of live concerts. Most were rubbish but there were concerts by Tom Petty, Steve Winwood and by Steppenwolf. So at €3:50 a time I’ll be having a megamusic session on Christmas Day.

I’ve got some better prices for my new tyres too – a saving of about €40 and that includes Michelin “Alpine” winter tyres as well. Even at … errrr …. €360 for three tyres I reckon I might go for this.

This evening I saw Pionsat’s 3rd XI draw 1-1 with Montfermy. And they will be kicking themselves for the 2 points dropped rather that the one point gained, for Montfermy were by far and away the worst side I have ever seen and Pionsat’s 3rd XI had some good players out this evening too. And for once the defence played an immaculate game with the central defenders being in position and not wandering away for the whole of the match. They should have demolished this side.

Anyway, an early night beckons. And so does my clean bedding.

-8

Saturday 3rd October 2009 – GRRRRRR at Pionsat

I went down to the footy ground tonight as there was a match at 20:00 – FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI v Chatelguyon. But the place was all locked up and in darkness. No idea what was (or was not) going on there. Maybe the match has been rearranged for tomorrow but I’ll be having a run out to Sayat as the 2nd XI is playing there and I haven’t been to Sayat’s ground yet.

But it was a nice drive down to the ground at Pionsat tonight and as I came round the corner to the eastern side of the mountain I was met with this most stunning sunset. Isn’t this impressive?

We had an old saying when we were kids –
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Stoke on Trent’s on fire”
You can argue something like this here, can’t you? That direction is roughly Montlucon.

And talking of Montlucon I reckon I now have everything I need for my room. Even the glass, as Brico Depot had some sheets of perspex on offer at €17 for 80cms square by 4mm thick. I can make some nice windows out of that.

But highlight of today’s trip around the town was in NOZ – the end-of-range bucket shop where they were selling fast battery chargers for €3.90. They are just AA and AAA and take 800 milliamps and such is the rate of charge that they are rated as unsuitable for NiCads – just NiMH. I’ve seen (or felt) how hot NiCads can get in a normal fast charger.

The charger works off a DC adapter which – surprise surprise – is 12-volt.

And talking of 12-volt DC adapters, this next point is all Terry’s fault. We were talking a few days ago about televisions and how low-powered some of the flat-screen TVs are. In the Auchan I had a look at some of them and found a big cheap €275 flat-screen TV that is rated at 40 watts (that means it probably draws half that) and runs off 12-volt DC.

Now how much current does a DVD player draw?

At the Bio shop in Montlucon I bumped into Kate. Haven’t seen her for ages. She tells me that at the end of the month she is going back to the UK. Had enough of the quiet life, she says. It’s 10 years since she was last in the UK and so she will notice quite a difference. It won’t be long before she’ll be back.

But there are a lot of Brits returning to the UK just now. Financial issues play a big part in it. When I first came to the mainland the Pound was getting about 11 French Francs (I can even remember it being as high as 13) but with no raw materials for prime industry and no manufacturing industry to make use of the raw materials the Pound is at the mercy of world markets and it’s been taking a right hammering as the Arabs fight back against the west.

Whenever the West or the Zionists do something nasty to the Arabs the Arabs smile inscrutably and triple the price of oil. All the money then flows to the Middle East where they spend some of it on these new cities like Doha and so on, and the rest is then flooded into the banks of a country of their choice. The banks, awash with cash and needing to generate the interest to pay the Arab depositors, lend it out on increasingly high-risk ventures that return the most interest.

When all the money is actively engaged, the Arabs then ask for it back. The banks need to attract more money from elsewhere to replace the money the Arabs want back so they have to offer higher interest rates, the loan repayments thus go up, people can’t afford to repay, the banks foreclose and find themselves with a load of valueless assets and the economy goes tits-up.

This is 21st Century warfare and you can all see just how effective it has been. The West and the Zionists are still fighting a 19th Century war (and hopelessly losing, but that’s another matter entirely. What odds would you have had on Hamas smashing the Zionist farces a couple of years ago?) and they do it every time and they don’t learn from the previous encounters.

Anyone remember the turmoil of 1992? And the collapse of the western economies and the 3-day week in 1973 just after the Yom Kippur War?

And here the West is, threatening Iran. The economy hasn’t recovered from the most recent crisis yet. What will happen when oil triples in price next time?

So all of these expats are retreating to the UK because their money isn’t going as far as it used to in Europe. But what they haven’t realised is that it’s Europe where things are much more stable and it’s the UK where the economy has collapsed, and they are confronted with what for them has been rampant inflation in the UK over the last few years.

When I left the UK I always fuelled up at Dover as fuel was 2/3rd the price than on the mainland. Now it’s the other way round – everyone fuels up at Calais. And it’s the same for most other products too.

House prices are now starting to return to their previously extortionate levels in the UK and as most of the ex-pats sold their houses to fuel their new lives abroad, where are they going to live if they go back?

-8

Saturday 29th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. Long before the alarm went off, actually. Not like me, this. But at 08:45 I was on my way to Montlucon for part I of my mega-shop.

Nothing of interest in Carrefour or Vima, and only some new vegan burgers in Amaranthe. But Noz came up trumps again. A copy of an old Donovan album at 1:90 was something, but a triple-pack of Nice CDs at 3:90 was even more exciting – especially as the whole lot was reduced by 50%.

At Auchan I bumped into Rob and Julie and their kids. This was a complete surprise – older readers of my organ at its previous location will recall that it’s usually at Brico Depot that I bump into them. And poor Julie has been quite ill for a few months, although she’s recovering slowly now. That’s nice – I like them and their daughter Ashleigh is quite a big fan of His Nibs.

Brico Depot was exciting. I had two constraints – firstly money and secondly (and more importantly) space inside Caliburn. Interior space was important as I had forgotten to take my ladder with me so I can only reach a very short distance onto the roof-rack to tie stuff on. That stymied me a bit.

But we have the two windows (one of which needs some planing down to fit the hole), some more paint, loads of polystyrene and plenty of wood battens, as well as quite a bit of other stuff. That’ll keep me out of mischief for a week or so and I can go and get another load of stuff next weekend. It’s all very well buying it all in one go but firstly you have to transport it and secondly you have to store it.

I did also pick up a 70x70cm shower base. This was crucial as I’m building the bathroom around the shower and the dimensions need to be worked out fairly soon in my plans. It was the last one in the shop as well so I was quite proud. But as you might expect, as I was walking around the shop it slid off my trolley and smashed into a hundred pieces. Ahh well.

I also went to the “Conforama”. It’s a big furniture shop and it regularly sends out its publicity. Even though it’s only just across the road from the Auchan, in all the years that I’ve lived here I’ve never ever been there, but today I had good reason for going.

They are having a sale on these “click clack” sofas that transform themselves into double beds with a space underneath for storing your bedding. Now, I had one of those in Brussels and I was quite impressed with it for what it was. And so I’ve decided that I want another one to put up in my attic to sit and to sleep on.

The raised bed that I built here works fine but after nearly two years it’s fairly uncomfortable and so I’ve decided to push the boat out and get a really good quality one with a decent mattress. There’s 15% off until the 14th September and delivery is within 3 weeks so if I order it in 2 weeks time it should be ready for when my room is finished. It’s going to be expensive but a good bed is worth its weight in gold.

One problem though is that they don’t do a blue cover – one that will go with my room when I’ve painted it. The assistant who minced over to talk to me talked to me with a lithp, so I was on safe ground talking to him about colour co-ordination and soft furnishings. I suppose I should have profited from the situation to discuss curtains with him.

Talking of beds, tomorrow is Sunday, but no lie-in. A prospective customer wants to come round and talk to me about solar panels. Well, I’ll get out of bed early if there’s a possibility of amounts of folding stuff changing hands in my direction.

And it’s Virlet brocante in the afternoon. Always a good one, that.

-5

EPIC HALL

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

Category Archives: noz

Saturday 3rd November 2012 – I’M NOT HERE.

Tuesday 2nd October 2012 – I HAD A GOOD …

Saturday 16th June 2012 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY.

Saturday 23rd April 2011 – I haven’t done much more today either…

Friday 19th March 2011 – I didn’t get my early night last night after all.

Saturday 3rd April 2010 – I didn’t feel much like it this morning.

Saturday 6th March 2010 – Well, we’re back.

Saturday 23rd January 2010 – I didn’t sleep through the alarm this morning.

Wednesday 30th December 2009 – You may remember …

Saturday 5th December 2009 – I’m all nice and clean for a change.

Saturday 3rd October 2009 – GRRRRRR at Pionsat

Saturday 29th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

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