Category Archives: rob_nicolette

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?

puy de dome franceSo 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

le relais des elephants colores rob nicolette art gallery les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce 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

le relais des elephants colores rob nicolette art gallery les guis virlet puy de dome france>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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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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Monday 5th April 2010 – Blimmin’ ‘eck!

I’ve just noticed the time – 03:44! Yes, that’ll teach me. But I’ve made a couple of important discoveries with this 3D animation program and suddenly my attempted animations have come on in leaps and bounds. So I managed to get myself carried away.

I can see that I’m going to have to be careful with what I do with this program, otherwise my spare time will simply evaporate.

So with it being another jour ferie today I did just about badger all again. Coffee in bed, read a book, checked on the garden, worked on the website, wrapped a birthday present for Bill, prepared some entertainment for the Anglo-French group – yes, badger all as you can see.

At the group this evening we had quite a few newcomers – an American couple who have bought a holiday home here; my new Dutch neighbours; two French guys that Antoine knew. And with the welcome return from hibernation of Clotilde and the presence of Heidi back temporarily from Germany we were quite numerous. And wasn’t that a nice change?

But not so good news is that the new owners of the Queue de Milan, being much more businesslike than the previous, have now decided that they want to charge us €30 for use of the room. Well, fair enough – it’s their room and they can do what they like with it. But then on the other hand it’s our bodies and we are quite free to take them elsewhere.

We shall have a little sit-down this week and plan our next move. It’s a pity that there isn’t a club room at the footy ground. But there are plenty of other options – it’s a case of seeing what’s available. Marianne, who is the President of the Amis du Chateau de Pionsat, might even have a little room there that we can use.

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Friday 26th February 2010 – I knew I’d pay for yesterday.

Yes, I wasn’t feeling anything like it today. But then again thats what usually happens so I have to make the most of it.

I started again on cutting the wood but not as quickly as yesterday. And I was interrupted for an hour or so by Claude who came round to visit, with two important pieces of news.
Firstly Beethoven has died. And that’s devastating news. He was an Old English Sheepdog and had reached the age of 16 with all his faculties more-or-less intact although he did have to burrow under the fence to escape after the young lady dogs of the area rather than leap over it as he used to in his youth. He had bags of character and was the only dog I ever took to. However this last few weeks he had developed an ulcer on his nether regions that turned out to be a cancer. The vet had given him antibiotics but it seemed that they failed to work.
The second piece of news is much more exciting. Claude hasn’t sold all his land here – he’s still kept the plot down in the forest with the ruined barn. And he tells me that yesterday when he was up here doing something or other at his old property he heard a chainsaw in the forest. So off he wandered – and caught the Parisian in flagrante delicto cutting down one of Claude’s trees. And who should be strolling down the lane right at that moment but one of the mayor’s assistants. Claude and the Parisian hate each other with a passion that goes off the Richter Scale – and I have to say that I find the Parisian gratuitously disagreeable, and catching him red-handed with an impeccable witness in attendance is an answer to Claude’s dreams. From here on in, the matter is sub judice, as you might say.

I went round to see my new neighbours as well to bid them welcome and to offer them a bottle of wine as a housewarming present.There’s no harm whatever in laying the good foundations of friendship. They are Dutch and have moved here permanently so I told them about the Anglo-French group and the activities of the Reseau Rural – even though I don’t get on with the organisers of the Reseau as regular readers will know, I still support the aims of the organisation and give it all the encouragement I can.

In other news, the first buds are coming out on the trees.

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