Category Archives: sauret besserve

Friday 2nd December 2011 – IT’S FRIDAY …

… but it’s not Five o’clock, and it’s not Crackerjack either. But it is the last Friday that I’ll be spending here for a week or two. I’m hoping to go to the UK at the end of next week.

And despite having gone to bed quite late last night, that didn’t stop me being wide awake at about 07:00 this morning. This sleep thing is becoming ridiculous.

Liz and I arrived at Radio Arverne’s place in Gerzat at about 10:40 for our 11:00 appointment and eventually it was about 11:47 before we started recording.

We did the four Radio Anglais programmes for December and then Bernard sprung it on me. Would I write another Christmas Special for an hour, to be broadcast in … errrr …. 2 weeks time?

I shall have to get my finger out, won’t I?

We got back to Sauret-Beserve 20 minutes late after all of that and I shot off to Montel-de-Gelat and the sawmill to pick up a load of timber.

I had to wait around there for ages as well as they didn’t (despite what they said on the ‘phone) have any treated wood so they treated it while I waited, and that took ages too.

And while I was there I was chatting with the staff and it turns out that the office girl is the wife of the Montel goalkeeper whose photo that I took was published in the paper the other week, and the office manager plays for Pontaumur and one of my photos of him scoring against Pionsat was published a few weeks before that.

There were two clients there from Pionsat too. One of them had an old Transit pick-up that was clearly custom-made. A PTAC of 3.3 tons for a start – that’s impressive. And he had so much wood dropped in it that it was sagging right down at the back end and he crawled all the way back to Pionsat at 40kph. 

And when I returned home and unloaded my wood I realised that I had forgotten the demi-chevrons that I need to finish off the greenhouse.

D’ohhhh.

And so I went upstairs and crashed out for a while instead.

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Sunday 27th November 2011 – I WAS A BIT PUT OUT TODAY.

But before I tell you about that, let me first tell you the good news.

Although it was late when I went to bed, I managed to sleep for 6 hours or so. And after breakfast, I finished off the scripts for the radio programmes that we will be recording this week for Radio Anglais

I had to rush though as Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing away at Combronde at 13:00 but just as I was stepping out of the door to go, Percy Penguin chose that moment to ring me.
“You fell on your head? It might knock some sense into you”.
It’s nice to have friends, isn’t it?

And so at Combronde, 5 minutes late and the place all deserted. There was no-one around at all. So what’s going on here?

col de ceyssat puy de dome franceAnyway, that was an hour and a half and 75 kilometres wasted. There was clearly no point in staying on here so I fuelled up and went off to Ceyssat for the 1st XI match instead.

That long drive took me round by the Puy de Dome – right past the foot of it, and it was remarkable to notice the change in the weather. From my humble abode to round about St Bonnet it was grey miserable and overcast.

But south of there we had glorious sunshine. The Puy de Dome (and you pass within about 200 metres of it) was especially nice. But once over the Col de Ceyssat I drove straight into a fog and that was that.

I met Bernard the club president. he said that the 3rd XI match was cancelled, and so I berated him for not sending me a text – after all, I told him last night that I would be going. It’s a couple of times now that they have done this on me and I’m becoming rather fed up.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot olby ceyssat puy de dome franceBut the actual match cheered me up considerably.

Olby-Ceyssay were a pretty poor side and FC Pionsat St Hilaire had no trouble whatever in demolishing them 4-0, hardly breaking sweat in doing so.

it’s a shame that they can’t play like that every week.

From there I went on round to Liz and Terry’s where we rehearsed our radio programmes – we’re recording next week.

Liz had baked potato pie and rice pudding for afters, and she even made up a doggy bag and a lump of fruitcake for me to take home. It’s that kind of thing that makes it worth-while having good friends, and helps me to forget all of the worries and disagreements.

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Thursday 17th November 2011 – HAVE A CLOSE …

gorges de la sioule puy de dome france… look at this photo and see if you can spot where the Gorge de la Sioule might be.

It’s one thing I like about going out to Liz and Terry’s early in the morning – the fact that they live right on the edge of the gorge. And because the gorge is so deep and so steep the sun can’t shine into it until it has well-risen.

That means that the surrounding ground is quite warm whereas at the bottom of the gorge the air is quite cold and damp. And when the sun is high enough to enter the gorge it dramatically heats the cold damp air and you have clouds of condensation rising up from the gorge quite spectacularly.

Liz had to do some kind of newspaper interview the other week, in which she described the Combrailles as “The Land That Time Forgot”, and you can see clearly exactly what she means by that.

mont dore puy de sancy puy de dome franceBut it’s not just that view from here (in case you haven’t guessed, we’re at the bird-watching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne again) that is spectacular. There’s a spectacular view across to the Puy de Sancy and the Mont Dore away over there.

All swathed in a hanging cloud or two too.

And if I’m not mistaken, I reckon that I can see some snow up there too. Winter is definitely icumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph

It’s a litle-known fact that when the system of départements was created, what is today the départements of the Puy-de-Dome was to be called the départements of Mont-Dore – which is after all the most significant feature of the region. However, the locals objected, saying that it sounded too much like the mont d’or – a mountain made of gold – and would give the impression that this was an extremely wealthy region.

And so today Terry and I bricked up one of the doorways (their house is two small cottages knocked into one) and fitted the window in the upper half, and then fitted the new door in the other doorway.

And it wasn’t as straight-forward as you might think either. The old doors had been made-to-measure for the doorways and of course, as we discovered as we were trying to fit everything, the door openings were not built straight. That was a complication we didn’t need.

Fitting the door was exciting though. We spent 10 minutes trying to make it seat on the hinge pins,and you’ve no idea how easily it fitted when we took out the wedge that was trapped underneath it.

And we also spent half an hour trying everything that we could to make the door close and you’ve no idea how well it closed when we took the packing strip out of the aluminium closing tray.

Ahhh well. You live and learn, I suppose.

Anyway,tomorrow I’ll be fitting the wind turbine if the weather holds, and now that I have my diamond core drills, I’ll be drilling from the house through into the lean-to and running cables there.

If I’m not careful,I might even have light and power in there tomorrow night.

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Sunday 30th October 2011 – THE CLOCKS …

… went back today and so I was looking for a good long lie in.

But the best-made plans of mice and men and all of that, for the rodent who lives in the roof started doing his clog dance at 07:00 and that was that.

Mind you, it’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anybody any good, because I had a good morning on the computer. I’ve uploaded the match report for the football last night,  and I’ve also brought the Radio Anglais website up-to-date, and I’m pleased with all of that.

This afternoon I went to the brocante at St Gervais d’Auvergne but I won’t be going there again. It was mostly rubbish, and way over-priced as well. I shan’t waste my time again. I don’t know what gets into the heads of some of these people.

Afterwards I went round to Liz and Terry’s to help Terry load his van, and Liz had made tea again. I’m really getting spoilt these days. 

And that reminds me of the two women arguing
“your son is spoilt”
“no he isn’t”
“yes he is”
“no he isn’t”
“well, please yourself then, but go and see what that steam roller has done to him”.

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Friday 28th October 2011 – HOW LONG IS IT …

st gervais d'auvergne gorges de la sioule puy de dome france… since I took a pic from the birdwatching platform near St Gervais d’Auvergne just up the road from where Liz and Terry live?

Quite some considerable time, I bet.

I was up and about quite early (well, early for me anyway) this morning and after something of a hasty breakfast, in the words of the great Mars Bonfire I got my motor running and headed out for the Highway

st gervais d'auvergne gorges de la sioule puy de dome franceIt was a cool damp morning but it was heating up quite quickly (well, for this time of year anyway) and this was causing the mist to rise out of all the hollows.

It doesn’t half look impressive when it does that, particularly from up here, and you don’t need any guesses to work out exactly where the Gorges de la Sioule might be when it’s like this. It didn’t half look impressive and it’s one of the sights that everyone should aim to see when they come to visit the Combrailles.

Liz and Terry’s house is down there somewhere and sure enough, they were bathed in mist when I arrived.

Anyway, I picked Liz up and we went to Gerzat for the Radio Arverne sessions of Radio Anglais. We were there for just after 10:00 and so we went for a walk around the town for 20 minutes before Bernard turned up.

It took just over an hour to record the four sessions today – even though Bernard was rather … errr … confused and disorientated. He just now has rather a lot of editing to do.

Back at Liz and Terry’s, Terry and I had quite a long chat about things and then I came back here.

It was raining of course after lunch and so in a change of plan I’ve done a huge amount of tidying up on the ground floor and the first floor and it actually looks like something now to a certain degree. I’ve also done some tidying up outside and that has helped, especially as the vegetation is now dying down for winter and some lost articles are now coming into view.

And tidying up as well. How about that? And to tell you the truth I would have been tidying up this afternoon even if the weather had been absolutely gorgeous because there is a cunning plan looming in the background.

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Sunday 23rd October 2011 – TODAY I HAVE SEEN ….

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire us menetrol football club puy de dome france… what is probably the worst game of football that I have ever seen in my life. US Menetrol were such a poor side that they could only manage to score four goals against the disorganised rabble that was supposed to be the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 2nd XI.

There were three types of player on the field for Pionsat this afternoon. We had those with inclination and no skill (but nevertheless, hats off to them for turning out because clubs need willing players like this), quite a few with neither skill nor inclination, and far too many of those with skill but no inclination.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club us menetrol puy de dome franceIt was such a dismal showing that had I been in charge of the team, I would have gone home with the bus and left them to walk home.

But I’m not. And that was the root of the problem – there didn’t seem to be anyone in charge. And whoever it was who was supposed to be giving the orders was giving some pretty strange ones, that’s for sure. It really was an absolute shambles.

I shan’t say any more about it as it will be just gratuitous.

On the way down to Menetrol, I had the misfortune to be behind heaps of those kinds of drivers who think that 90kph is 70, 70 kph is 50, and 50 kph means that you get out and push. That started me off on the wrong foot anyway so it’s hardly a surprise that I was in a bad mood.

Afterwards, I went round to Liz and Terry’s to discuss the radio programmes, but we seemed to have spent most of the time dealing with lost hunting dogs.

Terry has very kindly lent me a concrete-cutting disc and a huge sledgehammer to remove this cattle trough, and Liz, apart from cooking a gorgeous tea, has made me up a food parcel. That is really lovely.

So tomorrow, I shall be removing cattle troughs and then carrying on with the pointing of the house wall. We are told that the fine weather will last until Wednesday.

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Thursday 29th September 2011 – THE PHONE RANG …

… at 10:00 this morning. And it’s a good job that it did too otherwise I would be still asleep even now.

So much for that early night!

It was Liz on the phone, reminding me about our recording session later doday. And had she not done so I would have gone there for 16:30 and not 14:30. No idea how come that time had entered itself into my head.

But anyway I was in plenty of time to pick her up and we made it to Gerzat with plenty of time to spare. And it’s a good job that we did too because my first task on arriving was to fix their computer which had stopped working. .

Once I’d organised that we could record our next four programmes.

We are using a different format from now on, though. We have 15 minutes rather than 10, and the programmes are divided up into four segments

  1. there are the events
  2. we have the supplementary information – for one week Liz does a recipe, a second week I do a gardening bit, and for the other weeks we discuss useful French phrases.
  3. we have music – English-speaking songs and such-like
  4. we have the legislation bit

And it was hot there too – the temperature displayed on the wall on the pharmacy round the corner was off the scale – more than 40 degrees and I could believe that too. We were sweltering. Late September too!

Liz cooked tea as well which was nice – it’snice being waited on hand and foot every now and again, especially with the delicious food that Liz produces.

Yes, as Golden Earring so famously said that beautiful evening on the beach in Scheveningen in the early 90s – “There’s one thing I want to tell you man – it’s good to be back home”.

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Tuesday 27th September 2011 – AFTER ALL OF THAT …

… I’m back home.

At least I think I am, but I’m not sure because I can’t actually see anything. I’m rather overgrown with weeds as it happens.

It’s not just the corn that is as high as an elephant’s eye.

Not only that, while I was away my famous home-made 12-volt immersion heater seems to have corroded itself through. It seems that this 50-litre drum which had been used for storing liquids isn’t rust-proofed after all, which s a surprise.

When I returned, all of the water had leaked away through the hole and as a result the electrical contacts have overheated and shorted out. That’s not done the element too much good either.

Still, it was a nice idea. Live and learn, say I. My next one is going to be a plastic one, I reckon. I hope that that will do better if it can withstand the heat.

Clearing away the cobwebs and the dust, I fought my way up into the attic. I suppose that I really ought to unpack, but I think that that will have to wait until I feel more like it.

I’ve had a tough couple of days and I need to recharge my batteries before I tackle anything else.

And thanks to Liz and Terry for lodging me last night.

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Monday 26th September 2011 – I REMEMBER YESTERDAY …

… saying that I didn’t want to come home.

And had I known what the flight was going to be like, I wouldn’t have done.

I’m not the best air traveller in the world, but I’m much better than some of the people on board who spent almost the entire flight screaming as we were tossed from one patch of turbulence to another all the way across the Atlantic.

The worst part about the flight though was that I didn’t receive my vegan breakfast – and how upset was I about that? That was a huge disappointment, although no complaints about the chick pea curry the night before.

Passing through the Immigration was fairly painless for a change. But the armed soldiers patrolling the airport wasn’t very pleasant to see. We all know about soldiers and their accurate rate of fire. A suicide-bomber pops up his head and 50 civilians are killed in a spray of inaccurate machine-gunning.

And it seems that they can’t spell “AREA” either. We all have to go to the “Baggage AERA” for our luggage.

The airport might have been fairly painless but the journey through Paris to the Gare de Lyon wasn’t. I’m really going to have to find an alternative to this route. Dragging my huge suitcase through the crowds and through the metro and the RER is no pleasure, believe me.

Nothing exciting happened on the train back – which makes quite a change after last year’s adventures and Terry met me at the railway station at Riom.

I fuelled up Terry’s car and then he took me back to his place, where Liz very kindly offered me a bed for the night, for which I was extremely grateful.

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Tuesday 30th August 2011 – DAY ONE OF MY VOYAGE

I’m not sure if this should actually count as Day One because firstly, there wasn’t much of it and secondly, I didn’t actually leave the country. It was however they day that I hit the road (or rather hit the rails) and so for that reason I’ve included it as a fair candidate.

Having said that though, I did actually hit the road rather early. I was all washed up, cleaned up, tidied up (well, sort-of) and on the road for 09:45 because today is the day that Liz and I record the Radio Anglais programmes for the month of September. We did the Radio Tartasse sessions in the morning and then I drove Caliburn down to Liz’s and left him there, piling myself and the baggage into Liz’s voiture for the journey down to Gerzat and the Radio Arverne sessions.

When they were over she heaved me out at the railway station at Riom and that was that. And only a wait of 75 minutes for the train. Good job there’s a coffee machine here.

railway locomotive riom paris gare de lyon franceThis is the locomotive that pulled my train for Paris Gare de Lyon.

I sat next to a girl on the train up and we had a healthy conversation for at least 10 minutes before we worked out that we were both British. She was from Inverness and a student at St Andrews studying French for Scientists. She was spending a year’s exchange living in the language but she’d been in Aurillac for a month house-and-dog sitting.

Her family lives in the wilds and they have no mains electricity – just solar panels and wind turbines and so we had a good chat about that and I gave her a card.

We had the usual struggle across Paris with my giant suitcase and there has to be a better way to go to the airport than this – hitting the city in the evening rush hour with swarms of people and escalators out of order and miles to walk. I’m going to have to resolve this somehow.

At the airport, I dunno where this blasted shuttle bus has gone to – I have to wait about a year for it to turn up. And then by the time that I’ve sorted out everything at the hotel and gone for a walk, the only restaurant in this village here is closed. It only opens Thursday Friday and Saturday evenings and closes at 21:30. So that’s no use to me.

Nothing to eat tonight then. I hope that the rest of my voyage is better than this.

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Monday 29th August 2011 – I had another early start this morning.

I don’t know why – but I was downstairs making breakfast when the alarm went off at 08:15. What’s going on there, then? It’s not like me.

And so this morning I packed everything up ready for going to Paris on the train tomorrow evening. The suitcase is all done – it just remains now to do my backpack and to sort out the camera and one or two other bits and pieces.

I’ve also printed off a pile of stuff that I needed to print – the radio stuff and also my rail tickets and so on. even managed to find the time to plant some winter cabbage. But talking of the garden – I planted some endives a couple of weeks ago when I pulled up the new potatoes, and covered the plot with a black plastic bin liner. When I lifted it off today, much of it had sprouted. That was good. Mind you, despite how warm it was today, the temperature last night dropped to about 9 degrees – the lowest so far this summer. Autumn is acumen in. Lhude sing the falling leaves.

Round at Liz’s we prepared our radio programmes for tomorrow and Liz cooked a nice tea. we also weighed my suitcase – 3kgs overloaded. I’ll have to do some trimming down of what I’m taking.

Now I’m back here chilling out. The next news that you have of me won’t be from here, that’s for sure.

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Friday 22nd July 2011 – IN HASTE …

… because I’m off to bed in a minute and I’ve forgotten to tell you of my adventures today.

I’ve been busy doing nothing (or very little, anyway) although it might not sound like it. But then again, spending all day talking isn’t very much like work to me, is it?

The morning was spent as usual working on the laptop, all nice and pretty and up and running with its new battery. And that’s almost as impressive as my galvanised steel dustbin.

This afternoon though, I went to Gerzat. You may remember from the other day that our radio recording session down there was cancelled due to this funeral, and so this afternoon was when we had arranged to go down and record it. I wanted it to be done before I hit the road.

I drove down to Sauret-Besserve to pick up Liz and off we toddled to Radio Arverne where we just for a change it all went according to plan.

We drove back to Sauret-Besserve where I dropped off Liz and said “hello” to Terry, and then I came back here.

A quick check-over of Caliburn and there we are. Tea-time and not very much else because I need to muster my forces. The next couple of days are going to be busy and I need to be on form. I believe that I have mentioned that all of my life’s work will come to fruition on Monday, if all goes according to plan.

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Monday 27th June 2011 – And if you thought …

solar hot water temperature heat exchanger les guis virlet puy de dome francethat yesterday’s temperature was good, then it had nothing on today’s weather.

The temperature in the heat exchanger went off the scale – that means more than 70°C – and the ambient temperature reached 39°C or so. But where that gauge is though – that’s in the shade underneath the water tank. In the full sum the temperature reached an astonishing 42.1°C and I’ve never ever recorded anything approaching that before.

The really astonishing bit though is the solar water. That reached 47.5°C and I scalded myself when I had a shower this afternoon. I’ve never had a temperature like that either and I celebrated by having a solar shave – such is the high life that I live.

And so this morning I was burnt out of bed by the sun (well it was rather late, I suppose) and after breakfast I set about the radio programmes for the next month. But it was impossible to work up here and in the end I had to put a chair in the bedroom that I’m working on – it’s cooler there. But by 15:00, and a long way from being finished, I was burnt out of there too. By that time, the temperature up here had reached 34.1°C and I don’t recall ever having a temperature like that up here either.

With the water heating up in the electric water heater (I increased the insulation yesterday) I did the rest of the washing and now that’s up-to-date and I even have clean bedding for tonight. Whatever next?

Round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the programmes and they very kindly fed and watered me for which I am grateful – and so back here where, with the sun having gone down (but still 27°C outside and 42°C in the solar water) I watered all of the plants – and they needed it too. I used about 100 litres of water – everywhere is parched after the last few days.

In other news, this is an interesting article. It seems that a woman has been taunting a disabled policeman.

Now whatever you might think about the person and the offence served the Judges are thinking of sentencing her to “time served”. That means that she has been refused bail when she was originally remanded. How come you can’t get bail for an offence like this when only a week ago someone accused of murder was remanded on bail? And the murder victim – involved in a robbery with violence – was on bail for a similar offence? never mind Deep Purple and their “one law for the rich and one for the poor” – it seems that there’s one law for the civilians and another law for the police in the UK – as many people will no doubt tell you.

And being sentenced to “time served” – i.e. a minimum of 12 weeks – for this kind of thing when robbers and muggers and al those kinds of people are give suspended sentences or fined or conditional discharges – the UK is totally off its head, as I keep on saying.

Whether or not you agree with what the defendant said, that’s not the point. The whole point is that in a free country the existence of free speech is championed. But when you start to criticise the forces of law and order you get a prison sentence. The UK is just like Zimbabwe or China these days. Libya was bombed for less.

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Friday 24th June 2011 – Dunno what’s the matter …

… with me just recently.

I can’t seem to get to sleep at all these days. It’s almost 05:00 and I’m still wide-awake, and it was 05:00 last night when I retired. But this morning I was up at 10:30 and it was just as well because at 11:00 Terry rang me up. He’d had a few issues with the digger and needed a hand.

And so off I toddled and Terry and I spent most of the day sorting it out. It’s quite a learning curve, this machine, that’s for sure.

art exhibition maison communale mairie marcillat en combraille allier franceAfterwards I went off to the opening of this art exhibition in Marcillat en Combraille where I met Marianne Contet again. Danielle from the Anglo-French group was also there and so were plenty of other people whom I knew.

There were dozens of other people too milling around at this exhibition – it seemed to be quite a popular event, especially as there were drinks and a buffet laid on.

view from donjon caliburn marcillat en combraille allier franceThere’s a donjon – a medieval tower – in the centre of Marcillat en Combraille and it’s recently undergone a refurbishment programme.

I managed to blag my way in and went up to the top to have a good look around. There are some beautiful views from the top, including this one of the centre of the town. And there’s a good view of Caliburn too, parked over the road in front of the florist’s.

dog with hat marianne contet art exhibition maison communale mairie marcillat en combraille allier franceSo I went back down to the exhibition and joined in once more with the socialising, but it’s really not my scene at all.

However, it’s just as well that I did because while I was down there, someone asked me “are you OK for tomorrow still?”. It seems that there is a meeting of English-speaking people in the Marcillat en Combraille area and I’m supposed to be speaking at it, but I had completely forgotten all about it.

So that’s another thing to fit into my schedule that it already bursting at the seams.

As well as that, it seems that the commune here (Virlet) has a vacant date in its social calendar and could I give a talk on the Trans-Labrador Highway? The date concerned is February 24th which, as astute readers will know, is my birthday and so how can I turn it down?

Back here I’ve been working on the computer again but now at 05:00 I’m going to be doing my best to sleep. I have a hectic day tomorrow.

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Friday 17th June 2011 – THAT WAS A LONG …

… day!

I was reading a posting about a teacher friend of mine who had done an 8-hour day on a Saturday and how she was annoyed. My working day starting yesterday was 32 hours and 32 minutes, which is more than a teacher works in a week.

It was about 20:45 when I reached Liz and Terry’s this evening, and my day was far from over.

Caliburn, Strawberry Moose, the Brian James Trailer and the Takeuchi mini-digger crawled off the train at Calais as dawn was breaking, and without hanging about, we hit the road straight away.

copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say. I’m going the shortest, most direct route home and if I’m going to be fleeced on the péage, that’s rather a shame. Towing a trailer, I have to pay the same as an artic.

“Keep away from Paris” was the obvious plan. I’m right on the limit of what I can tow with this outfit and I don’t want any police interaction or any confrontation with crazy urban motorists.

There’s a motorway from Calais via St Quentin and Reims as far as the far side of Troyes, and then over the Burgundy mountains to the motorway at Nevers, with only the centre of Auxerre to worry about.

And that’s the way that I took – a nice leisurely saunter where I sometimes even reached the trailer-towing 90kph speed limit.

The motorway exit at Troyes is … errr … complicated, with a series of roundabouts where the camber is all wrong for the unbalanced rig that I’m driving. We had a couple of interesting moments.

And I almost came a cropper at the Intermarché on the edge of town – I’d forgotten about the height barrier and the jib of the digger. But I could enter the car park via the petrol station. I had a very late lunch and fuelled up Caliburn – he’s been quite thirsty, and no surprise!

The mountains were certainly exciting, as anyone who has driven between Auxerre and Nevers will tell you, and I was relieved to hit the motorway again. With no policemen bothering me, I could drift on slowly through the early evening down to Sauret-Beserve.

And was I glad to be back? I’d worked hard over the 20 or so days that I’d been away and covered a lot of ground.

Now I’m ready for a rest.

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