Category Archives: sauret besserve

Monday 14th June 2010 – This is a significant photo …

… and for two reasons. Firstly, it’s the first pic of Caliburn in his new home. At lunchtime I took him for a drive on the new hardstanding to flatten it down a bit. But the ground hasn’t dried up enough (and it’s still p155ing down now) so it’s no surprise that at one stage he bogged down. But I was expecting it and I had the chain winch ready.

It’s also significant in the respect that it’s the first pic with the new Nikon D5000. I was in fact all ready to use the Pentax K100D but the battery was flat and the ones on charge wouldn’t fire it up. So it seemed to he the right time to fire up the Nikon.

But never mind being bogged down – this was one of those days where problems seemed to come along in droves. After Terry came round for some of my scaffolding poles, I went into Montlucon to pick up these tyres for the trailer – and I had a puncture. Then of course there was the bogging-down, and then on the way to St Gervais d’Auvergne I got stuck behind a circus convoy – “Showman’s Goods” as they are described in British Road Traffic Law or “Les Forains” as they are described over here. So it was 30kph (if we were lucky) all the way there.

And at St Gervais d’Auvegne I’ve ordered all my wood. The guy in the sawmill has undercharged me, and I pointed that out to him (I don’t believe in taking advantage of small businessmen – I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me) but he insists that he’s right. But €126 for one thing and €99 for another and then a few other bits and pieces will never ever make €167 no matter how hard anyone tries to make it.

Once everything was sorted out in St Gervais d’Auvergne the next stop was to Liz and Terry’s to fit the wheels and tyres on the trailer.

The route as usual took me past the birdwatching centre at the back of town, which is my favourite spot for photographing the Puy de Dome. Now that I have the new Nikon D5000 I can take a pic from here and compare it with one of the photos taken with the Pentax K100D and we can see if there’s a difference.

Terry was out earning some folding stuff when I arrived and so I put the new wheels on the trailer and then helped Liz with some weeding.

Now we are all ready for moving this tractor tomorrow. What with all of the effort we’ve put into it, I hope it all goes according to plan.

Sunday 13th June 2010 – Sunday is a day of rest …

… but not for me today – I had things to do.

One of the things was to go to Pontaumur for an Eco-building fair. But that was pretty much a waste of time. There were about 30 stands, of which about 25 were trying to get people to sign up for this “Become a Solar Energy Producer and Sell to the Electricity Board” scam.

If you’ve ever experienced this scam – with the cold canvassing phone calls and the harassment in every shopping centre, then you’ll know what I mean. It’s what double glazing was in the 1970s, cavity wall insulation was in the 1980s, financial planning was in the 1990s. Nothing more than a means of the disreputable sharks looking out for poor helpless minnows to swallow.

Think about it for a minute – on a good day (and I mean a good day) I can create 4KwH of electricity. Selling all of that to the EDF will get me 4x€0.55 – ie just over €2. Say that I can do that on 50 days per year, that’s €100 per year. The cost of my set-up here was about €6000 – so it will take me 60 years to get my money back. But I’m using for the most part cheap analogue equipment. Going over to new digital equipment you can add another €3000 easily to that.

And I installed my system myself. How much would the labour charges be for someone else to do it? And then what will be the return on the investment? And when the resale price falls from 0.55 to 0.45 later this year, then what?

Solar (or wind) energy is never ever going to be cost-effective at today’s rates and today’s prices. No-one is ever going to get rich from selling it back to the central supplier here in Europe. There are going to be thousands of disappointed customers in five years time, just like there were with Endowment mortgages, because greedy people who have seen nothing but the Pound signs will have been suckered in by a bunch of sharks.

Renewable energy is a lifestyle choice and not much else – that is, until the retail price of energy is adjusted to reflect its true cost. And then, of course, it will be totally different.

However I did meet Christiane there – I met her 2 weeks ago at the Plant Fair too – and I also found someone to talk to about a system of lagoons for dealing with my waste water. So that’s back on the agenda.

Before that however I went to the Authors’ Fair at Pionsat to chat to Marianne. Bill was there too.

Later round at Terry’s we took the broyer off the tractor and with a winch and ramps we went to put it in the back of his van. But either the van has shrunk or the broyer has grown since we last measured it and now it won’t fit.

We’re having no luck at all with this blasted tractor-moving.

Saturday 12th June 2010 – Long Distance Runaround

Well … errr … Yes. No wonder I’m feeling Fragile “That’s quite enough of that” – ed.

And I bet you never ever imagined that there would be a steam locomotive involved in today’s rubbish either. Especially not a North American “Mikado” 2-8-2, but nevertheless, here you are.

And in case you are wondering all about it, I’ll tell you more of this anon.

Just for a change for a Saturday I woke up early “lucky Early” – ed and after breakfast I went to fetch the two spare wheels for the caravans.

And I know that they are here in my barn. I remember very well having a blow-out on each of the two caravans when I brought them down here and changing the wheels at the side of the road. And I know exactly where I put the wheels with flat tyres when I arrived here too.

But the way things are around here, if they aren’t in their proper place then I’m well and truly snookered.

In the end I turned over the four piles of tyres but they weren’t in any of them and that has really got me puzzled now. But no matter – off to Liz and Terry’s to get the two off the trailer. And I really didn’t want to do that as I need those two to stay inflated so that I can move the other caravan chassis around but it really can’t be helped.

The trailer wasn’t there of course, it was out on a chantier with the scaffolding and so I had to go around there to liberate the wheels.

This chantier is taking place at the old railway house at the Viaduc des Fades, about which I have written a great deal in the past and there’s an excellent view of the Viaduc from there. As you might expect, his calls for a photo.

So having liberated the wheels, it was off to Commentry to the tyre place. And it was indeed the guy who I had met at the autocross back in 2008 and who reckons he can source all kinds of unusual tyres. So having posed the question, he replied “well, I’ve switched the computer off now. Come back Monday afternoon and I’ll order them. We might have them by Tuesday night”.

But Tuesday morning the tractor needs to be on site so that’s no good. Off to St Eloy les Mines to the new tyre place. And the only 13-inch tyres that he had were “reinforced” – not even “commercial van”. And there he was, insisting that they would be good enough. I don’t like the guy at that place and I never did and I’m not putting any old tyres on that trailer just for the sake of it.

So off to Pionsat to referee this challenge match. And the pitch all overgrown and full of weeds and two players practising their golf on it.
“When’s this match taking place then?”
“September” Matthieu replied.

Ahhh well.

But in for a penny, in for a pound. I had an unexpected couple of hours of freedom and an urgent task to undertake so I went chaud-pied to Montlucon to the tyre place at the back of Carrefour – he who had done me proud with tyres for Caliburn in December.
“What’s it for?” he asked
“A caravan chassis that I’ve converted into a trailer for carrying heavy loads. The existing tyres just collapsed under the load”
“What kind of load will it be carrying? A tonne?”
“At the very least” I replied

So a rummage down at the back of his storeroom produced three 10-ply steel radial commercial van tyres. “These will do you fine” he replied.

Downside is that I can’t have them fitted until Monday as he is full to the brim. But that gives us Monday afternoon to play about with them.

He is also having a sale on tyres for Caliburn – buy two and get the second half-price. And I need two to go on the front as I don’t want to wear out my snow tyres. These will set me back €216 which is a far cry from the €272 that I was quoted back in December. All of this is working out expensive.

So then I realised that I hadn’t done all my shopping (I’d bumped into Bill in Carrefour and while we were waiting for the tyre place in St Eloy les Mines to open, we went for a coffee) so off I popped to the Intermarche at the back of LIDL.

The parking borders on to the railway line and there was a crowd of people gathered around the fence peering through it. It seems that it’s some kind of Open Day at the railway roundhouse and there were several old and interesting objects on view.

One of the things that caught my eye was this delightful rotary snowplough. It’s not a patch on the rotary snowplough that I saw at Chama in the Rocky Mountains in 2002 of course, but it’s quite impressive for around here.

France’s railway – the SNCF, or Société Nationale des Chemins-de-Fer Français – underwent a huge modernisation programme in the 1950s and 1960s just the same as most Western countries. Steam locomotives were retired from service and diesels took over.

Everyone who travelled around France in the 1960s and 1970s will remember the typical red-and-cream diesel multiple-units and railcars that replaced the steam shuttles and it was nice to see a couple of them on display here.

Pride of place, however, has to go to the Mikado. It’s a 2-8-2 in Anglophone notification, although the French, who count the axles not the wheels, would call it a 1-4-1.

It’s one of the R class – number 420 in fact, and was built by Baldwins in the USA just after the war as part of the “Marshall Plan” to re-equip the European rail network after the ravages of World War II. France ordered 1340 of these (to give you an idea of how much of the French railway network was destroyed during the war) but only received 1323.

The other 17 are lying at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Newfoundland, due to the ship that was transporting them – the Belpamela from Norway, sinking in a heavy storm on April 11, 1947.

The type remained in service with the SNCF until as late as October 19th 1975 when R.1187 performed its last duty.

R.420 had been stored by the SNCF but was put up for sale in June 1976. Luckily it fell into the hands of a preservation group in Clermont Ferrand.

It is one of the 12 survivors of the class, although the fate of three of these is hanging in the balance since the company that was restoring them went bankrupt.

It underwent a full restoration and was passed fit for rail service in March 1982. Today, it’s the equivalent of the British “Flying Scotsman”, performing steam excursions.

As an interesting aside, in July 1987 the locomotive was officially classed as a French Historic Monument.

Tonight was the cheerleaders or majorettes competition in St Eloy les Mines and I was planning on attending. Piles of girls in skimpy costumes chucking sticks about and sometimes even catching them – but after today’s exertions I don’t think that I could stand the strain.

I hope Terry is grateful for all the sacrifices that I’m making on his behalf so that we can get his show on the road! Missing out on a display of girls in skimpy clothing is not something I would do lightly.

And in other more depressing news, here, in the comfort and safety of my own attic, I have been flaming well stung on the leg by a perishing blasted wasp!

-1

Friday 11th June 2010 – Liz rang me up at lunchtime …

… and we had a really good chat about a lot of things. But after a few minutes, she said “but that’s not what I want to talk to you about really. Someone wants to hire the scaffolding tonight so we were wondering that if you weren’t doing anything you could come round and help us dismantle it and put it on the trailer”.

And so what of I did have anything else to do? Hiring out the scaffolding involves the receipt of The Folding Stuff and we need as much of that as we can get.
“I’ll be there in half an hour!”

On my way to Liz and Terry’s I stopped off at my favourite photo spot, the bird-watching point near St Gervais d’Auvergne, and it goes without saying that there wasn’t a single one of any kind of bird that I would be interested in spotting.

The view over to the Puy de Dome and the Puy de Saucy was so obscured by clouds that it wasn’t really worth photographing, although I did notice that someone was setting fire to something in the distance.

It didn’t take us long to dismantle the scaffolding, especially as the client, who was clearly in a rush, came around and helped. And now that is out and earning some dosh and that can’t be bad.

Liz kindly fed me and we had another chat. I took advantage of the shower there and then it was home time.

And I have a pile of things to do this weekend. I’ll be rushed off my feet.

-1

Sunday 23rd May 2010 – It was the Garden Fair in St Gervais d’Auvergne today.

This is probably the most important day in the calendar out here in the Combrailles. The weather is, as you know, unpredictable and it can play havoc with your gardening as it has done this year with my plants. I’ve no leeks, no peppers, no chilis and so on.

But this area is the home of many people with a close affinity with the soil and so gardening, especially vegetable gardening, is quite a pastime.

And so at the Garden fair what happens is that everyone brings along their surplus plants and those of us who have been devastated by the late snows and frosts can buy them to replace those that we lost.

And so I duly bought a tray of 50 leeks, some peppers, some chilis, some mint and some decent-sized tomatoes. There was also a stall there manned (“personned” – ed) by a couple of kids full of insipid tomato plants and the like (the stall, not the kids) and they were quite intelligent and interesting (the kids, not the plants). We had quite a chat and some banter and I bought a handful of plants from them for no good reason at all except that I liked the kids. I reckon I get on much better with kids rather than adults. They don’t have any preconceptions and have the same kind of weird sense of humour that I have.

That wasn’t all of the entertainment either. We had some folk-dancing too – a little team of locals giving some kind of demonstration of their art and grabbing hold of passing locals and pulling them onto the stage.

And it’s good to see all of these younger people taking part too. There’s a huge amount of local culture that has been lost due to no-one following on in the footsteps of the older generation and that’s a tragedy.

But that was all in mid-afternoon.

It was Sunday today of course so that meant a lie-in for the morning. And after breakfast I had to write the script for the radio programmes for the month of June.

Yes, we start with the information for the week commencing 4th June and so I am bewildered as to why the person who gives us the stuff to broadcast (which I have to translate into English and work into a script) and who was b*ll*ck*d by me the other week for giving me stuff too late to include in the relevant programmes back then, has sent me all the information (“which we MUST broadcast”) about submitting your income tax returns – final date for submission being … errrr …. 31st May!

All I can say is that it’s no wonder that the French Civil Service is in total chaos.

After St Gervais d’Auvergne I went round to Liz and Terry’s to discuss the programmes and for a chat, and then I came home early to plant my vegetables. After all, tomorrow is yet another Bank Holiday and so it’s a lie-in in the morning and in the afternoon I’m going for a guided walk around some old quarries.

Yes, I really ought to get out more often, don’t I?

-5

Thursday 20th May 2010 – Well, the trailer is now finished…

…as you can see, and we now have the tractor on it. All of the lights now work (with a little manipulation) and we are quite proud of what we have done – and rightly so.

But we’ve hit a major snag with it.

The trailer weighs in at 740kg which is fine. It needs to be less than 750kg for taxation purposes. Its carrying capacity is rated at 888kg and Terry’s tractor weighs in at about 1 tonne (1000kg) but that’s not much of an issue as it’s much stronger how we’ve done it and it’ll take much more weight.

But it’s the broyer that’s causing up the problem. It’s far too heavy – Terry reckons that it’s about 300kg and he could well be right, and I didn’t plan on all of this weight. It’s pretty difficult to take it off and more difficult to put it back on. And it’s much more difficult to put it inside the van too without a major and drastic rethink.

The length of the combined unit of tractor and broyer too is an issue. The weight can’t be distributed correctly on the trailer and even with reversing it on and pushing the broyer as close as we can to the back door of the van there’s still too much weight at the rear end of the trailer.

Then of course all of this is impacting on the trailer tyres. They are caravan tyres and so not up to all that much. One of them doesn’t have a maker’s plate but the other one does – and it’s rated at a maximum 1016lb (475kg) and a max of 36psi. The weight of the tractor is at the limit for the tyre never mind the weight of the broyer and the weight of the trailer itself and as soon as we put the tractor and broyer on the trailer the tyre sank right down under the weight. It has about 55psi in it right now and it still doesn’t look much better.

So we are going to have a major rethink about this trailer and maybe do some more engineering. But the tyres are going to be replaced for definite with some commercial van tyres. They’ll be so much better with the weight loading and that’s always a good start.

-1

Wednesday 19th May 2010 – This trailer is taking shape …

… as you can see if you peer through the flare of the sunlight reflecting off a car window onto something inside the barn (I’ll take another better pic tomorrow).

But the trailer has now grown four chevrons between the metal frame pieces, and it’s also grown some outriggers too. The trailer base is half-done although it needs wood-treating (we ran out of the LIDL wood treatment stuff half-way through).

It’s not going to be the floor that will cause us any problems, that’s for sure.

But it’s slow going though. We’re doing it properly and that includes threading the wire through conduit and then through the chassis leg and out to the back rather than having wires dangling everywhere. We’ve also properly rebated the timber ends so that they fit nicely inside the U-profile channelling, and it’s all bolted down. It won’t half be impressive when it’s finished – which may well be tomorrow with any luck.

-1

Tuesday 18th May 2010 – You’ll see a few changes ….

… in this photo too.

In the foreground is a huge pile of wood – 6 chevrons and a load of 40mm planking. That’s the floor of the trailer.

The trailer itself is in middle distance. That’s all been cleaned off and de-rusted, and it’s now painted with Brico Depot’s best anti-rust metal paint in a nice shade of mid-brown

And how does Terry pull the trailer? Well a closer inspection of the back of Terry’s van will now show a towbar and some electrics.

And that was today’s work.

The towbar was interesting though. It’s off my old Transit from the late 1990s that is lying down the field here. It was a 1984 model and I drove it for a few years until the tin worm took over. I took the towbar off for Terry and I also removed the mounting plates for him as the mounting holes looked to be in the same position. In 20-odd years the rear end of a Transit hasnt changed. But ooohhh noooo – the mounting plates don’t quite fit. They’ve ever so slightly modified the rear end.

Now I don’t know about you but I reckon that if you are going to redesign something then you redesign it and do a good job. There’s no point whatever in redesigning and then spending all this money tooling up just for moving two holes by 5mm in the horizontal plane and 3mm in the vertical plane. It’s a pointless waste of money. But if Fords can subtly modify the rear end of a Transit then Terry and I can not-so-subtly modify a pair of mounting plates. And now the towbar is on.

Tomorrow is connecting up the wiring to the van, wiring up the trailer and then fitting the floor.

-1

Monday 17th May 2010 – It’s been a long time …

… since you have seen the front of the barn looking like this. In fact, you’ll notice that the Subaru has gone (it’s now down by the Passat) and the caravan chassis has also gone, with the roofing sheets for the barn being put where the caravan chassis was.

Terry and Simon came round today and helped me move the stuff and once we had the caravan chassis out, we changed a wheel, freed off the brakes, pumped up a tyre and took it round to Terry’s.

It’s in worse condition than I thought having stood outside for 8 years in total and 3 years since the dear departed Liz smashed off the body with an axe. So first thing was to take off all the wooden floor and scrap it.

Once we had done that we freed off everything that needed freeing and that was when we noticed the bent corner jack. And in undoing that, that was when we noticed the chassis rot. This is not going to be as straightforward as I expected.

Luckily Terry had some angle iron and an electric welder so he did the first bit and I did the second and considering it’s 15 years since I last did any electric welding I was quite impressed with what I did. But really I’m going to have to get some gas bottles again – I’m much better with oxy-acetylene welding.

Once we had the trailer welded up we went off to order the wood that we need to make a super-duper heavy-duty trailer bed and then we called it a day.

Tomorrow we’ll be grinding off the rust from the chassis, painting it with Hammerite or whatever and then wiring some trailer lights and reflectors onto it. Hopefully the wood will be ready too tomorrow afternoon and we can spend the evening fitting it.

-1

Saturday 15th May 2010 – His NIbs made some more new admirers today.

Yes, we did this furniture removal today and Strawberry Moose came along to take charge, supervise and in general look after the children while the adults did the work.

Of course this calls for a photo opportunity (have you ever known Strawberry Moose to miss out on one of those?) and here he is being feted by James, Samuel and Julianna while Liz, Esther and Lionel look on.

The furniture removal took most of the day, what with one thing and another, but we had a chance to meet up with Clare and Keith. And Clare very kindly donated to the cause a complete set of kitchen cooking knives that she had received as a free gift and which were surplus to requirements. That was really nice of her.

After the removal was over we went back to Liz and Terry’s where we discussed plans for the forthcoming week and also to continue the discussions over our moneymaking activities. We’re a long way from being destitute of course and we are all doing things to keep ticking over but you need to be proactive and take control of matters. Consequently on Monday we will be extracting the old caravan chassis from the wilderness around here, repairing it and loading Terry’s small tractor onto it so that it is ready for work and then fitting the towbar off my old Transit onto Terry’s van so that he can tow it about. Then Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday we will be fixing the pipes at the back of Terry’s house, seeing as the kwikstage scaffolding is up there.

There are lots of other things too but if you plan to finish them all, the first thing that you need to do is to make the start. And that’s as good a place as any.

Once those things are out of the way we can see where we are up to.

-2

Wednesday 5th May 2010 – This is just flaming ridiculous!

It’s the 5th of May today (did you all have a good Star Wars Day yesterday?) and we have had a heavy snowfall. It’s unbelievable.

We were out and about on our travels today, as I told you yesterday, and on the way down to Clermont Ferrand we noticed in the rain that at times it was looking like snow. In Clermont Ferrand we saw one or two cars that had a covering of snow, which surprised us greatly.

But that was nothing like the surprise that we had as we were coming back over the Col des Goules near Orcival we were greeted by the sight in this photo. This is just absurd.

Mind you, in certain respects I whouldn’t have been surprised. When I woke up this morning, the temperature in my attic had dropped to a mere 12 degrees, just like winter in fact and the driving rain that we had through the night was still falling .

Still, never mind. I set of for chez Liz and Terry through the rain and all in all it was very unpleasant but we managed to accomplish all our tasks.

We obtained the tax certificate for Terry’s van and then doorstepped the lady at the Chambre de Metiers who, despite her surprise, received us and gave us all of the information we needed.

After lunch (thanks, Terry) we went to the URSSAF to enquire about why our applications for this auto-entrepreneur registrations for Liz’s and my business plans had never been processed. It turns out that we had missed out a vital step in the process so the woman there (probably the most helpful and friendly French Civil Servant I have ever met) completed mine on the spot (so now I am a properly registered French businessman), gave Liz the advice she needed to complete hers, and told Terry what he needed to do to make his application.

What was funny about the visit to URSSAF was that we couldn’t quite find the building on this Industrial estate so Terry helpfully suggested “it’s a Government organisation so look for the poshest building”. And he was right!

At the Tribunal de Commerce the reception staff were much less helpful – hurling abuse at us as we tried to find out where to go but one of the administrators who we doorstepped in his little office put us on the right track.

But back here, even though it’s cold and miserable and wet (I have the fire on here right now) there is only a scattering of snow. But we have had TWENTY EIGHT mm of rain today and it is still pouring down. You really cannot believe this weather.

-1

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.

-2

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.

But 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.

And 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.

Sunday 11th April 2010 – What a good weekend …

… for the footy.

Last night, Pionsat’s 3rd XI lost 6-1 to Manzat. Not very impressive you might think but Manzat are top of the league by a country mile and beat one of the other teams in the division 14-1 the other day, and they have recorded several wins where they have scored in double figures. 6-1 is a good result.

At 13:00 the 1st XI travelled down the road to take on hated local rivals St Gervais d’Auvergne and defeated them comfortably 2-0 and that in itself is astonishing (here is Nico scoring the team’s – and his – first of the two).

Even more surprising is that they played the latter part of the match with just 10 men. but even so they never really looked in any serious danger

That match finished at 14:45 and just 15kms away the 2nd XI were playing against Charensat – kickoff 15:00 so I had a hectic drive through the lanes.

Now there’s a goalkeeping crisis again at Pionsat as they currently have two keepers out injured and Philippe had been called out of retirement to keep goal for the 2nd XI. But he hadn’t turned up and with no other volunteer Christophe was “persuaded” to go between the posts.

Now he’s the first to admit that he’s no keeper and he let in two goals that maybe some other keeper might have kept out. But he made up for that by having excellent positional sense, excellent timing, quick reactions and a good deal of bravery.

He can be quite pleased with what he accomplished today especially as up at the other end Pionsat scored three times to win the match! Well done Christophe!

After that I went round to see Liz and Terry but they were out. Simon was there doing some plastering so we had a good chat and then I came home. I was sorry to have missed them as I had had need of Liz, in her role as the “Auvergne Snake Murderer”, this morning. Moving a pile of damp and rotting wood I put my hand about half an inch away from a viper. Luckily my reactions were quicker than his!

-2

Sunday 28th March 2010 – Blimey, that was quick!

Yes, summer has been and gone and taken autumn with it, and we are back in the middle of winter.

I was at Giat today to watch Pionsat’s 2nd XI play them (they lost 2-0). 790 metres up on an exposed plateau and I froze to death in the biting wind. And the locals are expecting snow this evening, so they said.

13.9 degrees in here when I set out and 12.8 degrees when I came back so I lit the fire for a while to warm up the place. So much for the 20.2 degrees we had early last week.

After the footy I went round to Liz and Terry’s to insoect the work in progress in the new kitchen (very impressive) and to plan our radio programmes for the next month. We are highlighting medical insurance and the like to go with Julie’s account of her hospital encounters.

And much to our surprise our radio programme from last week is being streamed. You can listen to it at
http://lemagazine.canalblog.com
Send us your feedback, please.

-7

EPIC HALL

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

Category Archives: sauret besserve

Monday 14th June 2010 – This is a significant photo …

Sunday 13th June 2010 – Sunday is a day of rest …

Saturday 12th June 2010 – Long Distance Runaround

Friday 11th June 2010 – Liz rang me up at lunchtime …

Sunday 23rd May 2010 – It was the Garden Fair in St Gervais d’Auvergne today.

Thursday 20th May 2010 – Well, the trailer is now finished…

Wednesday 19th May 2010 – This trailer is taking shape …

Tuesday 18th May 2010 – You’ll see a few changes ….

Monday 17th May 2010 – It’s been a long time …

Saturday 15th May 2010 – His NIbs made some more new admirers today.

Wednesday 5th May 2010 – This is just flaming ridiculous!

Tuesday 27th April 2010 – Well, I finished …

Sunday 18th April 2010 – A record day today.

Sunday 11th April 2010 – What a good weekend …

Sunday 28th March 2010 – Blimey, that was quick!

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