Category Archives: as terjat

Sunday 1st December 2013 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST …

… and so I rested. In fact I didn’t even get out of bed until 10:30, and that was only because I needed to visit the beichstuhl.

I didn’t do any housework either. I had a nice relaxing morning reading a book. As you know, I’m fully of the opinion that everyone should have the right to have one day per week where they can sit and do nothing at all if they so choose, and not feel guilty about it.

I didn’t even set foot outside my house until 14:30 – not because there was nothing to set foot outside for, but merely because it was so perishing cold.

However at 14:30 I set out, for Terjat as it happens. No footy again in the Puy-de-Dome today but Terjat’s 2nd XI had a rearranged match against Quinssaines and so I reckoned that I would toddle off over there to see whether we were going to have a repeat of the humiliation of a couple of weeks ago when, even playing with 11 men against the 10 of Premilhat, they still managed to be well-and-truly stuffed 7-0.

as terjat football club de foot quinssaines allier decembre 1 2013 franceWell, Quinssaines were pretty poor, although quite well-organised, and Terjat were even worse. But somehow Terjat managed to win. And not by just one goal, but by an astonishing 5-2 scoreline.

The big difference was that while both goalkeepers were, shall we say, guardiens de fortune and so couldn’t really be expected to do too much, Terjat actually put the Quinssaines keeper under quite a lot of pressure, shooting from just about everywhere there was a sight of goal. And of course, it paid off in spades.

On the other hand, even though the Terjat keeper never made a clean catch during the entire 90 minutes, no-one followed up the balls into the area to pounce upon the dropped balls, or even had a serious attempt at trying to beat him. In fact, when finally Quinssaines did have a go at really testing him, a free kick blasted over the wall into the goalmouth from about 25 yards out, it went clean through the keeper’s hands into the net.

Ohhh what might have been!

No gridiron tonight either. The internet connection isplaying up and I was seeing nothing but a stop-start freeze-frame slideshow. That was a shame as we were to be treated to a bottom-of-the-table grudge match between the Falcons and the Bills. It doesn’t get more desperate than that.

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Sunday 9th December 2012 – I am glad …

… that I bought the new wood stove last year.

Not only have I been nice and warm for most of the day, I had another lovely tea tonight. Pizza of course, but in the absence of any bread (what with the boulangère forgetting me yesterday) I had baked potatoes with garlic butter, all cooked in the little oven thingy.

Not only that, I boiled a couple of kettles on the top, and made a big pot of coffee, half of which I drank and the other half I put in a thermos flask. I’ll be intrigued to see what that will be like in the morning. I could be on to something here.

Strange as it may seem, I was up and about at 08:30 this morning, so an early breakfast and a film followed by a couple of hours work on the radio script. But coming downstairs at mid-morning I encountered the black feral cat that roams around here. Normally it totally ignores me but today it maiowed at me, came to me when I called it, let me stroke it and even let me pick it up. All that I can think of is that there’s no wild food around in this weather. Being a vegan, I’m not able to help it out and it turned its nose up at the soya milk. If this weather keeps up, I’ll have to splash out on a box of munchies. In the meantime, I’ll leave the door open to the verandah and the lean-to. There’s a mouse running around somewhere in there and a hungry cat is a useful ally.

I also found a footy match this afternoon – Terjat’s 2nd Xi against the 3rd XI of Quinssaines. Terjat had about 70% of the play but somehow managed to lose 4-1. Twice they were hit on the break, a third time a lucky deflection in the penalty area found an unmarked attacker, and the fourth time a tired defence was caught stationary. But it was an astonishing match all the same. We all froze to death and there was, tragically, no coffee.

So tomorrow I really must get cracking. I’m in danger of falling behind.

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Sunday 11th November 2012 – WHAT ANOTHER …

… extraordinary football match.

Yes, ths afternoon saw me at Terjat to see the AS Terjat 1st XI play Hyds in Division One of the Allier League. But I’ll talk about that in a moment.

First, though, with a fairly early night on Saturday (despite the cups of coffee) and no alarm clock either, I managed to be fully conscious and on my feet at … errrr … 08:26. I haven’t a clue what happened there.

So after an early breakfast and watching a film I mooched around for the morning doing not very much at all, and after lunch went off into the wilderness.

An extraordinary match indeed. The final score was something like 8-6 to Hyds and I’m not talking about the goals but about the yellow cards. I think that the referee must have had a pop-up toaster in his shirt pocket. Every time there was a foul, up popped a yellow card. Amazing!

And not only that, I’m sure that the referee must have been officiating a different match to the one that we were watching, because some of the decisions were, well, bewildering, to say the least.

We had the AS Terjat keeper throw himself on top of a Hyds attacker to stop him scoring (and I do mean exactly that) and the referee blew for … a free kick to AS Terjat.

And then, a few minutes later, an AS Terjat attacker flattened the Hyds centre-half, and the referee blows for … a penalty to AS Terjat (which they miss).

If that’s not enough to be going on with, there’s a foul on an AS Terjat player about 25 yards out but as the ball breaks free to another AS Terjat player in an excellent position, the referee plays a good advantage.

This second AS Terjat player is then scythed down well inside the penalty area by a later Hyds challenge and the referee blows … not for the penalty, but to bring the game back for the first foul.

That’s probably the strangest “advantage” decision I have ever seen.

AS Terjat eventually win 3-2, but both sets of supporters (and I was chatting to both groups) left the ground shaking their heads in disbelief.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I lit the fire to cook my pizza and settle down to watch the gridiron. We were promised a sportfest – three matches consecutively last night.

But the early start clearly had its effect because I fell asleep towards the end of the Eagles – Cowboys match, woke up in the 2nd quarter of the Jets – Seahawks match, fell asleep again later and woke up at 2:30 having missed all of the 49ers – St Louis match.

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Sunday 28th October 2012 – BRRRRR!!!!!!!

puy de dome franceIt’s absolutely freezing outside. And I mean that too. Minus 1.6°C outside when I took the stats just now.

And it’s been cold all day as you can tell by just looking at this photo of the Puy-de-Dome that I took from my usual haunt – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne.

Winter has arrived, early as we predicted exclusively on these pages just 10 days ago, and we are still in October too.

puy de sancy puy de dome franceAnd just look over there at the Puy de Sancy and the Mont Dore. It’s more like Mont Blac over there right now. And those heavy clouds are threatening more punishment

And the snow isn’t just scattered over the high ground either. There’s piles of it in the middle distance too.

When that lot was unleashed last night, we were still on SUMMER time would you believe. The weather has gone totally crazy.

So this morning with the extra hour in bed, I was up and about at 09:20 and after breakfast and the usual paperwork, I spent a couple of hours doing some housework, cleaning and dusting and the like.

It’s certainly been such a long time since I’ve done any, and I can actually see some floor now.

This afternoon I went out to Terjat to watch AS Terjat play Neris les Bains’s 2nd XI.

An Allier Division 1 match, theoretically the same level at which FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI play, but there wasn’t a single player out there whom I would chose for my team. The quality really is quite poor in the Allier.

Neris-les-Bains are quite high up in the league and AS Terjat are mid-table, yet you wouldn’t have thought so from watching this match.

The first half with AS Terjat kicking into a howling wind, the match was played mostly in the Terjat half, but Neris-les-Bains were to all intents and purposes clueless in attack.

In the second half, playing with the wind, AS Terjat scored 2 goals in quick succession and as the wind dropped, Neris-les-Bains scored late in the game, due to a defensive howler in the AS Terjat penalty area.

fter that I went to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our Radio Anglais programmes for the coming week. Liz made a lovely tea and I had a nice warm shower for which I was grateful.

Back here though it’s freezing and I was sorely tempted to light the fire up here. November 17th was the first fire in 2010 – November 27th was the first in 2011,but the first fire in October is just crazy.

If it’s as cold as this tomorrow and I’m in all evening it will definitely be lit.

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Sunday 11th March 2012 – CONTINUING ON …

… with the saga of weird football matches, I went to Terjat this afternoon to watch AS Terjat play a team from Montlucon – Bien Assis I think – seeing as how there was no Pionsat team in action this afternoon.

The trainer for Terjat, with whom I struck up some kind of conversation last time I was there and which carried on this afternoon, told me that in the league tables Turgid were well ahead of their opponents, and that they needed to win (which everyone was expecting) to keep up some kind of reasonable pretensions for promotion.

He was right about the “well ahead of their opponents” bit, because a more one-sided game you would not wish to see.

However from the first attack of the game one of the Bien Assis forwards had a weak shot on goal, well covered by the keeper and which would have been comfortably saved had the ball not taken a wicked deflection off the needlessly-outstretched foot of a Turgid defender and rolled into the far corner of the net.

For the remaining 89 minutes AS Terjat were camped in the opposition half with their keeper being merely an interested spectator.

And the final score?

Yes, you guessed it. 1-0 for Bien Assis.

As an aside, the Turgid keeper had one of the most powerful kicks I have ever seen and his clearances upfield were outpacing his attackers every time. And one of the Turgid central defenders was the best header of the ball that I have ever seen at this level of football.

In fact this game was quite a decent match for aerial prowess. I’ve not seen another match quite like this one for that kind of thing.

But the referee came out onto the field of play having left his cards in the dressing room.

At least that’s the only reason I can think of as to how we managed to reach the end of 90 minutes of this match without a single card being shown, despite the kind of goings-on that we had during the game.

“Hard-fought” is probably quite an apt description.

In other news, I had something of a lie-in today. In fact, 11:29 was when I crawled out of my stinking pit. About time I had a good lie-in.

We are also having a record day for wind power. I’ve had the power meter connected up for about 10 days or so, and we’ve had more wind today than the cumulative figure over the other 9 days.

It really is quite impressive. 

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Sunday 29th January 2012 – IT’S BEEN SUNDAY TODAY …

TERJAT ALLIER marcillat allier virlet puy de dome france… and so I had a nice drive out in the countryside in the freezing (and I do mean “freezing” weather. In fact as far as Terjat, where the home team was playing Target in the Allier League 3rd Division.

It’s a beautiful setting up there at Terjat, and you can see right across the valley to the snow-covered hills in the background. It’s over there somewhere in those hills, at the back of Montaigut where I live.

Another thing about Sunday is that there’s no alarm clock and so with no-one ringing me up at some stupid time of the day, I can lie in until 10:24 without the least pang of guilt, in clean sheets and bedding the bed in its “double-bed” position, back in its old place by the little window.

Luxury!

The temperature in here was 13.2°C and that’s another thing that I like about this new fire that I’ve bought. With the old one, there wasn’t enough residual heat to keep the room warm once the fire went out and the temperature would often drop into single figures overnight.

But this fire keeps warm for ages and it’s maintaining a reasonable heat (up to now, anyway). and first thing that I did, even before breakfast, was to light the fire again. And I’ve been warm all day, which is really impressive and just what the doctor ordered.

In the warmth and comfort of my attic I’m well on the way towards the end of my presentation of the Trans-Labrador Highway – one or two more days and it will be done, I hope.

The football promised to be a real struggle, in the cold (coldest day of the winter so far) and the wind. And with Turgid being 3rd from bottom of the lowest possible league in the Allier, and Target being one place below them, I’m not quite sure what I expected. But it wasn’t much.

But having been overly critical of the football in the Allier, I have to say in fairness that this was a good game. Turgid played quite well, helped by the fact that Target, while they weren’t “bad”, they were rather clueless and ran out of ideas whenever they had the ball.

In the Allier, where there is no official referee, it’s the away side that provides the referee. And so it was a Target referee in the middle today. And he disallowed no fewer than three Terjat goals (two for offside – on one occasion overruling the *home* linesman) and one for pushing in the box.

To be fair I have to say that I was in no position to make any judgement.

But despite the handicap, Turgid scored two more goals that were allowed by the ref, and should have had three or four more. Had those disallowed goals been given and had Turgid won 5-0, it would have been a fair reflection of the match. Third from bottom in the worst league in the area?

Not on this showing they aren’t. I’ll be keeping my eye on the fixture list for whenever Pionsat don’t have a Sunday match, and I’ll wander along here again.

And this evening, with a rip-roaring fire and 24°C on the thermometer in the attic, I carried out what is fast becoming a ritual on Sunday evenings, and cooked pizza and garlic bread and rice pudding in the oven bit of my stove.

At €270 or however much it was, this woodstove is proving to be something of a bargain.

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Sunday 22nd January 2012 – I’VE ALWAYS WANTED …

… to watch a 3rd Division football match in the Allier, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

This is the lowest tier in football in the Allier (the Puy-de-Dôme has four) but having seen matches higher up the pyramid and not been impressed at all, I wondered how bad an Allier 3rd Division match would be.

As luck would have it, with the Puy-de-Dome still being on the trève, or “winter break”, this afternoon Terjat (about 8 miles from here) were entertaining (if that is the right word to use) their near-neighbours Sainte Thérence in a cut-throat local derby down in the basement of the 3rd Division.

Obviously, with nothing better to do (there was no paint drying and no grass growing anywhere in the vicinity) a visit to Terjat was called for.

And I wasn’t disappointed either, for it was predictably awful.

There was only one player on the field who looked reasonably competent (I’m excluding the Sainte Thérence goalkeeper – what on earth was someone like him doing playing in a team as awful as his?) and that was the Terjat centre-half.

It was clear after the first five minutes that nothing was ever going to get past him as long as he was on the pitch, and it didn’t either.

The trainer of Sainte Thérence clearly had the same opinion as me, and the talk that he gave to his team at half-time was just so predictable.

30 seconds after the restart, with the Terjat centre-half taking off after a loose ball down the right flank, two Ste Thérence players came after him and put him firmly, fairly (well, the referee thought that it was fair – others might not) and squarely into the advertising hoardings with a thump that was heard all over the Allier.

That was his match over.

And so was AS Terjat’s, because the result was predictable after that.

Next stop was to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our radio programmes for the next month and Liz very kindly cooked tea and made cake, some of which found its way in a doggy-bag back to my house, for which I am extremely grateful

So we are recording tomorrow morning, and then I have to crack on with the next outstanding task – my presentation on the Trans-Labrador Highway for the village discussion group.

It’s all go here.

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