Category Archives: commentry

Saturday 29th December 2012 – I went swimming today.

And how!

And the reason for that is that on the informal weather scale that I keep, this morning was classed as “scattered clouds” but this afternoon was classed as “glorious”. Nothing in the heavens to stop the sun streaming down, and I had the amount of solar energy that would have been expected in the summer.

So after a lie-in I finally finished off the Quebec pages after all this time and these are now on line. After that, it was a quick thrash around the shops in Commentry and then off to the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains. And for a change it was reasonably warm in there and I’m nice and clean, and I’m looking forward to a good sleep tonight.

All in all, a very quiet day. I’ve been having a few of those just recently. I’m saving my strength for the new year.

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Thursday 27th December 2012 – WELL, I WAS …

… going to start back to work today.

Honestly.

I admit that I had had something of a leisurely morning in a kind-of half-hearted working on my Quebec web pages and that I was gradually winding myself up to the idea of making a start – and then the telephone rang, and that was that.

Apparently, Cecile had just won a set of gates on eBay but on going to pick them up, she discovered that were too big to go in her car.

It’s a good job that I had spent half an hour or so emptying out Caliburn the other day, so like the true superheroes that we are, Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I dashed into the nearest telephone box to put our underpants on outside our trousers.

Having done that, we dashed to the rescue.

Perhaps it’s here that I should interject that my brother always used to wear his underpants outside his trousers. But that wasn’t because he was a superhero, it was because he was two sandwiches short of a picnic.

A drive out to Doyet (way the other side of Commentry) was reimbursed by the offer of an evening meal, for which I’m always grateful as you know.

And then, after another marathon session lighting her stove we ended up watching episodes of “The Twilight Zone” until quite late.

I shall just have to start work tomorrow now.

Won’t I?

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Saturday 29th September 2012 – I SAW SOMETHING …

… this evening that I have never seen before.

I was at St Eloy-les-Mines watching Nord Combraille play Beauregard-Vendon in the league cup, and halfway through the match the home supporters started to hurl abuse at the visiting linesman.

The Miners’ captain ran across the field to his supporters and told them to “fermez la geule” – or “shut your gobs”. And how I wish that more captains of more football clubs would take the initiative like that.

It was an exciting match too – with 10 minutes to go Beauregard-Vendon were comfortably winning 3-1 but then the Miners scored a goal right out of nothing to bring it back to 3-2.

Then, with the last kick of the match, they scored an equaliser from a corner.

Extra-time followed, and the Miners ran rampant, winning 5-3, including as the 4th goal one of the best that I have ever seen at this level of football.

That led to me doing something that I have never done before in all the time that I’ve been here. By the time the match had finished, what with extra time and everything, it was 10:45 and so I wouldn’t be home for another 20 minutes.

Far too late to cook tea, but the kebab house was still open and so I bought a large portion of chips to eat in Caliburn on the way home.

No vinegar, of course, but they were pretty good chips and I’ll go there again if ever I’m out late at weekend.

So what about today then?

I nearly missed my shopping slot at Commentry today as well. But there was a good reason for this.

Just as I was closing down to go to bed (at a comparatively early 02:30) I had a message to ring Rachel in Canada urgently. And so I did, and it turned out that at the garage in Centreville they had mislaid a box which included, inter alia, my bank card that they keep for me.

It’s surprising, if not amazing, that you can spend over 90 minutes talking to people whom you like, about a subject as simple as that (and it was all a false alarm anyway as they found it this morning)

The result of that was that it was gone 04:00 when I finished and then I couldn’t sleep – still awake again at 05:30. and so it’s just as well that the guy up the road started up his chainsaw at 11:00 otherwise I’d still be asleep now.

So what with one thing and another it was gone 14:00 when I set out for Commentry. One of the things that I needed to do was to buy even more tool handles as I’d broken one or two more during the week, and so I needed to strip out the old broken bits before I could go.

At Mr Bricolage I managed to sort everything out (at a price) but the handle for the pickaxe. They didn’t have a wooden handle and so he sold me a fibre one.
“This is unbreakable” said the salesman
“Leave that to me” I replied. “I’ll see to that”.

I also bought the bits I need to do some work for a client with a solar hot water system, and at LIDL they still had a couple of packets of those LED light strips and so I liberated them.

Makes me wonder how many I might have liberated had I managed to make it there last week.

No swimming baths though – far too late to go there, and so I came back here and crashed out for a couple of hours instead after my bad night.

Tomorrow I’m off to the Mont Dore – FC Pionsat St Hilaire are playing Briffons-Perpezat in the cup.

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Saturday 25th August 2012 – I’VE BEEN …

… spending my money once again.

It’s the rentrée pretty soon – yes, all the kids will be back at school in 2 weeks’ time and so the shops are filled with all kinds of stuff.

There’s one shop, called Centrakor in Commentry that is a kind of down-market CASA if that’s at all possible, and they had something on sale that was quite phenomenal.

It’s a kids’ workstation type of thing – a few shelves, a slide-out shelf for a keyboard, a tabletop and then a couple of shelves at eye-level (well, eye-level for a 12 year old) and one good thing about it is that it is on castors.

The best part about it though is the price – a mere €19:99

Here in my little attic I have a kind of tiny round cheap plastic coffee table with two shelves and I have the DVD player/TV on the top shelf and the computer external drives on the other. And it rattle along and bits drop off and there’s no room for anything at all on it.

So when I saw this workstation thing my mind went into overdrive. So now there’s one in the back of Caliburn waiting to be brought up here and assembled whenever I get a moment (whenever that might be). But it’s ever so impressive, especially at that price.

I did quite a mega-shop today in Commentry in fact, including a proper stonemason chisel for raking out the cement from between the stones.

High time I had some decent tools and equipment around here – it might make the next bit of the wall somewhat easier.

From there I went on to Neris-les-Bains and the swimming baths. The weather has cooled down considerably over these last few days but the had all the sides of the pool open and so it was freezing in there. I managed 24 lengths today which is something of a record these days.

I came home afterwards and … errrr … crashed out. I’m not as young as I was.

This morning though I finished off the radio scripts – they need some alterations but I don’t really have the time to do it now and I was too tired this evening.

And after all of my worries as to whether it’s going to be enough, it weighed in at 38kb. That’s the third longest ever.

So now it’s bedtime ready for my day of rest tomorrow, when I’m going to be rushed off my feet.

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Saturday 11th August 2012 – Damn Damn Damn Damn!!!!

I went into Commentry this afternoon to do my shopping. I didn’t buy anything too exciting but I spent up at the Bricomarché.

And it was there that I had a disaster.

No glass there – all sold out. But the guy there did have a rummage around and managed to find some offcuts of glass that would do to make the windows for the lean-to.

So he cut them to size and I put them carefully on the floor in the back of Caliburn.

I then took the ladder off the roof of Caliburn so that I could put all the guttering up there. No room on the roof rack to put the ladder back and so without thinking, I simply threw the ladder into the back of Caliburn as I would normally do.

The crash and tinkle told its own story. Nick Lowe might love the sound of breaking glass, but I didn’t.

This morning I was going to work and I managed to select the music for one of the four rock programmes that I need to do, but then I was sidetracked and didn’t do very much after that.

And back home after the shopping I crashed out until 19:30 and if someone hadn’t ‘phoned me up I would still be asleep now.

Dunno what’s the matter with me just now. I’m going to have to put more effort into concentrating on what I ought to be doing.

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Friday 29th June 2012 – IT AIN’T ‘ARF ‘OT, MUM!

Well, maybe not quite this evening, but last night it was 31°C up here in my attic and that is going beyond ridiculous.

In fact, things reached such a pitch that I almost went and slept in Caliburn. I’m sure that it would have been cooler in there.

But by 09:00 I was up and about, and by 09:30 I was working.

I was doing some work on a few web pages and then one thing led to another, and pretty soon you begin to find out just how many other things there are.

So much so that I’ve ended up doing a slight redesign of my web pages and I wish that I knew enough to do more.

I really must learn how to do embedded menus and so on. My web design techniques seem to have stuck in a time warp.

I’ve also been dealing with the European Paper Mountain today and a load of that was filed away. There’s still about 20 times that much that needs to be dealt with but every little helps.

Rosemary and I went to Montlucon this afternoon and had a rummage around the shops.

I didn’t buy any wood because the wood at Brico Depot is appalling so I’ll have to go to the sawmill for that like I should have done in the first place. But I have the stirrups, some of the plumbing bits, the corrugated plastic sheets, the hinges, the strengthenign rod and all of the concrete post rings – 20 of them in fact.

Rosemary was disappointed too with Brico Depot. She had wanted some zinc guttering for her barn but the stuff that they had was all bent, knocked about and not fit for use.

In the end, on the way back we went to Bricomarché in Commentry. It was dearer there but it was in perfect condition. You pay for what you get.

I bet that you are all dying to know what I’ll be doing with them – I know that Krys is. But you’ll have to wait until I buy the wood and start to build it – I won’t be giving a clue away.

Aren’t I a meanie? 

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Saturday 23rd June 2012 – PHEW! I’M EXHAUSTED!

And I’m not surprised either, for I’ve had a busy day today.

This morning I was busy tracing the antics of Séraphin Margane de Lavaltrie and his regiment, the Carignan-Salières along the banks of the St Lawrence River, as well as unravelling the tangled web weaved around Quebec by the enigmatic Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac.

Yes, this is all very exciting, doing these web pages. I’m certainly learning a lot – and that’s the whole point.

Anyway, in the afternoon I shot off to Commentry and did a pile of shopping, but didn’t buy any wire netting. The price of the stuff is exorbitant and I’m sure that I can do far better than that elsewhere with a bit of exertion.

In the meantime I’ll see what I can conjure up or otherwise invent.

I did however manage to fit in an uncomfortable hour in the swimming pool at Neris-les-Bains. Note to self- “don’t go swimming straight after eating a tub of LIDL sorbet”.

bonfire feu de joie fete de st jacques Virlet puy de dome franceAnd so in the evening a nice clean me went back out and off to the village for our traditional, annual walk to explore some of the lesser-known back lanes of Virlet.

I’d stuck a note on the board of the Anglo-French group and so instead of the usual 20 or so people we ended up being quite a crowd – many of whom I knew – and we all had a really nice, cheerful and friendly walk around.

People from all ages were here and that’s nice to see – I like the idea of the youngsters being involved.

strawberry moose bonfire feu de joie fete de st jacques Virlet puy de dome france. It’s not only the villagers who are drawn out by the likelihood of crowds and of an audience.

Whenever there’s a possibility of a photo opportunity with a new group of admiring fans, you can bet your life that Strawberry Moose won’t be far away.

And sure enough, he leapt out of his seat in Caliburn to mingle with the crowds and made the acquaintance of a few more admirers. His fame is certainly spreading and he had just as much fun as everyone else did tonight.

bonfire feu de joie fete de st jacques Virlet puy de dome franceBecause fun there was, and plenty of it too, and for all ages.

After the walk we all headed back to the field at the back of the church. Here, seeing as it’s the Fête de St Jacques we had a feu de joie, a barbecue and snacks, a film and dancing with music provided by my friend Rick the Trailer Guy on cello and his violinist friend.

All very convivial.

A good time was had by all although I didn’t stay too long. I didn’t stay as long as I might have though. For some reason I was absolutely exhausted, and so I was home by midnight.

It’ll take me a week to recover, I reckon.

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Saturday 10th March 2012 – BRAIN OF A DUCK, YOU KNOW!

Yes, Brain of Britain drove all of the way to Commentry to do his shopping this afternoon, only to find when he arrived there that he had forgotten his money, his wallet and his bank cards.

And so all the way back to here to fetch them and then go all the way back again.

That meant that I didn’t have time to do much shopping and so I just did the bare essentials – and then only some because I forgot quite a lot, I reckon.

And after that, a nip to the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains.

It was freezing in there this afternoon and I wasn’t sorry to come out after an hour or so.

But I did have an amusing time watching a group of kids in there. All aged between 6 and 8 I reckon and all came in individually with parents, but after a while I noticed that they were all playing together in a corner of the shallow end.

It never ceases to amaze me how unself-conscious kids of that age are, and how quickly they all seem to integrate.

puy de dome franceFC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing Sauret this evening at football down at the bottom of Division 4 of the Puy de Dome District league in Pionsat.

For once they had a full side out with a couple of new players as well as a few decent players who have featured for the second XI. And so they spent most of the match peppering the Sauret goal whereas the opposition just contented themselves with a few breakaways.

And such is the perversity of modern football that Sauret won the encounter by 2-1.

This was another match that Pionsat threw away. They really do need to win encounters like this if they want to crawl away from the basement.

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Saturday 3rd March 2012 – THE WEATHER …

… wasn’t quite as nice today.

Based upon the scheme of description that I use, we had “scattered clouds” this morning followed by “clouds” this afternoon. That’s rather a change from the “glorious” of the last couple of days.

I was up quite early this morning and had something of a lazy half-day doing nothing in particular.

From there it was off to Commentry, just for a change, to do a round of the shops there. But there was nothing extraordinary at all on offer about the place today and I didn’t buy anything special at all

I did make it to the swimming baths at Neris-les-bBains though, for the first time in ages, and I’m all clean now.

fcpsh football club pionsat st hilaire puy de dome franceI finally managed to watch a football match tonight – the first time for what feels like several years.

Down in Pionsat, FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI were playing Menetrol so I went along to lend them my support. And despite playing a little better than they have done just recently, they still managed to lose again.

They are now struggling near the foot of the table with relegation starting to stare them in the face and it’s all looking quite ominous.

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Saturday 12th November 2011 – I’M GOING …

… to bed in a second.

Yes, I’m thoroughly exhausted and I don’t know why. Probably the early start this morning had something to do with it.

Up with the alarm waiting for a phone call for this photo safari thing, and it turns out that I had not been patched in to an earlier e-mail circular and so I’d missed the point of this trip out. But anyway it didn’t take us long to do what it was that we had to do.

motorised hang glider commentry allier franceThis afternoon, seeing as how the weather was so beautiful I went to Commentry to do my shopping there.

And while I was in the car park of the Les Bonnes Affaires I was buzzed by one of these motorised hang-glider things passing low over the town. I was trying to think where he might have come from because there’s no suitable cliff in the vicinity off which to leap into the ether – unless he can run with his feet fast enough to make a clean take-off.

And I wonder what the rules might be about low-flying over a built-up area like this

badly sited solar panels commentry allier franceWhile I had the camera out, I noticed another example of poorly-sighted solar panels – over there on the roof of that bungalow. Facing full west they are, so they don’t receive a glimmer of sunlight until early afternoon.

These “become a producer of solar energy and sell to the electricity board” high-pressure salesmen have struck again. It’s hardly surprising that the industry has such a bad name when they do things like this.

I did make a couple of interesting discoveries though. And they were both at Bricomarche.

  1. they have a huge pile of water-resistant 8mm plywood at €39 a sheet of 2.5×1.25 metres. It’s expensive all right but it’s what I need for the roof of the lean-to and they do have it in stock.
  2. they also have the stove that I want for downstairs. A woodstove with an oven and with a central heating boiler built in – for €1499 too. That’s exactly what I want, because the sun will heat the water in the summer and I need something for heating it in the winter. If this does everything, it will be perfect. I can even do cooking with it as well.

But the real reason for going to Commentry was that with the weather being so nice I could nip down the road to Neris-les-Bains for a swim. It was glorious in there – the water just right and the pool quite warm as well. Shame it can’t be like that all the time.   

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot us menetrol puy de dome franceAt the footy tonight the 3rd XI match was cancelled as the opposition couldn’t raise a team, and the first XI went down 2-1 to a team that they had played off the park, something of which they seem to be in a habit of doing

I’d tell you much more about the game but enough of this for now. I’ve fallen asleep twice already while typing as far as this, and if I don’t get a move on I’ll be ……..THUD THUD

…….ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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Saturday 1st October 2011 – ONE OF THE LOCAL SHOPS …

ronnet shop burn tout allier france… burnt down last night. And good and proper too! It’s the one in Ronnet, just a few kilometres from here and is one of those little shops that does a little of everything.

I was on my way back from swimming at Neris-les-Bains and I noticed it. So I made a few enquiries and was told that it happened at 22:00 Friday evening and there is nothing at all left.That is really sad because there aren’t really all that many shops in the vicinity these days and local shops need as much encouragement as they can get

Yes, I’ve been swimming today. It was another gorgeous day and so I worked on the computer until lunchtime and then went to Commentry. There, LIDL came up trumps with boxes of metal joints for carpentry, a radio-controlled clock with the laser alarm, and a pile of max-min external-internal thermometers that I have been trying to find for ages.

Swimming was fun because even though it was a glorious day, with it being October there were few people in the pool. However there was some Grandad there who had shown his chubby 4-year old grand-daughter how to jump in the deep end of the pool. So we were treated to a non-stop session of the running patter of tiny feet, a loud squeal of delight and then an enormous splash, all the way through the afternoon. Clearly someone was having a whale of a time.

And no footy tonight – nowhere within a reasonable distance. It’s the beginning of October too. Whatever is the world coming to?

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Saturday 20th August 2011 – So having found my camera …

… I can post photos again.

pointing fieldstone wall lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis is not Thursday night’s photo but Friday night’s, where you can see how high I am up the wall here. As you know, I was hoping to finish it all before I go away but what with one thing and another I had to revise my target to just half of the all.

And so there’s not much more to do up there now and I’m hoping that at least that part of the wall will be finished long before next weekend.

Mind you, it would have been nice to have it done before I go to Canada.

This morning the heat drove me out of bed fairly early and so I’ve been tidying again. I’m not sure how it is that I can make this place so untidy so quickly.

At lunchtime I went to Commentry but didn’t buy anything worthwhile except some new AA and AAA batteries to take with me to Canada. But I did hear on the news that here in the Puy-de-Dome we are on “Red Alert” for la canicule – the heatwave. And that’s not surprising.

In the pool at Neris les Bains, everyone else must have heard about la canicule because there were more people in the water there than there were in the water after the sinking of the Titanic. You could hardly move. But in something of a surprise, the lifeguard came over to talk to me about solar panels. Either he had seen Caliburn, of else the advertising on the side of my holdall. I always take that down to the pool and leave it with the advertising facing the people in the water. I can’t emphasise enough – the three steps to a successful business are “advertising”, “advertising” and “advertising”.

The water in the solar shower was 45°C when I returned home. The 12-volt immersion heater was at 57°C and so even though it was late, I did another load of washing. I reckon that one more load of washing just before I go away and that will be me organised.

But it ain’t ‘arf ‘ot, mum.

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Saturday 6th August 2011 – I didn’t think much of today.

I was up early yet again – I dunno what’s happened just recently – but seeing as it’s Saturday I had a nice leisurely morning doing not very much.

This afternoon I went shopping – to Commentry as it happens – and just for a change I spent nothing above what would normally spend during a budget-shopping outing. They didn’t even have one of the gutter ends that I wanted.

But I was importuned on the LIDL Car Park and a lengthy chat about wind turbines ensued. I can’t say it often enough – vehicle advertising seems to work for me, and work for me in spades.

It was cold in the pool in Neris les Bains – it’s been a cloudy muggy day (right now we are having torrential rainstorms of quite a violent kind) and yet they had the sides of the pool open. I don’t understand that. And the lock on the closed shower is broken too – that means I have to shower in the full public gaze and so can’t have my customary “plumbing the depths” type of shower.

20 laps of the pool wore me out though and in the middle of watching a film and drinking my coffee I crashed right out again, and it wasn’t until 23:50 that I came round again. I probably won’t sleep now and I’ve been cleaning all of my SD cards ready to take them to Canada at the end of the month. Things are proceeding apace.

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Saturday 2nd July 2011 – AND SO, AFTER …

… my day off yesterday and my new plans for the rainwater harvesting I went to Commentry today and bought everything that I need.

Cost me an arm and a leg again but I ought to be getting used to this by now.

And on the way home I thought of yet another potential improvement. But I’ll worry about that later.

And while I was in Commentry I spent a small fortune too – a lot of which went on toys.

Well, you might remember that I bought an eccentric sander for my workshop a few weeks ago. And today, LIDL was selling off its stock of sanding discs – 30 in a box and all for €1:00 a pack.

At that price I had to clean out the store as I’ll get through a pile of them when I’m body-filling. There were a few other toys as well and it all adds up.

One thing I did do was to buy some ready-mixed bread mix. My baker is on holiday and so when I cook my pizza on Sundays I can experiment with making bread. This ready-mixed stuff should make it easier.

And what I didn’t do is spend any money in Centrakor or Les Bonnes Affaires – and that must be an event worth recording too – it’s probably never happened before.

The swimming baths at Neris les Bains were crowded but it was all good fun. So hot was it that the sides of the baths were opened to the air. And I had to wait ages for my private shower – there was a queue.

A report on the other new toys – the SatNav and the new electric coolbox from Tuesday.

  • The satnav doesn’t display the speed at which I’m travelling and doesn’t have an audible speed alarm.

    That’s a major issue. It’s not half as good as the LIDL one, wherever that might have gone to. But apart from that it does everything else that it’s supposed to.

    And strange as it might seem, when I switched it to American English I was reunited with my old friend the Lady Who Lives in the Magellan SatNav that I bought in Canada. Yes, it is she. It’s just like old times now in Caliburn, with me, she and Strawberry Moose.

    I’m half-expecting Casey – the Chrysler PT Cruiser from Canada – to turn up next.

  • The coolbox is impressive.

    An ice-cream left in there for over an hour was still unfrozen – and that was inside the cab of Caliburn with the outside temperature of over 30 degrees.

    The frozen stuff had defrosted after 5 hours but was still pretty cold, and so I suppose that this is doing what it is supposed to.

    I’ll wire that permanently into Caliburn now and they can live happily ever after.

Tomorrow morning I’m helping Marianne at Roche d’Agoux, there’s the brocante at Arpheuilles-Saint-Priest, – first of the year, and then there’s the new water system to fix.

Good job I had the day off on Friday.

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Saturday 28th May 2011 – The first thing …

… that I remembered this morning was the usual cacophony of bells and whistles and the like. Second thing was the boulangère outside. And I hadn’t left her any money and I wanted to see her to cancel the bread while I’m away. Ahhh well.

And so after a leisurely morning of not doing much it was off to Commentry. And no OSB in the DiY place either. That’s a blow. I’ll have to use one piece of anything that I’ve got around here and then get the rest in the UK. But they did have a bundle of coving stuff there – end of series and the like – all for €3:00 and so that ended up in the back of Caliburn.

At the Bonnes Affaires I bought another one of the huge casseroles with lids, and that will be the beichstuhl for outside, when I come back.

And at the swimming baths at Neris something quite unusual happened. I was there before it opened and in the queue in front of me was a young kid. When she got to the ticket office to pay, the attendant asked her how old she was.

She was 11, so she said, and the age limit for an unaccompanied child is 12, so the attendant turfed her out. The kid burst into tears and so, feeling quite sorry for her, I found myself saying to the attendant “that’s ok – I’ll keep an eye on her”

When I was the stepfather to Roxanne we used to go to the swimming baths every week. I taught her to swim and to do lots of other aquatic things too and we used to have a great time there. It was something that I really missed after I split up with her mother – I was such a good dad to her, I reckon – and so with this girl we had the same kind of fun in the swimming baths. I taught her to do somersaults underwater, to swim on her back, and then we did a quick 12 lengths of the pool, and it’s quite a long one too and I was shattered. I have to say that I haven’t had so much fun for ages. It’s what I really miss, doing something useful and productive.

But just imagine that in the UK!

simca aronde commentry allier franceAnd while I was at Neris-les-Bains I encoutered another old car from the early 1960s parked up outside the swimming baths. The Simca Aronde was one of the most popular cars of its size in France during the 50s and early 60s, selling almost one and a half million examples, and there are still quite a few about here and there.

This is a P60 model, launched in 1959 and manufactured up until 1964. This one here is in surprisingly good condition for its age and looked really nice.

Tomorrow it’s the final matches of the season. We have Pionsat’s 1st XI, having blown their season last week, playing against Manzat who are already relegated. That’s at 15:00. That clashes with Marcillat’s 1st XI playing Commentry, but Marcillat’s 2nd XI are playing at 13:00, also at home, and so I reckon I’ll go there first and make a good day of it.

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