Category Archives: Gong Drummer

Saturday 20th March 2010 – One thing about the warm weather that we are having…

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire neuf eglise les guis virlet puy de dome france… is that the footy can recommence. And in the balmy spring weather we had two matches tonight. The 2nd XI played Neuf-Eglise and ground out a 0-0 draw. The second half particularly seemed to go on on for ever and I think that most of the supporters had fallen asleep by the final whistle – I know that I had

The second match was against Artonne and keen followers of my blog may recall the away match back in November which was controversial in the extreme, to say the least. It was refereed by the ref who had the attack of the hysterics against the Miners back in October so fireworks would be guaranteed, one would have thought.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire as artonne les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut instead we had a lamb-like performance from everyone(except the Pionsat no14 who was sent off for two yellow cards) and Pionsat ran out 2-0 winners. I don’t think anyone was expecting that.

For the rest of today, nothing much happened. I did my shopping in St Eloy and didn’t get anything out of the ordinary, except for the seeds I was missing. I went round to see Claude and Francoise but they weren’t there. According to the neighbour they’d gone down to the South of France for a week to see Sandrine, their daughter. Hmmmm.

I did encounter Bob from Montaigut. He’s a Brit and managed to get a job with a French company as an employee. I managed to persuade him to come onto our radio programme some time and talk to us about the French working environment.

And that was that, really.

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Saturday 12th December 2009 – Never mind the …

first snow 2009 les guis virlet puy de dome france… snows of winter covering our land,, I have the first snows of winter covering my water butts. Not very much, I agree, but snow just the same. And more is forecasted for tonight and tomorrow. I’m stocked up with wood and gas and food so I don’t care.

This morning was another morning where I only vaguely heard the alarm and I woke up properly at 09:21. Mind you I was having a very exciting dream – I’d killed two people and I was having everyone in a house sleeping on Ford Cortina rear seats while I was off to Chester to look for an ex-girlfriend. I tell you what – my dreams are much more exciting than real life.

Shopping today wasn’t very exciting though and LIDL didn’t have anything special, although I bumped into Robert the drummer and his wife. I remembered to go to the library though and ascertained everything that I needed to know about joining. They have a reasonable selection of books on the area and I reckon that I might spend my Saturday afternoons after shopping in the library making notes on things in the area so I can update my website.

Rhys and I were talking about this the other nigbt – there’s tons of stuff on the web about all kinds of things but firstly much of its authenticity is sometimes doubtful, and there’s a considerable volume of knowledge that hasn’t made it to the net. I regularly search for old and obsolete history and travel books to glean facts about places that I’ve visited so I can add things to my travel web pages. For some reason there doesn’t seem to be a big market in second-hand books of that nature in France.

fcpsh football club de foot ,pionsat st hilaire bromont lamotheTonight I was at the footy. There were two matches, the 2nd XI against Biollet St Maurice and the 1st XI against Bromont Lamothe. As well as goals we had all sorts of other things that really have no place on a football field. Both Bromont and Pionsat’s 1st XI finished with 10 on the pitch – Pionsat’s 11th player being carried off and Bromont’s 11th player being ordered off and had there been an official referee for the Biollet game, Biollet would have been lucky to have finished with anyone on the pitch.

But I’ve been invited to attend the football club’s annual dinner, which is very nice of them and I appreciate the gesture. I can bring a friend too – I just wish that I had one 🙁

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Monday 16th November 2009 – This evening I had to go into Montaigut en Combraille …

church montaigut en combraille… to return a guitar lead to Robert the drummer. I’d borrowed one from him to try out this Carlsbro combo that I bought. Where he lives is just 20 yards from the town church, and it was looking so nice bathed in the orange lamps of the square that I reckoned it was worth a photo.

Montaigut is a deceptive town, there’s a main road that runs right through the middle of it and that road carries a great deal of heavy traffic – it’s the N144, the main road between Montlucon and Clermont Ferrand. It looks dirty and dingy and full of abandoned shops and houses.

But the main road was only built through it in the 1920s. Prior to that all of the traffic passed through the real centre of the town, the centre that most people don’t even know exists. It was formerly a mediaeval walled city complete with castle (now long-demolished) and narrow winding mediaeval streets that are difficult to walk through, never mind drive through.

This morning I set the alarm – for the first time in 12 days – but it was still difficult to crawl out of my stinking pit. And I started on a desultory tidying-up. I’ve found some more scaffolding buried in the undergrowth and all kinds of bits and pieces. I’m busy sorting out the wood that we ripped off the roof, seeing what is salveable and what is just fit for burning.

I’ve also added another compost bin – we have a black plastic dustbin with an old caravan window over the top. You might be wondering what I’m doing with this but it concerns the beichstuhl arrangements. I shan’t go into the gory details as you are probably eating but if you remember back a few weeks ago, it involves a plant pot, a load of biodegradable bin liners and the fact that I’m a vegan. Keeping the soil fertility going is quite important.

Tonight is the 3rd Monday of the month and that’s when we meet at the hotel at St Eloy. A sign on the door said “back at 19:00” but by 19:40 we were fed up of waiting and so we went to the bar down the road instead. It seems that Mark is something of an expert at pointing stonework using chalk. Terry has asked him to give him some lessons so Mark is going round there on Thursday morning. I’m always keen to learn whatever I can at times like this so I’m going round there too. After all, my place is in need of a good pointing too and so I’ll make a point of learning all I can.

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Wednesday 4th November 2009 – Well, folks – here it is!

attic finishedAnd about time too, I hear you say. One attic duly completed (more or less).

If you look very closely you can see that all of the skirting board is fitted, even in the little cupboard. And the room was emptied and brushed out by 18:15 too.

Tomorrow is going to be cleaning and tidying, and then moving in. And I’m going to have 10 days off and put my feet up to relax.

It goes without saying that a great big thanks is due to Terry, who came along, got me motivated and got me started on the roof back in July.

A big thanks too goes to Liz, who kept me going with supplies of vegan chocolate cake, to Dave who came to join in for a couple of days, and also to Rhys and Krys who kept me at it with loads of virtual cyber-support.

attic no roof no floorAnd we really put our backs into it too. It’s very hard to imagine that it was only on the 18th of July that the attic looked like this.

So here’s a little quiz to keep you all going until tomorrow.

I said that tomorrow I’m moving into the attic once I’ve cleaned it. The bed-settee, the desk and the coffee table are already up there. What you have to do is to guess which domestic item is going to be the first to be moved up there from anywhere else. An easy one if you know me – not so easy if you don’t.

As for this evening, we had an exciting jam session in a living room in Montaigut. I took the acoustic bass as I don’t have an amp and speaker for the Gibson but I needn’t have bothered – the living room was like something out of a who stage set, complete with soundproof room for the drums. Michael had only ever played once before with other people – I haven’t played with anyone else for about 30 years, but the drummer would have been out of my league even back in those days. His mane won’t mean anything to you but he was formerly the drummer in Gong – Daevid Allen and Pierre Malherbe’s group from the 1970s. Strangely enough, he’s interested in getting together again so when Michael comes back from the UK I’m going to teach him the basics of 12-bar blues and we’ll take it from there.

Meantime I need to talk to Trixi about some singing lessons. Last time I had to sing in a rock band Sue Willett gave me some lessons and some tips – but I’ve forgotten those.

What a day!

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