… are absolutely stunning and one thing about following the football team is that I get taken to all kinds of places that I wouldn’t normally visit.
Today the 1st XI were playing at Artonne. That’s a small town down between Aigueperse and Riom. The main road – the N144 – goes between Montlucon and Clermont-Ferrand and basically follows the eastern edge of the Combrailles – the mountain range where I live. To the east is the Plain of the Limagne and then the Monts de la Bourbonnaise – the area where the Bourbon kings of France originated.
But between Combronde on the N144 and Aigueperse, the first town of any importance in the Limagne is an outcrop of the Combrailles and in places it has some of the most beautiful views in the area.
So beautiful as the views might be, that is much more than can be said for the football, which showed one of its more ugly sides this afternoon. Pionsat’s players are mostly of small stature and rely on speed rather than strength and when they come up against big physical sides they can be quite intimidated. But today they let their football do the talking and won quite comfortably 4-1, whereas Artonne did their talking with their mouths and on two occasions with their fists and ended up with just 9 players on the pitch by the final whistle.
Still it was nice to be out and about even though the rain has been persistent for most of the day. A grey drizzly dismal November Sunday. I’m still waiting for a sunny day as I have tons of washing to do. It’s hard to believe how much the weather has changed over these last two or three weeks
