Category Archives: quinssaines

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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