Sunday 19th October 2014 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST OF COURSE …

… and so I was in no hurry to leave my comfy, clean bed. In fact I was on my travels. I was in Stoke on Trent at the home of someone whom I knew, and he, Zero who was also there and I were discussing the stuff that I was taking with me to Canada. I had three or four bottles in my suitcase, each with liquid inside them and I passed them to my friend so that he could see how heavy they were – much heavier than they seemed. While some of the stuff was useful, I couldn’t understand why I was taking two bottled of water with me when I could obtain water over there.

So this morning I carried on with some more radio stuff after breakfast, and after lunch I went to Villosanges to watch Pionsat’s 1st XI play the Chimps.

Pionsat needed to win this game but with just 11 players out on the field, no recognised goalkeeper (here we go again) and no substitutes, it as an uphill struggle. Once Cedric was carried off with torn ligaments after half an hour, the team just folded up and were easily beaten by a team that they should have had dead and buried. It’s a sad reflection of the club that this sort of thing still happens. I’ve no idea what is going on out there right now.

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Saturday 18th October 2014 – GUESS WHAT …

… I’ve been doing this morning!

You’re right.

It was a bright, breezy morning with not a cloud in the sky and so straight after breakfast I went into Pionsat with the cover off the bed-settee. An hour later I was back, with the cleanest bed settee cover that I have ever had. That 18kg machine at the Intermarché works a treat, especially at €8:00 a time including soap.

Of course, you have to wait on the car park while the machine is working and you would be amazed at the number of people who go into the Intermarche in just that time. It’s quite a little goldmine there, especially as the woman who owns it has really done her research, with the amount of British and Dutch produce that’s on sale there.

I even ended up talking to Marianne, whom I haven’t seen since February. She was there doing her shopping too.

This afternoon I started work on the radio programmes for the next month and then later on tonight went back to Pionsat to watch FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI play Montfermy.

That was an exciting match too, with a couple of new players this season including a real goalkeeper who had a good game. Pionsat won 2-0 without really breaking sweat. Kevin scored the first following a good ball across the defence that beat the offside trap, and a short corner from Vincent to Matthieu caught the entire Montfermy team asleep and Matthieu had a simple volley into the net.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI are now top of the table for the moment, and well-worth it too because they really did look like it tonight, and about time too.

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Friday 17th October 2014 – IT’S ALL EXCITEMENT HERE.

Yes, it’s all happening here at Pionsat.

intermarche launderette pionsat puy de dome franceI went a’shopping this afternoon at Pionsat on my way home, and look what I found in a lean-to on the car park at the Intermarché.

Yes, Pionsat now has its own launderette. Not much of a one, that’s for sure, but a launderette just the same. And not only that, there’s a 18kg machine here. That’s good news for me because I haven’t washed the cover on my bed settee in the five years that I’ve had it because I’ve not found a machine big enough to take it since the launderette in Montlucon closed down all those years ago.

And so on the next fine day that we have when I’m at home, guess what I’ll be doing?

And so I did say “on my way home”. That’s because I’ve been out and about this morning. Terry rang me up to ask if I could help him cut some wood.

gorges de la sioule st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceIt was a warm morning today, and with all of the dampness that we’ve had these last few days, it wasn’t difficult to guess where the Gorge de la Sioule is. There is the mist gradually rising up out of the Gorge and dissipating into the atmosphere.

It certainly makes a good photograph, especially in the early morning.

birdwatching centre ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceThe photo was taken from the birdwatching centre at St Gervais d’Auvergne, and I wasn’t alone here either. There was a pile of other photographers here admiring the view, although I’m not quite sure what it was that was of such an interest to them.

Still, chacun à son gout as they say around here.

Terry and I chopped up a good pile of wood this morning and Liz made a good lunch for us. Then they went off to the dentist and I came home, via the Intermarché at Pionsat.

Back here, I carried on with the tidying up and despite all that I’ve been doing, I can’t see any improvement, and I can’t see any empty space either. I don’t know why this should be, but there we are.

I’ll just have to keep on at it until something happens or that I die of boredom.

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Thursday 16th October 2014 – THIS WAS ANOTHER MORNING …

… when it was difficult to haul myself out of the stinking pit. I’m not doing too well at this.

After breakfast, I started on some work for the radio programmes and prepared a live concert for the rock programmes for Radio Anglais. This concert is not so easy to prepare as it consists of live recordings from a variety of different concerts and I’ve had to edit them together to mke a seamless performance. We ended up being a good few minutes short and I found a studio track to fill the gap so I had to edit in some applause and links. The lengths that I have to go through for my listeners, but it’s worth it because it’s made quite a good concert and I’m impressed with the editing.

After lunch I attacked a huge pile of errant papers and most of them have ended up in the bin. I there was, however, some good stuff that would do quite nicely for the radio programmes so I’ve cut them out to save for later.

I’ve also been editing the kitchen equipment that is up here too. I can’t think why I have half of it up here as I don’t need anything like this much.

This evening I crashed out again for another half hour or so and then I had another go at the aubergine and kidney bean casserole. It’s nice not having to cook much when I have a pile of that.

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Wednesday 15th October 2014 – I WAS SOMEWHAT DISTRACTED …

…today and didn’t accomplish anything like what I intended to do.

It’s difficult to raise myself out of bed at the moment, particularly as it was another 04:00 night (or early morning) last night by the time that I had finished what I was doing. But after breakfast I made a start (or, rather, carried on) with some work that had been backing up for quite some time on the computer.

Rosemary rang me up during the afternoon – she wants to take a rain-check on our shopping trip as she has the roofers round. Her roof was badly damaged in that hailstorm last year and she’s had an emergency tarpaulin over it since then. The insurance company’s roofers have been executing their clients in strict rotation, and they’ve now appeared at Rosemary’s. Naturally, after all this time, she doesn’t want to slow them up now that they’ve finally arrived.

I stopped work at about 19:00 (yes, I was rather carried away by what I was doing) when the battery went flat again in the laptop (there’ no doubt that this little Acer Aspire notebook and its 5 or 6 hours of battery life was a magnificent purchase) to watch a DVD, but crashed out in the middle and I’ve no idea why because it wasn’t as if I had been doing anything exhausting.

I made one of my huge aubergine and kidney-bean casseroles for tea – and as usual there’s enough left over for another three meals and that saves me having to cook for the next few days, which is always a useful idea.

After tea, it was back on the laptop again to carry on all of this sorting out of files. I’m not sure where all of this will finish but so far I’ve liberated about 10GB of space on the hard drive and many of the files are much easier to find now. If I carry on like this, I shan’t know myself.

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Tuesday 14th October 2014 – THIS JET LAG THING …

… is still affecting me and I’ve no idea why. Last night, it was 05:00 when I finally went to bed. And had Terry not telephoned me at about 10:30 to come round and pick up some things from here, I would probably still be in bed even now.

But anyway, seeing as I was up, I was up and I had a leisurely breakfast and watched a film on the DVD – Rio Bravo, one of my favourite Westerns and another one in which the actors are more intent on having a good time than they are on focusing on the script and the stage direction. Of course, it’s the kind of thing that only good actors can get away with.

This afternoon, the clearing up started and by the time that it went dark, I had no fewer than 10 bin-bags of clothes prepared for recycilng. And that’s not all either as there are three dustbins full of clothes in the barn plus a few items of clothes elsewhere. I can’t believe how much rubbish that I’ve actually managed to accumulate here – there’s even stuff that I remember buying in the UK before I met Nerina, and that’s 30-odd years ago. Still, it’s all ready now to be transported to the local clothes recycling bin.

Something else that I can’t believe is that despite all of this, there still doesn’t seem to be very much difference in the amount of space taken up in here. It’s as if nothing whatever has been moved or emptied. But then my tidying up is always like that. If it looks any different from before, it’s usually that it’s more untidy, with having to move all kinds of stuff around in order to get at what i’m looking for.

I rang up Rosemary as well in the evening. On Saturday I’m going to be taking all of these unwanted clothes to Montlucon and to do some shopping too, as it seems that I’ve run out of oats and things like that. Rosemary is always game for a wander around the shops so I invited her to accompany me, which makes a nice change.

And then I finished off the vegan lasagne that Liz had given me in a doggie-bag the other day. That was tea, and then I settled down to see what was happening in the big wild world.

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Monday 13th October 2014 – WE WERE RADIOING TODAY

Yes, it didn’t take me long to get back into the routine, did it?

And with a reasonably-early night I managed to be up and about by 10:15 too, without the benefit of the alarm. And that gave me an hour or so to do a few things around here first.

Many of you who read the rubbish that I write elsewhere will know that I have a thing about clouds and how they reflect the skyline underneath when passing over mountainous areas.

clouds reflecting skyline puy de sancy puy de dome franceThis was quite apparent today as you can see in this photo of the Puy de Sancy taken from my favourite little spec at the bird-watching site near St Gervais.

We’ve had a fair amount of rain just recently so the sky is quite humid. Here sure enough, the moisture has condensed where the air has had to rise up over the mountains and formed clouds that reflect almost exactly the skyline underneath.

We had more vegan lasagne for lunch and then went off to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais sessions for Radio Arverne. And just for a change, everyone was ready and everything passed off without incident. We were in and out in just an hour and 10 minutes.

While we were there, the weather had changed and we were in the rain on the way back. Liz gave me a doggy bag of leftover vegan lasagne and ginger cake, and I came back here to plot my next move.

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Sunday 12th October 2014 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… that you have heard of someone waking up at 16:30 in the afternoon? Well, you’ve heard of it now.

There are three reasons for this.
Firstly, jet-lag counts for a lot of it, even though I’d tried my best to deal with this
Secondly, I should never have had that final cup of coffee at Liz and Terry’s. That didn’t help
Thirdly, with the internet back on, I had a lot to do and I ended up being somewhat carried away.
As a result of all of this, I had the dubious distinction of hearing the alarm clock ring to wake me up before I’d even gone to bed to sleep.

Dawn had long-since broken when I went downstairs to switch off the inverter and take the statistics. There was a high wind blowing too and the big wind turbine on the barn was going round like the clappers. That’s always nice to see. I wired in the 12-volt immersion heater too before I went to bed. If there’s any surplus energy, I want to lay my hands on some of that for sure.

On waking up, I wasn’t sure whether to have breakfast or lunch. Anyway, I decided on breakfast, which saves me having to look for extra bread for Monday.

And then I started on the tidying up – or at least, some of it. I decided while I was away that I need to be much more ruthless here with the stuff that I own and that I’m never ever likely to use. There’s reams of stuff that is simply junk and needs to be disposed of. And there’s other good stuff too that is never ever going to be used and I could generate some income from that if I stick it on the internet.

There wasn’t much time to do very much however, as you have no idea how quickly it’s going dark these days, sO it’s not even correct to say that i’ve made a start.

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Saturday 11th October 2014 – BACK TO THE DAILY GRIND

I was on my travels again last night, and it was once more with the guitarist/singer and drummer with whom I played for a couple of years in the mid-70s and who have been featuring rather a lot just recently in these pages.

We were in a pub in Liverpool sitting at a table waiting for things to happen before we went on stage and who should come and sit next to us but John Wetton. He’s a bassist/singer of no little repute, having appeared in several supergroups of the 70s and early 80s and though while he’s not on my list of top-10 bassists, I was still relishing having a good chat with him and maybe even getting him onstage with us in some capacity.

But for some unknown reason, the other two were being rather abusive and offensive to him and after a couple of minutes he left. I was quite upset at that because it’s not every day that one has the opportunity to be in the intimate presence of a superstar.

With all of those issues having been dealt with, I heaved myself out of my stinking pit and set about making breakfast. That wasn’t as easy as it might have been either, because I couldn’t remember where the coffee was, and I couldn’t remember which glass I used for my orange juice, all that kind of thing. It’s astonishing how, after just 45 days away from home, how much of my old routine that I have forgotten.

And talking of being back in the routine, once breakfast was out of the way I sat down and started work on the next batch of Radio Anglais stuff. And happy that I’d dealt with the shopping issues yesterday, I could have a really good whack at it. Three or four hours of uninterrupted work and I’d written four programmes – a mere 2774 words. When you can find the rhythm, it’s easy to understand how it was that people like Enid Blyton and Earl Stanley Gardner could knock off 5,000 or 6,000 words in a day on a consistent basis if they could be totally uninterrupted (except for someone serving up mugs of hot coffee on a regular basis too).

By now though, the weather had cleared and the sun was shining. That was something that was quite uexpected, but welcome nevertheless. We even, just for a fleeting moment, had an overcharge of electricity and I wish that I had thought on and reconnected the 12-volt immersion heater.

Later on in the afternoon, I went round to Liz and Terry’s. This was to rehearse the radio programmes because Liz is going to be busy tomorrow, and we also had a lovely vegan lasagne followed by vegan ginger cake. You’ve no idea how well Liz and Terry look after me.

Back home, I did a few more things on the computer and, just as I was about to settle down for an early night the internet suddenly sprang back into life. I restarted the computer and settled down to something of a long night. I had plenty of work to do.

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Friday 10th October 2014 – I MUST HAVE BEEN TIRED LAST NIGHT.

10:45 when I heaved myself out of the stinking pit, and had the ‘phone not rung downstairs at that time, I would probably still be there now. Terry said that he had never known anyone sleep that long, which just goes to show that he’s clearly not kept himself up-to-date with these pages, and that he’s never gone two days with just a fitful doze or two in between. But then again, my lifestyle has always been somewhat extreme compared to the norm, I suppose. Not many people would put up for a minute with what I do just for pleasure.

After breakfast, we had a long chat about things around here and when Liz came back we had lunch. Then, on their way to see Rob and Julie, they dropped me off here.

Caliburn started with just a glance at the ignition key – good old Caliburn – but we are having some issues here right now. I have (once again) left the fridge plugged in permanently while I was away, instead of in the overcharge circuit, and so with the bad weather for the last three or four days that they have had here, the batteries are right down. And with the forecast weather for the next few days, there won’t be much chance of topping things up for a while so I’ll be on short rations again. I really must remember to sort out the fridge properly each time that I go away. I did exactly the same thing last year, you might remember.

The battery in the laptop went flat after a couple of hours’ work and so I was wondering how to charge it up. By then of course, it was late afternoon and in the pouring rain I wasn’t going to be doing much else so the idea came to my mind to go to St Eloy to do my shopping. It would fill in the time this evening, save me a journey tomorrow, give Caliburn an airing and also charge up the laptop. Problem solved. Wasn’t I glad that I had bought that 12-volt charging lead a few months ago?

At LIDL I met Amondine from the Anglo-French group. She was there with her children doing her shopping and we had quite a chat. All in all, at the shops, I spent €21 for a week’s supply of food. That’s much more like old times.

Back here, the internet is down, so I discovered. Dunno what has happened here. I just did a few other bits and pieces and went for an early night. I’ll resolve this issue tomorrow.

Or maybe some other time.

I dunno.

But as Barry Hay once famously said at a concert at Scheveningen Beach, “I’ll tell you one thing, man. It’s good to be back home”.

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Thursday 9th October 2014 – WELL, I WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING.

I missed the connection at Brussels.

And not by 5 or 10 minutes either, but by a whopping couple of hours too. It took all night to evacuate this ill person and her baggage and we were about a couple of hours late before we took to the sky.

The flight itself and the food were excellent but the in-flight entertainment was rather rubbish. There wasn’t a single film that I was interested in seeing. On the Sports Channel however there was the World Cup semi-final between Brazil and Germany from 2014- the match where in a devastating spell of just 6 minutes half-way through the first half the Germans totally demolished the Brazilians.

At Brussels, those of us with onward journeys to attend to had to regroup in order to see what they airline had in store for us. For me, they could move me onwards to Paris via … errrr … Frankfurt am Main. That was clearly out of the question. However, there was one person who was flying on to Lyon and so that gave me an idea. When I was at Montreal I heard them call an Air Transat flight to Lyon and while I’m not overly impressed with Air Transat, I still put into the back of my mind the idea to go around to the airport at Lyon to see what I could see and to spy out the land.

This seemed like the opportunity and so I made the appropriate noises at the airport staff. There was indeed flight to Lyon but at 17:00 in the afternoon, meaning that I had 5 hours to kill. A meal voucher for €16:00 to compensate me in part for the inconvenience meant that I could have a meal but even that voucher only made a slight hole in the price of the meal, prices in Belgium being what they are. But nevertheless, the choices of meal here seem to be better than what was on offer when I was stranded at Paris Charles de Gaulle last year.

zaventam brussels national airport belgium october 2014For the rest of my stay in Brussels, I also took the opportunity to go for a wander around the airport, inside and outside. It’s been a long time, 9 years in fact, since I’ve been here and there was a time when I was here a couple of times a week, back in the good old days.

So braving the horrendous weather outside, because it really was bad outside, I went for a look around.

zaventam brussels national airport belgium october 2014There have been some tremendous changes to the airport in this time. Outside, there’s an enormous amount of redevelopment and much of the old building is being swept away and replaced ith more modern stuff.

There have been even more changes inside the place. A huge programme of expansion has taken place with all kinds of new terminals and departure gates and I do have to admit that it is quite a significant leg-up from how it all used to be in the past.

The plane to Lyon was one of these small 70-seater things with about 40 passengers on it. The flight took a quite reasonable 75 minutes which wasn’t bad at all, even if there was no special meal for me. That came as no surprise seeing as how I’d chopped and changed from one flight to another – it can’t be helped. I was glad that I had had a meal at Zaventam. And descending into Lyon through a thunderstorm, we were being tossed around like a cork on the ocean. Not for the faint-hearted, this descent.

Lyon was a very nice airport, quite modern and up-to-date, and the tram connection to town, quite shockingly expensive at €15:70, was nevertheless straighforward and direct, to right opposite the main railway station in town. No issues whatever with this at all (apart from the cost of course).

The ticket for the train to Riom cost a mere €16:00 with my senior citizen’s railcard (and that puts into perspective the astonishing price of the tram ticket) but there was a wait of 100 minutes for my train. No mind – it gave me an opportunity to look around outside the station. In the square behind the railway station there were all kinds of food shops, including a Subway sandwich store so I grabbed a foot-long vegetarian and orange juice there – that was tea sorted out.

Further investigation revealed that just a 10-minute stagger away from here is one of these Premier Class tourist hotels. A modern unit-type hotel with en-suite facilities.

So the verdict on Lyon as a departure point for Montreal? Well, even if the only flight offered is an Air Transat service, then I am no longer going to struggle all of the way out to Paris Charles de Gaulle. Apart from the tram fare, everything else that I would need is right here in front of me at Lyon, much more so than at the airport hotels in Paris. There will also be a saving of over €200 on my travelling costs and that, dear reader, is all that you need to know.

The train to Riom presented no problems whatever, and Terry was there to meet me at the station. Liz and Terry offered me a bed for the night, for which I was extremely grateful, and I was out like a light. It had been a long day.

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Wednesday 8th October 2014 – HAD IT NOT BEEN …

… for the driving rain that started to pelt down at about 05:00 this morning, this would have been another one of the best nights’ sleeps that I have ever had, for I was well gone. Another one of these totally painless nights.

motorway service area highway 40 repentigny berthierville quebec canada september 2014Regular readers of this rubbish will certainly recognise this spec, that’s for sure. This is the motorway service area between Repentigny and Berthierville, the one that’s on an island in between the two carriageways and I’ve slept here on a couple of occasions in the past.

So wide awake at something like 06:30, I sorted out a great pile of paperwork and that took me up to about 08:30. Then I headed for a coffee and an internet connection to upload everything to the web.

Once all of that had been dealt with, I went off to my storage unit and carried on with part II of the tidying in there. Rather cramped it might be, but there’s enough space for three or four more large storage boxes, if I am so inclined, although it is my intention to reduce rather than increase the quantity of stuff in there.

I also spoke to a couple of salesmen. One of them is selling these factory-built wooden houses and the other one is selling tents that pop up on the back of a pick-up, both of which could be extremely useful in the future as far as I am concerned.

From here, it was off to the car wash where I had the very … errr … interesting spectacle of watching two of the workers fight each other. Quite animated they were too, and it gave me something to do while I waited for the Dodge. And for just $30, they made it look as if it had just come out of the showroom. I’ve always been impressed with their service.

However, the tape that I had been using to hold the insulation onto the windows left all of its traces behind. That meant a trip to Home Depot and the purchase of a cheap paint scraper. Just $1:95 and half an hour’s elbow grease and you couldn’t see any of that either.

At the airport, handing the Dodge in was quite painless, as was (just for a change) passing through the border inspection. And it was here that our problems really began. The strong gale-force winds had slowed down the aeroplane on its inward journey and even by take-off time for us, it still hadn’t arrived.

It eventually turned up and we all rushed aboard, but someone was then taken ill and had to be evacuated and their luggage removed from the ‘plane. That looks like my connection at Brussels going up the chute and we’ll see how we sort it all out from here.

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Monday 6th October 2014 – IT’S A GOOD JOB …

ferry st lawrence riviere du loup st simeon quebec canada september 2014… that I wasn’t planning on going over to the Charlevoix. I pulled into Riviere-du-Loup just in time to see the ferry to St Simeon steaming out of the harbour.

Mind you it would have been nice to have been on it, but frankly I hadn’t given the matter any thought at all.

And yes, I’m now back on the road having a leisurely drive back to the airport at Montreal. I can’t believe that my time in North America is drawing to a close already.

I was up early and that gave me an opportunity to say goodbye to everyone here. I’ve been here in Centreville for over a week and that’s not like me at all. Normally, there are places to go, things to do and people to see, but I seem to have gone to ground this year.

I had some recording work to do for Rachel and then went up to the tyre depot to say goodbye to everyone there. And then I hit the road.

The Trans-Canada Highway took me up to the mountains where I stopped for lunch (and a little doze in the sunlight too if I were honest) and then down to the shores of the St Lawrence. At Riviere du Loup, I bought a new storage box to replace the mangy cardboard ones that I’ve had since 2011 and also a $100 telephone recharge. That’ll keep my number active for 12 months by which time I’ll (hopefully) be back. It was extraordinarily difficult to have the phone accept the payment and in the end I had to telephone customer services. That’s not like me, but I suspect that the touch screen in the telephone is on its way out.

I drove along the autoroute following the southern shore of the St Lawrence, but leaving at Riviere-Ouelle for a tofu ice cream (we’ve talked about these before) and then back on the highway. As it grew dark I came to a rest area and this will do me for the night. Rachel had given me the rest of the curry and so that did me nicely for tea, and then I watched a film before having an early night – my last-but-one in North America for the moment.

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Sunday 5th October 2014 – ANOTHER DAY OF REST

Or, at least, it should have been. But Amber had a couple of friends around for a sleepover and so round about 07:30 we had a herd of elephants stampeding around the house. And as I sleep underneath the TV room, then by about 07:31 I was wide-awake. So much for my long lie-in after yesterday’s efforts.

By about 10:00 everyone else was awake and we had a nice, long breakfast brunch en famille and once we had finished (and it wasn’t a five-minute affair either) I did … errr … absolutely nothing at all except have a hot shower and help Rachel with a few tasks around the house. And in return, Rachel made me a delicious curry for tea, and that went down well.

Well, that’s not really true. One of the girls brought a cake-making set for Amber – the type that you cook in the oven in small cups, put sticks in and then pour chocolate over the top. Amber had some difficulty melting the chocolate and so I became involved. A bain-marie and some cold water and I made quite a good liquid chocolate for her cakes.

That was everything, and I was in bed by 22:30 for an early night. I can’t say that I didn’t deserve it. I have to be up early tomorrow.

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