Sunday 6th July 2014 – WITH IT BEING SUNDAY …

… I’ve done pretty-much badger all today. However my plans for a long lie-in all came to naught as the most terrific storm woke me up at about 06:30. We’ve had about 11mm of rain today.

I managed to hold on until about 09:30 and then I was obliged to rise, for the “usual reasons” and that was that.

After breakfast I watched a DVD until about 12:30 and then I spent the next couple of hours bringing the blog right up to date.

This afternoon I’ve been working on a computer program. When I bought my new laptop I downloaded an updated version of one that I use. And it turns out that most of the add-ons written by third-party developers don’t work with it. I’ve been meaning to look into this for ages and so this afternoon I set to. It involved using the hard-drive out of the laptop from three years ago (thank heavens for caddies) and a lot of fiddling around.

When you are searching for the files, the options for the old version’s file extensions is not given and, much to my surprise, there’s no “all files” option. But I eventually worked out that if you type *.(the old file extension) into the “open file” dialogue box, then sure enough the required files are displayed.

There are still some that are missing but nevertheless this is serious progress and my Sunday afternoon was not wasted after all.

-1

Saturday 5th July 2014 – WHAT A NIGHT

I had something of a disturbed night last night – tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable for much of it. Probably the torrential rain pounding off Caliburn’s roof had much to do with this because there was plenty of that during the night.

Mind you, I wasn’t here for much of it. I was with the daughter of a woman who was at the University where I studied and I was persuading her to elope with me. We ended up fleeing up to Canada, Montreal in fact and I was persuading this girl that we would be fine there. Estate Agents worked on commission from the owners and once they knew what kind of property we were after and what our budget was, they would move heaven and earth to find us somewhere.

We were with Darren and Rachel and at least three other people and telling this agent what we wanted. I explained that we were not expecting to find somewhere at Astoria (did I mean Anjou, my favourite suburb of Montreal?) or in another suburb the name of which I can’t remember but we didn’t want an inner city place and we needed space to park a few cars.

I took this girl on a tour of the suburbs, some of them quite expensive, and I remember our discussion being punctuated by me saying “ohh look, there’s a Ford Consul” and that kind of thing.

So having dealt with these issues I finally managed to wake up and make myself a coffee. Then I hit the road.

At least, just as far as Nantua, when a most unusual lorry stopped me in my tracks. A Willeme it is, a marque that I have never heard of before.

The company began just after World War I when a young man bought a job lot of spare parts for American wartime lorries, with the aim of selling them to people who had acquired the wartime lorries. From there he went on to reconditioning the vehicles and then to build his own heavy lorries and tractors for articulated units.

However the company didn’t last all that long. Despite the reputation that his vehicles had for reliability and strength (there was even a tractor unit that could pull 1000 tonnes), the company disappeared in the late 1960s.

I had a pleasant drive through the showers and ended up in Macon. That has a significance for me because in 1970 when I was 16 I spent a summer there as a guest in a French family.

While I was having had a good look around in Macon, I noticed a sign for “Chasselas”. Never mind the “Chateau de Chasselas, hey Josiah?” of the for Yorkshiremen in a Monty Python sketch, Chasselas is a real place and there is a real chateau there with a vinyard and it produces high-quality white wines. And if you want to know how I know, the answer to this is that in 1970 when I was at Macon, I spent a lot of time at the village bar at Chasselas, the home of the aunt of the family with whom I stayed.

The road up to Chasselas passes through some interesting, if not famous countryside, especially if you are connoisseur of grands crus, and also if you know your wine very well.

Just down there are two villages, once called Pouilly and the other called Fuissé and some of the best white wine in the world comes from there, produced from the grapes that you see in the foreground. Way over in the background is the valley of the Saone and the town of Macon.

We’d been to Chasselas, Nerina and I, in 1992 when we went to the south of France in the old Ford Fiasco. The old bar was still there then but it had been converted into a kind of shop, and I forgot to take a photo of it. Seeing as how I was within about 15kms of the place today, off I went.

It’s now a private house as you can see, and there seems to be a little money about the place. And here’s a surprising thing. A woman walking down the road looked as if she might know a thing or two about the old bar and to my complete and utter surprise sje turned out to be the daughter of the owner of the bar. She was about 12 when I was there and I remember her having a terrible crush on me (although I can’t think why). I’m astonished as to how small the world is these days.

So having caught up on old times I went off to the Chateau and disturbed them at lunch in order to buy a crate of Chateau de Chasselas to share amongst my friends. Yes, it’s something of a myth to say that you can never disturb a Frenchman at his lunch – this guy was keen enough to take my money. We also talked about the rain last night. They had had a hailstorm here and much of the harvest was ruined.

Not too far from Chasselas is another place of interest. This is La Roche de Solutre – the Rock of Solutre and incredible though it may seem, I’ve climbed that. Or, at least, I did when I was 16. I don’t know what must have come over me but I do recall being with a bunch of French youths at the time so I didn’t want to let the side down, I suppose.

The story goes that prehistoric man used to herd wild beasts up to the top and push them over the top as a way of killing them to collect the meat. The fact that heaps and heaps of prehistoric animal bones have been found at the foot of the drop is thr reason why this theory has been advanced.

So after that I headed for home via the supermarket at Paray le Monial where I did my week’s shopping.

And here I am. And here I’ll stay – for the next few weeks at least.

-4

Friday 4th July 2014 – WOW

I have never seen rain quite like this. Diving into Lausanne at about 18:30 this evening the sky went the blackest that I have ever seen it. A high wind sprung up out of nowhere and the next minute we got the lot. You haven’t seen anything like this rain because I know that I haven’t.

It was impossible to see more than about 5 yards in front of your face with the rain teeming down and bouncing off the road and every time I put my foot on the brake about 50 litres of water cascaded off Caliburn’s roof down across the windscreen. At least he enjoyed it – he’s not been as clean as this for quite a long time.

The rain was so bad that it was not possible to see any hotels (if there were any at the side of the road) until I reached Geneva and the first hotel that I tried (CHF120) made me give up and I’m now in a layby at Valleiry, somewhere between Annemasse and Bourg-en-Bresse.

I’ll be sleeping in the van tonight again and this has taken some effort to arrange as across the road from my motel last night is the Zurich IKEA and there was a sale on. You’ll have to wait until I unpack before you see what I bought but I spent CHF179:00 there. That’s not including the breakfast that I had there either. For CHF3:50 I had two bread rolls, some jam, some juice and some coffee.

But a word of warning about IKEA in Zurich. You have to pay for the parking, even if you have just spent a fortune in there. That’s something of a rip-off if you ask me.

So that was my morning gone and then I headed off for the border via Luzern, Bern and Lausanne. And a torrential rainstorm. And wih a bit of luck, God’s help and a Bobby, I might even be home tomorrow night.

-5

Thursday 3rd July 2014 – WHEN I SET OUT FROM BENDERN …

… There was 670 kms to travel in order to reach home. By the time I’d done a day’s driving, there is all of 520 kms left to travel and I’m about 10 kms from Zurich airport.

You might wonder how this could possibly be, but it all went wrong about 15 minutes after leaving the hotel. However before I get too far ahead of myself, just as you would expect seeing as how today is the day that I’m moving on, we are having a gorgeous day of clear blue skies and not a cloud in the sky. What a contrast from yesterday when I was walking around in the rain.

So to resume my story, there was a guy in uniform stopping the traffic and interrogating the drivers. Some he was allowing to continue, and others he was directing elsewhere. When it came to my turn he asked me where I was going. When I replied “France”, we had quite an interesting and lengthy discussion of which I caught about one word in 20, but enough to discover that there had been a landslide in the mountain pass that I needed to take. He recommended a diversion over another mountain pass that involved a detour of about 60kms.

Off I said and eventually found myself on a Swiss autoroute – without a vignette of course because I had no intention of driving on the autoroutes here. Realising my mistake I took the next exit, where there was of course a police barrage. Having dealt with that, and luckily the police didn’t notice the absence of vignette, I took the wrong turning at the roundbout and ended up climbing up the side of a mountain.

This turned out to be a dead end, after a drive of 12kms, but at the far end of the car park is one of the best views that I have ever had – 1700-odd metres up in the Alps. The Walensee is down there at the bottom of the valley and way, way in the distance is Lake Zurich.

It was such a gorgeous view and such a lovely day that I sat there for a couple of hours and read a book, being joined for a while by a group of old ladies out for a walk

That took me up to lunchtime quite nicely and so I descended the mountain and found a bakery where I bought myself a loaf.

Next stop was at a layby by the side of the Walensee with a mainline railway line just below me. Here I stopped and made myself a butty and read another book, watching the trains go by. After all, it was far too hot to drive anywhere by now. The temperature was registering 34°C

Heading off towards Zurich I hit the start of the rush-hour traffic and it was stop-start for about 15kms and that got me fed up in the heat.

Looking around for a diversion, I noticed a ferry going across the Lake. As you know by now, I can’t resist a ferry at any time, and in this heat there was no question of anything else.

It was gorgeous on the water with a cool breeze blowing, and it was a shame that the crossing came to an end. Mind you, the traffic had calmed down a little and negotiating the streets of Zurich wasn’t quite as difficult as it might have been.

On the western edge of the city I came across a motel and here I am. A whole day and just 150 kms closer to home. It’ll take me a week to get home at this rate.

-1

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 – THERE MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE EXCITING TIMES …

… at football matches in Liechtenstein in the past if the sign here at the National Stadium is anything to go by.

Who in their right mind would have gone to a football match in the past with a knife, a pair of knuckle dusters, a rocket launcher and a firearm? Not even a Millwall fan I suspect (“and of course, this is three years before Bala Town were drawn to play here in a Europa League match” he added in 2017).

Still, they wouldn’t have put this notice up if they hadn’t had any issues with these in the past. That’s why I reckon that it must have been quite exciting to have watched a match here.

Never mind the football – come here to watch the spectators.

And you have a nice stadium to do it in too. It’s quite modern and comfortable, currently undergoing refurbishment too, and which has a capacity (following the renovations) of 7838.

“Not a lot” you might be thinking. But then again, the population of the town is all of 5429 at the last count, so the inhabitants can have about 1.4 seats each.

So in the pouring rain I crossed the road from Ze Gasthof zum Deutschen Rhein to the bus stop and here’s the bendy bus that brought me into the city of Vaduz. I’m becoming quite adept now at public transport in strange lands.

However, in contrast to everywhere else I’ve been (except the UK of course), I’ll be passing an adverse comment about the bus fare. Despite the minimal sales tax of 8% here in Liechtenstein, it was still CHF4:80 each way.

And it wasn’t just the bus fare either. A pot of coffee cost CHF7:80 and two tomatoes cost CHF1:00. Liechtenstein is definitely not the place to be if you are on a limited budget like Yours Truly.

Mind you, this is one of the richest countries in the world with the second-highest standard of living and the lowest amount of income tax so I suppose that the people can afford it.

So I ambled around the town in the pouring rain and, believe me, it doesn’t take long because there isn’t very much of the town to see. My memories of the place from October 1988 were that it was just two roads – into the centre on one road, do a loop around at the far end, and back out on the other.

It’s very different today because one of the roads has been pedestrianised. So there’s just one road through the town today. And there’s a fair bit of traffic trying to negotiate it.

And Nerina wouldn’t recognise the place either from those days as many of the old buildings that I remember have been ruthlessly carved down and modern monstrosities built in their place.

The royal palace is still perched up there on its cliff, and that is a surprise seeing all of the other changes around here. I would have expected that to have gone too.

Mind you, I wonder what Prince Hans-Adam II, the ruler of the Principality of Liechtenstein, has to say about the changes to his view of the city from the terraces up there.

When they built the Government offices at the beginning of the 20th Century they made a good effort to try to keep something of the Medieval traditions. Today however, there is not even a pretence.

Having “done” the city I went for a walk out of town to the River Rhine. It’s not very far, even in the pouring rain. Formerly the river ran in a meandering course much closer to the city but a disastrous flood in 1860 caused the inhabitants to divert the river away from the city and reinforce the banks.

Canada might well have a preponderance of covered bridges as we all know, but Europe has its share too. I saw one at Lech the other day, and here’s one crossing the Rhine.

By the way – on the other side of the river is Switzerland. So the border is clearly defined. In other places it isn’t, and the Swiss Army has “invaded” Liechtenstein 3 times “by mistake” in recent times.

And why didn’t the Liechtenstein Army fight back? The answer is that it doesn’t have an army (that’s why taxes are so low). Well, it does. It consists of two men – one to fire the rifle and the other one to ask for the bullet back.

By the way, Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in Europe. The Papal Enclave is certainly smaller (we were there in 2000 if you remember) and it’s quite possible that San Marino is too.

Another thing that is quite surprising for a capital city is that it was not until the last 20-25 years that Vaduz became a city in the traditional sense of the term when the parish church was consecrated as a Cathedral. And it’s certainly one of the smallest cathedrals that I’ve ever been in.

Another claim to fame that the city possesses – or maybe doesn’t possess – is that it is probably the only capital city in the developed world that possesses neither a railway station nor an airport. You have to fly in to Switzerland or Austria and catch a bus.

Anyway, that was my trip to Vaduz and, soaking wet, I caught the bus back to the hotel.

And the verdict on Vaduz? Frankly, Nantwich has much more to offer. Not that that’s any surprise either. Nantwich has a population of about 12,000 if I remember correctly. Vaduz has less than half of that and is probably the smallest capital city in the world.

It’s a fact that there are more Limited Companies registered in Vaduz than there are inhabitants.

-3

Tuesday 1st July 2014 – THERE’S ONE THING ABOUT MOUNTAIN AIR …

… and that I was out like a light at 22:00. Didn’t feel a thing at all. And I slept until about 06:30. And I was busy too during the night. I can’t remember where I was (it might have been Electricity Street in Crewe) but I was working for some organisation that was doing something with the public and while our office still stayed in the same place, our job of interacting with the public meant that we had to go to the local shopping precinct that was 25 minutes away on a tram.

We needed a girl to come with us and we asked one of them but she was proving to be difficult. She said that she couldn’t possibly be ready for a 09:00 start as she didn’t arrive at the office until 08:30. I explained about the 25 minute tram ride and how not only were your travelling expenses reimbursed but so was your travelling time, but she was still being difficult about it.

So wide awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I went down to breakfast. And on leaving I was presented with the bill for my evening meal, room and breakfast.

For my three-star hotel etc, it came to a total of €60 and so I’ll be stopping here again, that’s for sure. I don’t think that I’ve ever before slept in such comfort at such a price, and made so welcome too.

Leaving the hotel, I set out to assail the Stelvio Pass, all 2700-odd metres of it. I’ve never been up it before and so I didn’t know what to expect, and I wasn’t disappointed.

From Trafoi the road zig-zagged up to the summit via a series of hairpin bends. I don’t know how many there were, but I lost count at about 47 and there were still plenty to go.

The road itself dates from just after the Napoleonic War when Austria had possession of some territory south of the Pass and needed a road to connect with it. Although there have been many improvements to the road since those days, the actual trace of the road is still the same and that’s something that is quite astonishing.

Mind you, it’s not easy to see how else they could do it.

No vehicle longer than 10 metres is permitted on the road and I can’t say that I’m surprised.

This bus here was having quite a struggle upthe hill, not just against the hairpin bends but also against the traffic coming down the hill that, for the most part, refused to give the driver the room to manoeuvre.

There was plenty of snow at the top of the pass and again, I’m not surprised by that either. We’re at 2700-odd metres of altitude here as I said before, and you may remember that it was snowing in the Tyrol the day before yesterday at half of this altitude.

As an aside, this was once the border between Italy and the Austrian Empire after the reunification of Italy in the 1860s and in World War I there was actually fighting up here at the pass.

Still, Caliburn enjoyed a good wander around in the snow.It’s been a good few weeks since he’s been in it. But who would have expected to have seen him up to his axles in snow on the 1st of July?

Down the hill from the Stelvio Pass there’s a fork in the road and turning right, I’m in Switzerland. Much to my surprise, there’s no border controls here (Switzerland isn’t, of course, in the EU). I suppose they think that if you’ve made the climb all the way up the Stelvio then you deserve the right of entry.

It’s all downhill from here until you need to climb up and over the Fluela Pass to Davos and Klosters. And so what am I doing in a train then? It looks like the Channel Tunnel train but I’m a long way from there.

The simple answer to this is that the Fluela is a pretty desperate road. It takes about 60 or so kilometres and no end of climbing and descending through a series of hairpin bends. However, there’s a 19-kilometre rail tunnel where, for a not-insignificant price, you can make the journey for about a tenth of the time.

It’s a straight road from there to Liechstenstein and the drive there was much easier than finding a hotel. The first hotel that I tried wanted CHF199 for a night and they can forget that. Then there was a whole series of hotels that were closed. Then we had one that was full (no surprise, that) and he referred me to another two – both of which were closed.

I gave up on the idea of staying for a night in Leichtenstein and headed for the Swiss border. And there, just on the Liechtenstein side of the border I found a hotel. Quite basic but B&B is only CHF70 per night.

And so I’m staying here maybe two nights and tomorrow I’ll go for a bus ride into Vaduz. There’s a bus depot right across the road from here.

Monday 30th June 2014 – THIS IS THE VIEW …

… from my bedroom window.

Not my bedroom window from last night, but my bedroom window from this evening. For I am in another hotel. This is actually in Trafoi which is a tiny village in the Alto Adige, the Southern Tyrol, in Italy. It’s halfway up the Stelvio Pass on the way to St Moritz and Switzerland. This was a Shearings destination from the 1980s and didn’t last long, not the least of the reasons being that to road up here from the Reschen Pass is pretty dreadful.

Anyway, it was another item on my list of places to visit – and here I am.

Even more surprisingly, this is actually the first hotel in which I have ever stayed in Italy. All my previous visits have been either with friends, with Nerina’s family or in a nunnery, and I bet you think that I am joking too. "You’re forgetting your skiing trip with Anna in 1996 " – ed.

The Alto Adige is a weird place to be. It was formerly part of the Austrian Empire until 1919 when it passed to Italy in the peace treaty between the two countries after World War I.

After World War II it remained with Italy, presumably due to the fact that Italy had ended the war on the winning side, but you would have a hard job convincing the inhabitants. Here’s a German flag flying outside the house of one of the inhabitants.

Not only that, most of the signs here are in German even though we are in Italy, and the official roadsigns show the town names in both German (which is displayed first) and Italian.

I’ve also seen grafitti to suggest that at least some of the people here are interested in independance.

The border between Austria and the former Italian city-states has always been fluid. This is Festung Nauders, the Nauders fortress dating from the end of the 1830s and there’s another building of a completely different style just across the road and dating from 1840.

It’s not too difficult to imagine that the reason for these two buildings being here in the Reschen Pass is that this was at one time a border crossing following one of the frontier adjustments.

Today the building is a military museum and outside is a display of tanks. The Reschen Pass was heavily fortified and many of the German defences still remain today despite the best attempts of everyone to blow them up and remove them.

The Pass was to be defended every inch during the last few weeks of April 1945 as it is the soft underbelly of the German Reich on a direct route to Munich. However, events at Berlin forestalled everything.

This morning in a torrential downpour I went for a walk around Lech to see what was what. As I said yesterday, I was here in 1988 but I didn’t recognise the place. It’s changed out of all recognition since those days.

I didn’t stay long either because the weather really was quite dreadful too and it was no fun walking around in all of this.

Next stop was Pfunds and this was another place that Nerina and I had visited – and on more than one occasion too. We spent a night here on our honeymoon while we were on our way to Italy and if she were to pass by this place today she wouldn’t recognise it, apart from the name painted on the wall.

Still, 25 years is a long time in tourism and time won’t stand still for anyone.

Not too far away is a little enclave of Switzerland called Samnaun. It was formerly isolated from the main part of Switzerland and so was a duty-free haven. However there is now a road from Switzerland that connects with the area but the duty-free status remains.

Not that is does any good because the place is full of Porsches and the like buying up the perfumes – the entire place smells like a tart’s boudoir – and there is nothing of anything at all that might be of interest to me.

I come here for the views, which are certainly spectacular as you can see for yourself. There isn’t much like anywhere in the Alps quite like this.

Another thing that brings me here is the diesel. 114 cents per litre in Euros (it’s Swiss currency here of course) and that’s the second-cheapest that I have found so far in Europe after Andorra in March.

From here I headed back down to the Reschen Pass and you know the story from here on in.

Sunday 29th June 2014 – YOU CAN’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES, CAN YOU?

I thought you wouldn’t. But that is indeed snow up there in the background. Here on the 29th June, the temperature has dropped to 3.3°C and there is snow in the rain here but up in the mountain pass that I’ve just driven through, it really is snowing.

So where am I then? I’m actually in a village called Lech which is high in the Austrian Tyrol way above the Arlberg Pass between Innsbuck and Bregenz on the Swiss border. Nerina and I visited here on our honeymoon in October 1988 and made a vow that one day we would come and stay here. Of course things have moved on a great deal since those days, but here I am all the same. At least I have made it here.

And here is a guest-house that charges just €25 for bed and breakfast and while it isn’t 5-star luxury, I’ve never had value for money quite like this. I also found a decent Italian restaurant here that cooked me a special meal. I spent the evening there talking Italian to the staff there and it’s amazing how much came back.

This has made me make a decision that for all of the languages that I can speak in a marginal kind of way, I’m going to spend some time in each country at least once per year. I’m not sure how this will work for my Russian, but we’ll see.

This photo is interesting too. This is Sankt Christophe, the highest point in the Arlberg Pass. I have a photo that I took here when Nerina and I passed by. It featured the old Cortina estate that we had – OCC 883S and a hanging cloud that had chased us all the way up the pass billowing over the crest. This photo features Caliburn of course, and it would have featured Strawberry Moose too except that it was absolutely p155ing down and snowing, and His Nibs didn’t fancy getting wet.

And I can’t say I blame him either. This is what it looked like on the Motorway between Innsbruck and Bregenz. Totally dreadful as you can see and I was driving with the rear foglights on. It was the only way to be seen through the spray coming off the road. The hanging clouds wedged up against the mountains look impressive too.

And doesn’t Strawberry Moose take an excellent photograph? He should be proud of his skills.

This is the weather that we have been having all day. It was raining when I left bei Hanzi this morning and gradually degenerated as I drove down the B11 towards the Austrian frontier. Once in the Alps we got the lot and that was that.

So I’m going to have an early night and hope for better things tomorrow.

-3

Saturday 28th June 2014 – WELL, JUST LOOK AT THIS!

Yes, who do you recognise on the left in the photo here? Quite right. It’s Yours Truly on stage and playing bass in a rock band, somewhere in a damp beer cellar in Munich, with the Roland Cube bass amp in the background.

Make the most of it for as far as I am aware, it’s the only photo extant of me playing bass live on stage, and you have had to wait for 40 years for this. And I wasn’t only playing bass but singing and I did the lead vocals on the old Kinks number “Lola” from 1970 or whenever it was. Shame no-one recorded it.

And not only that, Hans said that e-mail me his playlist so that I can practise at home and the other guy on stage, whose name I’ve forgotten, was very appreciative of my help on the vocals – and that’s a first by any standards.

It’s not actually in Munich to be fair – it’s in Eching which is a suburb of Munich and this is where I’m staying. The sofa was extremely comfortable and I had a good night’s sleep. In the morning we went out for breakfast to a small bakery near here where you can buy German bread rolls (German bread is the best in the world) of all kinds of varieties, helpings of strawberry jam and coffee too.

From there, Hans took me to show me a few places in the vicinity and where he worked, and then we took the metro and the tram into the city. And Brain of Britain hadn’t brought his camera, had he?

We ended up the afternoon going out to the Olympic Park and a mega-music shop nearby, and then came home. A small bio shop produced some vegan cheese which was a surprise, and so Hans made me a pizza base and toppings. That led to us all trooping around to the Pub around the corner and this is where we celebrated Hans’ birthday – three of us on the stage to a crowd (if you can call it that) that might have at one stage reached the dizzy heights of 20 people. Still, from little acorns, and all that.

So what is tomorrow going to bring I wonder?

-4

Friday 27th June 2014 – IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG, DID IT?

There I was this morning after another excellent night’s sleep in this comfy little spec at Meersburg (and I’ll stop here again, no problem), having breakfast of coffee and half a baguette smeared with strawberry jam, when I began to notice a regular stream of small ships sailing back and to across the lake.

That can only mean one thing – that there’s a ferry connection from somewhere over here to somewhere over there and so Yours Truly set out to investigate.

But did I say a good night’s sleep? I certainly did. And not only that I was on my travels again. I was watching some British World War I cavalry charge up this steep hill to attack a German post there and while they were all almost swept away and almost everyone was unhorsed, they carried the position whilst a few of their number tried to round up the loose horses. I remember saying to myself is that had the cavalry been followed up by a regiment of infantry they could have swept on right behind the lines and caused chaos.

Nothing new in this though – at the Battle of the Somme a detachment of infantry did succeed in breaking the lines in one place on the first day and had the cavalry, standing by in the vicinity, been sent in to exploit the breakthrough, they could have cleared up too. But that was a lost opportunity.

From there, Cecile and I went off to look at the animals at the shelter and an old black-and-white collie fell for me and so I took it home and we lived happily ever after. And there is nothing more unlikely than this, as you all know.

I found the ferry terminal, just a couple of kms down the road and €11:50 later, Strawberry Moose, Caliburn and I were sailing to Konstanz on the other side of the lake. Never a good idea, as you know, for me to find a ferry . After all, it makes me cross.

Getting to Knostanz was one thing – finding the correct border crossing into Switzerland (well, I am here!) was quite something else entirely and I actually crossed the frontier three times before I could find the correct road out of the town. A leisurely amble then took me along the southern shore of the Bodensee and eventually across into Austria at Bregenz.

Bregenz had the first (of many) traffic jams and so I didn’t get to see too much of the town but then a drive over the mountains, into southern Germany and a stop for lunch did the business.

On the way over the mountains between Austria and Germany, I encountered these two vehicles. Single-seater machines and equipped like proper little cars, with steering wheels and pedals. But judging by the wiring that I could see inside the vehicles, they may well be electric cars. However there was no-one around to ask.

Mind you, judging by the names of the vehicles – the red one being a City-El and the white one being a Mini-El-City, electricity is a good guess.

Onto the Autoroute after that, and wasn’t that a big mistake? Say what you like about Germans, when they organise something, they organise it in spades and the traffic jam on the autoroute was a belter. We must have sat for 2 hours without turning a wheel at one point. Stop-start all of the 113 kms to Munich and then fighting the rush hour traffic out of the city to Hans’ place.

So now I’m here, eventually, and after a decent meal and some live music in a pub nearby, I’m off to bed. A shakedown on the sofa. I wonder if it will be as comfortable as my last couple of nights in Caliburn?

-2

Thursday 26th June 2014 – IN WHICH OUR HERO FINDS A BEACH

No idea where I was last night. It was a big town somewhere in the UK and it seems that Esther who formerly ran a motel near where I live had separated from her husband and she started making up to me. I was playing right along because of course my real interest lay elsewhere. Nevertheless we were becoming really close and Esther, doing the holiday rota for this shop where she worked (and which my brother had some kind of connection) put me down for the last two weeks in July – the same holiday period as hers – and that cocked up all of my plans to go to Canada as usual in September.

So here I am, awake in my spec near Dole last night and, like most of my specs at the side of the main road, by the time that I wake up at 08:30 it’s totally deserted, despite the fact that when I came here last night it was heaving with lorries.

And as for this foam-rubber chair bed thing, I’ve slept on many worse things than this, that I’ll tell you. And while I’m sitting up here typing some notes, a roach coach pulls up. It’s just like in the UK.

so back on the road and as you might expect, about 5 minutes further on from where I parked, there’s a beautiful kind of lake with a parking area around it. That would have made a lovely place to have spent the night, if only I had pressed on a little.

Half a mile further on down the road I cross over into the département of the Jura, in the region of the Franche Comté. First village that I come to is called Chemin and this is well worth a stop, and for two reasons too.

I was going to say that there were two things to see here, but you will have to look hard to see them and I wonder how many people have missed them.

If you notice the grey pole just there underneath that tree, that is in fact the pole for a speed camera, would you believe, and the camera itself is well-hidden in the trees so that you can’t actually see it.

“Never you mind” I hear you say. “There is bound to be a warning sign somewhere in the vicinity”. And there is too, but you would never have guessed it because that too is hidden in the trees as you can (or can’t) see.

Quite frankly, I reckon that this is totally dishonest. There’s no point in having them if they are going to hide them in the trees like this if you ask me.

I’ve also been eating a little humble pie too today. I stopped to do some shopping at the LeClerc at Belfort and found to my dismay that when I was going on several weeks ago about the cost of a gas bottle for my camping stove being over €50, I … errr … was clearly not quite on the ball. That’s the cost for the bottle too, and an exchange refill is just €18:00. D’ohhhh. Anyway now I have some camping gas and I can cook.

I’ve also bought a new toy. I mentioned to Rob a couple of days ago that I was looking for a portable air compressor. In the old days you could buy compressors where you could detatch the tank and take it down the fields with the air line and inflate the wheel of your tractor. I haven’t seen one for years, but here in the LeClerc at Belfort they had a portable air compressor with a 6-litre tank and it’s all portable – you can carry the lot off down the field if you need to. And it runs off just 270 watts too so I can even charge it up on the inverter in Caliburn.

It took me ages to drive through Freiburg in Germany – there were enormous queues all over the motorway and the city was covered in roadworks too. Still, I made it through the town and over the mountains. Now I’m sitting here at Meersburg on the shores of the Bodensee looking across to Switzerland.

Tomorrow I’ll make my way on to Munich.

-2

Wednesday 25th June 2014 – WHERE AM I?

Ohh yes – I’m in a parking space on the side of the road near Dole, 250 or so kms from home, busily making a list of things that I have forgotten to bring with me, such as all of the fresh fruit and the soya desserts in the fridge. The soya desserts will be out of date by the time I return, but seeing as how I’ve closed all of the windows in the attic (in the middle of summer) I shudder to think of what the fresh fruit will be like by the time that I return home.

So with the customary couple of hours on the computer, after lunch I emptied a ton of cememnt out of the back of Caliburn and gave him a good brush out. He’s still not very clean inside and so I laid some sheets of OSB and plywood on the floor – at least that is clean and so should keep me clean.

I then loaded him up and I brought the gas cooker even though I have no gas – I’ll try to find some en route as I travel around. For the bed, I’ve brought a foam-rubber folding chair thing that Marianne gave me a few years ago when she was cleaning out her cellar. I’ll have to see what that is like one day, so why not now? Roxanne had one in her room for when she had friends for sleepovers and no-one ever complained. Mind you, I can’t for the life of me remember how or why I forgot about the folding bed thing that I bought ages ago.

I’ve also disconnected the dump load. The cables are still running too hot for my liking and here in Midsummer and I’m not there, better to be safer than sorry. I really ought to fix this properly one of these days.

I’ve sorted out some clothes and some food (except the fresh fruit and the soya desserts) and drink, made myself a flask of hot coffee, put the Gibson, the Roland amp, the Carlsbro amp, microphone and stand into the van and then hit the road.

I played tag with a woman in a silver-grey Peugeot 206 estate all the way from Montmarault to about 20kms short of Montceau-les-Mines, and stopped at Montceau for tea. I found a Turkish kebab place that made me a gorgeous Oriental salad and chips, with bottled water, all for a very democratic €8:00 and we spent most of our time chatting about our experiences living in a foreign country.

So back on the road in the dusk and here I am

-2

Tuesday 24th June 2014 – IT DID CLEAR UP …

… even though it didn’t look much like it when we started. Damp, claggy and overcast.

Nevertheless I was at my task early and first job after brzakfast was to empty the beichstuhl as I was to be having visitors. I also steam-cleaned the kitchen in the verandah and unblocked the sink there – I need to have the place looking something like. I followed that by working on the web pages again – getting back into my normal routine.

After lunch, the weather picked up and it looked quite nice. Rosemary turned up as planned and we set about a couple of the raised beds. Rosemary weeded four and I weeded almost three and I do wonder about my technique because Rosemary’s weeding looks absolutly perfect whereas mine looks a total mess. I wish I knew what her secret was.

We had a long chat afterwards and at about 19.15 Rosemary went home and that was that.

Tomorrow I won’t be doing much as I’m off on the road tomorrow night.

-1

Monday 23rd June 2014 – WELL, ONE OF US …

… that is, Terry or Yours Truly, is in league with the devil, that’s for sure.

For about two or three weeks we’ve been working on this concrete here and thee has hardly been a drop of rain while it’s all been going on, but today, with the work finished for now, I was awoken at 06:20 by the most astonishing thunderstorm and it’s been raining cats and dogs all day. Half an inch of rain we’ve had so far, and there’s planty more to come.

So without the benefit of a decent sleep, I was up and about quite early which was just as well, as we had 14 – yes FOURTEEN – radio programmes to record today. You can see how much work I’ve been doing.

I started off at Marcillat and Radio Tartasse at 09:30 and recorded 4 of the rock music programmes that we do – 2 of the normal ones and two of the live concert performances that I have taken to mixing and engineering myself at home. Liz xame to join me a little later (and it was a little later as she was having car problems) and we recorded four episodes of our information programmes.

Back at Liz’s house I had a look at her Golf but I couldn’t get the thing to go either in the limited time available, and we went off to Gerzat after lunch for Radio Arverne where we recorded 6 of our information programmes.

So that’s the radio done until the end of August which is just as well as Liz is off on her hols in 2 weeks’ time and won’t be back until the end of August. Just in time for us to record another marathon 14 programmes and then I’m heading off to Montreal and Canada again.

Liz fetched a mechanic out from her local garage to look at the Golf – after all, they are supposed to have “repaired” it last time this happened. He started the car (and I’m not going to tell you how because it will only give you all ideas) and drove it back to the garage where they will sort it out, and I came home in the tropical downpour.

I wonder if it will ever clear up?

-1

Sunday 22nd June 2014 – THE NIGHTS ARE CLOSING IN

Yes, what happened to the first half of the year? I have never known one go so quickly. It’ll be Christmas before we know it.

Even more astonishingly, there I was lying in bed for a good half-hour thinking that I maybe ought to get up, and when I did, noticing that it was just 07:40. On a Sunday too. I’ll never have a decent lie-in at this rate.

Resuming my usual habits after this last few weeks of work, I watched a film this morning while I was breakfasting. Today’s offering was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and I was totally puzzled by this film. I was sitting there watching ti all warm up and wondering when the action might begin and suddenly it ended. 2 hours or so of no real plot and no real action and I can’t think of where the time went because there was nothing memorable about it.

However, having read the reviews of the film, I’m clearly in a minority of one. Lots of people consider it to be the best of the films.

So I spent the rest of the day doing some informal tidying up in here until it became too hot, and also tidying up a huge pile of files on the computer.

This evening Iwas round at Liz and Terry’s rehearsing the radio programmes as we are recording tomorrow. I also went round to Cécile’s to pick up a couple of letters.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality