Saturday 8th March 2014 – I HAVE DECIDED …

… thatI’ll be staying on in Rennes-les-Bains for a few days. And for several reasons too.
Firstly – There’s so much going on here and in the area
Secondly – I’ve found a cosy little B&B where I’m having good value for money
Thirdly – I don’t have to be home until Tuesday night (and not necessarily then either)

So all in all, it seems like a good plan, even though the town has seen much better days than these days, as you can probably imagine.

This morning, first stop was to see what remained of the Chateau de Blanchefort. These (such as they are) are perched on a mountain top right opposite the legendary Cardou, the mountain that has figured in so much of the conversation around here.

But getting there is by no means easy. Not as exhausting as the climb up to Montségur the other day, but there is just so much of it and the path is in a terrible condition.

Immersed in mud, and the bridges, such as they are, are like this. It’s another one of these walks that is not for the faint-hearted.

The castle was the former home of Bertrand de Blanchefort. He was 4th Grand Master of the Knights Templar, whose period of office was from 1153 to 1170, and this is just about all that I could find of the remains of his castle.

I’ve found nothing that gives me much help about the history of the place, but I imagine that with it being a Templar stronghold, the suppression of that order in the early 14th Century led to its downfall.

It’s not quite all that remains of the castle. I had a good rummage around and found quite a few stones, such as these examples, that have clearly been “dressed”.

I can’t think what else stones such as these might have been used for, if not for part of the interior of the castle. You won’t find stones like these in a goatherd’s hut, unless he’s pinched them from a ruined castle of course.

Right down there at the bottom of the valley, out of the shot unfortunately, is the River Salz and it’s from there (or thereabouts) that I’ve walked.

You can see now why it was that it took me so long to reach here, regardless of the state of the path and the bridhes (such as they are).

Across the river valley on the far bank is a loggers’ road, and that particular road has featured in some of the stories too.

This is a close-up of the famous “Cardou” mountain.

Apparently Jesus is buried in the side of the mountain somewhere. Or was it the Holy Grail? Or perhaps the Ark of the Covenant? I forget now, or maybe I’m becoming confused. But a good number of these tens of thousands of books consider Cardou as playing an important role in whatever mystery there might be in this area.

But leaving all of the conjecture aside, let’s sit for a while right at the top and admire the view.

In case you are wondering about the town over there on that crest, that is of course the famous Rennes-le-Chateau where we were yesterday morning – the place where Bérenger Sauniere made his discoveries that transformed this area from an isolated, abandoned rural backwater into a trendy esoteric tourist venue.

That down there is Coustaussa where we went yesterday afternoon to see the ruins of the castle and also the grave of the Abbé Antoine Gélis who was murdered at the vicarage and whose murder was never solved (no Miss Marple in France of course – she would never have missed out on a Murder at the Vicarage in the UK)

I showed you yesterday a photo of how the Chateau of Coustaussa dominated the valley of the Salz River – so just look at how the Chateau de Blanchefort dominates the Chateau of Coustaussa

This afternoon, it was Open Day at the Spa. Three “goes” for just €18:00 – makes a mockery of the €50-odd for a shower at Neris-les Bains.

I wasn’t going to miss out on that, and so here’s my report of the afternoon’s visit –
The therapeutic shower – like being stuck up against a wall by someone armed with a Kärcher
The aerobath – last time I had an experience like this was when mum put all five of us kids in the bath together after we had had baked beans on toast for tea.
The mudbath – nice, hot and gooey. Has done wonders for my skin and according to my landlady here at my little B&B makes me look 10 years younger – as long as I don’t have a shower and wash it off!

I followed that with an hour in the sauna and jacuzzi for just €3:00 and after all of today’s activities I feel like a new man. Yes, I’m fed up of the old one.

Tea was interesting. No restaurant here in the town and so, remembering that I had the camping gear (not that I intend to do any camping) in the back of Caliburn, I went and cooked some pasta and tinned ratatouille.

I’m totally whacked too and so I’m going to have what remains of an early night.

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Friday 7th March 2014 – THERE’S BEEN MORE RUBBISH …

… written about this place than anywhere else on the planet. And I shall be contributing my fair share too … "groan" – ed.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. I’m in Rennes-le-Chateau and what am I doing here? Looking for the Holy Grail? Looking for the Children of Jesus? Looking for the tomb of Mary Magdalene? Looking for the lost Cathar treasure?

Or have I simply come for a nosy around to see what all the fuss has been about since an elderly housekeeper strung along a dazzling urbanite with promises of vast wealth and fortune in oder to ensure that she would be well-cared for in the twilight of her life?

This is the interior of the church of St Mary Magdalene at Rennes-le-Chateau and although it looks quite beautiful today (which it doesn’t, as it happens – it is badly in need of attention which is totally astonishing considering how much money comes here these days), it wasn’t anything like this 130 years ago.

When a new priest, Bérenger Saunière, was appointed to the parish, he was horrified at the state of the place. It had been abandoned during the French Revolution almost 100 years earlier and although there had been a religious revival, the fervour had not reached Rennes-le-Chateau and the building was on the point of collapse.

He borrowed a little money and made a start on some urgent renovations. But when he turned his attention to the altar, he found that one of the pillars was partly hollow and some parchments had been stuffed into it.

Hollow pillars are nothing new in churches. If you’ve been following my adventures over the last few years you will know from my frequent visits to Auvergnat churches with Marianne that it’s quite customary to have something similar in a church, and it’s where the sacred relics are kept.

And, as you know because I’ve told you this before, there was an inventory of relics carried out in all French churches in the mid-19th century. This church was no exception, and in the diocesan registers there is the report of the visit, and …
Bishop’s investigator “are there any relics in the church?”
Saunière’s predecessor “more than likely”.
It’s curious, to say the least, that Saunière’s predecessor could not give a definitive answer, especially when it’s something that falls within his responsibility.

As for the parchments, there is no dispute whatever that they were found. As to their content however, you’ll have to make up your own mind about that because every person tells a different story.

One thing that should maybe be mentioned however is that the pre-Revolutionary priest of the parish, the Abbé Bigou, was the confessor to several notable families in the area. Believing that the Revolutionaries would pillage absolutely everything that they could find, Bigou’s secret hiding place- the hollowed column used as an altar support – would make a safe cache for anything important.

And Bidou? He fled the Revolution and died in exile, never returning to Rennes-le-Chateau.

So Saunière found some parchments in a hollowed-out column. The next thing of note to happen is that some time later there’s a little enigmatic note in his diary – “ohh, by the way, I found a tomb today”. And then absolute silence.

He’s next in the graveyard attached to the church, frantically digging away to such a degree that the mayor of the commune makes a formal complaint to the Bishop. And then Saunière starts to spend money like water – tens of thousands of pounds.

He rebuilds the church and the presbytery, he refurbishes the village’s water supply, he builds a new road, and then he buys some land and builds himself a sumptious villa with outhouses and a magnificent tower that serves as a library.

He’s then investigated by his bishop – where did the money come from?

The conclusion is that he’s been selling masses. And there’s no doubt that he did. But just how many would he have to have sold in order to have amassed so much money? It’s unthinkable. He’s suspended from office but he carries on as before, taking no notice. Even though there’s a newspaper “advertisement” from the bishop advising his parishioners that he has been relieved of his functions, no-one takes any notice at all. He dies and takes his secret with him to the grave.

Only his faithful housekeeper is aware of the situation. Once she let slip that “the people around here are walking on gold but they just don’t realise it”. She sells the villa to an urbanite from the coast but remains in occupation promising the purchaser that she will make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But she too takes her secret with her to the grave and that is that.

So where does this leave us?

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time with conjecture. There’s enough rubbish been written already about all of this.

But firstly, one look at this site will tell you that this is the most magnificent defensive situation one could ever imagine, and the view from here commands absolutely everything. Nothing can move within a 20-mile radius without being observed from here.

If I were a neo-historical figure looking for a place to build a palace and a town for my followers, I would choose nowhere else but this. And there is evidence of occupation going back thousands of years – Stone Age, Iron Age, Gallo-Roman – you name it.

But the Visigoths came to this area in the 5th Century and set up a Kingdom. Their capital city was called Rhedae and from what we know, the site of Rennes-le-Chateau corresponds in every detail with the contemporary description of Rhedae.

Tons of Visigoth artefacts have been discovered in the area and the church itself contains much evidence of Visigoth stonework, sculpturez and artefacts, such as this magnificent carving that Saunière discovered, face-down on the floor and being used as a flagstone.

There is therefore little doubt that the modern-day Rennes-le-Chateau is the historical Rhedae

In fact, on my mega-ramble around the site this morning I counted three and perhaps 4 concentric rings of defences around the site, and there is no evidence to suggest that anything much of this relates to a more modern period.

So whoever was fortifying this site really meant it

Now if you remember from our discussions a few years ago, it’s perfectly normal for there to be a small chapel included in a castle or chateau once the Lord has converted to Christianlty and, as I have said, there’s certainly a Visigoth presence in the church here.

But as Christianity gained in influence and barbarity slowly died out (not that you would ever notice it) the church would take over more of the site and the castle or chateau would be reduced in size.

This is the current chateau, right next to the church. But from what I can see at a distant glance, there is nothing particularly Visigoth about this – although I have been told subsequently that part of the foundations is believed to be of Visigoth origin.

And in any case, this is not where I would have my chateau. Mine would be on the highest corner of the walls with the best view – right in fact where Saunière build his tower-library.

Anyway, to continue onwards. Saunière says that he found a tomb. What evidence is there that there was a tomb here? Plenty, as it happens.

In several cases, there are entries in the parish registers of people being “buried in the tomb of the Lords” – the last one being in the 1730s. And it’s only after that date that the Lords (and Ladies) were buried ordinarily in the cemetery.

There have been three inspections of the church using SONAR – a device that measures reflected echoes from the ground – and they have each given a similar result – that at a depth of 5 metres or so under the church there is a reading that corresponds with what one would expect to see if there were a cavern below.

No entrance to this cavern was found, though, and the easiest way to hide an entrance into a cavern (from the outside, anyway) would be to use it as a grave and bury a body in it, and then fill it over. And maybe this was why Saunière was digging frantically in the graveyard. Perhaps the parchments had given him a clue to whose grave it was that led into the cavern.

As an aside – following what have been described as “a few deplorable incidents” (of which we can all hazard a guess) the cemetery is locked and access is only granted to relatives of the inhabitants of the cemetery. I wish that I had known this back in May 2013

But this is no place for speculation. There’s enough of that about already. And some of the speculation would appear to be manifestly false. Saunière was not always “rolling in money” – even after having discovered whatever it was that he discovered, he had times when there was so little about that the work on his beloved Villa Bethania came to a sudden halt. If he really were blackmailing someone about a guilty secret, he would simply go back for more cash. Or if it were a regular flow of money that he was receiving, he would have planned his work more carefully.

Some say that, being an unltra-Royalist (which he certainly appeared to be), the French monarchist parties were paying him handsomely to propagate their cause. But with a parish of just a few hundred souls, their vote wouldn’t have been worth very much.

And much of the rumour and supposition that circulated following a “disclosure” by someone in Paris in the 1970s and 1980s is now considered by most authorities to be based on a forgery.

Nevertheless, he did receive money – and plenty of it – from somewhere. And one of his confidants, a priest by the name of Father Gélis from the neighbouring village of Coustaussa, was brutally murdered one night while all of this was going on.

Even today, the locals at Coustaussa (and I found some pretty vocal local yokels who told be everything I want to know) consider that Gélis’ neohew did the deed and did it for the money that Gélis was supposed to have been handling on behalf of Saunière (although the local police dismissed the nephew as a suspect and went to great pains to state that the money remained untouched.

And so you pay your money and you take your choice.

If you want to find out more about the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau, then there are enough books written on the subject to rebuild completely every single one of the three and maybe four concentric rings of denfensive walls around the village of Rennes-le Chateau. Don’t just read one of them though otherwise you will end up with a very skewed viewpoint and – perish the thought – you might even start to believe that author’s particular slant on all of this.

There are ten thousand books, ten thousand authors, and ten thousand different opinions about the mystery of Rennes-le Chateau.

While I was in Coustaussa checking the grave of Father Antoine Gélis (and believe me, there is nothing in the world more sad than an abandoned cemetery), I went for prowl around the ruined castle.

It was built on an eminence at the foot of Rennes-le-Chateau with the aim of controlling the valley of the River Salz, which as you can see, it does in spades.

It dates from the 11th and 12th centuries, times of much turbulance in this frontier province, and fell to the Crusading forces in 1210. Nevertheless, it was the scene of a small rebellion, which didn’t last long, but the reprisals were, well, severe, as you might expect whenever Simon de Montfort was about.

This led to the first round of demolition

It was re-established as some kind of manor house in the 16th Century but the Revolution put paid to that. It was sold into private hands and the new owner treated it as a quarry, selling off all of the stones to the locals in the neighbourhood for their various building projects.

That really marked the end of the Chateau as we know it.

It’s still in private hads today and one is supposed to ask the owner for permission to visit the castle (which is not for the faint-hearted as it really isn’t very secure)

I duly presented myself at the relevant address, only to discover that it has been a long time since the owner has taken the trouble to visit his own premises, and so I took it upon myself to enter. I wasn’t going to let a ruin like this pass me by.

So now having given Caliburn a good wash (because, believe me, he needed it after the snows and salty roads of Andorra) I’m now in the pretty-derelict spa town of Rennes-les-Bains. A couple of things I need to do here.

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Thursday 6th March 2014 – I’M IN QUILLAN TONIGHT

And in case you are wondering where Quillan might be, it’s back in France again in the Département of the Aude about 50kms from Carcassonne.

But I’m not going to Carcassonne (well, at least, not yet) – I’m going to somewhere quite different, more of which anon

Today, though, I left Andorra nice and early in the bright sunlight and to cheer me up even more, I found a petrol station selling diesel at 111.3 cents per litre, which has to be the cheapest that I can get anywhere in Europe.

The climb up and out of Andorra was rather fraught though. They were still dealing with the after-effects of the heavy snowfall the other day, and what wasn’t helping matters was that there was a really strong wind up aloft. That’s not a cloud coming over the top of the mountains – that’s the snow being whipped off by the wind.

I was going that way too and the higher the road climbed into the mountains, the worse the road became. But while there weren’t any problems, it was still uncomfortable.

What didn’t help matters was that the snowploughs had not been able to clear the parking areas at the ski resorts. Consequently, all of the holidaymakers simply abandoned (I refuse to use the word “parked”, as “parked” they certainly were not) all over the sides of the roads by the ski lifts regardless of the snowploughs and the moving traffic. It was total chaos in quite a few spots and had I been an Andorran policeman, all of the cars would have been towed away.

Thoughtless was not the word. Pig-ignorant and selfish are far better.

Now, how about this for something? That castle perched up there on that rock in the distance is one of the most enigmatic places in the whole of France and was on the top of the list for me to visit. It’s the reason why I’ve come down here.

It’s the Chateau de Montségur and while it can’t match Béziers for being the place of the greatest massacre of French civilians (well, okay, they weren’t French back in the 13th Century), what happened at Montségur is one of the most mysterious and bewildering events ever to occur in what is now France.

Somewhere round about where that monument is (no-one can be exactly sure where the exact spot might have been) on 16th March 1244, approximately 225 Cathars and Cathar sympathisers were put inside a cage and were burnt to death.

And it has to be said that they were quite happy with the idea, to such an extent that about 20 of the victims actually volunteered to go to their doom. One eye-witness report tells of the Cathars singing as the flames were engulfing them.

In brief … "thank goodness" – ed … Catharism was a religious sect that dissented from the teachings of Rome. Cathars were Christians without a doubt, but nevertheless their manner of worship and their beliefs were considered heretical by the Pope.

Catharism was quite strong in this region and some of the wealthiest landowners were Cathars. Consequently, other local notables didn’t need much encoragement to urge the Pope to declare a Crusade against the Cathars.

Béziers was one of the first Cathar towns to fall and it is said that maybe as many as 20,000 people in the town were burned alive.
It was reported that someone asked “who shall we burn? How do we know which ones are Cathars?”
The reply was quite simple. “Burn them all. God will recognise his own”.

But as the noose slowly tightened around the Cathar region, the rock of Montségur was fortified and turned into a refuge of the last resort. Little by little, refugees arrived here bringing with them the religious treasures and relics from other Cathar centres that had succumbed. In 1243 there were 500 people living on the rock, all prepared to make a last stand.

Montségur by this time had already withstood several sieges but in May 1243, with opposition elsewhere being almost totally crushed, the whole might of the Crusade laid siege to the rock and slowly but surely, fought their way up the hill.

By Christmas 1243 it was clear that the garrison could not hold on for much longer and in a daring escape, several of the parfaits, as the Cathar monks and nuns were known, took the entire treasure that had accumulated inside the castle, and disappeared with it to a place of safety. What became of it, no-one ever knew and no trace of it has ever been discovered to this day.

Even more incredibly, one of the escapees managed to return to the castle and he was there on 1st of March 1244 when the castle finally called a truce. The terms of the truce (which was effectively a surrender of course) was that the civilians could leave unmolested, but any parfait (there were said to be about 200 or so in the castle) who failed to renounce his or her vows would be burnt to death.

The defenders asked for a 15-day truce (why, no-one knows) and this was accorded. And on the eve of the final day, an important ceremony of some nature was held within the castle. Later that evening, a few more parfaits slipped out of the castle, taking with them the final objects of importance that had (presumably) been used at the ceremony. And all of that disappeared too, never to resurface.

Next morning, the garrison surrendered. and it is said, quite astonishingly, that not only did no parfait renounce his or her vows, but another 20 or so claimed to have taken the vows in the meantime and demanded to be burnt – a request which of course was granted.

So what was the treasure that was taken away at Christmas 1243?
Where was it taken to?
Why did the garrison demand a 15-day truce?
What was so important about the 15th of March that a truce was requested to cover that day?
What was the ceremony that took place on that day?
What were the objects that were used at the ceremony?
Why were they taken away?
Where were they taken to?
Why were so many people so happy to be taken away to their deaths?

There has been endless speculation about all of this and so many books and novels have been written that they could make a stairway up to the castle. But you can see why Montségur is a place of such interest to so many people.

This is another site in the Ariège that is associated with Cathars. It’s the village of Montaillou.

This is not the original site of the village, though. This is a more recent reincarnation. The village that we are interested in is the one that was in existence at the end of the 13th Century and this is about half a mile away from the present site. And unless you know where to look, you won’t find it at all.

This chapel sitting down in a field dates from the 11th Century and it was at the foot of the chapel that the original village was situated.

And so to set the scene, the fall of Montségur did not quite spell the end of Catharism in France. It lay dormant for probably 50 years but someone discovered several documents setting out the important tenets of Cathar belief, and he resurrected the religion. Montaillou was one of the most important “new Cathar” villages, so much so that a Papal inquisition descended on the place and arrested all of the inhabitants.

They were fully interrogated and their answers were fully recorded. There were indeed parfaits in the village but many escaped. One by one, though, they were tracked down and burnt to death

So while you look at the site of the Medieval village and marvel at how clearly the traces of the roads and habitations show up through the snow after 7 centuries of abandonment and agricultural exploitation, let me tell you a little about what is so interesting about the village.

If you remember my visit to Red Bay in Labrador in 2010

you’ll recall how a chance find in a dusty, forgotten archive led to a discovery of the 2nd-most-important historic site in Canada, something similar has happened here.

While you look at the ruins of the castle of the Counts of Foix, situated on a hill nearby, I’ll tell you that someone by the name of Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie went a-ferretting in some dusty, forgotten archives of one of the local bishops, and actually discovered the verbatim records of the interviews between the members of the Papal Inquisition and the inhabitants of Montaillou.

He wrote a book (a copy of which is in my possession) to summarise the information gleaned from the interviews and it has become one of the most important references to life in rural France at the end of the 13th Century, adding a great deal to whatever was previously known about the subject.

While we are on the subject of castles, this whole area is teeming with them. Not quite one on every hilltop but pretty much near enough.

This is the Chateau de Puivert and was another Cathar stronghold. It fell to the Crusaders after a siege of just three days in November 1210 and the leader of the crusaders, Simon de Montfort, granted it to one of his marshalls.

As an aside, de Montfort was the father of the Simon de Montfort who opposed Henry III of England during the Barons’ Revolt of 1264-67. It was however Montfort père who was responsible for most of the atrocities committed against the Cathars during the early years of the Crusade.

It wasn’t all work either. I’ve seen a couple of really interesting motor vehicles today, highlight of which has to be this German Hanomag Kurier light truck.

Apart from the fact that its engine is a diesel, I know nothing else whatever about it. Hanomag stopped making trucks in 1969 and so this gives me some idea of the date. I wouldn’t have put it many years earlier than that. Still, I’d take it home with me tomorrow given half a chance.

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Wednesday 5th March 2014 – THE VIEW FROM MY HOTEL BEDROOM …

… was quite impressive late this afternoon. Not quite right now though because the sun had disappeared behind the mountains but 5 minutes earlier it was warm and gorgeous and I’d been sitting out on the balcony reading a book.

You may be wondering why I’d been doing that but the truth is that I was totally whacked.

I’ve been on the public transport again – something that I seem to be doing more and more as I go about my business. This time though, it’s the bus. Something that I’ve not used since I was in Montreal in August.

Just €1:80 it was from the hotel into Andorra la Vella, the capital, and that’s good value at any price, especially as parking for anything over 2:00 metres (Caliburn is 2:12 metres) costs the proverbial arm and leg. And being on the bus is much less stressful too.

I found the Andorran National Sports stadium too. Andorra were playing Moldova in a friendly so I was determined to go to watch the game but, as you might expect, the best-laid plans of mice and men quite often go gang awa’ when I’m involved. The stadium is undergoing a total rebuilding and the match was being played elsewhere. GRRRRR!

But what a stadium! I’ve seen better stadia than this in the Puy-de-Dôme league back home. I’m not surprised that it’s undergoing rebuilding, but a well-known phrase involving silk purses and sows’ ears springs readily to mind.

Still, my journey wasn’t totally wasted. I spent most of the day wandering around to see what there was to see.

This is part of the old city and you can see how the place must have looked before the money started arriving. It’s a shame that there isn’t a great deal left. Everywhere you go, there are modern buildings and major construction work and it is a little depressing to see history being swept away. Although what seems to be being swept away are buildings from the 1950s and 60s and the first stage of reconstruction.

I found the old Parliament building – replaced by a modern multi-million Euro concrete-and-glass monstrosity three or four years ago. There was a free guided tour on offer too – in English I was told, but it turned out to be a fine example of classical Spanglish renowned the world over.

Apparently there were originally 24 members of the Parliament but this was enlarged to 28 some years ago. Now there is a proposal to enlarge the Parliament to 42 (cynics amongst you can well-speculate upon the reasons) and so a larger building is required.

I’m not quite sure why though – a good weekend’s work with three or four sledgehammers and a couple of acrows and we could soom make room for the required number of seats (if they really do need to enlarge the number of deputies) in the Casa de la Vall but of course, that wouldn’t make a nice shiny new office building though, would it?

I shall have to stop doing this – I’m becoming far too cynical for my own good. But then again, I blame my lifelong employment in the tourist industry and at the seat of European political power.

Next to the Casa de la Vall is the Church of St Esteve. Not Esteban as you might expect but Esteve, for one thing that I learnt here in Andorra la Velle is that the official language of the country is not Spanish but, since 1993, Catalan. No wonder I’ve been having difficulty making myself understood here.

The church dates from the 12th Century but fell victim to what in the UK would have been described as “Victorian Frightfulness”, which is a great shame.

We talked about modern buildings just now, and here’s one. What do you think that this might be?

My first thought was that it was a cathedral designed by someone from the Donald Gibson School of Wanton Vandalism in Coventry, but it is in fact a temple of the modern 21st Century religion – a fitness centre and thermal spa. I did go for a wander around inside but, quite frankly, it left me speechless and, as you know, that’s not something that happens very often.

But occasionally, on my travels I did come across the odd building that was worth photographing, but it wasn’t always possible to find a good viewpoint for a photograph without being cluttered up my modern buildings, road signs and vehicular traffic.

Hence, a photo like this is something of a rarity, which is a shame. But then, I do wonder just how long this building will be here.

Every third shop in Andorra is a tax-free shop, so it seems. And while yesterday we had a photograph of how friendly and accommodating the country is to terrorist bombers, here is a photo of how friendly and accommodating the country is to mass murderers, school assassins and armed robbers. Every weapon you want, and ammunition too, on display in the windows.

But with these tax-free shops, it’s clearly illegal to label the products with their prices. Seeing a priced item in one of these places is a rarity. My Spanish isn’t up to much, my Catalan even less, and so I’m not likely to be able to ask the prices or even to engage the shopkeeper in meaningful conversation, so from a real tourist point of view, these shopkeepers are wasting their time.

Andorra la Vella means “Andorra in the Valley” and so I couldn’t overlook the opportunity of taking a photo of the valley once I had found a suitable viewpoint.

But it wasn’t necessarily the valley that had caught my eye, but if you look at the roof in the very foreground of the photo, you’ll see that it’s equipped with some solar panels. We do occasionally have some sun here in Andorra la Vella – there was a bit today in fact – and it does clear the mountains across the valley.

So there you are.

So no wonder I’m whacked – especially as I also had a busy night too.

While I worked at Shearings in the summer season all those years ago, I had a winter job driving coaches for a local company in Crewe, with right miserable old boss in charge. Last night he had all of his coaches out, taking a huge group of passengers for a weekend to France (I’ve done this).

And all of his coaches too – even down to an early-1960s Harrington-bodied AEC that heaven alone knows where he must have dug that up from.

Anyway, it all descended into chaos. With these 8 or 10 coaches, we each had our passenger list? But we never picked up the people we were supposed to pick up – there were amendments, additions, crossings out until the passenger list was just hopeless. And why we were not setting out intil 14:00 onn Saturday afternoon for our weekend out was something that was totally beyond me.

It did recall a real adventure with this company when I, and another driver, were taking two coaches to Blackpool. We each had our passenger list but when I arrived at the pickups there were very few of my passengers but a load of other people who were waiting for a coach from the company for whom I was working. The other driver had arrived first and just picked up the first passengers that he could, and left me the rest.

“Nothing very important in the significant run of things” I hear you say, but in fact the coaches were doing different optional excursions – hence the two coaches – and this led to all kinds of confusion and recriminations, and the other driver making alternative arrangements with regard to employment opportunities.

-4

Tuesday 4th March 2014 – THIS MORNING TOOK ME BY SURPRISE

As you can see by looking at poor Caliburn, we’ve had a right pasting of snow this morning. It was certainly impressive!

But then again I had an interesting night. A couple of Security guards were accompanying some notable person and how they communicated with each other was by coded flashes of a torch. They thought that it was quite novel but I took the trouble to explain to them that we had been doing that for years – even down to having different lenses (clear, green, red) and even Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes adventures had been doing it. (The Speckled Band as it happens).

So that was enough excitement for the morning. I headed off into the town of La Massana at the bottom of the hill.

There’s a huge ski slope up in the mountains and the lifts start from right in the town. A gondola or two went a-clattering over my head and so I resolved for a closer inspection.

Seems that these days Yours Truly is entitled to a Senior Citizens’ discount but even so, €7:50 was still a lot of money to spend. But anyway, as Martin Luther once said – “hier stehe ich – ich kann nicht anders”.
I was tempted to hire some skis and other kit for a little go but I’m glad that I didn’t because of course it’s Carnaval and school holidays. The slopes were absolutely teeming with kids.

It was freezing cold too and the wind was perishing so after a cup of coffee and a wander around, I came back down again and continued my walk around the town.

But you can see where much of the money in Andorra is coming from these days. Some of the Estate Agents have their adverts written in Russian for their nouveau-riche visitors. And as for the prices, well you and I can forget it. Think of a number, double it, and then add some more on top;

It wasn’t just the house prices in Russian either. We had menus in Russian, notices in Russian, signs in Russian, all that kind of thing. In 25 years the Russians have gone from being oppressed Communists to the worst kind of Capitalists. That’s what a western lifestyle does for you.

The country is, however, very welcoming and even terrorists are made to feel at home and given every assistance possible.

Almost every commercial building has a little place where a terrorist can leave his bomb … “are you sure about this?” – ed … no sending it by post or sticking it in a waste paper bin here.

Good old Andorra!

So after a really good wander around and some falafel with hummus, I went back to my hotel.

That’s it up there – the Hotel Gaspa. And such a nice, warm, friendly place it is too that I’ve decided to stay on here for an extra day. I don’t want to be going far by road in this weather, and at least I’m comfortable here.

-3

Monday 3rd March 2014 – LAST NIGHT’S HOTEL …

… was called the Hotel de la Paix at Oloron Ste Marie, and a good choice it was too.

But I wasn’t alone in my room last night. Frankie Howerd, who as you know is my favourite comedian, came in with the script for his new “Carry On” film, all 391 pages of it, and so much of the night was taken up with reading it.

And I can still remember quite a lot of the script too this morning. I’ll have to sit and write it all down before I forget it. I could be on to something here.

And so with raging toothache yet again, I loaded up Caliburn and sat down to check the route for the next stage of my journey.

But something was clearly not correct as it made no sense at all, and after puzzling over the map for a good 20 minutes I realised that somehow in plotting my route I had turned over two pages of the map at once and I had driven myself up an impasse, as it were.

Consequently I decided to follow the Lady Who Lives In The Satnav for the route today and she took me via Tarbes and Pau and then right across the foothills of the Pyrenees – having me stuck behind a caravanette on a narrow series of lanes for a good 60 km.

Loads of interesting things to see but I wasn’t in any mood to stop and look – this toothache ws driving me mad. I felt like finding a dentist and having allof my teeth taken out – something like back in the 1970s when Malcolm Allison had been appoined team coach at Crystal Palace Football Club. He went to the dentist to have his teeth taken out, and they fitted seats instead.

I finally met up with my route but The Lady etc etc had found me a route that seemed to be much shorter than mine so I followed that and ended up in Spain again.

She brought me to a town called Vielha and it’s a strange situation here because all the rivers flow north into France and we have the headwaters of the River Garonne here. The International boundary is not a watershed as you might think.

And as an aside, here I was stopped for a spot-check by a Spanish Police road patrol.

The Lady Who etc etc had designs on sending me up the Valle de Aran, so it seemed. That’s a huge ski area with loads of faciiities, and the road up there goes through passes at well over 2000 metres. Ahh well – in for a penny, in for a pound.

But it wasn’t to be. About 15kms up the road and well into the snow, we encountered a sign “closed to all vehicles not equipped with chains” – and even local 4×4 drivers were chaining up for the route. They know the area so much better than I do and they’ve been driving in snow for a lot longer than I have, so if they are chaining up, what chance do I have with Caliburn?

The Lady Who Lives etc etc was rather annoyed about me retracing my steps but discretion is the better part of valour.

We carried on south through the enormous Tunnel de Vielha – this road would have been so much fun to drive 30 years ago before the tunnel had been built, I reckon – and this brought me out on the southern side of the Pyrenees and, would you believe, into the sun.

She took me off the main road and we climbed up and up and up to the aptly-named Col de Perves, where Strawberry Moose stopped for a photo opportunity as you might expect. With a name like that, he just had to.

A few flakes of snow fell onto the camera lens, but nothing much to worry about. There was hardly a trace of snow on the ground anywhere around here.

Not so over there, though.

That was where I actually should have been – climbing up out of the Valle de Aran and over the top to the town of Sort which is just on the other side of those mountains over there. This was turning into something of an enormous detour.

And if you thought that the climb up the Col de Perves was exciting, the descent was even more so.

The town of Perves is situated just below the summit and there is a track from there that leads straight downhill – clearly back before the days of the motor-car the peasants were a hardy lot – but for modern vehicles there’s a road something like this – and several good kilometres of it too. Where I’m standing is about half-way down but it’s the first good photo opportunity where there is some kind of parking.

By now though the weather has considerably brightened up and I was really enjoying the day, had it not been for this raging toothache that was putting the dampers on just about everything.

And we hadn’t finished with the mountains yet either.

We ended up climbing up a mountain pass or two via a road that was barely wide enough to take Caliburn and that was exciting when we met a couple of vehicles coming the other way. But once we arrived in Sort (about two hours after the time I should have been here) the rest of the journey was comparatively straightforward. A couple of mountain passes to be sure, but we are on N-roads, the equivelent of A-roads in the UK and I arrived at my ultimate destination, the little country of Andorra, without further ado.

But this toothache is driving me berserk and I went straight to bed, where I promptly crashed out, and that was that.

-3

Sunday 2nd March 2014 – I CAN’T LEAVE …

… Hendaye without showing you a photo of the beach here.

It stretches for over three kilometres, and even in the dismal weather that we were having this morning, it looked quite impressive. It really is a shame that the weather has conspired to defeat me on this little journey. Hendaye has always been a place high on my list to visit, and I can’t believe that the weather has let me down.

The town might not be up to too much but the seafront is certainly from another time – the Belle Epoque of the period from 1890 to 1929 (minus the war of course) as you can tell from some of the magnificent buildings here.

It costs a king’s ransom to rent a flat there as you might expect but, surprisingly, the restaurant is quite “democratic” in its prices and the vegetable risotto that I had the first night here was excellent, in both quality and price.

This is ice-station Zebra where I stayed for a couple of nights.

They had fixed the hot water by this morning but not the heating, but I’m not complaining. All hotels are under repair during the close season – it’s part of the fun of travelling at this time of year – and they made me a handsome reduction on the price as well as including the (copious) breakfast free of charge to make up for the inconvenience. Chapeau to the Hotel Bellevue!

Diesel is about 10 cents a litre cheaper in Spain and so Caliburn, Strawberry Moose
and I crossed the border and fuelled up.

From there we followed the border for quite a way – but on the Spanish side.

Neither Caliburn nor Strawberry Moose have been to Spain before and so here’s a photo of Caliburn to prove that he was here. Strawberry Moose will be having a better photo-opportunity in due course.

Watch this space.

But there’s all kinds of interesting things to see at the roadside. Here in a pub car park (or what passes as a pub in Spain) there was a steam locomotive.

Built by the Lokomotivbau Karl Marx in Babelsberg (East Germany, of course), this is build number 16005 of 1950 and is probably one of the 4000-odd narrow-gauge steam locomotives built for the East German narrow-gauge railway network.

What it’s doing here is a mystery but one thing is certain in that it won’t be going anywhere else. It’s in a dreadful state.

We climbed back into France over the Col d’Ispeguy, all 672 metres of it. This was the scene of a battle between the French and the Spanish in June 1794 and it’s clearly a sensitive military area as even today there are the remains of a great number of military defences guarding the Pass.

These though are likely to be something to do with World War II. Spain was neutral during the War but Hitler had asked Franco for permission to send an army across Spain to besiege Gibraltar. This was a logical step, as it would have closed the Mediterranean to British forces and led to the collapse of the British position in North Africa.

Franco refused and, apparently, gave Hitler such a verbal mauling that Hitler emerged shaken from the intervie and declared that he would rather go to have all of his teeth pulled at the dentist that have another discussion with Franco. Franco would be well-aware of the importance of Gibraltar, convinced that the Germans would invade Spain in order to capture the Rock, and doubless ordered these fortifications to be built.

Hitler’s failure to force the issue with Franco was the first nail in the Nazi coffin, in my opinion.

But as I have said before, the power of vehicle advertising is teemendous. Here I was sitting at the top of the Col d’Ispeguy quietly eating my butty and admiring the view into France when there was a knock on the window of Caliburn. As a result I ended up doing a site visit for a French guy in the area.

It will come to nothing as he’s at the bottom of a steep-sided valley and won’t have the sun for more than 4 or 5 hours per day in summer, but nevertheless, it just shows …

Next part of the route was to take me from Ahaxe to Tardets on a road that is something of a roller-coaster of half a dozen mountain passes of well over 1000 metres – up there somewhere.

However on turning off onto the lane there was a large gate, all padlocked off, with “road closed” all over it. Not that I’m surpised. It’s been raining for much of the day and it’s quite cold so snow up there is an odds-on certainty. And it’s not as if it’s a main road – or even a minor road, come to that.

I ended up having to come by the Col d’Osquich, Mauléon, Cheraute (where I was lucky enough to catch an exciting football match) and Barcus, and now I’m cosily esconced in a hotel opposite the railway station at Oloron Sainte-Marie where I’ll be spending the night.

It’s nice and warm here and the shower works. Just what the doctor ordered.

-3

Saturday 1st March 2014 – IT’S CARNAVAL …

… in San Sebastian today. That’s about half an hour down the coast in Spain, and Yours Truly having made enquiries, off he went.

There’s a train that runs from Hendaye to San Sebastian and places beyond, and you have to look for it in a corner of the car park of the SNCF railway station.

Apparently it’s not welcome within the main station, even though it is the only rail passenger service that runs across the border. I’m not quite sure why, as there were endless streams of people dragging suitcases and the like across the car park from one to the other.

A nice modern train as you can see, clean, tidy and airy and for all of that distance it cost just €2:40, which has to be a bargain in anyone’s money.

Eat your heart out, British rail passengers. No wonder I didn’t take Caliburn with me. It would have cost more than that for the diesel. He can have a day off.

But, in the kind of thing that can only happen to me, we had the wettest day in Spain so far this year. This only ever happens when I want to go there. The last time I went to Spain – in 1998 I think – was the first time that they had had snow for over 50 years.

We had storms as well, if you peer through the raindrops on the lens of the camera.

Another wild windy day and I spent a good few minutes watching the waves dashing a few huge pieces of timber and tree trunks against the promenade. Anyone who wonders just how the sea can break up a huge ship would have had the enigma solved for them this afternoon in this comparatively sheltered bay, watching the waves play about with this wood.

But there are also loads of morons about in the world, and not a few of them here in this bay.

It’s all very well surfing in a storm, if that’s really what you want to do, but looking at how the waves were treating the wood that was being washed into the bay, anyone being hit by a lump of wood (of which there were plenty) or a tree trunk would know about it – and so would his friends.

But the carnaval was a wash-out as you might expect. There were loads of people all dressed up to entertain, and several floats disceetly parked up in side streets, but no-one on the streets to watch.

And that was hardly surprising. I wouldn’t put a dog outside in the weather that we were having. Never mind the plain and the down the drain, the rain in Spain fell mainly down the back of my neck.

So I caught an early train home, but not before I had had something to eat.

And that was pretty easy too in San Sebastian. That’s an extract from the menu from one mainstream restaurant just next to the cathedral, and the restaurant next door had vegan options too. Not only that, I found two others without even trying. Puts much of Europe and almost all of North America to shame.

And the hummus? Delicious!

But another thing too – I’m collecting pics of football grounds while I’m on my travels, and Real Sociedad play here in San Sebastian. Furthermore, the club’s ground is just outside one of the railway stations along the route.

This calls for a photo opportunity of course, and there’s a handy hill right by the ground from which a good viewpoint might be had.

But count the number of gates that you can see at the ground. It gives the lie to the club putting all their Basques in One Exit.

I’ll get my coat.

-3

Friday 28th February 2014 – I’VE ARRIVED …

… at my destination for this weekend. I’m in Hendaye, which is at the extreme south-east of France and just across the river is the Basque coast of Northern Spain. And here I’ll be until Sunday night.

This was my hotel from last night – the Hotel Belle Vue. I was in the annexe in the foreground – that’s where the cheaper rooms are and, of course, I’m on the budget plan. But nevertheless, I’m not faulting for a minute the value for money. I was quite happy with this.

No complaints about the breakfast either, and with the kettle in the room I was even able to make a flask of coffee.

While I was on my travels last night, prowling around the town, I came across this sign. I had to return to photograph it this morning before I left.

If it shows anything at all, it shows that money spent on a good native-speaking translator is never wasted, no matter how good you think that your on translation might be. Although, I must admit that if the boot were on the other foot I would be happy with a sign like this.

I was in Hossegor later this morning to carry out an errand. My friend Marianne wrote a book on Pionsat and this was illustrated with photos from a bygone age.

One photo shows a man leaving the Pionsat Post Office and someone who saw the photo said “that’s Richardy, a garage proprietor from Hossegor who had a summer home in Pionsat”.

It was always on Marianne’s list to go to Hossegor and see if she could find the garage but seeing as how I was in the area I went instead. And after multiple enquiries at the Town Hall, the Police Station, the Tourist Information and the Pensioners’ Club, people think that this supermarket might have been it.

It’ll be confirmed for me on Monday.

From there, I followed the coast down to Hendaye and the weather deteriorated as I drove south. Sitting having my lunch at the port of Bayonne watching the Arklow Fortune, newly arrived from Ijmuiden, something of a storm had sprung up.

The Arklow Fortune is a rare breed of vessel by the way – she’s a freighter flying the Irish flag so it seems, and that’s not something that you see every day.

By the time I reached St Jean de Luz near Biarritz, the weather had turned decidedly nasty as you can see. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it as bad as this. Violent was not the word.

Here in Hendaye, the seafront is closed off as they are expecting the weather to deteriorate further over the weekend with a climax on Monday evening.

But I have a hotel 10 minutes from the seafront overlooking the river that separates Hendaye from Spain. It’s basic and in the throes of being renovated, but they’ve done me a good deal on the price of a room and including breakfast, even if there is no heating yet and the room needs finishing. As I said, I’m on the budget package.

So after my excellent vegetable risotto, I’m off to bed for an early night.

-1

Thursday 27th February 2014 – THIS IS WHERE …

… I spent the night. The “Grain de Sable” in Ares. So called because all of the walls are lined with bottle containing sand from different beaches throughout the world.

A little on the expensive side, but you would be surprised how difficult it is to find any hotel here in this tourist area, never mind one that is open. Camping and chalets and flats seem to be the order of the day.

But you can see what the weather was doing. Cold, wet and miserable. It caught me up during the night. But not as cold, wet and miserable as last night in the mountains of Nova Scotia where I wqs picking up bits of the Swissair flight that blew up over the Atlantic just offshore from Halifax. Must have been a strong jetstream to get aircraft parts onto the mainland, that’s all I can say.

I had a slow, leisurely drive all the way around the bay and to the town of Arcachon. There I was disappointed as it really is a “twee” place. No chance to park as firstly the weather was so bad and secondly, parking is very strictly controlled and it wasn’t easy to see a space, let alone reverse into it seeing as how the streets were so narrow (well, they weren’t – it was just that the roadway was deliberately narrowed so that pedestrians would have more room to walk about, not that it stopped them stepping off the road in front of the traffic without even looking or caring whenever the fancy took them. How was it who once famously said “There are two types of pedestrian – the quick and the dead”?)

I did stop a few miles out of Arcachon because I reckoned that from there I would be able to see the Cap Ferret lighthouse across on the other side of the bay.

So there you are – that’s where I was yesterday afternoon. Round by the lighthouse across the bay.

And you might have noticed that the weather has improved sightly too.

As you come out of the bay and hit the Atlantic coast, the effects of the currents going in one direction and the wind blowing in the opposite direction has created some immense sand dunes, such as this monster dune near Pyla sur Mer. It’s enormous.

I was going to have a close look at it but it’s all fenced off until you come to the car park, which is a “pay to leave” car park with ticket control, automatic barriers and the like. I did a U-turn and drove out of the entrance – I’m not being caught for parking like that.

Next stop was Biscarrosse Plage in Les Landes. Odds-on there being loads of hotels here seeing that this is one of France’s major unsung holiday resorts.

But why it is unsung is that there are in fact only 5 here (and a couple of enormous camp sites) but none is open. And not only that, there isn’t a single open boulangerie in the whole town.

The beach is closed too, but there’s a reason for that. There’s been a howling gale blowing here for the last month with enormous waves. This area is the neck of the funnel that is the Bay of Biscay and the whole of the Atlantic Ocean is trying to fit into this little coastal strip. There’s nothing out there until the south-eastern seaboard of the USA. IMpressive, what?

So with no hotels, no bakery, no nothing, I drove on and on and now I’m in Mimizan Plage where not only is there a little democratically-priced hotel but also a Morroccan restaurant that has made me a delicious vegan couscous.

-2

Wednesday 26th February 2014 – THIS IS WHERE …

… Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly stopped for lunch this afternoon.

I’m at Le Cap Ferret, which is on the French South-Western Atlantic coast not too far from Bordeaux. There is an errand and some Pionsat-based research to be undertaken in this neck of the woods and when I woke up this morning at Brive-La-Gaillarde to another round of miserable driving rain and the only spot of clear weather on the whole of today’s map of France seemed to be around here, I thought “sod this for a game of soldiers” and I’ve gone West.

“Not before time” I hear you say, but anyway, as Marshall MacMahon once famously said, “here I am and here I’ll stay”

One reason for coming here is that there is a big lighthouse on the Cape and as many long-term readers of this rubbish will recall, I have quite a thing about lighthouses.

But this one wasn’t what I was expecting to see for rather than being isolated on some kind of sandspit somewhere, it’s right in the middle of a built-up area. Access is very difficult and also it’s not easy to find a good spot to take a photograph. Still, one does the best one can.

I went for a good long walk for a couple of hours along the beach. Part of the beach is actually an enormous sandspit that stretches for a good mile, if not more, just offshore and it’s a wonderful place to go for a stroll.

There was practically no-one about which was surprising given how qwarm it was this afternoon. But I bet that it wouldn’t be like this in July and August, not by any means

We’d had a few sudden, short storms during the day, some of them quite heavy, and while I was out on my sandspit we had another one.

Come and gone in a flash, but we had the most astonishing rainbow and I’ve never seen one quite like this before. It came out really well on the photo which was something of a surprise as it doesn’t usually happen like this either.

But on the debit side, dunno if you remember me fixing the auxilliary charging circuit on Caliburn on Monday. Since then, there has always been an occasional little whiff of Sulphuric gas from the battery – no surprise as the battery is goosed and it’s only there to make a circuit. But this evening there was a different smell. The second battery is behind the driver’s seat so while I was driving, I put my hand down to feel if anything was out of the ordinary happening to the battery – and promptly burnt my hand.

The battery was more-than-red hot and so I think that it’s gone totally o/c. And so hot that I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had burst into flames either.

I’ve disconnected it anyway and I’ll have another look at it tomorrow. Or sometime. Maybe.

But now I’m in a little seaside hotel just down the road from Le Cap Ferret. No idea where I’ll go tomorrow, but I don’t feel like going home.

And last night?

I was with Nerina and we went to the Victoria Hall in Hanley to see Neil Young. We were very early and caught him on stage setting up and checking his equipment. There were about 20 early birds in total and he invited us all on stage for a chat, and asked us if we had any questions.

I asked him about his songwriting – I reckoned that the songs that he wrote when he had the Black Dog looking over his shoulder were by far and away the best. Did he agree? And how did he cope with Depression affecting his songwriting.

He replied that he was so accustomed to it that he had learned to live with it and what he wrote, as long as it was technically competent, he had no qualms whatever about recording. Songwriting is all about expressing the writer’s moods and there is good and bad, just like in life.

He then asked for a volunteer todo something and, to my surprise, Nerina volunteered. Not like her – she always had very firm preiciples. But nevertheless she left her position of crouched on the floor at Neil Young’s feet and went off to do this task.

-3

Tuesday 25th February 2014 – I’M NOT HERE

Well, not ALL here anyway. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

I’m not there either – although I was earlier this evening. This is the Viaduc de la Roche-Taillende, colloquially known as the Viaduc des Rochers Noirs, and it’s near the town of Lapleau in the Corrèze.

You may not think it looking at that tight curve to enter the viaduct, but I’m actually standing on the bed of a disaffected railway line. It’s another one of these metre-gauge tacots, or “rattletraps”, a narrow-gauge railway line similar to the one that we’ve seen at Marcillat-en-Combraille in the Allier, but this one ran between Ussel and Tulle in the Corrèze.

There was a speed limit of 15kph on the line which is hardly surprising given the tightness of the curve, and also the fact that we have a suspension bridge which is quite a rare type of construction for a railway bridge.

Just like chez Liz and Terry, the railway disappears off into a tunnel on the other side of the river, but that is all fenced off.

Until 2006 you could actually drive through there in a car but unfortunately the Conseil Départementale has put a stop to all of that.

I merely contented myself with taking a few pictures – there wasn’t anything more that I could do unfortunately.

I did however go for a little bit of a climb and I was glad that I did, because the view from up on a rocky outcrop towering a couple of hundred feet above the viaduct was stunning, to say the least, even if it did wear me out climbing up to here.

This photo does show you the lengths that they had to go in order to build the viaduct and it’s hard to think that this line didn’t open until 1913, by which time it had effectively already outlived its effectiveness with the coming of the motor-bus but nevertheless it struggled on until as recently as 1960, which is quite an achievement for a metre-gauge tacot.

While I was up here I took a few photos of the stunning scenery.

The viaduct spans the Gorge de la Luzège at a height of 92 metres, or 126 metres if you count the pylons, so I’m quite high up and the view of the gorge is amazing.

It’s a shame that the weather was so dreadful though – it’s been raining non-stop and I’ve forgotten to bring a raincoat with me.

Serves me right.

Coming here brought me (via the Pionsat Post Office to post Cécile’s letters) over the Plateau de Millevaches on the border between the Creuze and Corrèze.

Apart from the snow that I encountered, the plateau is famous in that it was effectively a “Free French” area during World War II. There is a great deal of resistance souvenirs in the area, including this plaque to commemorate the parachuting-in of members of the 3rd Regiment SAS who organised the French Resistance in the turbulent times after D-Day.

There are poignant souvenirs too – memorials to victims of the occasional sweeps by the Gestapo and also the town of Tulle itself just a short drive away, where the Das Reich Panzer Division of the SS strung up almost 100 locals from lamp-posts in the centre of the town as a form of reprisal for terrorist attacks.

And that’s not all either.

I saw a sign that said Ruines les Cars and with Cars being French for the kind of coaches that I drove when I worked for Shearings, I went for a look to see what it was all about, but instead I found myself in the middle of a Roman villa and huge Temple from the 2nd Century AD.

Of course, you are not allowed to say “Roman Remains” here in France. Everything has to be “Gallo-Roman” because the French don’t accept (rightly or wrongly, I dunno) that the French civilisation of the turn of the Common Era was any less inferior than the Roman civilisation, and I’ve seen some healthy fights at some of these archaeological meetings that I sometimes go to.

Talking of ruins of cars, another thing that caught my eye was this. The remains of an old car abandoned in a forest.

No maker’s plate or anything like that on it, so no idea what it might be, but it has a wooden chassis sheathed in steel, and it’s clearly the type of car that had real wings and a lift-off body. With its steel wheels, all of that dates it to the early 1930s I reckon.

If you have any ideas what it might be, let me know. But there isn’t much to go on, I know.

From here I headed off down the hill and towards civilisation. I ended up in the town of Tulle where I planned to find a hotel but was singularly unsuccessful.

And to my own surprise, I didn’t take a single photo of the place and I ought to have done, because Tulle is one of the saddest places in French modern history.

Following the Normandy Landings, the local Resistance troops had risen up and seized control of the town from the Germans. Just as they were preparing to deal with the final German holdouts, the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich appeared on the scene on its way north.

The result was that 99 civilians, many of whom had no connection with the armed uprising, were strung up from lamp-posts in the main street and a considerable number of others were brutally tortured

So with no hotel that I could find in Tulle, I’ve moved on to Brive la Gaillard where I’ll be spending the night.. I’ve no idea where I’ll be tomorrow.

-2

Monday 24th February 2014 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Yes, here I am – another year older and deeper in debt. And having reached a ripe old age, getting riper as I get older, I suppose that I ought to think about growing up.

So having had another late night last night, I woke up and hung around in bed for ages until I reckoned that “if I don’t get up now then I never will”, only to find that it was 08:45. So much for my body clock!

But last night I was in Crewe with my taxi business and I was round at the house of one of my regular passengers up on Bradfield Road, a woman who always had a cab to go to one of the pubs down West Street. She had a friend around, a woman who was a widow whose husband had died 9 years ago in a pub in West Street, having been sloshed about the head with a house brick. This woman had fallen victim to a scam whereby some mad had come from either Alfreton or Ilkeston to seel joints of mmeat “like this one here” – taking the money on the promise of delivery the next day but of course no-one would ever see again. Another adventure had befallen this woman at the hands of this meat salesman, but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it.

So after breakfast, it was to work, even though it is my birthday and thus usually a day off.

I have many requests from my friends, some of which are phyxically impossible of course, but others which require an element of work. This one today was “for God’s sake, have a shower”. But if anyone thinks that I was going to stand outside in this wind in nothing but my birthday suit they are mistaken but it was 23°C in the verandah and that called for positive thought.

I threw out the old woodstove that Claude gave me – and it went out in several pieces and a pile of dust in fact. Then a load of other bits and pieces followed, many of which went straight in the bin. And by the time that I had finished sweeping up and tidying up, there was a space about 2mx1m at the far end of the verandah that was clear. I ran up a rope and then hung a shower curtain to it.

After lunch I found the wooden rails that I stand on when I have a shower outside and put them in the verandah, mixed up a bucket of warm water from the home-made 12-volt immersion heater (which was on 66°C) and cold water out of the water butt, and … I had a shower.

Nice and warm it was too, especially as it was in the verandah and it would have been perfect had I had a low-debit 12-volt pump in working order. I ended up using a jug to pour the water over me, but nevertheless a shower it was, the first of the year at home, and I feel so much better for it too.

Cécile sent me a present of sweeties (thanks very much) and an envelope to send her any post that she has received, so I went round to her house to see if there was anything (and I made use of the washing machine too – so clean bedding tonight as well!)

I’d been invited round to Liz and Terry’s for tea (thank you very much) but stopped off at the site ornithologique as there was a magnificent view of the Puy de Sancy and the Mont Dore covered in snow and with clouds reflecting the profile of the skyline.

Liz had cooked a curry with trimmings, followed by chocolate and avocado mousse which was delicious.

And then back home via picking up the washing, which is now hanging up outside as we are having another day of no rain so far (i’m the eternal optimist of course). But Sunday was the first day without rain since, would you believe, 9th January – 6 weeks ago!

Qo now I’m off to bed after my exertions of today. I wonder where I’ll end up tonight!

-6

Sunday 23rd February 2014 – PHEW!

No wonder I’m so flaming tired all the time, if last night is anything to go by.

There I was in South-West London, renting a room in a house and to reach the area of London where the house was, there was a zig-zag climb up to a plateau rather like the way in to Marcillat from the Montlucon road only, of course, all built-up and urbanised.

I was talking to a girl who was something to do with a business, down at the business premises at the foot of the climb, talking about the house in which I was living, and she was expressing her astonishment that here in the inner suburbs of London there was a house that had three wind turbines powering all of the electricity (I do actually have three wind turbines here).

The conversation was interrupted as I needed to go to Brussels in Belgium. There, I met Anne-Marie in a café half-way up the Boulevard Léopold II near to the Simonis transport hub. She was wanting to see more of the parts of Brussels that she didn’t know, and the area of Molenbeek and Koekelberg (served by the Simonis hub) is an area that I know quite well.

But Anne-Marie. She joined the EU at about the same time that I did and was part of this little group of us that went around together. I had quite a soft spot for her and we went on a couple of skiing trips together. She would have been a good partner for me, I always reckoned, as she had a knack of bringing my feet back firmly to the floor whenever I went off on one of my regular flights of fancy. But as is usual, though, I would have been far too much hard work for someone “normal” and so nothing ever happened. Another “one that got away”, the lucky girl.

But let’s return to the issue at hand. Despite all of the contemporary stuff that was going on in the Boulevard Leopold II, it was in fact early 1914 and the eve of World War I. Some German notable, von Something zu Somewhat, was there trying to negotiate something with some Belgian politicians and my task, if I chose to accept it, was to find out who he was and what he was doing and who he was negotiating with and why. On the eve of World War I, everyone in Europe was nervous.

So once I had ascertained his name, I contacted MI6 to see if he was “known” to the British authorities. I didn’t receive a reply but it turned out that the principal reason why he was there was that he (only a young guy) had made a young girl pregnant because he needed a child in order to inherit something. But this girl was not ready to have herself “announced” to all the world. Therefore there was some machination about producing the baby, with a spurious mother, and producing the real mother at a later date.

I suggested that he should have produced a spurious baby as well and saved all of this pantomime, but this didn’t go down too well at all.

After all of that running around Northern Europe for 100 years when I should have been sleeping, I didn’t feel too bad about staying in bed until 10:10 this morning. And after breakfast I just mooched around for a while.

There should have been some footy this afternoon – I had a choice of the 1st XI at Lempdes – about a 90-minute drive away – or the 2nd XI at home against the Goatslayers, both kick-offs at 13:00. Of course, I chose the Goatslayers at home, and so of course the match was postponed, as I found out when I arrived at the ground.

But with the glorious summer weather today (180.1 amp-hours of surplus solar energy, 66°C in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load), firstly I aired all of the bedding that I use in Caliburn – it’s been in its suitcase in the barn since early November, and secondly, I had a look at Caliburn’s auxilliary electrical circuits.

The solar panel on Caliburn’s roof rack hasn’t been charging up the second battery for a while and neither has the split-charging relay that works off the main battery. It turns out that the cheap charge controller that I bought years ago in the UK has burnt itself out. Luckily, in one of these solar briefcase kits that I bought years ago and which broke when it fell off the LDV’s roof, there was a charge controller that was now sitting around doing nothing. Consequently, that’s now wired in the circuit and seems to be working.

As for the split charger, after much furkling arouns and bad temper and cursing, I found that there was a poor earth connection. Once that was all cleaned up and greased and sanded, that now works as it should.

But with having almost dismantled the auxilliary electric circuit, I decided to tidy it all up. It really was such a mess. Now it’s all shipshape and Bristol-fashion, bolted to the bulkhead as it should be, and out of the way of where I’m likely to trip over it. But I’m still not all that happy – I can do much better than this and I will do too.

But me? Working on a Sunday? Things are getting to me, aren’t they?

And this evening, no pizza. Not that I can’t make one, but that the temperature up here is 18.4°C, and that’s with no heating on either. If I light the fire I’d be melted out long before the pizza would be cooked.

This winter is thoroughly crazy.

-6

Saturday 22nd February 2014 – THERE’S NO FOOTY TONIGHT …

… either and so you can imagine just how p155ed off I am today. The season is miles behind already and it doesn’t look as if we’ll ever catch up. We’ll still be playing this season’s matches at rhe start of next season.

With having my little hour or two yesterday at the end of the afternoon, it was again gone 03:00 before I went to sleep. Therefore a 07:30 start this morning was … errr … facultatif, as the French say. But once I did rejoin the land of the living and had eaten my breakfast, I sat down and did the next Rock programmes and the Additional Notes for the next set of information programmes. If I can make good progress then so much the better.

With having been to the Intermarché at Pionsat yesterday there was no need for me to go to the shops today and so I stayed in. I’ve been running an Anti-virus scan on the computer seeing as how it seems that for some reason the program was switched off for a while. And so far, after 13 hours and 7 minutes, it’s done about 55%. That’s depressing, right enough.

I actually went out of the house three times today. Twice to fill the kettle for coffee and once to take the stats. Apart from that, I haven’t moved from in front of here. And I don’t intend to either.

I will however have to take the stats downstairs, which I shall do in about 10 minutes. And then I’m off to bed. An early night for a change – or, at least, what passes for an early night for me.

-3

EPIC HALL

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