Tuesday 25th December 2012 – THE FIRST NOEL…

… the Angels did say was at about blasted 07:45 this flaming morning.

That’s because despite it being a Bank Holiday and accordingly a Day of Rest, where nothing ever moves before perishing midday, Brain of Britain here forgot to switch off his sodding alarm clock, didn’t he?

Still, the early start gave me plenty of time to relax and open my presents.

Lots of DVDs, CDs, books and computer stuff. All a man could desire – except for Kate Bush and Jenny Agutter of course, but you can’t have everything.

And once breakfast was out of the way I sat down for the start of my marathon DVD session.

Lunch was the typical Christmas Day lunch – nibbling on bits and pieces, and then having had a suitable repose, I prepared the veg for the evening meal.

Boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, carrots, endives and sprouts – all cooked in the steamer.

Cécile came round in the late afternoon, just in time for Carry on Don’t Lose Your Head.

Not my favourite Carry-On film but one that she would understand, with lots of visual humour. High time, given the state of globalisation in the world today, that I started spreading around the spirit of Carry On humour.

So a few more films, a Christmas meal (the aforementioned plus seitan slices in onion gravy, Christmas pudding and vegan cream followed by coffee and Christmas cake), and a good chat, she went home and I went to bed.

0

Monday 24th December 2012 – Merry Christmas everyone

I hope that Santa brings you everything that you deserve this morning.

As for me today though, I’ve had the best fire here this evening that I have ever had, and I’m so delighted. After the usual breakfast and bits and pieces I dismantled the stove pipes. I’ve ruined about three brushes and all kinds of things, but it was necessary as the pipes were totally choked with ash and tar and all kinds of stuff. Hardly an air passage in sight, no wonder that the fire wouldn’t draw.

Anyway, the pipes are now thoroughly cleaned, jointed and reinstalled exactly as they should be, and the fire this evening burnt beautifully, even demolishing a large log on the lowest air setting. Even more exciting was the fact that the glass in the window remained mostly clear with hardly a trace of soot. That’s a first.

Apart from that, I wrapped up the presents and toddled off to Marianne’s to deposit hers. We had quite a chat too for a couple of hours, and that was quite pleasant.

So that’s it. Tomorrow I’m supposed to be having a day off but that’s unlikely as, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be having visitors and so I’ll need to cook. That will be exciting.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all.

-3

Sunday 23rd December 2012 – Sunday is a day of rest …

… although that wasn’t the case here today. I couldn’t even manage to lie in after 08:45.

After breakfast and some work on the computer I carried on tidying up in here. After all, I might be having visitors here in early course. And then, after a few hours of working on the Quebec website, I emptied Caliburn of all of the stuff bought in the UK the other week, and put it away. That was not as easy as it sounds, I’ll tell you.

However we finally had the day that I had been awaiting. Gorgeous, blue sky with scattered clouds and 70 amphours or so in each of the two solar banks on the house. That has cheered me up a little and it would be nice to see more of that for the next couple of days if possible. It’ll make the batteries look much more healthy.   

-3

Saturday 22nd December 2012 – I’m still here today too.

Although, given the weather, I wouldn’t have minded in the least if the world had come to an end. I can’t remember if this is the 9th or 10th consecutive day of rain but nevertheless, it’s still been very wet and once more, the four banks of solar panels haven’t received any electricity worth talking about. It’s not just the weather that’s in a depression.

I made it out today – into St Eloy-les-Mines and a quick thrash around the shops. Most importantly, I have my brussels sprouts and endives for Christmas Day now. That’s vitally important of course. They well go nicely with my roast spuds, seitan slices, stuffing and onion gravy for Christmas Dinner. That’s if I get any Christmas Dinner – the fire is playing up right now. It’s not burning, just sitting there smouldering and blowing clouds of smoke back into the room. I’ll have to look at the pipework to see whether a mouse has hibernated in the chimney.

One thing that I did do today though was to go to the launderette. There was a load of washing here and waiting for fine weather and hot water will be like waiting for Godot I imagine. There will be more chance of meeting him here right now. So a huge pile of it went into a machine and now it’s all clean.

That means clean bedding tonight and seeing as how I had a good strip-down wash this afternoon, a clean me too. Yes, a strip-down wash. If anyone thinks that I’m standing outside taking a shower in this weather they are mistaken.

-5

Friday 21st December 2012 – All around the house …

… is shrouded in mist at the moment.

So either the world did come to an end, or else we have a hanging cloud over the mountain. I know which one I suspect. Hanging clouds are a well-known phenomenon around here, as you know, and I reckon that all this talk about the end of the world was a load of nonsense. The Mayans simply ran out of room on the parchment and that was that.

But it may well have been the end of the world for all I care. Another wet, miserable, dreary day like the 8 previous ones. It’s enough to make anyone feel depressed. But a little silver lining to the cloud is that I now know when our Christmas Special is being broadcast. It’s on Christmas Eve at 18:00 and Christmas Day at 13:00. Central European Time of course so you need to make your own adjustments if you live elsewhere of course.

If you don’t live around Clermont Ferrand you won’t be able to hear it on the radio, but you will be able to hear it streamed on the Radio Arverne website. I think that this is the link, but I’ll have to check up on it later.

-2

Thursday 20th December 2012 – WELL, FOLKS …

… I’m feeling a little better today.

I can cough without feeling that I have that piece of sandpaper stuck down my throat, although coughing does make my ribs ache. All I need to do now is to stop this runny nose before I run out of kitchen roll.

Apart from that, I’ve not been doing much. Spending an hour or two every so often writing the radio programmes – it’s difficult to concentrate to write a whole stream of stuff, and reading a few books.

But you’ll be pleased (or maybe disappointed) to learn that I’ve not had any interesting dreams just now these last few days.

I’ve also had a few phone calls from friends – such as Liz, Marianne and Rosemary, and that’s nice too. Cheers me up no end.

I hope that I’ll be feeling better by Saturday though because I have to go out and do some shopping. Must get the sprouts in for Christmas

And talking of Christmas and Rosemary, I forgot to mention that I’m still eating lettuce out of the garden. Yes – I built up a raised bed with some old planks and laid an old caravan window across the top.

That’s kept the weather out and while the leaves are quite small, they are still there and quite edible. That’s something of a surprise, especially with the horrendous weather that we’ve had.

We’ve had seven consecutive days of rain and since I’ve been back (2 weeks) we’ve only had one day of sunshine. I wish that the weather would improve because I could do with recharging my batteries some day soon – and those of the solar energy systems too

No wonder I’m all sad, depressed and miserable with all of this.

Talk about being under the weather – there’s a lot of weather to be under right now 

-2

Wednesday 19th December 2012 – EEEUUURRRGGGHHH!

Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve been like this. The last couple of months of the year has not been very kind to me.

I can’t speak because of my sore throat … "hooray" – ed … I feel as if I have a piece of sandpaper stuck in my throat so it kills me when I cough, and I have a nose that could run a marathon.

I’ve not been outside at all except a brief run out to take the statistics. But then that’s no surprise because the weather is totally awful. I wouldn’t have gone out in this weather even if I were feeling healthy.

So now I’m snuggled up under the quilt by the side of a roaring wood stove and I don’t intend to move.

A good book or two, a couple of good films and some tins of food that I can heat up in the oven on the wood stove along with some baked potatoes and that will do me until I feel better.

0

Tuesday 18th December 2012 – Well, I’m still here.

Yes, man-flu hasn’t claimed me yet.

Mind you I’ve been having some weird dreams. I’ve been reading a book on the history of England from 450 to 1066 and in this dream I rewrote the entire book – which was something of an effort. We moved on from there to the station at Wrexham where I was waiting for passengers in a taxi that belonged to the first taxi company I drove for – but it was painted red, not white. I didn’t find the passengers I wanted, but I picked up two others and although they came from a working-class area of Wrexham and were women in their early 20s, they had designed a huge underground shopping mall in Montreal.

So having had a relaxing day, I’ll be off to sleep in a minute and see what else comes my way. I might even feel a little better in the morning.

-3

Monday 17th December … WHAT WITH MY …

… late night last night – not returning home until 01:35 this morning – it was freezing cold up here and so I went straight to bed.

And I was up early too, for today we were doing the radio programmes.

This morning it was out to Marcillat-en-Combraille and the Radio Tartasse sessions.

Down to Liz and Terry’s for lunch and then Gerzat and the Radio Arverne sessions this afternoon. That involved the regular series of programmes followed by the Christmas Special.

Just as I predicted, we haven’t used half of it either. But that’s no big deal – it saves me a job for next year, doesn’t it?

And much to everyone’s surprise, including mine, everything today went off without a hitch. How often does that happen?

Back to drop off Liz a – something that naturally involves a coffee (followed by a slice of vegan ginger cake of course) and then I came back here.

And here I’m staying too, and the reason for that is simple. I’ve not been feeling to well for a couple of days and last night a heavy head cold erupted, hence one of the reasons why I had no sleep.

It now seems to have developed into a fully-blown man-flu and so that’s me up here in the attic for the duration.

I hope that I’ve cut enough wood to last me out.

-5

Sunday 16th December 2012 – I’VE SPENT TODAY …

… not DOING very much at all – some tidying up … "THUD" – ed … and arranging some papers, which makes a change.

Later on, I went down to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the radio programmes. On the way I stopped to pick up Cécile who had been invited.

It’s a mammoth radio programme as I told you, and I doubted very much that we’ll finish it – after all, 35 pages of A4 is some going. But at least it’s broken the back of the radio programme for next Christmas too, if anything else survives after Friday.

I also received my Christmas prezzie from Liz – a vegan Christmas cake – and I’ll post a photo of it as soon as I can find a fork lift truck to lift it out of the back of Caliburn because it’s enormous.

Cécile was having further trouble with this new wood stove that she’s been given and so I stopped off there to have a good look at it.

It took me a while to figure it out but once that was resolved and it had had a good cleaning it burnt like a good’un.

But it took ages, hence the late return home. Good job that Caliburn knows the way on his own.

0

Saturday 15th December 2012 – I DIDN’T BLOG …

… last night before going to bed, and I bet that you were all disappointed.

But no matter, I’ll serve it up this morning for you.

Actually, I was far too busy, working on the radio programmes and it was 02:30 before I went to bed. “If you have the inspiration, keep on at it”, as the actress once famously said to the bishop.

But at least it’s all finished today, all …errr … 60kbs of it. That’s the equivalent of almost 2 hours of discussion.

And then you have to add the ad-libs in too and then of course the music that we’ll be playing in between – so that should be enough for the next three years.

At least, I hope so. As I said yesterday, it’ll all come in handy.

And so, apart from writing the radio programme, that was that

The weather warmed up dramatically this morning and it was 17°C in my room when I woke up. That makes a nice change, and at least I was comfortable without the fire when I was doing the radio programme

Shopping was next on the agenda and so a run out to St Eloy-les-Mines was called for.

But there’s been a change of plan as far as the diet goes. Pasta doesn’t work in the oven, and rice is a bit samey day after day and so I’ve bought a big bag of potatoes. Baked spuds should be just about fine for the rest of the winter I think.

But while I’m on the subject of changes, I’ve changed the room around a little.

I’ve moved a bookcase or two and shuffled the pair of chests of drawers around a little, and now the end wall underneath the little window at the side of the oven became miraculously free.

Remember the table that I brought up here a while ago? That’s gone nicely just there and I now actually have a kind of kitchen in that corner. Won’t that be really handy for the winter.

And I’ve finally heard from Bill.

I set Marianne a task viz to contact the hospital. Marianne is not easily brushed aside and managed to find out where he was. So she came up with a number and so I rang him.

He’s out of danger but he’s not himself yet. Time will tell but I’m so relieved.

I was really worried.

0

Friday 14th December 2012 – I ALMOST HAD …

… of shock today!

When this white Ford Transit came chugging down the lane, I thought at first that Terry had come to visit and not warned me. It was however Sophie the boulangère. Instead of a Saturday tournée, she’s now coming on Fridays.

And she was lucky that she caught me in too – I’d not long been back.

Earlier this morning I had been in Marcillat-en-Combraille radioing with Radio Tartasse. It’s the Radio Anglais rock music programmes for the month of February that I was doing and once again, it only took a very short while.

Mind you, much of that was due to the fact that the introduction for the live concert that I feature took a mere 20 seconds.

The reason for that was because, rummaging around in my drawers, I came across a live concert of “a well-known artist” which, when I’d edited it all together, came out at 59 minutes and 40 seconds.

That doesn’t leave much time to do an intro when you only have a 1 hour programme.

After that, it was non-stop on the Christmas Special for the rest of the day.

I reckon that I could have called a halt on this some time during the afternoon. There would have been quite enough, I reckon. But when you have the inspiration and the motivation, it’s best to keep churning it out, which I did.

It won’t be wasted of course, because there will be other years too, and if necessary I can use the stuff in other programmes.

But I’d rather have it than not have it that’s for sure.

0

Thursday 13th December 2012 – I wish I could remember …

… who it was who rang me at 17:00 today. I would give them a big round of applause. For at 17:00 I should have been at Marianne’s helping her move a bed, but instead I was totally flat out – crashed out on the sofa. I do remember having the most vague and incomprehensible discussion with someone while I was trying my very best to wake up. I wonder what the other party must have made of it.

This morning I had the usual couple of hours on the radio programme that I’m trying to write, and then I went out to empty Caliburn seeing as I had this bed to move. But tidying up isn’t my strongpoint as you know and it didn’t quite work out how it should have done. I ended up leaving the false floor in the van and putting a pile of stuff underneath it.

Pascal, Marianne’s son, and I dropped off a few things around Pionsat and then went to the Chateau to pick up this bed. We were also treated to some exciting news – while the Water Board was digging in the chateau yard to lay a new water pipe, part of the yard collapsed and some of their equipment fell into a long-lost subterranean crypt of some description. Of course, Marianne is in her element, or she would be if she were feeling better, because she’s been ill too.

While I was there, I told her the news about Bill, and seeing as how she knows her way around French administration and isn’t easily cowed, I set her a task to prove that she is worthy – namely, to make the necessary enquiries.

A brief stop at the Intermarché came next. While I was emptying Caliburn, the black cat came around again. Once more, it let me stroke it and pick it up. Clearly starving, the poor thing, and so I bought a box of Munchies and next time I see it I shall give it a handful. That’s me well and truly hooked, isn’t it?

We had our little social night this evening too, and having made a lucky find in a Charity Shop in Stockton Heath when I was in the UK, I taught a group of French citizens how to play Snakes and Ladders.

Yes  French people playing Snakes and Ladders. There’s nothing like a bit of globalisation, is there? Whatever next? Cricket, maybe.

0

Wednesday 12th December 2012 – Winter is back.

Minus 4.8°C here last night and the earth as hard as iron, water like a stone, as Christina Rosetti would have said, had she been here.

The weather today was gorgeous though, just a few scattered clouds all day. And I’ve been stuck up here in my room working on the radio programme.

Not without interruptions though – Firstly, Marianne rang to ask if I can move a couple of beds tomorrow for her and then I had Cecile ringing up to say hello and to have a chat. And if that wasn’t enough, I also had the bank on the phone about one thing and another.

Tonight though I went to meet Liz in Pionsat. Bill had ordered a pile of cheese and bacon and it can’t live in the back of Caliburn. Especially if the weather warms up. Liz offered to put it in her fridge to keep it cool.

But poor Bill – I do hope that he’s ok.

0

Tuesday 11th December 2012 – I rang …

… Marianne’s house this morning to enquire after her well-being and she was there. She told me that she had been released. “Expelled, more like” I told her, but it was nice to hear her voice. She certainly sounded better than she did the last time that I spoke to her.

What wasn’t so good was the news that I had from Rosemarie when she phoned up later. It appears that Bill has been rushed to hospital, quite ill apparently. That’s really sad news because his general health isn’t so good at all. I do hope that he recovers quickly.

Apart from that, the Christmas Special is progressing nicely. There’s enough now to make a decent programme and when Liz tells me of her choice of music I can tidy it up and finish it off.

I’ll be glad when it’s all done – I can go back to bringing up to date the Quebec web pages upon which I’ve been working since the summer.

-1