Tag Archives: les guis

Thursday 19th November 2009 – Can you see the point …

… of what we have been doing today?

The bottom left half of the photo is the “before” and the bottom right half of the photo is the “after”. You can click on the image to enlarge it, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

And isn’t it a good job that we did too? It helps when you have
1) the right tools
2) the right materials
3) congenial company
4) someone who knows what to do, how to do it and how to explain it to everyone else.
So much so, in fact, that I was bunged half a bag of opened chalk and at the next available opportunity I shall be not merely pointing the gap in the stones by the kitchen but also ripping out all of the pointing that I did in August and September with cement and replacing it with a proper chalk and sand mixture. I was ever so impressed with what we did today and how well it looked.

What also helps is having a hostess who is psychic. There I was, discussing with Mark and Terry the benefits of a spouse who brings around mugs of coffee at opportune intervals, and right at that very moment Liz stuck her head around the corner and asked “who wants a brew?”

It goes without saying that we were all well-fed and that there was vegan cake (ginger today). And I was even given a doggy-bag.
“You can come and help me again next time the weather is decent if you like” said Terry.
Is the Pope a Catholic?

Liz also gave me my shopping order from the UK and I now have plenty of vegan cheese. I have yet to find a source of that in any shop over here. That will keep me going until Christmas.

And tomorrow I have to telephone this guy about this proposed radio programme.

-4

Wednesday 18th November 2009 – At least I know now …

… why it is that my little room is getting so damp. I moved a pile of wood and the evidence is right before my eyes.

The soil has once more banked itself up against the kitchen wall (I keep digging it out every couple of years) and also, some of the pointing has fallen out and water is infiltrating between the stones.

I’m glad that I’m going round to Terry’s tomorrow morning to have a pointing lesson with Mark. I can see me putting this to use in a very short space of time.

In other news, I’m still tidying up the garden, albeit in a rather desultory fashion. Most of what I’ve been doing is to sort out the scrap wood into what is useable elsewhere and what is only fit for burning. I’m also pulling up brambles and nettles in a sort-of tidying up of the scrub for I need a place to put the compost bin that I bought a couple of weeks ago and everywhere else is full up.

And what else? Ahh yes. I’ve dug over the carrot patch and the potato patch and rescued some veg. I fact I had home-grown potatoes and carrots for tea just now. I’ve also tidied up Caliburn’s cab and cleaned the inside of the windscreen which was all greased over and filthy. We’re off to Liz and Terry’s tomorrow and Strawberry Moose has been promised a huge hug from Liz. He’s quite looking forward to it.

And in other news, Rhys and I have been looking at cement mixers on the internet – Rhys has to lay a concrete foundation for his new shed. But never mind the cement mixer, Harbour Freight has a heavy duty concrete vibrator for just €99. Now isn’t that right up Lee “I’m a potty-mouth” Prostitute’s alley?

-6

Tuesday 17th November 2009 – Today I’ve been fighting …

… my way into the lean-to at the other side of the house. It was full of bricks and wood that I threw in there when I had a tidy-up a couple of years ago. The plan is to put my plant-pot beichstuhl on the inside to the left of the door, put all my gardening tools to the right, and fill up the rest with wood that I’ll be cutting through the winter and of course all of the scrap wood from the roof that is too bad to reuse. There’s tons of that.

It’s not quite working out like this though as the best-laid plans of mice, men and yours truly have a habit of going gang awa’, but at least I’m making slow progress.

If you have been following my website over the years you will maybe remember that it was into here that I was planning to move when the idea of coming here full-time was first discussed. But a casual survey of the roof showed that two of the beams had rotted and when I came to replace them it turned out that seven needed to be replaced and while I was taking some of them out part of the wall collapsed. And it was just after having rebuilt the wall that I was taken ill, and that was that.

In other news, following the collapse of the English-language newspaper, the SMADC – the French Government body charged with regenerating the Combrailles – has been looking at other ways to communicate with the English-speaking community over here and one idea currently being batted around is to have a 15-minute English-speaking spot every Sunday on the local radio station. They are looking for a radio presenter for the programme (if it goes ahead) and it seems that someone has thrown my hat into the ring.

In other other news, it’s been announced that a 90 year-old German is to be tried for a war crime dating back over 60 years. This follows the trial of an 88 year-old the other day. Can you imagine the scene in the court …
“How do you plead?”
“Not Guilty“
“What evidence do you have to disprove the accusations?”
“Well none, actually. The last of my defence witnesses died in 1972“
So what chance of a fair trial are these people going to get? It’s like the case of Demianjuk – even the Zionists found him Not Guilty of war crimes but he’s being hawked around country after country until someone can find a crime to pin on him. It’s a total disgrace.

These two guys are being tried for a handful of civilian deaths, yet night after night after night members of Bomber Command of the British Royal Air Farce flew over Germany deliberately targeting innocent civilians and massacred them by their hundreds of thousands. When is someone going to round them up and put them on trial for the horrific war crimes that they committed? And how many Russian soldiers were prosecuted for the atrocious war crimes that they committed against the German civilian population as they overran the Eastern provinces of Germany?

History is indeed written by the victors and never by the victims. Bah! Humbug!

-5

Monday 16th November 2009 – This evening I had to go into Montaigut en Combraille …

… to return a guitar lead to Robert the drummer. I’d borrowed one from him to try out this Carlsbro combo that I bought. Where he lives is just 20 yards from the town church, and it was looking so nice bathed in the orange lamps of the square that I reckoned it was worth a photo.

Montaigut is a deceptive town, there’s a main road that runs right through the middle of it and that road carries a great deal of heavy traffic – it’s the N144, the main road between Montlucon and Clermont Ferrand. It looks dirty and dingy and full of abandoned shops and houses.

But the main road was only built through it in the 1920s. Prior to that all of the traffic passed through the real centre of the town, the centre that most people don’t even know exists. It was formerly a mediaeval walled city complete with castle (now long-demolished) and narrow winding mediaeval streets that are difficult to walk through, never mind drive through.

This morning I set the alarm – for the first time in 12 days – but it was still difficult to crawl out of my stinking pit. And I started on a desultory tidying-up. I’ve found some more scaffolding buried in the undergrowth and all kinds of bits and pieces. I’m busy sorting out the wood that we ripped off the roof, seeing what is salveable and what is just fit for burning.

I’ve also added another compost bin – we have a black plastic dustbin with an old caravan window over the top. You might be wondering what I’m doing with this but it concerns the beichstuhl arrangements. I shan’t go into the gory details as you are probably eating but if you remember back a few weeks ago, it involves a plant pot, a load of biodegradable bin liners and the fact that I’m a vegan. Keeping the soil fertility going is quite important.

Tonight is the 3rd Monday of the month and that’s when we meet at the hotel at St Eloy. A sign on the door said “back at 19:00” but by 19:40 we were fed up of waiting and so we went to the bar down the road instead. It seems that Mark is something of an expert at pointing stonework using chalk. Terry has asked him to give him some lessons so Mark is going round there on Thursday morning. I’m always keen to learn whatever I can at times like this so I’m going round there too. After all, my place is in need of a good pointing too and so I’ll make a point of learning all I can.

-6

Sunday 15th November 2009 – I had a few surprises today.

Firstly, on my way to the footy I came across a car stuck halfway down an embankment at the side of the road. And if there hadn’t have been a sapling in the way it would have been all the way down the embankment.

Now it’s true that where this incident took place is on a sharp bend, but the road between Teilhet and Menat is full of sharp bends and this one is no sharper than any of the others. So how come it was this particular bend at which it left the road?

Mind you, if it was going to leave the road, this is the best place to do it. The next sharp bend has a vertical drop of about 60 feet to the bottom.

I went down to look to make sure that there wasn’t anyone trapped in it – I mean, you never know. As it happened, it was empty but there was a lovely head-shaped impression on the windscreen just above the steering wheel. I bet someone has a headache today.

Secondly. Pionsat’s third XI not only had 11 players including a real goalkeeper, they had 3 replacements and two others who didn’t make the team. Not only that, the two officials who had been sulking over something that was said to them in a moment of depression, they had patched up their differences with the others and so we also had a trainer and a linesman! Not that it did them any good though – they still lost!

Thirdly, I’ve bought myself a bass amp and speaker – a Carlsbro 45-watt combo. It’s not in particularly good nick – there’s a loose connection at the input leads, one of the speaker wires isn’t soldered properly and a couple of the potentiometers (volume and tone controls) need changing, but it’s only a fiver or so for the bits and half an hour’s work. It looks like it’s been left for years in the damp and then taken outside where the condensation has got at it. It still managed to rock the house though when I plugged the Gibbon into it.

It wasn’t cheap – €90 in fact, but it was the cheapest combo that I’ve seen in this area. And believe me, there isn’t a great deal of choice. I still have my stack (a 200-watt custom-built transistorised amp, a 200-watt Marshall valve amp and a 1×18 and a 2×12 cabinets) back in Brussels that I never thought I’d ever use again.

The other surprise is something that I found quite touching. As you know, I follow the local football team and take pics and write match reports of the games. Some of them are being used on a calendar for fund-raising purposes for the club but what is really nice is that they took a photo of me today as they want to put that on the calendar too. There’s also a chatroom on the internet for French local football and it seems that I am mentioned quite a bit with regard to the website. It’s nice to know that people appreciate so much what I’ve been doing. But now that I’ve finished my attic I need to bring the site up-to-date.

In other news, Liz, Terry and I had quite a chat about this digger. We’ve decided that discretion is the better part of valour and I’m going to write to this guy in Benin, thank him for his efforts, but tell him that we fixed ourselves up locally with a digger so we won’t ba able to complete the purchase.

And tomorrow, I’m back at work. My holiday is over.

-5

Saturday 14th November 2009 – I’ve just got back …

… from the footy tonight. And for a change both sides won. Pionsat’s 2nd XI beat Condat Giat 1-0 and after that the 1st XI beat St Priest 3-1. What is even more astonishing is that following those results both of the clubs top their respective leagues. And who would have thought that after the mauling the 2nd XI received in the first game of the season against Pontaumur?

But at least the injury crisis is easing. Cedric reappeared up front for the 1st XI (and marked his reappearance with a goal) – the first time that he has played this season. And Michael was back in goal for the 2nd XI which means that with Matthieu not being on duty this weekend he’ll be keeping goal for the 3rd XI at Combronde tomorrow – the first time that they will have had a proper keeper for ages. I’m even told that they have a full complement of 14 (11 plus 3 subs) for the 3rd XI too and I haven’t seen that for months.

But we were lucky to get football today. This morning it was absolutely p155ing down at an incredible rate of knots and I was of the opinion that had it carried on, the games would have been off. But it brightened up a little in the afternoon while I was at the shops.

Talking of shopping, and talking of footy, I’m going to make another revision to my shopping schedule. Normally I go once a month to Montlucon for a mega-shop and the other Saturdays I just go into St Eloy. But Commentry (half-way between here and Montlucon) has some decent shops too – better than those in St Eloy but it’s farther away. Howver, some Saturdays there are two footy matches down the road – one at 18:30 and the other at 20:30 and I’m always in a rush for the first one of those but on the Saturdays when there is just one match the kickoff is at 20:00 and there’s plenty of time for that. So on those days, why don’t I go and do my shopping in Commentry in the early afternoon and then go the extra 10km to Neris-les-Bains and go for a swim and a shower? A good swim and a shower every fortnight will keep me clean and healthy.

And talking of footy again, I see that the Yellow Cowdenbeath stuffed Ingerlund tonight. Ha ha ha ha!

-6

Friday 13th November 2009 – It’s been a while …

… since I’ve posted a picture of my attic. Despite it being my week off I’ve been slowly moving things upstairs and I now have all my clothes up here.

You can see the blue fold-up wardrobe. I can’t remember where I bought that but it’s been hanging around for a while here and there about the place. I’m quite impressed with it – almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin – and I wish I had bought more than one.

It’s not quite big enough to put my jumper holder in, and it’s difficult to hang that anywhere given the sloping roof in here. That came from the USA in 1999 along with a hanging wardrobe that I have nowhere to put

There is also the white chest of drawers that I bought from the brocante at Virlet a while back.

Also in shot is the green curtain that keeps out the draughts. I have two of those and they both came from the Dunns menswear shop in Crewe in the late 1970s. My brother worked there when they were having a major refit and the changing rooms received a makeover. The old curtains that had been there longer than anyone could remember were consigned to the dustbin and I liberated them. They are good-quality heavy stuff and ideal for here. Not very colour-co-ordinated, but I have some nice dark blue curtains with lining back in Brussels.

In other news, the plot sickens with regard to this digger. I’ve now received an e-mail from “Mr Ben” who runs “Le Garage Ben” – email address “garageben@ …. errrr ….hotmail.fr” – (now isn’t that a surprise?) and he wants me to confirm delivery details. He won’t take a cheque but he’ll risk the cash even though he was robbed after making a delivery a while back.

And now I see the scam unfolding – he’ll get the cash for the digger and then claim that we robbed him afterwards and took the money back. He’ll have witnesses to prove it, of course, and he’ll get the police to recover the digger and meanwhile keep the money. Then they will go off and sell it again.

-4

Thursday 12th November 2009 – KEEN FOLLOWERS OF MY MIGHTY ORGAN …

…will know that a few of us around here have been on the look-out for a decent mini-digger. And so when one made its appearance on a French classified ads website we had to look at it.

First thisg was the price – about 2/3rds of what it’s worth even if it’s in rough condition. But this is a modern one with all of the accessories and in excellent condition. Hmmmmm. So I sent an email to the vendor who wrote back with all kinds of glowing details about the machine and gave me his phone number to ring him back with any questions.

002 299 7600030

I didn’t recognise the number but I dialled it anyway. There was a strange dial tone and then I had my contact – with a really heavy African accent. Even more Hmmmmm.
“So where do I go to see the machine?“
“Don’t worry – we’ll bring it to you“
“Well, I’m not going to pay for it if I don’t like it or if it doesn’t match up to the description“
“It’ll be everything you want – don’t worry“.

Now I’m quite prepared to believe that this digger is genuine, just as I am prepared to believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the likelihood that OUSA will employ a disabled black male member of staff. And when Rhys told me that he’d tracked the number down to Benin – which is close to Nigeria in case you hadn’t already guessed – and this particular guy, then I’m intrigued to see how this scam is going to work out.

Talking of Rhys, he is playing one of those World Domination games on Facebook. He tells me that he needs 217,000 soldiers to overcome Namibia. I’ve told him that he and I could do that on our own. And then we would go and fetch Terry and do Angola afterwards.

And in other news, I hear that Caligula and her horse are to appear on television on Sunday evening. Unfortunately the programme clashes with a showing of Dr Who, so it won’t get much of an audience. But you’ll know when they come onto the screen – you’ll see all of the Daleks rush to hide behind the sofa.

-4

Wednesday 11th November 2009 – I thought you might like to see …

… some of the damp that has infested my little room downstairs. I moved away a pile of plastic boxes from against the wall and this was the sight that greeted me.

There’s lots of plaster and cement that has dissolved itself off as well. I shudder to think what it would have been like if I hadn’t bonded the surface with white acrylic paint.

It looks pretty depressing, I suppose, but you have to remember that it could have been worse. It’s only just over two years ago that I was living in a tent – the legendary camp camp – and this has to be an improvement on that.

Today was the day that I had been waiting for for about two weeks – a day of really bright and continual sunshine. So I spent all day catching up with my washing – two machine loads worth and there’s plenty more besides. Only a shortage of washing powder prevented me from doing a couple more.

In between working the washing machine (it’s a manual, not an automatic) I was bringing things upstairs. Liz says she can’t wait to see my room all nice and organised but she would be disappointed if she were to come round today – there’s stuff everywhere. But at least I now have a kind-of wardrobe and some clothes storage up here so it’s definitely looking more like home.

-3

Tuesday 10th November 2009 – I’ve had another day today …

… where I’ve done very little. Mostly bringing stuff up from downstairs and giving it a good clean as you have no idea just how musty and dusty everything has become through being in my little room down there. In fact I reckon that I could do with a good dusting down and de-musting as well.

I’ve also been discovering stuff that I had forgotten all about. That’s the one good thing about moving – all the things that you find.

But I’ve also been having one of those days where I can’t get anything very much to work. My old laptop broke down in the summer – the external power supply packed up and I’ve not been able to find a new one (anyone have an old Lenovo power supply unit anywhere?). I bought an external caddy and fitted the hard drive into it so that I can copy the data. “Plug and play” they say, but will it work? Will it ‘eck. I’ve even been e-mailing the manufacturers and they aren’t able to help all that much. We’ve now got it down to having to initialise the hard drive so that the new laptop can pick it up, and I’ve worked out how to do it, but when I click on the button to do it, I get a “device not ready” error message. In “properties”, I get a “this device is working correctly” message. Someone is speaking with forked tongue.

And that’s not all. I put my new lens onto the camera today – and nothing! Now it’s an old manual SLR lens but it should still work using the manual settings on the camera, but not at all. Aparently you need to set it up in the “menu”. Now anyone would think that there would be an option “use manual lens” in the menu, but of course there isn’t. You need to scroll through seven screens before you find a “disable automatic ring fitting” and when you do that, that’s only the first of several steps. I’m onto step 4 but it’s getting late and I’ll look at the rest when I’m awake tomorrow.

But there’s some kind of hope yet – for when I was finding things that I had forgotten about I came across the original lens for the camera – the one I discarded not long after I bought the thing. And that, would you believe, stops down to f1.7, which is even lower than the new one. The max focal length is only 70mm so the images will need to be cropped down and that will reduce the quality, but the quality is so poor anyway that it won’t make much difference and in any case, with a need for only half the light of the current lens, I can tweak the quality by means of the camera settings (faster speed, lower ISO setting etc). There are two night matches on Saturday so if I can’t get the new lens working I’ll have a go with the lens that I uncovered and see what difference that makes.

-5

Monday 9th November 2009 – Today has set an all-time new record …

… of electricity generated around here with my solar panels.

I started keeping statistics back in August 2007 and I can safely say that today is the first-ever day since then that a total of ZERO amp-hours has been generated. I’ve had days where I’ve had 0.2 and 0.3 amp-hours, that kind of thing, but never a day with zero.

But a look at the temperature senders in the heat exchanger, the greenhouse and the cloche will tell you why. Maximum temperature was 5.0 – minimum was 3.5. Yes, we had absolutely no sun at all so the temperature never rose by anything worth recording, and there was so much cloud cover that there was no radiation back into the atmosphere once it went dark.

You’ve seen photos in the past of the Gorges of the Sioule with the low cloud hanging around in the gorge. Today was one of those days where the low cloud was all over the Combrailles and just hanging around, stationary, with not even a breath of air to move it on. It’s just like a heavy, clogging mist or fog. We get plenty of those in late autumn and winter but today’s was a special one.

Another record was set at the Anglo-French group this evening where just three of us turned up. Bill, Mark and Yours Truly. Hardly surprising as I could hardly see my hand in front of my face for much of the drive to St Gervais.

I stayed in today – doing a little bit of desultory moving, writing up my footy notes and talking to Rhys on the computer. Rhys is having “issues” with someone on a photography forum who is posting comments that can only be described as “unpleasant” – and that’s an understatement. The aforementioned poster is stalking Rhys in cyberspace, which is a pretty unpleasant thing to do.

The internet is a magnificent tool that has opened up whole new horizons for many people, and given many people a platform to air their views – a platform that simply wasn’t available in their former lives. It’s a sad fact that many people simply didn’t have a life back in the technological stone age but the internet has given them a whole new outlook. On the internet you can be whoever you want to be – superhero, cybervillain – and “no-one knows that you’re a dog”. Most people can handle themselves quite correctly in the new form of media but it’s sad to relate that there are always a few people whose existence to date has been so depressing that the internet has brought out the worst side of their characters. People who are so oppressed and depressed in real life that they cloak their inadequacies and the like by becoming over-aggressive on the ‘net – purely and simply because they know that they won’t get their teeth kicked in and that they have a large and wide-ranging audience.

It’s a maxim that if you wouldn’t say something to anyone to their face, then you shouldn’t say it on the internet. Not abiding by those rules is simply the worst form of cowardice. You might be wondering why it is then that I say so much about other people on here. The fact is, of course, that I’ll quite happily say it to their faces and be proud of it. I do recall the time that I was summoned to appear before Turdi de Hatred and Lisa arson back in January 2008 – which regular readers of my outpourings in its previous existence might remember. I took along Liz Ayers to hold my coat and we will both remember how the interview opened.
“Although there is no statutory obligation to do so, we are allowing you to bring a friend as we don’t want you to feel intimidated” said Turdi.
I turned to Liz and noticed that she was absolutely p155ing herself with laughter.
“Don’t laugh, Liz” I urged. “This is deadly serious. We both know a girl (called Seanalee as it happens) who is frightened to death of clowns“.
To this day, and probably to my dying day, I still do not know how they failed to notice the dictaphone that I put on the desk.

-5

Sunday 8th November 2009 – some of the views round here …

… are absolutely stunning and one thing about following the football team is that I get taken to all kinds of places that I wouldn’t normally visit.

Today the 1st XI were playing at Artonne. That’s a small town down between Aigueperse and Riom. The main road – the N144 – goes between Montlucon and Clermont-Ferrand and basically follows the eastern edge of the Combrailles – the mountain range where I live. To the east is the Plain of the Limagne and then the Monts de la Bourbonnaise – the area where the Bourbon kings of France originated.

But between Combronde on the N144 and Aigueperse, the first town of any importance in the Limagne is an outcrop of the Combrailles and in places it has some of the most beautiful views in the area.

So beautiful as the views might be, that is much more than can be said for the football, which showed one of its more ugly sides this afternoon. Pionsat’s players are mostly of small stature and rely on speed rather than strength and when they come up against big physical sides they can be quite intimidated. But today they let their football do the talking and won quite comfortably 4-1, whereas Artonne did their talking with their mouths and on two occasions with their fists and ended up with just 9 players on the pitch by the final whistle.

Still it was nice to be out and about even though the rain has been persistent for most of the day. A grey drizzly dismal November Sunday. I’m still waiting for a sunny day as I have tons of washing to do. It’s hard to believe how much the weather has changed over these last two or three weeks

-6

Saturday 7th November 2009 – I almost did something today …

… that I haven’t done for over 10 years. That is – I went to the swimming baths for a swim. I’d done my monthly shop around Montlucon with plenty of time to spare and on the way back I stopped off at Neris-les-Bains where there is a public swimming baths. I’ve been there before during last winter to take my showers there but I really fancied a swim. And I always carry a holdall in the van with some washing stuff, some clean undies, a towel and a pair of trunks.

And of course, as you might expect, it was closed for the week for pool cleaning.

Neris is an old Roman spa town. It’s quite pretty and genteel – the kind of place that you would take your maiden aunt for afternoon tea. There’s a thermal baths there – something along the lines of Malvern – where you can go for a relaxing cure. It’s pretty good for the stress, so they say. So I wandered along to see if they could fix me up with a shower or something, seeing as I was here.

“Actually, we are closing today” said the receptionist.
“When are you reopening?”
“The 27th of March” she replied. You can see that it was my lucky day.
“Can I come without an appointment for a shower or a bath without signing up for a cure?”
“Certainly“
“So how much would that cost?”
And when she told me the price, I needed to sign up for a cure in order to recover from the shock. Prices start at €53:00. And here I am, complaining about €2:90 for a shower!

She gave me a leaflet with all of the details of the cures that are on offer. One of the things that they propose is a mudbath. Dunno why anyone would expect me to sign up for that – with all of the rain that we have had these last few days I have my own private mudbath just outside the front door. Admittedly it doesn’t have marble walls and floozies handing round the towels, but it doesn’t cost … gulp … €334 either.

Mind you, I do recall the time that I sent Nerina to have a mudpack applied to her face. They reckoned it would improve her appearance.
“Has it worked?” she asked when she came back
“Absolutely” I replied, “but it’s all worn off now“
Mind you, she enjoyed herself while she was having a weekend at this spa. She phoned me up to say that with all the treatments she had had, she was feeling like a new woman.
“So am I” I replied

This evening I went down to Pionsat to watch the 3rd XI play Thuret, but the ground was totally in darkness. You can see that it was my lucky day today! From the top of the hill just round the corner from me I can see right across the valley and I noticed that the floodlights were on at Marcillat’s ground, about 12 km from here so I drove over there instead. Some of Pionsat’s players were there watching Marcillat play Montvicq and they told me that the match had been rearranged for last week and the team had actually won! And I missed it too!

Marcillat play in Allier’s 2nd Division. That’s the same level as Pionsat’s 2nd XI, but the quality of football was probably lower 3rd Division based on Puy-de-Dome standards. Pretty much agricultural stuff. Marcillat won 5-1 (Montvicq’s goal was a Marcillat “own goal”) without breaking sweat, and I don’t think that Montvicq would score if they were still playing now with Marcillat having been off the pitch for the last two hours.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to watch the 1st XI at Artonne – I’ve never been there for a match. And that reminds me. I was in Brico Depot today and one of the assistants came over and started chatting to me quite socially.
“Who on earth is this?” I asked myself.
Anyway, after a lengthy discussion he asked “are you coming to watch us tomorrow?” Ahh yes. Pionsat footballer. What with Pionsat FC pie hut attendants working at the Auchan and footballers working at Brico Depot, I can see that I’m going to have to be on my best behaviour everywhere that I go. That’ll be quite a change.

+10

-10

Friday 6th November 2009 – I haven’t finished moving in yet.

You’d be astonished at just how much stuff you can fit into a room thats just 2.8m by 1.7m, I can tell you.

What I have been doing is installing the library up here. This is about half of it, and you have to agree that it’s amazing what you can do with a couple of planks and a small pile of bricks.

And I’m glad that I brought the books up – it wasn’t before time. Some were on a raised shelf, others were in plastic boxes,but some were on a wooden bookcase. This has a plinth that’s about 60mm high yet the damp in my room had penetrated the wood to such an extent that the books on the bottom shelf had suffered. As I’ve said before, I’m surprised I didn’t catch pleurisy with the amount of damp that was in my little room.

And the awful smell that was down there – I reckon it was damp wood and soggy books because it seems to have come up into here now. At least it’ll have a chance to dry out.

You can see the hifi on the top shelf. It’s a little cube that is in fact a radio and a slot that takes SD cards. And seeing as most of my music these days is in *.mp3 format and I use SD cards for all kinds of things, this is ideal. It came from Curry’s in the UK and cost £17.99.

The reason why I was so keen to buy it was that it runs on 12volt DC so it’s just the job for here. The speakers were pretty awful and they soon were binned in favour of these that I picked up in a clearance sale in Montlucon.

Next to it is the Ibanez acoustic bass. When I came to live down here full-time in 2007 I rediscovered the urge to start playing again and in the absence of mains electricity an acoustic bass was in order. It took me ages to track one down.

Next to it is the legendary Gibbon – a Gibson EB3 short-scale bass the same type as used by Jack Bruce of “Cream” fame. It’s a 1964 model and I bought it in 1975. It cost me a fortune back in those days and I sold my soul to buy it. It’s pretty well-travelled and even so, I”ve been offered what amounts to a King’s ransom for it, sight unseen. It’s sat in its armour-plated wooden crate for the last 20 or 30 years with hardly ever seeing the light of day but I reckon it’s time to bring it out into the open and give it an airing.

I’ve also found a heavy-duty curtain to hang over the glass door. The temperature dropped in here last night but in my nice snug little bed I was warm and comfortable. But this flaming bed – comfortable indeed it is and I had a really good night’s sleep. But when you flatten down the back of the settee to make the double bed the bed bit overhangs the base. So when you roll over to the edge of the bed to get out, you reach a point where the bed overbalances and throws you onto the floor. It took me quite by surprise and the air was as blue as the walls of the room. With some of the language that I used, it totally redefined the meaning of “a rude awakening”.

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Thursday 5th November 2009 – Tonight’s image …

… features part of the new chez moi complete with bed settee and occasional table (I’m still wondering what it is the rest of the time when it’s not a table).

So after my lie-in (well, it was in fact earlier than usual when I woke up) I assembled the table. That was exciting, I can tell you. It looks quite nice and trendy – totally out of place with me, and assembling it was, well, something of a challenge.

Then it was the bed-settee’s turn. And I’m disappointed with this, given the amount of money I paid. Fair enough, it’s better than the one I have back in Belgium, but it cost 3 times the price so it ought to be. But it’s not all that strong. If I ever get Percy Penguin in here when she’s got a head full of steam, it won’t last five minutes. But neither would I, so I don’t suppose it makes any difference. But I’m keen to see how I feel tomorrow morning after a good sleep on a decent mattress.

But talking of Percy Penguin, I am reminded of the time that she and I went on a skiing holiday back in 1993 (you could say that our relationship went downhill after that). I went to the doctor’s before we went, to see if he could do anything for me.
“What you really need to do is to pray to God, Mr Hall” he said
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“I’m a doctor” he replied. “My job is to heal the sick. It’s his job to raise the dead“.
He did give me some viagra, though, which was kind of him. But I clearly didn’t swallow it quickly enough. I had a stiff neck for the whole week.
And I had a friend who died of an overdose of viagra. It took two weeks for the smile to fade from his face, and four weeks before they could put the lid on the coffin.

I have the gas heater up here now – something of a disappointment as I was hoping for the woodburning stove to work – I’ll look again at this in the near future and follow Krys’ idea from the other day which I think is a likely solution. Struggling up with the heater and the gas bottle was something. later on this evening, struggling up here with a full gas bottle becuase the one that I had just taken up had run out – that was something else.

I’ve reassembled the desk as well and I’ve started to move my other stuff up. I’ll be finishing that off tomorrow. And I’ve noticed that while it’s colder in here than in my little room downstairs, it’s not as uncomfortable by any means. The damp in there was clearly affecting me and you should see how it’s affected some of the stuff that was leaning against the wall.

And as for the quiz last night, raise your hands if you DIDN’t guess “music” or “the hi-fi”. That was as expected the first thing that came up here from downstairs.

-4

EPIC HALL

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