Tag Archives: sauret besserve

Tuesday 22nd February 2011 – Poor Caliburn

Caliburn is not very well at the moment and is currently at the menders awaiting spare parts. And so Liz and I are still here and Terry is still there.

We started the morning by a quick breakfast and a quick search for stuff that we needed to take back to Brussels, and then we had to shoot off to Marcillat to record Radio Programme Number 1. But Caliburn was coughing and smoking a little too much and was not in the best of health so it was more of a leisurely drive.

After that, it was round to my place and to unload him of all the things that he had brought down from Brussels. While we were there, Radio Arverne asked us to come a little earlier to record the programmes for them – this meant dropping everything and shooting off to Gerzat. But Caliburn was a little worse by this time. Stopping for fuel for the return journey at the Carrefour just outside Riom and it was clear that we would be struggling to make anywhere, never mind Brussels, so it was off to the mender’s on the outskirts of Riom.

What is happening is that there’s a valve in the emissions circuit that controls the air intake and exhaust, and it has stuck closed. There’s insufficient air reaching the combustion chambers and so Caliburn is running far too rich and that is the reason for the unburnt fuel and sooty smoke. A new valve has been ordered and hopefully will arrive tomorrow. At the same time, Caliburn can have his (overdue) service and hopefully he’ll be feeling much better and normal service will resume.

ford ka sauret besserve puy de dome franceMeantime, we have a hired Ford Ka to bring us back to here (it was cheaper than a taxi and of course there is no public transport around here since the railway line closed down 2 years ago) and that will give us a chance to do those things that we were going to do.

I was planning to go back to my house and find some papers that I need but it seems that I have .. errr … left the keys to my house on Caliburn’s keyring which is of course with Caliburn at the menders.

D’ohhhh!

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Monday 21st February 2011 – Now talk about a change …

… here I am sitting in the Auvergne. But not in my little attic but in front of a rip-roaring fire at Terry and Liz’s.

This morning, having fuelled up Caliburn, we went to load him up with another pile of stuff and to load up the trailer to with stuff to take back here. But Caliburn is a little poorly right now – the pump-timing has slipped out one notch so he’s not pulling as well as he might – and in any case with the new plan which involves throwing away most of the stuff in the garage, there didn’t seem to be much point in dragging a quarter-full trailer 750 kilometres to here and then dragging an empty one 750 kilometres back.

Without the trailer, Caliburn bounced along quite happily. Leaving Brussels at about 09:40 and stopping for lunch and for afternoon coffee, we were back here (through the snow in the Ardennes and the rain from Auxerre southwards) by 19:45.

clamecy twinned with grandes piles quebec canada franceThere are some beautiful spots along the old road south of Auxerre so I took a little time out to show Liz some of the scenery.

Clamecy is a particularly beautiful little town and one of these days I’ll spend some time there to have a really good look around. In the meantime though, I shall just tantalise you by letting you look at the town in Quebec, Canada, with which Clamecy is twinned. My imagination is boggling – I dunno about yours.

Back here at Liz’s, it’s really cold and in a stone house that has been empty and unheated for a month in midwinter, it’s even cold inside. But with a huge blaze going it’s quickly warming up. Mind you, after driving all this way it won’t be long before I’ll be climbing the little wooden hill to Bedfordshire.  

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Sunday, 16th January 2011 – What a beautiful day.

Definitely the best of the summ… errrr … winter so far. Not only did we have the hottest temperatures of the winter, we had the sunniest too. Not a cloud in the sky all day. My batteries in the house are all fully-charged and the water heater (that uses up the excess electricity) ran for 2.5 hours and warmed up the water to 32°C. Not quite shower-warm but we are getting there.

But how ridiculous is this though, when just 12 days ago we had -8.4°C? It could only happen here in the Combrailles.

Today I finished off “holiday lettings” ready for recording tomorrow, and then I worked on a blog for the radio programmes – an important thing that needs doing seeing as we seem to be going nationwide (well – alright, into the Allier and the Creuse). The aim is of course to stream out programmes so that people who miss them or live outside the reception areas can pick them up.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire st bonnet puy de dome ligue football league franceSo after that it was off to St Bonnet to watch Pionsat’s 1st XI give them a good spannering. and I arrived 10 minutes late to find that they were already ahead 2-0. They won 4-0 in the end and that included missing a penalty, thanks to an excellent double-save by the St Bonnet keeper.

But this match was well-planned to be played in mid-winter. The heat that was generated on the field both on and off the ball would have certainly melted any ice that might otherwise have formed in any traditional kind of winter weather.

And so round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our radio programmes this week. We are recording at Radio Arverne tomorrow and Radio Tartasse on Tuesday.

And now I’m back home in my warm unheated attic – two consecutive days that I haven’t had the heating on here – watching the Jets and the Patriots. And listening to the adverts – including one for Viagra “seek medical attention immediately if you have an erection that lasts for four hours”. At my age, it wouldn’t be medical attention that I would be seeking, I could tell you. It reminds me of the time that a new machine tools factory opened up in Crewe, and the proud owner put up his sign “O’Malley’s Tool Works”. So I rang him up and told him “so does mine, but I haven’t put up a sign about it”.

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Tuesday 4th January 2011 – It was Terry’s turn …

… to ring up this morning.

“Are you doing much?”
“Not really” (I was chopping wood, as it happens)
“Fancy coming round here to give me a hand with the scaffolding?”
“You need to say the Magic Words”
“Liz is baking bread”

Round at Terry’s we put up the scaffolding on the end of the house wall and attacked the satellite dish. Although Terry and Liz can pick up the Hotbird satellite, Astra 2, which is the British satellite, remains quite elusive. After a few hours at the adjustment we managed to find a couple more satellites, but still no Astra 2. Careful research showed us that the Astra 2 satellite is 4° lower in the sky than the others and so this involved tilting down the dish, but then it was pointing straight into the barn of the house across the road.

Next job therefore was to raise up the dish as high as we could get it so that the antenna would clear the barn. So we built the scaffolding up to 8.5 metres and refitted the brackets and pole so that the dish would be at the highest point possible. Next problem was that the cable wasn’t long enough to reach the dish in its new position but that will have to wait until tomorrow as it was 18:01 (I made a note of that) and we lost the light. And isn’t that a far cry from just about two weeks ago when the light went at 17:20?

centre ornithologique st gervais auvergne puy de dome franceToday though was lovely and the drive down at Liz and Terry’s was magnificent. It was a beautiful Alpine morning with a few scattered clouds here and there.

Not so good here at my house though as I could only manage a mere 158 amp-hours, in contrast with the 195 (for that was what it was) of yesterday. But “only” 158 amp-hours – that’s more than I received in a week just a short while ago.

But it’s freezing again tonight and we may well have a lower temperature than last night’s -8.2°C but tomorrow they are talking about a rise in temperature and rain clouds.But for me I’d much rather have the freezing temperatures and the bright sunshine – my batteries would welcome the juice.

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Friday 24th December 2010 – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

And hasn’t the year passed quickly? It hardly seems like a moment since I rushed over the finishing of the stairs up to my attic and then locked myself in.

heavy snowfall les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo this morning was another late start, due in the main by my being confused about the time. And the darkness of the room was due to the skylights being covered in snow. 24 hours late, yes indeed, but it got here in the end.

And once I was up and about I did a little more in my bedroom with putting up some more framework.

But I didn’t stick at it long and after lunch and a wash and shave it was picking my way gingerly through the snow and ice to Terry and Liz’s for Christmas Eve, which was very nice of them. Liz cooked a gorgeous Indian meal and then we had a listen to our radio programme.

And even though it’s me who says it, we sounded really good on the broadcast – exactly how I wanted it to be – all nice and informal and happy and partying.

At 22:30 I came home and it took me over 45 minutes – the roads were dreadful. But I was armed with a Christmas cake and a prezzy – it’s really nice having friends like Terry and Liz.

But if you are reading this before Christmas Day evening, you might want to listen to our radio programme as it’s being streamed at 23:00 Europe, 22:00 UK and 17:00 EST – go to
http://www.radioarverne.com
and click on the link “Arverne en Ligne”

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Tuesday 21st December 2010 – IT WAS A BUSY DAY TODAY.

It started after the usual fire-cleaning and breakfast by chopping another huge pile of wood ready for the next bout of winter – due on Thursday, so we are told. Now there’s four bucketsfull outside together with a huge pile heaped up against the wall in here – good plan it was to tile the wall behind the fireplace.

Then it was checking over the documents for the radio recording this afternoon – a total of 31 pages! That is a record by anyone’s standard. And it’s a good job I bought that new printer a couple of months ago so I could print it all out. Bye-bye another rain forest.

Next stop was down to see Liz as our chauffeur has abandoned us and we worked out a few more things, and then down to Gerzat. We recorded 4 programmes of the traditional type that will see us through to the 25th of January (back in the studio on the 18th) and then we did the Christmas Special.

1 hour we were allowed, and on the Sunday rehearsal we did the play in 58 minutes (add another Carol to make up the time) but today we had to crop a huge chunk out as we overran by miles. No idea how that happened.

The Christmas Special is going out on Christmas Eve at 19:00 and being repeated a couple of times. You can hear it on Radio Arverne (89.8mhz) but if you can’t get the reception then I have the programme saved to disk and I’ll be uploading it to the internet once the broadcast has passed and you can hear us on the internet.

Tomorrow we are recording for Radio Tartasse – the first radio station to want to syndicate us. Then it’s off to Montlucon with Terry and Liz to do our last-minute shopping before the weather closes in again.

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Sunday 19th December 2010 – THE WEATHER IMPROVED THIS AFTERNOON.

And that was just as well because I was getting rather fed up of being stuck down here.

But today got off to a bad start with someone ringing me up at 09:00 – and on a Sunday too! So they were told to sod off and I went back to bed – but it was hard to go back to sleep once I was awake. So after a while I sorted out the fire and got a nice little blaze going and settled down to finish off the Christmas Special.

The sun came out again after a while and the temperature slowly began to rise – not that you could tell too much in here of course, but I noticed it when I went outside and was digging Caliburn out of a snowbank.

st gervais ornithological site puy de dome franceAfter lunch I set off for Liz and Terry’s for our rehearsal, and fitted in a stop at my favourite photography point, the ornithological centre at St Gervais.

The bit on Holiday lettings – that seems to go on for ages but I was told to do an hour for the Christmas Special and that has, believe it or not, turned out to be 58 minutes. No problems there – bung another Christmas Carol on the end and that sorted that out.

Liz made a nice tea and I got a doggy bag, and I also had a nice shower, seeing as how I didn’t manage to make it to the swimming baths yesterday.

On the way home it started to rain and that is washing the snow away. So I’m just hoping that it doesn’t freeze or we really will be in difficulties with that lot.

And tomorrow is back to work again. I’m plasterboarding.

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Wednesday 24th November 2010 – WE HAD THE SECOND …

… snows of winter today.

A bit more than yesterday as well. And although it melted fairly rapidly we had quite a pasting early in the afternoon while I was on my way to Liz and Terry’s. That didn’t stay long either though but the temperature has now plummeted and I slid Caliburn on a patch of ice on the way home.

Winter is definitely here.

rutland WG 901 wind turbine attached to fence les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve finished off fitting the wind turbine to the fence and it’s now wired in. And of course we are never ever going to have a breath of wind ever again.

It’s a weird place to put the wind turbine that’s for sure but it’s destined to go on the end of the house once the pointing is finished. And in any case that alley between the house and the trees is something of a wind trap and it’s going to be interesting to see what we can produce from it.

Meanwhile, of course, the wind turbine is being “run-in” so it’s a good idea to mount it, especially seeing as how we haven’t had a drop of sun for about three days now.

home grown beetroot bottled les guis virlet puy de dome franceRound at Terry and Liz’s Liz showed me how to pickle my beetroot and I now have 5 jars of it simmering away. I also took along a few of my chilis to dry out but I seem to have forgotten them. I also gave Terry a hand to put up the scaffolding – he’s fitting windows into his barn roof and I have to sing for my supper.

Not that I’m complaining of course . We had an absolutely excellent stew with dumplings, complete with home-made bread.

Tomorrow if it’s fine I’ll pull up my onions and start to dry them. But if the weather is bad (and what are the odds on that?) I’ll work inside the house.

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Friday 19th November 2010 – BACK TO WORK TODAY :-(

I managed to struggle round to Liz’s for 13:30 via a quick stop at Nathalie’s to pick up her meeting schedule that we are obliged to broadcast. And then Liz and I drove down to Gerzat and recorded our next series of radio programmes.

This new guy doing the recording is much more efficient – no more searching for pencils, 10 minute chat breaks, all that kind of thing. Everything is ready when we arrive, we are allowed a few minutes to compose ourselves (which is better than a few minutes decomposing ourselves I suppose) and then we are off.

“We’ll start at 14:40 and break at 14:47” he says
And that’s what we do. And then the next one –
“We’ll start at 14:50 and break at 14:57”
And we do that.

And that’s how it continues until the series of recordings are over. A military precision, you might say.
And then after the programmes are recorded, no panic-stricken 15 minutes of frantic listening and so on.
“Is it OK?” we ask
“Yes” he replies, with an air of bewilderment as if “why shouldn’t it be OK?”

And then the bombshell

“How would you like to do a Christmas Special?”
“Errr …. such as?”
“Well, an hour or so of your programme to be broadcast on Christmas Day?”

Move over, Morecambe and Wise, what?

So we spent the rest of the day, Liz and I, planning our show. We’re aiming for maybe 10 Christmas Carols, a little bit of the nativity, a Christmas Story, a couple of poems and then a pile of the usual mayhem.

But how about that for fame? They obviously like us on the airwaves in the Puy de Dome.

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Monday 15th November 2010 – I FINALLY …

… struggled back home at about 16:00 this afternoon.

I was not in much of a rush to rise this morning, and when I did, I took it quite easy.

But all good things come to an end and I set out for home in mid-afternoon.

I’m surprised that I could remember where it was, and I certainly didn’t recognise it. Even in September and October you’ll be amazed at the amount of stuff that can grow if you aren’t expecting it.

Freezing cold in here too after being absent for so long. And dust everywhere.

But there we are then. That was my great adventure – all done and dusted. And a couple of thousand photos to show for it too, which I shall have to set too and organise some time soon.

I won’t ever be the same again.

And neither will Canada!

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Sunday 14th November 2010 – IT’S SUNDAY …

… today, and Sunday is a day of rest.

And after all of my exertions of the past couple of days here and there I needed a rest too.

So much so that it wasn’t until about 12:30 that I arose from my (or rather, Liz and Terry’s spare) stinking pit.

It’s hardly surprising that I wasn’t in the mood for all that much. I just loitered around and let the day fritter away aimlessly.

What went a long way towards it all was that

  1. Liz was cooking, and I’ll walk a million miles for that
  2. Liz and Terry said that if I wasn’t in any rush to go home, why didn’t I stay an extra night?

Well, do bears go for picnics in the woods?

So here I am, well-fed, well-watered, well-showered and well-clean-clothed, all nicely tucked up under the covers.

And here I shall stay until my name changes to Rip van Eric.

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Saturday 13th November 2010 – IT’S A GOOD JOB …

… that it’s Saturday 13th rather than Friday 13th, because Heaven alone knows what might have gone wrong then.

The flight was reasonable – nothing remarkable at all – but I’m a very bad traveller and find it very difficult to sleep on board an aeroplane. This journey was no exception at all.

I was wasted by the time that I arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport and I wasn’t very comfortable making my way from the airport across Paris for the train to Riom.

And we waited. And waited. And waited.

First of all there had been the engineering works that were slowing everything down.

Secondly, there had been a locomotive failure down the line. It was all happening today.

All in all, by the time that I reached Riom it was not too far short of midnight. Only three and a half hours late.

Instead of going straight home (which was a silly idea anyway at this time of night) Terry ran me back to their house and Liz put me up in the spare bedroom and that was that.

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Tuesday 28th September 2010 – WOULD YOU BELIEVE …

sncf railway train riom puy de dome paris france… that this is the first time that I’ve been on a French train since all of 1978? That was when I had a brief excursion from Rouen to Paris to escape from a party of schoolkids that I was accompanying.

The trip itself was quite uneventful except that I had to share a table with three other people and a large black dog. Everywhere you put your feet it seemed to be on top of the dog. Probably something to do with me going to Labrador, I reckon.

everything went according to plan at Gerzat and Liz dropped me off at the railway station in really good time for my train. I even managed to have time for a coffee and was on the platform in good time for my train.

The British King Richard I was, as every schoolboy will tell you, nicknamed Richard Gare de Lyon because he was always travelling south with his pal Philip of France. I was here in the Gare de Lyon and I was going west. I didn’t like the analogy.

To seek directions to the RER I enquired of a member of the station security staff. He replied in an English which was absolutely impeccable. When I congratulated him on it he replied
"and so it ought to be. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia".
Ahh well.

So down into the basement, off to Something Halles du Something Else on the RER line A, and then change onto the RER line B for Charles de Gaulle airport Terminal 1. And it wasn’t half a struggle fighting through tides of people with a big heavy suitcase. This was the worst part of the journey without a doubt.

When I finally arrived at the airport I waited outside in the wind and rain in the company of a hundred other people for the Hotel navettes. My hotel was the Comfort Inn and I have no idea why they call it Comfort because the light in my room doesn’t work, the shower is only lukewarm and leaks all over the bathroom floor, the meals and drinks are like the internet service – flaming expensive!

But then it’s the cheapest hotel I could find that had a direct connection to the airport and still had a room vacant. I could have paid a lot more for my room elsewhere. And I’m only going to be sleeping in it anyway. It’s better than a draughty railway station concourse.

And I have my humus butties and a packet of biscuits – what more could any man desire?

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Sunday 26th September 2010 – I’m exhausted …

matthieu malnar fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire herment puy de dome ligue de football league france… and that’s just from watching the football this afternoon. If I had been playing in it I would have been absolutely worn out long before half-time.

We were out at a wind-swept Herment today for the 2nd XI’s match, and I can safely say without fear of contradiction that I have never seen FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s defence play as badly as they played today.

matthieu malnar fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire herment puy de dome ligue de football league franceSlow off the mark for the ball, not quick enough going back, failing to clear the ball when they had possession – you name it, the Pionsat defence did (or didn’t) do it.

And it was only a heroic performance by Matthieu in goal – easily the best I have ever seen him play – performing acrobatic like this that kept the score down to a 3-2 defeat.

But today got off to something of a bad start. I was up early for a change and just as well for at 10:04 precisely Bill came round. He needed some help setting up an e-mail account so I sorted him out. But at 10:04 on a Sunday??

And so after that I worked on my notes for the radio programme and spoke to Desiree the local estate agent who gave me some useful info for a radio programme that I have in mind for the future.

On the way back from the football I went round to Terry and Liz’s to talk radio. Simon was there and so we had a chat about a project I have in mind.

I also found the time this morning to book my train out. I’m on the 17:39 from Riom to Paris as I’ve decided to hang around there through the night. There may well be a left-luggage at the Gare du Nord and I might even find a cheap hotel nearby. And if not I can always go for a wander around the city through the night. There will be plenty to do there rather than sitting curled up on a draughty railway station in the middle of nowhere.

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Sunday 19th September 2010 – What do you make of this?

sncf notice giat railway station closed puy de dome franceI went to Giat for the footy this afternoon and as I was a little early I went for a wander around the town.

Of course it wasn’t long before I found myself at the railway station – on the line between Montlucon and Eygurande (the junction with the line from Clermont-Ferrand to Bordeaux). Even though the line is still listed as being open, no trains run and the service is assured by an express bus, but I was here to look at the station.

railway sleeper chairs narrow gauge standard gauge railway line giat puy de dome franceAnd if as by pure chance I noticed this railway sleeper just here. – the second (and also the third) up from the bottom. The rails are firmly attached to the sleepers of course, and set at “standard gauge” – which is 4’8½”.

But if you look closely you can see other bolt holes and impressions in the wood where other chairs have sat on the sleepers at one time. And although I didn’t have a measure with me, a quick and rough estimation put the centre of these chairs, where the rails might be, at about 1 metre apart.

sncf abandoned railway station giat puy de dome france1 metre rings a bell of course – it’s our old friend the Ligne Economique up in the Allier and on a couple of occasions the Ligne Economique shared a set of sleepers and a common track bed with the standard gauge lines, especially in bay platforms at shared railway stations. And when the Ligne Economique closed down, the lines in these bay platforms were for the most part ripped up. So this has got me wondering if the sleepers from the ripped-up bay platforms were put into store for reuse.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire condat giat voingt ligue de football league puy de dome franceThe football at Giat was a real “game of two halves”. In the first period Pionsat swarmed all over the opposition. They scored 2 and they could have had 20 without too much effort.

But at half-time they went to sleep and in the second half Condat-Giat-Voingt went on the attack. They pulled one back and weren’t all that far from getting a second. The transformation was remarkable.

After the game I had to go to Terry’s to bleed the fuel system on the tractor. The quickest route between Giat and Terry’s passes through Pontaumur where I refereed last weekend so I had to stop and put on some dark glasses and a false beard.

We were ages trying to bleed the fuel system and it wasn’t working at all. There was clearly something I missed so I asked Terry to look on the internet under “bleeding diesel”. He replied that we may as well look under “f*cking petrol” and we would still have the same result. But we eventually solved it. The diesel was filthy and it seemed that when the tank ran dry the level of dust and scum floating on the top had settled down and blocked the top of the tap inside the tank. Draining the diesel (mostly all over me) and dismantling the tap and we could clean everything out. Once we’d cleaned it and bled it (and it worked this time) we got it running. And I was paid in food – something that is always welcome.

But on the way to Liz and Terry’s Strawberry Moose and I saw a deer. As it was a female, His Nibs wanted to chase it but I had to tell him … “if you are anything round here you are a stag – S-T-A-G – the second letter is not an H.

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