Tag Archives: neris-les-bains

Sunday 28th October 2012 – BRRRRR!!!!!!!

It’s absolutely freezing outside. And I mean that too. Minus 1.6°C outside when I took the stats just now.

And it’s been cold all day as you can tell by just looking at this photo of the Puy-de-Dome that I took from my usual haunt – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne.

Winter has arrived, early as we predicted exclusively on these pages just 10 days ago, and we are still in October too.

And just look over there at the Puy de Sancy and the Mont Dore. It’s more like Mont Blac over there right now. And those heavy clouds are threatening more punishment

And the snow isn’t just scattered over the high ground either. There’s piles of it in the middle distance too.

When that lot was unleashed last night, we were still on SUMMER time would you believe. The weather has gone totally crazy.

So this morning with the extra hour in bed, I was up and about at 09:20 and after breakfast and the usual paperwork, I spent a couple of hours doing some housework, cleaning and dusting and the like.

It’s certainly been such a long time since I’ve done any, and I can actually see some floor now.

This afternoon I went out to Terjat to watch AS Terjat play Neris les Bains’s 2nd XI.

An Allier Division 1 match, theoretically the same level at which FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI play, but there wasn’t a single player out there whom I would chose for my team. The quality really is quite poor in the Allier.

Neris-les-Bains are quite high up in the league and AS Terjat are mid-table, yet you wouldn’t have thought so from watching this match.

The first half with AS Terjat kicking into a howling wind, the match was played mostly in the Terjat half, but Neris-les-Bains were to all intents and purposes clueless in attack.

In the second half, playing with the wind, AS Terjat scored 2 goals in quick succession and as the wind dropped, Neris-les-Bains scored late in the game, due to a defensive howler in the AS Terjat penalty area.

fter that I went to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our Radio Anglais programmes for the coming week. Liz made a lovely tea and I had a nice warm shower for which I was grateful.

Back here though it’s freezing and I was sorely tempted to light the fire up here. November 17th was the first fire in 2010 – November 27th was the first in 2011,but the first fire in October is just crazy.

If it’s as cold as this tomorrow and I’m in all evening it will definitely be lit.

-6

Saturday 27th October 2012 – WHO WAS IT …

… who laughed when I said the other day that winter was on its way here and that it would be snowing before much longer?

Well, there you are. This was what greeted me this morning.

It’s the first snow of the year and it’s still October and we’re still on summer time here here.

I was up nice and early with every intention of going to Montlucon as I told you yesterday. But the main reason for going was to go finish off the day with a swim in the pool at Neris-les-Bains;

But if anyone thinks that I am getting into a swimming pool anywhere in weather like this, they are mistaken.

Instead, I stayed in this morning and did some more paperwork.

This afternoon the weather changed slightly and we had an hour or two of glorious weather – hardly a cloud in the sky – and so I nipped into St Eloy-les-Mines.

In this weather you have to go and do the shopping when you can, so there I was, doing a quicka dash around LIDL and Carrefour, spending a grand total of €18 on the weekly food shopping bill

The other day coming back from Nan’s, I noticed that Caliburn seemed to have his brake lights stuck on.

An investigation revealed that it was the driver’s side bulb showing both filaments at night, so I went to have a closer look.

I took out the light units and saw that the nearside lights worked as they should. On the offside though, a close examination of the bulb revealed that the bulb’s shaft had fractured.

As a result, the two internal wires were twisting and the current for the rear light was passing through the touching wires, lighting up the brake light as well.

Pressing the brakes, the current for the brake light was simply running to earth down the fractured shaft of the bulb.

Anyway, a new bulb has resolved that problem and we now have rear lights and brake lights like we are supposed to. My first guess of an earthing fault wasn’t so far out.

This afternoon I watched some footy on the computer and then prepared myself to go to Marcillat en Combraille to watch the footy. It’s cup weekend in the Puy-de-Dome and as you know, FC Pionsat St Hilaire were eliminated a couple of weeks ago by Clermont Foot Auvergne.

But to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … there was an inch of snow on the ground and it was falling thick and fast.

That put an end to the plans for going out, and I shan’t be moving now until it warms up again.

See you in April.

-3

Saturday 29th September 2012 – I SAW SOMETHING …

… this evening that I have never seen before.

I was at St Eloy-les-Mines watching Nord Combraille play Beauregard-Vendon in the league cup, and halfway through the match the home supporters started to hurl abuse at the visiting linesman.

The Miners’ captain ran across the field to his supporters and told them to “fermez la geule” – or “shut your gobs”. And how I wish that more captains of more football clubs would take the initiative like that.

It was an exciting match too – with 10 minutes to go Beauregard-Vendon were comfortably winning 3-1 but then the Miners scored a goal right out of nothing to bring it back to 3-2.

Then, with the last kick of the match, they scored an equaliser from a corner.

Extra-time followed, and the Miners ran rampant, winning 5-3, including as the 4th goal one of the best that I have ever seen at this level of football.

That led to me doing something that I have never done before in all the time that I’ve been here. By the time the match had finished, what with extra time and everything, it was 10:45 and so I wouldn’t be home for another 20 minutes.

Far too late to cook tea, but the kebab house was still open and so I bought a large portion of chips to eat in Caliburn on the way home.

No vinegar, of course, but they were pretty good chips and I’ll go there again if ever I’m out late at weekend.

So what about today then?

I nearly missed my shopping slot at Commentry today as well. But there was a good reason for this.

Just as I was closing down to go to bed (at a comparatively early 02:30) I had a message to ring Rachel in Canada urgently. And so I did, and it turned out that at the garage in Centreville they had mislaid a box which included, inter alia, my bank card that they keep for me.

It’s surprising, if not amazing, that you can spend over 90 minutes talking to people whom you like, about a subject as simple as that (and it was all a false alarm anyway as they found it this morning)

The result of that was that it was gone 04:00 when I finished and then I couldn’t sleep – still awake again at 05:30. and so it’s just as well that the guy up the road started up his chainsaw at 11:00 otherwise I’d still be asleep now.

So what with one thing and another it was gone 14:00 when I set out for Commentry. One of the things that I needed to do was to buy even more tool handles as I’d broken one or two more during the week, and so I needed to strip out the old broken bits before I could go.

At Mr Bricolage I managed to sort everything out (at a price) but the handle for the pickaxe. They didn’t have a wooden handle and so he sold me a fibre one.
“This is unbreakable” said the salesman
“Leave that to me” I replied. “I’ll see to that”.

I also bought the bits I need to do some work for a client with a solar hot water system, and at LIDL they still had a couple of packets of those LED light strips and so I liberated them.

Makes me wonder how many I might have liberated had I managed to make it there last week.

No swimming baths though – far too late to go there, and so I came back here and crashed out for a couple of hours instead after my bad night.

Tomorrow I’m off to the Mont Dore – FC Pionsat St Hilaire are playing Briffons-Perpezat in the cup.

-1

Saturday 22nd September 2012 – YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING …

… what happened to the blog last night and why you have to wait until Sunday evening for Saturday’s write-up,

The truth is that it’s been something of a totally mixed-up couple of days.

I managed an early start on Saturday morning and long before lunch I’d even selected the music for the rock programme for December – talk about trying to get ahead – but then it all went a little haywire.

I had four phone calls one after the other. Marianne rang me to see if I would like to be a technician at a Haydn concert on Sunday afternoon (so much for my day off), then Percy Penguin rang, and then a solar panel salesman phoned up.

As for the fourth person who rang me, I can’t now remember who it was.

In between the phone calls I was trying to do some tidying up, without too much success, and so I made a coffee and sat down for five minutes.

Next thing that I remembered was that it was 14:43 – I’d missed my window of opportunity to go shopping in Commentry and then for a swim at Neris-les-Bains.

Instead, I simply nipped into St Eloy-les-Mines (remembering while I was there exactly why I needed to go to Commentry – those 12-volt light strips at LIDL) and then came back home to prepare for the footy.

If you think that the 7-0 hammering that FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI had at Chateaugay the other week, that was nothing compared to the score against Nord Combraille.

No goalkeeper, and so a young boy going between the posts, last season’s 3rd XI defence, and the result was a foregone conclusion even before the kickoff.

It was a shame because for the first time for ages the team had a shape and a plan, and in midfield and up front they weren’t too bad. They certainly had a few chances against the Miners in this game, but every time they lost possession that was that.

The FC Pionsat St Hilaire 1st XI won 2-1, scoring two goals that were, well, extraordinary.

Beating the offside trap completely and utterly for one goal, and the second, a free kick from 30 yards out that went straight through the hands of the keeper.

Still, they all count, and that’s what is important.

Of course, with two matches and a pile of injury time, we didn’t finish until almost 23:00, and so it was midnight when I came up here.

Too tired to do anything but all that coffee and the nap at lunchtime made sure that I was still awake at 05:30.

Saturday 8th September 2012 – WHEN WAS THE LAST …

… time I saw an SD1 Rover?

I can in fact vaguely remember – early October 2010 in Ohio, USA as it happens. Here’s the photo to prove it and I’m still recovering from the shock.

In the UK is must be years ago when I borrowed one that a mate was halfway through dismantling, so that I could go to Kings Lynn to drops some stuff off on a girl that I was seeing at the time and the exhaust fell off halfway out.

And so this morning in Montlucon I was completely stunned to see one drive past me as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. And seeing a second one drive past me an hour or two later was even more astonishing. I’ve no idea what was going on there and I bet that I won’t ever see something like that again.

And I nearly didn’t make it to Montlucon either.

The effects of the last few days have been telling on me, because despite the early night I slept right through the alarms this morning. It was only the farmer bringing the cows back (I’m glad I did that wall when I did) that woke me up.

I had a good wander round and bought nothing much out of the ordinary – maybe a pair of these shell trousers that I wear. Auchan had them on sale at €9:99 so I reckoned that I would buy a pair and see what they are like.

I’m fast running out of clothes because I left a huge pile in my lock-up in Canada to pick up when I go back – which should have been this weekend but it isn’t and that’s why I’m running out.

I had a good hour in the pool at Neris-les-Bains as well and finally managed to see the remains of the Roman Baths – how long have I been going there and I haven’t seen them before?

In the blistering heat the baths was crowded as you might expect. And someone was having a load of fun!

A couple were standing about 5 yards apart and hurling an object about between them – the object being a girl of about 3 or 4. And every time she hit the water she was squealing with delight.

I was squealing too, but for a different reason. All of the pool was open and the water was absolutely freezing. Almost as cold as that pool in Québec back in May.

Tonight the football season gets under way and with no game at Pionsat I went to Marcillat en Combraille to watch AS Marcillat’s 1st XI.

One division higher than FC Pionsat St Hilaire in theory (but they play in the Allier leagues, not the Puy de Dome leagues) but you wouldn’t think so. The match was awful and so was AS Marcillat – they only lost 5-2 but they were lucky to get the two and St Prix should have had a dozen.

I’m off to two matches tomorrow – at Chateaugay for the 2nd XI at 13:00 and then down the road to Clermont la Glacière at 15:00 for the 1st XI.

Two teams that I haven’t seen before.

-1

Saturday 25th August 2012 – I’VE BEEN …

… spending my money once again.

It’s the rentrée pretty soon – yes, all the kids will be back at school in 2 weeks’ time and so the shops are filled with all kinds of stuff.

There’s one shop, called Centrakor in Commentry that is a kind of down-market CASA if that’s at all possible, and they had something on sale that was quite phenomenal.

It’s a kids’ workstation type of thing – a few shelves, a slide-out shelf for a keyboard, a tabletop and then a couple of shelves at eye-level (well, eye-level for a 12 year old) and one good thing about it is that it is on castors.

The best part about it though is the price – a mere €19:99

Here in my little attic I have a kind of tiny round cheap plastic coffee table with two shelves and I have the DVD player/TV on the top shelf and the computer external drives on the other. And it rattle along and bits drop off and there’s no room for anything at all on it.

So when I saw this workstation thing my mind went into overdrive. So now there’s one in the back of Caliburn waiting to be brought up here and assembled whenever I get a moment (whenever that might be). But it’s ever so impressive, especially at that price.

I did quite a mega-shop today in Commentry in fact, including a proper stonemason chisel for raking out the cement from between the stones.

High time I had some decent tools and equipment around here – it might make the next bit of the wall somewhat easier.

From there I went on to Neris-les-Bains and the swimming baths. The weather has cooled down considerably over these last few days but the had all the sides of the pool open and so it was freezing in there. I managed 24 lengths today which is something of a record these days.

I came home afterwards and … errrr … crashed out. I’m not as young as I was.

This morning though I finished off the radio scripts – they need some alterations but I don’t really have the time to do it now and I was too tired this evening.

And after all of my worries as to whether it’s going to be enough, it weighed in at 38kb. That’s the third longest ever.

So now it’s bedtime ready for my day of rest tomorrow, when I’m going to be rushed off my feet.

-5

Friday 24th August 2012 – WELL, FOLKS …

… here it is. The wall’s all finished!

I was rather optimistic about my “couple of hours” – in fact it was more like 3.5 hours before it was all done.

But the hardest part of it was of course the clearing up afterwards that took the time – I don’t do clearing up as you know.

Anyway, there you are – all done and dusted. The tools have been put away and the araa has been cleared of rubbish the best that I can do.

As for the bits of old cement and so on that I dug out of the wall, they are on a tarpaulin at the side of the house. Soon I’ll be doing some concreting and I’ll be needing hardcore.

As for the weather behaving itself, the moment that I finished putting the last trowel of mortar into the wall, it started to rain. Bang on cue, you might say.

Anyway, seeing as it was 18:10 when I finished, I called it a day and boiled up some water for a shave and a good wash.

Following that, I crashed out, to such an extent that I didn’t make tea. I’d probably be asleep even now if Radio Tartasse hadn’t rung up – apparently the music files for the radio programme are corrupted so can she copy them again?

That’s where I was this morning, in Marcillat-en-Combraille, recording the Radio Anglais rock music programmes for Radio Tatasse. That was fairly straightforward after last month’s debacle.

So tomorrow is shopping at Commentry and maybe even the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains. A good soak and a good relax should do me the world of good, I reckon, after all of my exertions.

Sunday is the pellerinage at La Cellette and the pot d’acceuil at St Maigner with Marianne, followed by the Virlet brocante and then Liz and Terry’s for rehearsals for the rest of the Radio Anglais programmes, and that’s the weekend done.

And do you like my Sunday?

That, would you believe, is a day of rest.

-6

Saturday 23rd June 2012 – PHEW! I’M EXHAUSTED!

And I’m not surprised either, for I’ve had a busy day today.

This morning I was busy tracing the antics of Séraphin Margane de Lavaltrie and his regiment, the Carignan-Salières along the banks of the St Lawrence River, as well as unravelling the tangled web weaved around Quebec by the enigmatic Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac.

Yes, this is all very exciting, doing these web pages. I’m certainly learning a lot – and that’s the whole point.

Anyway, in the afternoon I shot off to Commentry and did a pile of shopping, but didn’t buy any wire netting. The price of the stuff is exorbitant and I’m sure that I can do far better than that elsewhere with a bit of exertion.

In the meantime I’ll see what I can conjure up or otherwise invent.

I did however manage to fit in an uncomfortable hour in the swimming pool at Neris-les-Bains. Note to self- “don’t go swimming straight after eating a tub of LIDL sorbet”.

And so in the evening a nice clean me went back out and off to the village for our traditional, annual walk to explore some of the lesser-known back lanes of Virlet.

I’d stuck a note on the board of the Anglo-French group and so instead of the usual 20 or so people we ended up being quite a crowd – many of whom I knew – and we all had a really nice, cheerful and friendly walk around.

People from all ages were here and that’s nice to see – I like the idea of the youngsters being involved.

. It’s not only the villagers who are drawn out by the likelihood of crowds and of an audience.

Whenever there’s a possibility of a photo opportunity with a new group of admiring fans, you can bet your life that Strawberry Moose won’t be far away.

And sure enough, he leapt out of his seat in Caliburn to mingle with the crowds and made the acquaintance of a few more admirers. His fame is certainly spreading and he had just as much fun as everyone else did tonight.

Because fun there was, and plenty of it too, and for all ages.

After the walk we all headed back to the field at the back of the church. Here, seeing as it’s the Fête de St Jacques we had a feu de joie, a barbecue and snacks, a film and dancing with music provided by my friend Rick the Trailer Guy on cello and his violinist friend.

All very convivial.

A good time was had by all although I didn’t stay too long. I didn’t stay as long as I might have though. For some reason I was absolutely exhausted, and so I was home by midnight.

It’ll take me a week to recover, I reckon.

Friday 22nd June I DIDN’T HAVE …

… such a good day today.

I was up and about by 08:00 and that’s not something that happens too often as you know. And by 09:00 I was busy on the laptop writing up my notes from Canada.

Anyway, I became somewhat side-tracked, like you do …”like YOU do” – ed … with an exciting little story that I managed to piece together and which shows just how much of a role coincidence seems to play in people’s lives.

There are two neighbouring villages, St Sulpice and Lavaltrie, on the north shore of the St Lawrence.

In Lavaltrie is a man named Riel who has 14 children and as his farm is far too small to support them all as they grow up, the younger children disperse westward to where Canada is expanding.

Meanwhile, in St Sulpice is another family, the Lacombes, who also have too many children and the younger ones likewise disperse, one of them becoming a missionary to the Blackfoot Indians in Saskatchewan.

In 1885 a rebellion breaks out in Saskatchewan and the Missionary Lacombe is sent to persuade the Blackfoot not to join in the fighting. When he arrives he finds that the leader of the rebellion is busy trying to incite them to join in and butcher the Government forces.

And the name of the leader of the rebellion? Yes, he’s Louis Riel from Lavaltrie.

What a small world!

Of course the story is far more complicated than that, but I only have a small amount of space to write it. Anyway, you can see why I’ve been side-tracked for most of the morning.

This afternoon, when I finally did manage to go outside, I checked on the beans and peas. The peas are slowly coming to life but now there are about 20 baby bean plants busy battling their way out of the soil.

I definitely need some more climbing frames for them and so I’ll have to see about some wire netting tomorrow.

After that, it was up on the roof and put the second layer of lime mortar on the roof joint. Hopefully that won’t need any more attention. It should be watertight anyway as there’s plastic membrane there anyway and there is an overhang off the house roof that will shade it.

I used the rest of the mortar to fill in part of the gap in the rendering. There’s still quite a bit of that to do as well.

After that did some tidying up in the lean-to and noticed that I had some cucumber, courgette and gherkin seeds that are okay to plant in the beginning of June. As we are still a few weeks behind with the weather right now I hoed and raked an few empty bits of a couple of the beds and planted a variety of seeds there.

They have two chances now, whereas in the packet nothing would ever be likely to happen.

I also made up a few pots with lettuce in. I’ll see what happens to that lot.

When I was down checking over the beans and peas I happened to look up the slope across all of the other beds that I had set out, and with all of the plants happily growing away in them I really did have a moment of pride.

With the drastic weeding since I’ve been back, I have to say that my vegetable garden looks the best that it ever has. The new climbing frames for the beans really do set it off.

Tomorrow it’s Commentry shopping, seeing what I can find for wire netting, and then maybe I’ll go for a swim at Neris-les-Bains. I must look my best for the village fête and evening walk tomorrow night in Virlet.

-3

Saturday 16th June 2012 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY.

In fact I went to Montlucon.

And even though I had a late-ish start I was still out and round and back earlier than usual.

The impetus was that you my remember me receiving a text to say that my new front door needs picking up, and if I didn’t get a wiggle on I would lose it. So offI went to pick it up.

It’s not very substantial at all, being just a sheet of double-glazing with a wooden frame around it, and it’s not going to be used for ages yet. But the reason why I chose it when I did, for those of you with short memories, is that it’s the same style as the windows that I bought for the house and the range was discontinued at the end of March.

The fact that it was the cheapest double-glazed door has nothing whatever to do with the argument, of course.

My luck was in too. At the Amaranthe health food shop there was some soya cream that had gone past the sell-by date and so they were giving a carton away to each customer. That will do very nicely for a mushroom and onion fried rice later in the week.

At at the rubbish shop (NOZ, for the benefit of the foreigners) they were selling a load of flavoured rice milk at just €0:75 a litre. There’s a nice long sell-by date on those and so of course there are now none left in the shop.

Almond-flavoured rice milk on my breakfast muesli – that has to be the way to go.

And Dammi if I didn’t find some of this on sale at NOZ as well.

It’s a multi-vitamin, multi fruit drink. And I had a good look at the list of ingredients and, sure enough, it contains vitamin B12. being a vegan as you know,
I have lots of issues about my vitamin B12 intake so I’m always on the lookout for different food items that might contain it.

And with a name like this, it ought to be good too!

It was piping hot too – hottest day of the year for me and so I really fancied a swim, but I had left my swimming trunks back at home. Never mind – Auchan was having a sale and so for €5:00 I treated myself to a pair of new ones.

I took the plunge and went to the Centre Aqualudique at the back of Montlucon. I’d heard a couple of good reports about it.

And it was certainly a far cry from Neris-les-Bains – tidal pools, a fast-flowing current, bubble-massage seats in the pool. And many more people there than at Neris so there was much more to see.

Ohhhh yes – I still chase after the women. The problem is though that at my age I can’t remember why.

€5:00 admission though – and that’s quite a difference from €3:20, and nothing like as intimate. I’ll just have to save the Centre Aqualudique for special occasions such as midwinter when it’s far too cold to be at Neris-les-Bains.

At the Brico Depot I bought 4 demi-chevrons and 3 sacks of sand. And you might be wondering why. The demi chevrons because I want to put shelves up in this cupboard downstairs and I want to do it the next time the weather is bad, without having to wait for a trip to the sawmill for the wood.

And the bags of sand?

There’s some sealing joints that need to be made on the roof of the lean-to that I fitted earlier this year. I’ve no sand here and so I need to dig out the Sankey trailer, change the wheels, trundle down to the quarry, load the trailer, bring it back here and bag up the sand.

With having the sand here I can have the job finished before I’ve even changed the wheels on the Sankey.

But I hate the people at Brico Depot. I loaded up Caliburn and then went off to pay for it “you need to bring your vehicle here” said the girl in the office. Walking 20 metres was clearly too much for her.

And so I brought the vehicle to the door and she came out – and then started chatting to a fork-lift truck driver.
“When you can spare me the time, if it’s not too much trouble for you” I said, and so she shrugged her shoulders to the driver and slumped over to me to check my load.
Yes, the staff at Brico Depot needs a collective smack in the mouth. It’s just like being back in Belgium and how I hate that country.

Back here I sat down to watch a film and the next thing that I remember was that it was 20:00. A long time since I’ve crashed out like that too.

And for the football we watched a team of bouncing Czechs pole-axe their opposition to advance to the next stage of the UEFA Nations Cup.

-1

Friday 20th April 2012 – We’ve been recording today.

Liz needs to make an urgent departure for the UK and I’m off on me ‘ols, so today was the only day left for recording our radio programmes. It was just as well that I spent that week a couple of weeks ago churning out a pile of stuff to keep in reserve because it’s currently being used.

And how!

We recorded 9 radio programmes today which is something of a record. 3 for Radio Tartasse and 6 for Radio Arverne – that all covers a period of 6 weeks and so takes us through to mid-June when we should all be back again, unless my aeroplane crashes, one of my ferries hits an iceberg or I run away with a couple of nubile bimbos.

And you’ve no idea just how tiring it is doing all of this. So much so that I crashed out for 10 minutes or so at Liz’s when we returned. But very kindly, Liz let me have a shower there, which has saved me a journey to Neris and the swimming baths and means that I can spend all day here tidying up. No point in going to the shops when I don’t really need anything before I go. For my Sunday pizza I’ll make one on a bread base with some mushrooms out of a tin, a chili, some olives and tomato. What can be simpler?

Back here, I watched a cattle – chronologically-disadvantaged-person film (well, hardly, seeing as how the action in the film is taking place in 1951) about which I have spoken before at great length. It’s Riders of the Whistling Pines starring Gene Autry and what makes the film particularly noteworthy is that it concerns the widespread use of DDT and heroes and villains. The heroes are the ones who want to spray the forest with DDT and the villains wre the environmentalists who prophesy that the waters will be poisoned and all of the fish, cattle, and everything else that comes into contact with it will die a horrible death. And it’s all accopanied with scenes of the goodies flying their aeroplanes and the huge clouds of DDT that are emitted therefrom.

Yes, imagine that today!

And what with one thing and another I was searching around the internet for a group called “Eyes of Blue” – a Welsh rock band featuring inter alia “Taff” Williams and Phil Ryan (later of Man) and “Pugwash” Weathers, later of Gentle Giant. And astonishingly, their two albums, Crossroads/in Fields of Ardath are available on Amazon. And so that set me off and I discovered some even more obscure albums from other Welsh bands of the late 60s and early 70s likewise available. And so I’ve been spending my money again. And more than maybe I ought to as well, but these albums are quite rare and extremely sought-after and so copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say … "you said that the other day" – ed.

Having these albums in my letter box waiting for me might encourage me to come back home after my trip.

-4

Saturday 10th March 2012 – BRAIN OF A DUCK, YOU KNOW!

Yes, Brain of Britain drove all of the way to Commentry to do his shopping this afternoon, only to find when he arrived there that he had forgotten his money, his wallet and his bank cards.

And so all the way back to here to fetch them and then go all the way back again.

That meant that I didn’t have time to do much shopping and so I just did the bare essentials – and then only some because I forgot quite a lot, I reckon.

And after that, a nip to the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains.

It was freezing in there this afternoon and I wasn’t sorry to come out after an hour or so.

But I did have an amusing time watching a group of kids in there. All aged between 6 and 8 I reckon and all came in individually with parents, but after a while I noticed that they were all playing together in a corner of the shallow end.

It never ceases to amaze me how unself-conscious kids of that age are, and how quickly they all seem to integrate.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing Sauret this evening at football down at the bottom of Division 4 of the Puy de Dome District league in Pionsat.

For once they had a full side out with a couple of new players as well as a few decent players who have featured for the second XI. And so they spent most of the match peppering the Sauret goal whereas the opposition just contented themselves with a few breakaways.

And such is the perversity of modern football that Sauret won the encounter by 2-1.

This was another match that Pionsat threw away. They really do need to win encounters like this if they want to crawl away from the basement.

-2

Saturday 3rd March 2012 – THE WEATHER …

… wasn’t quite as nice today.

Based upon the scheme of description that I use, we had “scattered clouds” this morning followed by “clouds” this afternoon. That’s rather a change from the “glorious” of the last couple of days.

I was up quite early this morning and had something of a lazy half-day doing nothing in particular.

From there it was off to Commentry, just for a change, to do a round of the shops there. But there was nothing extraordinary at all on offer about the place today and I didn’t buy anything special at all

I did make it to the swimming baths at Neris-les-bBains though, for the first time in ages, and I’m all clean now.

I finally managed to watch a football match tonight – the first time for what feels like several years.

Down in Pionsat, FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI were playing Menetrol so I went along to lend them my support. And despite playing a little better than they have done just recently, they still managed to lose again.

They are now struggling near the foot of the table with relegation starting to stare them in the face and it’s all looking quite ominous.

-3

Friday 2nd March 2012 – WELL, I DIDN’T …

… quite have my early night last night.

I started talking to someone on the internet just after I posted last night’s blog and it was 02:00 when I finally went to bed.

But here’s something that doesn’t happen every day – not only was I awake when the alarm went off, and not only was I breakfasting, but I was actually outside weeding the garden when the alarm clock went off this morning.

Wide awake at 07:30, I was, and I’ve no idea why. I must have wet the bed or something.

But it was a good day to be wide awake so early. By the time that I came in for a coffee – at about 11:50 – it was 24.6°C outside with gorgeous blue skies and everything. It really was marvellous.

Terry came round a little later. He had a job of work to do in the vicinity and so he popped by to sey hello. And I swapped a few 4mm bolts for a few sacks of sawdust – the composting toilet depends on sawdust, and plenty of it, and I was starting to run low, although you might not think so with all of the wood that I have cut up just recently

With it being so nice, I quickly coupled up the solar water heater -cum – shower unit. I was not really wanting to do that as there are a few improvements that I want to do, but it was a shame to miss out on the solar heat and the possibility of a shower some time in the near future.

I could certainly do with a shower anyway, and I’ll be heading to the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains if it stays nice tomorrow.

With so much solar energy (we had 243 amp-hours today – that’s about 3KwH) the water in the dump load reached 48°C. That was the cue for the first load of washing for the year.

And there was plenty of that to do as well.

And it was nice to sit outside this afternoon with a butty or two, a coffee from the electric coffee machine, and watch the washing machine do the business using water heated by the surplus energy off my system. It really is a sense of acccomplishment for all of this to happen.

But as for the washing itself, most of it is going to have to be done again. I tried to do it using these washing nut things but they turned out to be a dismal failure and haven’t made mush impression at all on the dirty stuff.

I’ll have to buy some “proper” washing powder stuff and do it again.

After all of that, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden again.

I didn’t have the fire going because I had the washing hanging out, but there’s now a huge mountain of weeds and so on ready to be burnt and I might do that tomorrow morning.

The area to where I’m going to move one of the compost bins is now clear. All I need to do is to dig up a few small tree stumps there, and compact some hardcore down to stop the weeds from penetrating from underneath, and then I can put the first of the bins there.

And when the pile of weeds has been burnt, I can start to put the greenhouse there where it ought to be.

It seems to me that everyone is starting to come out of hibernation now.

-2

Saturday 12th November 2011 – I’M GOING …

… to bed in a second.

Yes, I’m thoroughly exhausted and I don’t know why. Probably the early start this morning had something to do with it.

Up with the alarm waiting for a phone call for this photo safari thing, and it turns out that I had not been patched in to an earlier e-mail circular and so I’d missed the point of this trip out. But anyway it didn’t take us long to do what it was that we had to do.

This afternoon, seeing as how the weather was so beautiful I went to Commentry to do my shopping there.

And while I was in the car park of the Les Bonnes Affaires I was buzzed by one of these motorised hang-glider things passing low over the town. I was trying to think where he might have come from because there’s no suitable cliff in the vicinity off which to leap into the ether – unless he can run with his feet fast enough to make a clean take-off.

And I wonder what the rules might be about low-flying over a built-up area like this

While I had the camera out, I noticed another example of poorly-sighted solar panels – over there on the roof of that bungalow. Facing full west they are, so they don’t receive a glimmer of sunlight until early afternoon.

These “become a producer of solar energy and sell to the electricity board” high-pressure salesmen have struck again. It’s hardly surprising that the industry has such a bad name when they do things like this.

I did make a couple of interesting discoveries though. And they were both at Bricomarche.

they have a huge pile of water-resistant 8mm plywood at €39 a sheet of 2.5×1.25 metres. It’s expensive all right but it’s what I need for the roof of the lean-to and they do have it in stock.
they also have the stove that I want for downstairs. A woodstove with an oven and with a central heating boiler built in – for €1499 too. That’s exactly what I want, because the sun will heat the water in the summer and I need something for heating it in the winter. If this does everything, it will be perfect. I can even do cooking with it as well.

But the real reason for going to Commentry was that with the weather being so nice I could nip down the road to Neris-les-Bains for a swim. It was glorious in there – the water just right and the pool quite warm as well. Shame it can’t be like that all the time.

At the footy tonight the 3rd XI match was cancelled as the opposition couldn’t raise a team, and the first XI went down 2-1 to a team that they had played off the park, something of which they seem to be in a habit of doing

I’d tell you much more about the game but enough of this for now. I’ve fallen asleep twice already while typing as far as this, and if I don’t get a move on I’ll be ……..THUD THUD

…….ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

-1

EPIC HALL

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