Tag Archives: radio anglais

Monday 18th April 2011 – I’ve been gardening today.

Well, after all it is the full moon. Before lunch I planted all of the main crop potatoes – I put 64 into two of the raised beds – the last two that I installed the other week. I’ve had to be careful how I planted them because the baby lettuce that I bought the other week – they are in one of those beds and I’ve had to fit the spuds all around them.

After lunch I planted this week’s seeds – things like cauliflowers, broccoli, carrots, courgettes, beans, peas and so on – they all went outside and into place. In the smaller cloche I planted into small pots some more peppers, chilis, cucumber and gherkins. And there are already some of those sprouting up from a fortnight ago. I’ve also weeded out the strawberry patch in the mega-cloche. That’s doing really well in there and it’s a mass of flowers, looking like there might be a bumper crop, and quite early too. But then again, this magnificent spring has a lot to do with that.

But there is a down-side to this magnificent spring. When I finished weeding and planting, I gave everything a thorough watering. And with no rain for 14 days, all of the casual water, that in buckets and bins and tubs about the place, that’s all gone. All that’s left is my rainwater for household use and there’s just about 150 litres or so of that remaining. I’m drying up and this could make things difficult here. I shall have to start a rain dance if it carries on like this.

But there’s still some water for a shower and at 36.5°C I had one as well. And then off to St Eloy and the Anglo-French Group where I set everyone an exercise – I’d found some old notes that I had made, with useful French phrases that are used in everyday life. And so I set everyone to translate them from French to English, to keep them out of mischief.

And so apart from working on the Newfoundland web pages this morning, that was my lot. Tomorrow we are in the studio at Radio Tartasse again. Don’t the months come round quickly?

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Monday 4th April 2011 – Well, I’m back home again …

… after a working day of a mere 28 hours and 16 minutes – for the benefit of many of my readers.

After my exertions fastening down the Minerva back onto the trailer after we nearly left it behind, I set off through the dawn and carried on towards home. And things were, just for a change, going so well until I arrived onto the dual carriageway between Moulins and Montmarault.

Not far from Montmarault I was cut up by an artic that decided that 400 metres was sufficient to try to overtake me with just 2kph different but I got my own back on a dual carriageway bit when I ran him up behind a farm trailer and stuck him there for 8 kilometres.

Then we had yet another police barrage at Montmarault where I had an interesting 20 minutes with a group of gendarmes (30-odd years in driving in France and I’ve only ever been stopped once before – and now twice in a weekend. Time I was moving on, methinks). And when I arrived back here, there was the news of the sudden cancellation of one of the events that forms a major part of our radio programmes – and we had just recorded 5 weeks-worth of programmes advertising them too.

However, I didn’t take to much notice of anything as I cleared off to bed and quite right too. I deserved a really good sleep. But did I get it? Did I ‘eck as like because once I had dropped off, the phone rang again. Mind you, I’m not going to complain too much because the news that came down the telephone was good news indeed – but more of this anon.

belgian land rover minerva les guis virlet puy de dome franceTerry and Liz were on their travels about and they came by chez moi later this afternoon. That was rather fortunate because they were able to give me a hand to take the Minerva off the trailer.

The Minerva is now parked prettily on the hard-standing (isn’t that a good bit of work, that?) and Terry could then take his trailer home with him. That’s the quickest that I’ve ever tidied up after a trip away from home like this.

So now I’m going back to bed again ready for an early start tomorrow. I need to push on as I have some cunning plans to put into operation.

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Tuesday 29th March 2011 – I’ve spent all day on the road.

We started off at Radio Tartasse to record their programmes for April. It was the usual disorganised performance there but we managed well enough.

Radio Arverne wanted us at 13:00 this afternoon and so it wasn’t worth going home. We went to Chateuneuf-les-Bains for a coffee instead. That was much more interesting.

At Radio Tartasse, which is much more organised we did 5 programmes in less than an hour, and then went off to the Carrefour at Riom for a butty, a coffee and a nosy around the shops where I bought some 100%vegan margarine for my garlic bread for tea.

Back here, I sorted out some screws and some of the seeds for the garden but my heart’s not in it right now. I’ve not recovered fully from the effects of digging all of these raised beds. It’s taking it out of me getting ready for planting. So with that in mind I knocked off at 17:30 and came up here for a rest.

I’ll have a lie-in tomorrow to see if I’ll feel any better, and then I’ll go out a-planting. I need to get the garlic and the shallots in place pretty quickly. And I’m away at the weekend too.

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Monday 28th March 2011 – It finally stopped raining this afternoon.

But not before I’d become soaking wet.

I’ve been gardening for most of the day and the first thing that I did, after digging through the beds again, was to plant the new potatoes – the important stuff.

gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd then I made two frameworks for some more raised beds, pulled up the large one that I made to fill a gap last year, laid these two down and dug them in. And that took ages as well for much of the soil where these beds are is virgin soil, full of roots and thistles and brambles and so on.

But anyway, they are in place now and I planted the onions. Some that I pulled up last year have sprouted and so they have gone back, and there were a couple in last year’s bed – they have been moved.

On Wednesday I’ll be planting the shallots and garlic – not tomorrow as we are in the recording studio. And that reminds me, if you want to hear our Christmas Special and the programmes for January and February you need to go here.

Tonight I had a gorgeous tea – the leftover veggie burgers from last night with potatoes that I discovered in the ground when I was relaying the new beds. And beautiful it all was too. I can’t wait to get going on food that I’ll be growing in my garden this year.

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Sunday 27th March 2011 – Today I saw…

…the worst football match that I have ever seen in my life.

I drove all the way to St Avit to watch Pionsat’s 3rd XI but when I arrived there I found that the match had been cancelled. And it was pointless going back all the way to Pionsat to watch the 2nd XI – I’d have missed the first half and then I would have to drive halfway back to see Liz and Terry. However I did see some action at Charensat’s ground and so I stopped off there, to see them play Marcillat in a 3rd Division game.

In the first half the score was 0-0, and the teams were lucky to get nil it was so dreadful. In the second half Charensat opened the scoring. The Marcillat keeper’s kicking was pretty dreadful and so after a while the captain decides to take the goal kicks. For his first effort he kicks it all of 15 yards, right to a Charensat forward who prompty volleys it right back into the goal.

Charensat’s second comes from a corner. A ball played right across the goal with everyone standing there watching it except for a Charensat attacker on the far post who just stoops to head it in. Simple.

And Marcillat pull a goal back. A harmless cross into the penalty area with no-one on the other side, and the Charensat keeper, for reasons known only to himself, puts in a really acrobatic climb-cum-twist and I’m still not sure how he did it, and he palms the ball into his own net.

With just minutes to go, a foul is committed and the ref gives it in the favour of Marcillat, even though he was the only one who reckoned it was in that direction. The Charensat trainer tells the ref what he thought of the decision, and the ref tells the trainer what he thinks of the Charensat trainer. The Charensat defence are arguing amongst themselves and still argue as the ref blows his whistle and they still argue as the ball is played over the top of them to an unmarked Marcillat attacker who heads into an empty net.

Marcillat, easily the worst team I have ever seen, have been let out of jail in no uncertain terms.

And it gets worse.

Charensat have a striker called Guillaume who is quick, speedy, skilful, with good ball control, and if he broke through the Marcillat defence once he did it a dozen times. And faced with innumerable 1-on-1s with a shaky Marcillat keeper, he blasted it over the bar every time. And with 50 seconds remaining, he’s through again, two yards out, the best chance of the game, and he blasts it 5 yards over. His trainer’s language is unprintable in what is a family show like this. It was appalling, but then again, so was the miss.

At Liz and Terry’s I was kindly wined and dined, and we rehearsed our radio programme. We are in the studio on Tuesday.

And it’s rained and rained all day too. 

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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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Sunday 20th February 2011 – And today was Sunday.

And so, we …. errr … worked.

Liz finished painting the woodwork in the toilet while Terry and I went a-breaking and entering. Those of you with long memories will recall that I lost the keys to the apartment while I was at an OUSA meeting at Wyboston in 2008 and although I cobbled together a spare set of keys, there was no garage key to be found.

So this morning we drilled it all out and replaced the lock and then sorted out the stuff in there. A third of it went into Caliburn – all my tools and so on – another third I’m undecided about, and the remainder is destined straight away for the tip without any further discussion. I cannot think why I reckoned, even in my befuddled state, that I needed three double beds for in here. There’s tons of stuff like that which is better off down in the dechetterie.

Mind you, I found all my skiing gear and I washed my ski suits. I quite fancy going on the piste some time in the future but I reckon that I’ve missed my chance for this year. However Banff in British Columbia looks quite exciting – I wouldn’t mind going on the piste over there. I have to admit that I’m disappointed in the facilities down the road at Super Besse. There’s never usually any snow and when there is, there is a low hanging cloud that obscures the runs and you can’t ski there anyway. No wonder everyone is piste off.  

There is a reason for our haste today. On Tuesday we need to record our radio programmes in Marcillat and Gerzat but we are a long way away from finishing here. So we have decided that Liz and I will take Caliburn and the big trailer, duly loaded, down to the Auvergne tomorrow, record our programmes on Tuesday and then unload Caliburn and the trailer, and then come back here on Wednesday to carry on. That will mean that half of the stuff will have gone and that will save a trip or two – we may as well combine what we can.

With the radio programmes, it meant that I had to dash off not one but two scripts – firstly one on education for Radio Arverne and then rework the script on Building Regulations for Radio Tartasse. And so I’ve been a busy little bee and it isn’t long since I finished.

And so with all of the travelling that I need to be doing over the next few days, I’m heading for the hills earlier than usual.

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Tuesday 18th January 2011 – We were recording again today

This time it was for the programmes for Radio Tartasse – the next lot of four-weekly programmes to take them up to the end of February. Luckily I don’t have too far to travel because it’s an early start in the morning, like … errrr … 10:00.

This time we were allowed to do the programmes how we wanted to do them, and it went much better. Liz and I have a very good rapport and much of our stuff is done as ad-libs and you can’t do that if you are having to concentrate on pages of script. And they have also agreed to let us have copies of the recorded programmes so that I can stick them on our blog when I have the time and I’m not so tired. But that will come – you can be assured of that.

And so back here, and carrying on with my ceiling. and that’s what I did for most of the rest of the day such as it was. And I’m making good progress too. It won’t be all that long before it’s done. BUt it went dark at about 17:00 – at least too dark to work on the ceiling, and so I had an hour or so outside doing a little more clearing up. And slowly but surely it’s looking a little (but only a little) more respectable out here. But the weather has turned. It clouded right over and it’s gone cold. I even have had the heating on a little earlier this evening. But not that that worries me. Now that the weeds and brambles are dying down I’m uncovering a few of the old chevrons that we ripped off the barn roof and threw down to the floor. It’s all more firewood for the stove.

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Monday 17th January 2011 – It was Monday today …

… believe it or not, and this afternoon we went to the recording studio to record our radio programmes for the month of February. And no offer of transport from our sponsors either. It seems that whatever budget that was available was only for 12 months and that has now expired.

Anyway, with a view to not taking this lying down, I have taken some positive action. I’ve created a blog for the radio programmes that we do and the intention is that I will stream the radio programmes on there for the benefit of those who can’t receive them or who forgot to listen to them. And in addition to that I will be offering advertising space, at a very democratic €30 per annum for those who run a business or have a service to offer, or €3 per 15 words per month for small ads and the like, people buying and selling articles and so on. And with the money that we raise, we can pay our own travelling expenses to the studio.

So I need help in spreading the word about the radio blog, and I also need customers to buy the advertising space. If you can do your bit to spread the word it would be a great help.

This morning I was up early (just for a change) and with the new insulation that I bought on Saturday I was able to have a profitable couple of hours doing the bedroom ceiling. And it’s advancing pretty well in there. I’m quite happy with that. This evening though we were in St Eloy for the Anglo-French group and we were so carried away with the discussions that instead of finishing at 21:00 as is our wont, it was almost 22:00 when someone noticed the time.

Tomorrow we are recording again – at Radio Tartasse. I need to encourage them to let me have the radio programmes from their end so that we can put them up on the blog too.

I hope it all works!

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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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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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Wednesday 22nd December 2010 – WHAT A SHAMBLES!

This recording session at Radio Tartasse was nothing but a shambles – it really was.

I can understand why it is that performers and other thespians and the like throw tantrums and have hysterics if they have studio staff like this to deal with.

Despite having told them on several occasions how the programme ought to be run they did it completely differently. They had us read out THE WHOLE of “Buying and Selling Property” in one swell foop with the idea that they would edit it into segments. 40-odd minutes of typed text!

Now it might seem logical to do that but there are several major disadvantages.

  1. you can’t physically read 40 minutes of documentation out loud without wanting to stop for breath, to clear your throat, to gather your wits (such as they are) and so on and so forth.
  2. after the first 15 minutes you become bored, your attention starts to wander, you miss your cues and the reading deteriorates rapidly
  3. Liz and I keep up a constant patter of repartee and ad-lib our way through much of our chats. And if I dare to say it, we do it very well. But after 15 minutes or so we are tired and confused and we don’t have the same spark or interaction and it spoils the show
  4. when it comes to ending our programme we finish off with a little impromptu chat. But they just want to cut it dead and it won’t work like that
  5. most importantly – if they want our topics “en bloc” and to cut them into segments themselves, how will we know when the topic is finished? How will we know when to prepare fresh stuff? I don’t intend to sit around on Sunday mornings writing stuff that won’t ever be used – I’ve enough to do. So suppose I decide not to do anything for a week or two and then find out that they’ve used up all the material?

No, it won’t work like that and I told them so, and I didn’t mince my words either.

It’s nothing but totally shambolic. The woman that does the technical stuff is a sham, and the old guy that does the organising – he’s a load of … errrr … rubbish.

So off to Montlucon to order my windows only to find that I’d forgotten the to bring the paper with the dimensions. And Terry, who had measured up “in case you forget” had also forgotten the measurements too. But I did buy the last 30 Brussels sprouts in the whole of France (a Christmas without sprouts is unthinkable) and in Brico Depot I had a most astonishing find – a beautiful faded-oak effect parquet flooring on special offer of about €8:00 per square metre. It’s gorgeous and just the thing for my bedroom, so I now have 18 metres of that downstairs and I wish that I had bought some more.

But an astonishing thing happened here while I was away. all day we had nothing but overcast gloomy foggy clouds that followed us around. Back in Pionsat this evening when we returned there was a clearish sky. But the statistics here – 100 amp-hours of solar energy, temperatures of 13 degrees, 12 degrees in my attic – told me that here while we had been away we had been bathed in glorious sunshine for much of the afternoon. And that is just so surprising.

But tomorrow, snow is forecast so we shall see.

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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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Saturday 18th December 2010 – MY PREDICTION ABOUT THE WEATHER …

… was pretty well near correct. At about 08:00 there was some sun but by the time I was up and about it had long since gone following a change of direction of the wind veering round from the west again, and we had clouds.

“Ahhh well” I sighed, and went out to chop a huge pile of wood.

The snow that I predicted arrived at round about 11:30 and it didn’t last long for – astonishingly – the wind veered round to a southerly and that pushed a Mediterranean weather front up. Not an Alpine afternoon like I would have liked, but a blue kind of hazy afternoon with a fair amount of sun – once I’d cleaned off all of the solar panels.

No point in going shopping – I’m well-snowed in here – and so I took the cue and went off to do the notes for our radio programme. Holiday lettings is January’s topic and there’s enough here to rival War and Peace.

So that’s where I’ve been all afternoon and evening – up here translating and transcribing notes and then writing the dialogue. It takes ages to do as well but I suppose it keeps me out of mischief.

Tomorrow morning I need to finish off the Christmas Special and then somehow work out how I can dig Caliburn up the hill. I need to go to Liz and Terry’s for our rehearsal. But unless we have a dramatic change to the weather I can see it being a long afternoon with a shovel and a pile of sand.

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