Tag Archives: early night

Sunday 11th November 2012 – WHAT ANOTHER …

… extraordinary football match.

Yes, ths afternoon saw me at Terjat to see the AS Terjat 1st XI play Hyds in Division One of the Allier League. But I’ll talk about that in a moment.

First, though, with a fairly early night on Saturday (despite the cups of coffee) and no alarm clock either, I managed to be fully conscious and on my feet at … errrr … 08:26. I haven’t a clue what happened there.

So after an early breakfast and watching a film I mooched around for the morning doing not very much at all, and after lunch went off into the wilderness.

An extraordinary match indeed. The final score was something like 8-6 to Hyds and I’m not talking about the goals but about the yellow cards. I think that the referee must have had a pop-up toaster in his shirt pocket. Every time there was a foul, up popped a yellow card. Amazing!

And not only that, I’m sure that the referee must have been officiating a different match to the one that we were watching, because some of the decisions were, well, bewildering, to say the least.

We had the AS Terjat keeper throw himself on top of a Hyds attacker to stop him scoring (and I do mean exactly that) and the referee blew for … a free kick to AS Terjat.

And then, a few minutes later, an AS Terjat attacker flattened the Hyds centre-half, and the referee blows for … a penalty to AS Terjat (which they miss).

If that’s not enough to be going on with, there’s a foul on an AS Terjat player about 25 yards out but as the ball breaks free to another AS Terjat player in an excellent position, the referee plays a good advantage.

This second AS Terjat player is then scythed down well inside the penalty area by a later Hyds challenge and the referee blows … not for the penalty, but to bring the game back for the first foul.

That’s probably the strangest “advantage” decision I have ever seen.

AS Terjat eventually win 3-2, but both sets of supporters (and I was chatting to both groups) left the ground shaking their heads in disbelief.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I lit the fire to cook my pizza and settle down to watch the gridiron. We were promised a sportfest – three matches consecutively last night.

But the early start clearly had its effect because I fell asleep towards the end of the Eagles – Cowboys match, woke up in the 2nd quarter of the Jets – Seahawks match, fell asleep again later and woke up at 2:30 having missed all of the 49ers – St Louis match.

0

Friday 9th November 2012 – I DIDN’T QUITE …

… manage to do as much as I would have liked on the tidying up in the bedroom where I’m working.

I had a phone call from Cécile this morning inviting me round for a chat. She’s renovating a house all on her own and reading between the lines, she had run out of ideas and inspiration.

That, of course is something to which I can easily relate, having been here myself on many occasions and needing a push along the path (thanks, Terry).

Anyway, we had quite a long chat about things in her house and so she’s going out shopping tomorrow for some bits and pieces to help her along the way.

It really does help to have someone to chat to every now and again in circumstances like this.

This morning though, I had a good stint on the website and I’ve now finished my visit to Québec and I’m back in my motel in the Street of 100 Motels.

I can now start indexing the Québec photos and splitting the pages up into bite-sized morsels so as not to overwhelm the MTV generation with its truncated attention span.

That might take some time too.

After that, I cut a pile of firewood, emptied the composting toilet (there aren’t half some lovely jobs around here) and then attacked the tidying up for an hour or so.

The pile of stuff on the shelves is diminishing rapidly. I can’t imagine what half of the stuff is doing in here anyway. It should be in the barn.

Tonight I lit the fire, even though there wasn’t really a need. It’s just that I fancied jacket potatoes and baked beans for tea and for that I need the oven.

It was well-worth the effort too, really enjoyable.

And so I’ve decided to have an early night tonight. That will do me good too.

But before I go, a huge “well done” to Rhys who has at last, after all kinds of vicissitudes, some of which have been mentioned in these pages and others which haven’t, been finally awarded his citizenship of the USA.

Yes, I’m really happy for you and I’m sure that the rest of the readership is too.

You deserve it.

-1

Wednesday 31st October 2012 – I WAS IN BED …

… at some kind of ridiculous time last night – long before midnight in fact.

And I went out like a light and didn’t wake up until about 06:30. I wish that I could do that more often.

What with one thing and another (and once you start, you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are), I was detained up here until lunchtime and so it wasn’t until about 14:30 that I went out to play.

Another pile of wood was cut and then I made a start on … the garden, would you believe?

In the potato bed pulling out the weeds and about three potatoes. It’s been a miserable year for spuds.

I also pulled the courgette and about 10 chili peppers off the relevant plants. The frost has well-and-truly done for the plants but the fruits are still there? just about.

The courgette will be in next week’s curry and the chili peppers are currently drying out.

No fire tonight either although it’s rather close to the limit. There wasn’t anything to cook particularly.

And tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here. I usually have bank holidays off but I’ve yet to have one this year, so busy have I been, and so tomorrow my feet will be up all day.

And quite right too. I deserve it

-4

Monday 29th October 2012 – I’VE BITTEN …

… the bullet and lit the fire up here this evening.

Coming back from radioing, the temperature up here was 12.4°C – that’s about the limit for heat but what clinched it was the fact that I had Sunday’s pizza and garlic bread to cook.

It’s cheaper (like “cost = nil”) to cook them in the little oven on top of the woodstove. In no time at all the temperature up here was a balmy (or is that “barmy”?) 20.4°C and the pizza and garlic bread were done to a turn.

Not only that, the kettle on the top of the stove heated the water to a respectable washing-up type of temperature and so this is not only the first day of heat for winter 2012, it’s also the first day of no bottle gas.

A bottle of gas for cooking costs me about €32 and lasts me roughly 200 days. That’s about €0:16 per day that I’m saving.

Add to that the fact that a bottle of gas (at €32) lasted about 20 days in the old gas heater, then I’ve saved €1:60 per day on heating – a total of €1:76 per day in total.

The stove cost me €279, which means that at €1:76 per day it will be paid for in about 160 days. And as I use the stove about 100 days per year, it means that sometime round about Christmas it will be paid off.

A shrewd move, purchasing this woodstove.

We’d been radioing today, and that wasn’t without incident.

Radio Tartasse at Marcillat en Combraille forgot that we were coming (despite me reminding them on Friday) and so nothing was prepared, which meant that we had to make it up as we went along.

But at Radio Arverne in Gerzat the wheels fell off completely and we had to re-record one of the programmes a couple of times, as well as do some heavy editing, before we had a decent take.

But there’s a reason for that.

Liz didn’t have much sleep thanks to a hyperactive mind, and I had about one hour because, presumably, I have a guilty conscience about something or other.

Walking outside beating the bounds of my property here at 05:15 in the freezing weather because I can’t sleep – that’s a new one, isn’t it?

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceOn the way back from Liz and Terry’s as it was going dark, I stopped at my favourite spot – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne – yet again.

We were being presented with the most magnificent sunset as the sun slowly sank beneath the heavy clouds.

If ever a moment called for the camera, then this was it.

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceIt was even more interesting to stand there in the dark and watch all of the lights swich on one by one, like some kind of carpet of bulbs spreading out across the landscape.

And of course it called for a repetition of that well-worn old saying –
“Red sky at night – shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Les Ancizes is on fire”.

And that’s not all of it either. I also fixed the non-working flasher on Caliburn and readjusted the fan belt on Liz’s car.

It’s been a busy day today and I’m off to bed now – thoroughly exhausted.

-4

Tuesday 16th October 2012 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day.

Yes, after the nice day that we had yesterday, today is definitely the start of winter.

Cold, wet, grey and miserable

But that’s enough about me, the weather is even worse.

This morning I did my usual bit on the computer as well as chatting on the phone for a while to Nan. But then outside it was absolutely teeming down and so this afternoon I’ve been working inside.

I’ve laid the floor in the cupboard on the first floor and then I made a start making the rails for the shelves that are going to be fitted in there. Another day or two and that well see them finished.

And then they need varnishing before I can install them in there.

Once that’s done, I can then start putting stuff in there and that will make more space for moving around.

What I’ve been doing this evening though while I was watching a film is something else that I should have been doing in the past, and a long time ago too.

There are screws and nails and so on all over the place, in buckets, bowls and all that kind of thing. And so I brought a bucket up here together with a pile of empty boxes, and I’ve been sorting everything out.

I’ve collected an enormous number of screws that I’m currently sorting into different sizes, and then I have to do the same with the nails.

Once all of that is done I can fetch another pile of stuff.

It’s amazing what I’m finding too – all kinds of stuff that I had mislaid or forgotten all about.

I was going to cook one of my mega-meals tonight but just as I was about to go downstairs the phone rang – Percy Penguin wanting a chat.

So 40 minutes later it was far too late to cook and so I’ll be going to bed in a moment

But not before I’ve seen the second half of the Honduras – Canada football match. 47 minutes gone and Canada are already 5-0 down. It’s a relief to know that it’s not just Pionsat who are struggling in the Cup.

0

Monday 24th September 2012 – WE HAD SOMETHING …

… of a change of plan today.

I did manage to crawl out of my stinking pit and make it to Marcillat-en-Combraille in time for recording our Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse this morning.

And after that, Nan met us and we all went for a coffee as she needed to pick our collective brains about an initiative that she has for the nouvels arrivants.

From there usually it’s down to Liz’s for lunch and then off to Gerzat for our Radio Arverne round of Radio Anglais.

And as I was following Liz down the road I gently mused to myself “wouldn’t it be funny if she put her foot on the brakes and I ran into the back of her car”.

And even as I spoke, she did just that and I very nearly did.

However, when we arrived at Liz’s, we discovered that Candace from Radio Arverne had phoned. The machinery had broken down and so we couldn’t record today. Could we come back some other time?

And so I went back home and worked on the photos that I had taken this weekend.

And as I was preparing to go outside at my usual start time, I listened to the howling wind and the driving rain and it was getting worse and worse and so I stayed up here and had an afternoon off.

I did absolutely nothing at all – not even making any lunch.

Of course it’s a waste of a day and I feel even worse than I did before but, anyway, there you are.

But really, even I know that I can’t afford to mess around like this – I really need to motivate myself as I have a lot to do, but sometimes that’s just how it goes.

I’ll need to work twice as hard tomorrow but somehow I doubt very much whether I will.

I’m off to bed now.

-5

Friday 21st September 2012 – 19:32 …

… it was when I knocked off this evening – on POETS Day too, would you believe?

collapsed lean-to pointing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut at least I have all of the stones in place in the wall and all of the joints have been filled in.

Dodging the heavy rain showers of course, but I wasn’t going to let a little water bother me too much.

There was a half-bucket of mortar left over too, and nowhere to stick it (no suggestions, please), I put that on the inside upstairs.

And such is the state of play today.

I would like to say that the wall is finished but of course it isn’t. And I’m not very happy with it at all.

I had the predicted avalanche of stones that wiped out a lot of today’s work and a good part of yesterday’s too but I’ve managed to replace it all.

What I’m going to have to do is to leave it for a week or two for the stones to settle and the mortar to cure. Then to go over it again to see if there are any loose stones or cracks in the mortar and seal them in again.

At least, it’s in far better condition now that it ever was before.

And do you notice the addition to the guttering? The 87° angle and the guttering offcut that takes the water well away from under the eaves and stops 10 litres of rain water going down the back of your overalls 30 seconds after the rain starts?

This morning though I went to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record the Radio Anglais rock music programme for Radio Tartasse but there was no-one there.

I tried ringing them at home but no answer so after waiting half an hour I came home. Maybe they forgot – or else maybe I mixed up the dates. That wouldn’t surprise me.

So I came back and worked on the website for a couple of hours.

And this evening? Nothing at all. I deserve a rest and I’ll be going to bed in a tick.  

-4

Thursday 6th September 2012 – I DIDN’T GET MUCH …

… done on the wall today either. This deadline of next weekend is looking less and less likely

The effects of all these early mornings proved too much for me today. I vaguely heard the alarm clock go off, but it was 09:10 when I set foot out of bed.

Had It not been for the fact that I needed to go for a ride on the porcelain horse (or what passes for a porcelain horse around here) I would probably still be in bed right now

collapsed lean to repairing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceA good few hours on the website and then outside at 12:30 and I managed to bung two really good bucket-loads into the wall.

Even better – after lunch, even with rearranging some of the stones, I still heaved a couple of bucket loads in by 16:30. However, such is the condition of the wall that all of that chalk mortar isn’t advancing me very much.

And 16:30 though saw me come to a rather shuddering stop.

According to my weather reporting, weather comes in five grades

  1. overcast
  2. cloudy
  3. clouds
  4. scattered clouds
  5. cloudless

We started to day with scattered clouds but by 16:30 we had progressed to a cloudless day. The water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load was 63°C, the batteries in the barn were fully-charged and there was a good wind blowing.

There was also a big pile of dirty clothes to be washed up here in the attic and the bedding needed changing – the kind of things that need doing no matter what other plans you have, and so I stopped work on the wall and dealt with the washing.

Put all of that out of the way.

While this was going on, I did a few odd jobs around here, like changing plugs on appliances and so on.

As you know, I don’t use Continental plugs and sockets here but British ones, for the simple reason that the plugs themselves are fused and so any issues with my system won’t damage the appliances.

‘ve also wired in the new media trolley that I assembled on Sunday. It now has a 4-way 230-volt socket that plugs into the wall – I can plug all of the external drives and so on into it, and it also has 3 x 12-volt DC sockets for things like the DVD player, the video player and so on.

Finally, even though the water in the solar shower was quite cold, I bunged 5 litres of hot water out of the dump load into it and had a shower myself – clean myself up.

And so now there are clean sheets, clean pillowcases, a clean quilt cover, and a clean me. I’m quite looking forward to that and it won’t be long before I’m in it either.

And then tomorrow I really must get cracking and no mistake.

-3

Wednesday 5th September 2012 – IT’S NOT EVEN …

… 23:00 yet and I’m absolutely whacked.

2 early-morning starts have done for me and so I’m off to bed in a minute

One thing about a … gulp … 07:30 start though is that you can do tons of work and I’m well round the fortifications of Québec City now.

Mind you, there’s still a long way to go before I can leave the place, let alone finish my voyage from earlier this year.

As well as that, there are the journeys from 2010 and 2011 that have yet to see the light of day and I need to deal with them. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

collapsed lean-to repointing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon saw me up on the wall again.

I had to rearrange the scaffolding and then I raked out underneath the horizontal beam over tbe windows and cemented that in properly.

From there I cemented in one of the window frames that I fitted the other day and then did a big pile of touching up. Not that I would ordinarily bother but this new trowel is just so good. Short, narrow and very springy, it makes a lovely finish on the wall.

For the second part of the afternoon it was much more complicated.

There is a huge crack in this wall too and a few of the stones are quite loose. I’ve been moving them out, cleaning out the mud and sand that they use round here for mortar, and then finding slightly bigger stones to fit in the holes.

It’s like a jigsaw puzzle and needs to be done very carefully, but I’m getting there. Finishing it all by next weekend may well be a tad optimistic.

So for tea I cooked rice in the electric steamer and had a helping of the pepper and lentil curry I made last night. Rosemary rang me up in the middle of it all for a chat too which is nice, even if my tea did go cold.

And right now, 23:06 it is and I’m off to bed. I can hardly keep my eyes open. 

-1

Tuesday 4th September 2012 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I was up before the alarm went off.

And just as well because with having visitors today, it gave me chance to tidy up a little in here and then go downstairs and steam-clean the kitchen.

As an aside, by the way, this unit that I bought the other week and assembled on Sunday, it’s really doing the business and I’m quite impressed with it. I think that this was a really good purchase.

So Rosemary came round for her lesson in pointing and to be frank I think that we spent more time gossiping than working. Nevertheless, she made a reasonable mix and managed two bucketfuls into the wall with a finish that wasn’t too bad at all.

However, I think that she understands that it takes longer than one might think, until you’ve been doing it for a while anyway.

One thing though for which I’m glad that she was here was that I had to change the wires over on the wind turbine.

That involved lying a ladder on the roof (at an angle of course) and then slotting another ladder into the space between the rungs and up the wall so that I could climb up on it.

Not for the faint-hearted, that but I couldn’t think of another way to do it. I needed an assistant for that as who knows what might happen when I’m on my own.

And bravo too, for her being only ever the third person to be brave enough to use the composting toilet.

Anyway, that’s that. I’ll have an early night and then attack the wall in earnest tomorrow. The quicker I start, the quicker I’ll finish.

-1

Monday 3rd September 2012 – I DIDN’T START …

… the pointing today, and I wouldn’t be doing any tomorrow save for Rosemary coming round for a lesson (talk about the blind leading the blind!) because I was rather side-tracked this afternoon.

And so I was this morning.

I made a good start though thanks to my really early night last night (in bed well before midnight) and I had a good crack at the web site.

With not being on long enough last night to charge the computer though, the battery went quickly flat and when I switched on the inverter to charge up the machine, the internet came on and my friend Marianne from Belgium was on line.

So we ended up chatting for an hour or so seeing as we haven’t seen each other on line for months.

But this afternoon, doing the pointing means of course lowering the scaffolding and as I was about to do that, I suddenly remembered that the wind turbine that I put on the side of the house in the early spring is only wired in temporarily.

If I move the scaffolding, that will be that and it won’t be long before the old manky wire that I used to connect up the wind turbine to the charging circuit in the emergency, all open and exposed to the atmosphere, rots away.

Consequently I set to to run some decent 2.5mm wire through some flexible conduit, and to install a junction box under the eaves for the second wind turbine that will one day be installed on the other side of the house.

And while I was up the ladder under the eaves it occurred to me that while I was there I could fit a light there as planned, that works off the dusk/dawn sensor and which will automatically light up the front door and down the side of the house to the door to the lean-to during the hours of darkness.

And as I was running that wire through the conduit, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to put a light under the eaves at the other end of the front of the house to light up the door to the verandah.

And so I ran yet more wire through another conduit.

Net result – the wire is ready to wire up the wind turbine, but I’ll wait until Rosemary is here before I do that. I’m going to have to be something of an acrobat and on a ladder that is hanging on a roof, I’d rather there was someone here to call the ambulance.

One of the lights, that over the front door and the lean-to, is now installed and when I came back from PIonsat tonight (it’s the Anglo-French club’s meeting) it was doing exactly what it was supposed to.

And doing it quite efficiently too.

Not that 1 watt of LED power is going to light up much, but I could certainly move around without a torch and that is what is the aim.

So an early start tomorrow to steam-clean the verandah seeing as how I’ll be having visitors. I might even clean some more in here too – you never know. I bet I still won’t find my mobile phone though.

I haven’t a clue where that might be.

-2

Sunday 2nd September 2012 – ONE THING THAT MAKES ME …

… appreciate how lucky I am with my friends is that they appreciate and respect my little foibles and peccadilloes.

Of course these days, nobody respects my little foibles quite like Percy Penguin, and then nothing like half as often as I would like, and as for my little peccadilloes, I bet that you didn’t even know that armadilloes and peccaries could mate

But back to the plot – having rung me at 09:00 a couple of Sundays ago, someone must have had a quiet word with Rosemary because it was at 12:30 this afternoon that she phoned me.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter how you wrap it up, it still comes as a hell of a surprise, if not a disappointment, when you yourself are still wrapped up in the arms of Morpheus in your comfy little bed at the time.

So after my rude awakening and my breakfast, I turned out a corner of my room here – the corner which was the likeliest to be the hiding place of my mobile phone.

No such luck with the phone, as I was half-expecting, but I did find another pile of missing stuff – something that always happens and something that is always a great comfort to me.

I’ve also rearranged a few things over there, put the printer in a more-permanent home, and sorted out all of the stationery too

After lunch, by which time I mean about 17:30, I assembled the desk-on-wheels thing that I bought the other day at Centrakor in Commentry, and that was no mean feat as the instructions for that were wrong too and I had to work it out myself.

It’s quite a nice piece of furniture, excellent value for €19:99. I’m well-happy with this for a purchase. I’ve loaded everything onto it now and it works quite well.

The downside of it all is that I seem now to have lost the remote control to the AKAI 12-volt DVD player.

So that’s the sum total of my day. I’m off now to have an early night to catch up my beauty sleep. I need an enormous amount of that.

But before I go off to sleep, let me just confirm something that you might already have gathered from a couple of comments that I’ve already made.

When I went off to Canada at the end of April I planned to go back again this autumn. Especially so, seeing that I left all of my winter clothes there when I came back.

But I’m making rapid progress with this lean-to as you know. I’ve accomplished so much since I came back from Canada last October and the end is in sight. I’m still all-fired up to carry on and if I stop, I might not have the momentum, the motivation and the weather to be able to continue.

It’s a shame to stop now when I can finish it off in a couple of weeks, and so Canada is now officially cancelled and I’m going up the wall.

-2

Tuesday 28th August 2012 – DESPITE MY …

… early night last night, I somehow managed to sleep right through the alarms this morning.

It was 09:22 when I finally heaved myself out of my stinking pit. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done that, hasn’t it

It was raining too – which makes a nice change. It’s been a while since I’ve had any. But it didn’t rain for long, but long enough to put 100 litres or so into the water butts and I am grateful for that.

The garden and my water butts needed it.

Despite this being a day where I was at home, I didn’t do any pointing at all.

I have done 75% of the painting of the woodwork for the window frames though – two coats on one side and one on the other – I’ll have to do the second one on there before I fit it all in

And while I was waiting for the coats of paint to dry, I was doing other things.

home grown potatoes beans carrots les guis virlet puy de dome franceOne of the things that I did do was to dig up some carrots and pull some beans. Proof, if any were needed, that thanks to all of Rosemary’s help my garden is coming up with the goods..

Add them to the new potatoes that I uprooted the other day, and then some cauliflower that I bought on Saturday, a veggie-burger fried with onion and then some vegan cheese sauce, it was absolutely gorgeous.

What a wonderful tea it all was too!

Another thing that I did was to empty Caliburn out. His load bed is now empty. I’m taking Rosemary to Brico Depot tomorrow and also to Lapeyre so I may well need the space.

I need some more guttering and also some more glass to replace that which … errr … met with an accident, and I need a very narrow springy trowel to replace the one that I broke here on the wall.

Finally, I’ve been tidying up downstairs too looking for my mobile phone which I appear to have mislaid somewhere. I didn’t find that but I did find the missing LED light strips, which pleased me greatly.

I’ve also thrown away about 1 big bin-liner full of rubbish – and there’s plenty more to go at too.

That took me to 19:00 and then I knocked off.

Montlucon tomorrow and then Thursday I can get cracking again.

-2

Monday 27th August 2012 – AFTER THE EXCITEMENT …

… of Sunday, today was just a routine radio day.

Despite a late night I was up early and I printed out all of the paperwork for the recordings and sorted out some music too for Radio Arverne.

While I was at it, which I am occasionally, Rosemary rang up too to see if I would be heading out to Montlucon in the near future. She needs to pick up a few things.

As it happens, I need a few things too – well, more than a few things actually but many of them are unfortunately not available in shops – and so I’ve tentatively pencilled that in for Wednesday morning.

Liz ad I met up for our Radio Anglais recording sessions in Marcillet-en Combraille and Gerzat and much to our surprise they all went according to plan.

I am however very miffed by the fact that I didn’t need to have done all of that work last week. It turns out that about 4 or 5 weeks ago I’d done a pile of stuff on traffic convictions and penalty points on a French driving licence and I’d completely forgotten about it.

We didn’t need any of the stuff that I spent all that time doing this last few days.

Still, it won’t go to waste – it means that I can spend a few weeks, if not months, writing this year’s Christmas Special without being under any last-minute pressure.

What didn’t go to plan though were the roads and the traffic. The place was crawling with grockles blocking the roads and rubbernecking everything. I hate this time of the year.

Anyway, now I’m home and as I’m pretty much shattered I’m off to bed for an early night.

See you tomorrow.

-2

Sunday 15th July 2012 – WE WERE IN …

bourrées de vergheas puy de dome france… Vergheas today.

That’s the farthest extremity of the Canton of Pionsat and so we had an early start.

Not as early as my start though. Having had two consecutive early nights (and a third one in a moment) I was up and about before 08:00 – on a Sunday – with no alarm – and for no particular reason either.

When was the last time that that happened?

bourrées de vergheas puy de dome franceThe Open Day at Vergheas was by far the best-attended so far, and there were the local musicians in attendance.

You can see the two old women there turning away on their vielles à roue for all they were worth while the men were having a good old go at the accordion. Everything in 3/4 time of course – nothing complicated here.

bourrées de vergheas puy de dome franceThe Bourrées de Vergheas – the local folk-dance troupe – were in attendance too. And after giving a demonstration of a few dances (all in 3/4 time of course) they grabbed hold of all of the foreigners present and had them up on the floor dancing.

Even Marianne was invited to dance and I’ll publish the photo sometime unless I receive a well-filled brown envelope in the meantime. It was certainly an exciting way to spend a morning – much better than staying in bed.

bourrées de vergheas puy de dome franceThe dance troupe, by the way, caters for all ages as you can see in the photo.

There was even a little girl of about two or three dressed up in traditional Auvergnat costume having an immense amount of fun there with all of the grown-ups.

As you know, I’m all in favour of involving the youth of the community in these events. It is they who are the future and if you don’t engage with them then the traditions of the area will all die out.

But Marianne is not well – she has her bronchitis again. Hardly surprising – I reckon that we will all be developing gills sooner or later if this awful weather continues.

But Marianne became worse and worse as the morning wore on and in the end I had to drive her car home to Pionsat.

All events are now cancelled for this week while she recovers.

This afternoon I finished the rock music radio programmes and not much else. I’m thoroughly worn out too and at all of 23:19 I’m off to bed too. I can’t last the pace these days and I dunno what’s the matter with me.

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