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Sunday 16th June 2013 – A FUNNY THING HAPPENED …

… this morning.

Lying in bed on my palliasse this morning, I heard someone shout “Eric” quite loudly and so I stuck my head out of the door and said “what?”.

I was greeted by a pile of blank stares from a group of people on the other side of the wall.

I didnt know it then, but I do now, that the name of the guy whose house backs onto this one is also called Eric.

So that was my Sunday morning lie-in ruined anyway, but it was at least gorgeous and sunny. And when everyone else finally surfaced and we all had breakfast, we prettied ourselves up for a special occasion.

Cécile’s mother is rather partial to mussels – the typical moules et frites – and on our travels Cécile and I had seen a flyer to the effect that a local restaurant – the Loup Blanc – was offering a special Sunday lunch of just that.

So Cécile’s mum had a party and we had home-made falafel and chips. Quite expensive but then again this is a tourist resort so you stick €5:00 on each dish before you start.

Interestingly though, the restaurant also has a mini-golf course.

As you know, with the sun in our faces we couldn’t get a good view of the fortress yesterday but there were no problems here today.

The mini-golf course is designed around the local beauty spots – chateau-fort included. It was quite interesting.

After lunch, Cécile’s mother had a music concert at the Senior Citizens’ Club and having dropped her off, Cecile and I went off to look at another venue on my list of places to visit.

This is the fort de Pierre-Levée situated somewhat centrally on the island.

It was built during the period 1856-66 on the site of a much older fort. It is much, much greater in size though, so much so that a small hill had to be flattened to accommodate it.

On top of this hill was a menhir … "PERSONShir" – ed … the pierre levée or “raised stone”, hence the name of the fortress.

This was taken down into Port Joinville where it was smashed to pieces by the locals who used the pieces for housebuilding.

Originally a barracks, it later became a prison and its most famous prisoner was Philippe Pétain.

If you know your French history, when France was divided into two by the conquering Germans, they stuck as a figurehead-President the 84 year old French hero of World War I, Marshall Pétain (the oldest Head of State that France has ever had) to give the Government some kind of legitimacy.

Some say that he was shamefully manipulated due to his loss of his faculties in his old age, although you will find just as many people who will insist that he was far from being non compos mentis at the time.

Nevertheless, at the end of the war he was tried as a collaborator (at all of 90 years of age) and condemned to life imprisonment. In November 1945 he ended up here in the fort de Pierre-Levée where his condition rapidly deteriorated.

As a coincidence, you’ll recall that I don’t live too far away from the Chateau de Chazeron where Pétain’s government incarcerated his political opponents during the dark days of Vichy.

Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous reincarnations will recall that Liz and I had been there a few years ago to look at the place, so I was quite keen to come here to see the other side of the coin.

Having been released from confinement due to ill-health on 8th June 1951, Petain died on the island 7 weeks later on 23rd July.

I wanted to add his grave to my list of war leaders, such as Churchill, whose tomb I had seen when I went for a wander around with Sue, and of the French General whose name I have momentarily forgotten and whose tomb I had stumbled across quite by accident in a small village graveyard in Finisterre in the mid 1970s, long before these pages ever began to see the light of day.

And of course the memorial to Marechal Desaix, right-hand man of Napoleon during some of his early campaigns, down the road from me in Ayat-sur-Sioule.

We went off the the Cimetière Communal de Port-Joinville to see his grave and it was actually there.

That might sound a surprising thing to say, but it wasn’t always there. In February 1973 his body was stolen by Far-Right activists who wanted his body in the grave that had been prepared for him at Verdun.

The authorities recovered it and reburied him here, but as a concession they gave him a Funeral of Honour.

There are several other graves in here that are quite important. They are of 16 British and Commonwealth servicemen, one of whom is unidentified.

Seven graves relate to airmen from 149 Squadron RAF.They had taken off from Lakenheath in a Stirling Mk1 BF 392 OJ-D at 18:30 on 16th October 1942 on a “gardening” mission, sowing mines in the Gironde estuary and were shot down by a night fighter.

Most of the other graves however are dated May and June 1940 and are from a variety of services and regiments.

I do recall that in a well-hushed-up incident of World War II a British transport ship – the Lancastria if I remember correctly – evacuating troops from mainland Europe during the final days of the Battle of France was sunk off the coast of St Nazaire on 17th June 1940.

There was a massive loss of life, somewhat similar to the Wilhelm Gustlof off the coast of Danzig in the latter days of the war.

I wonder therefore if the later casualties buried here might be bodies of soldiers from the Lancastria who were washed ashore here at a subsequent date.

I shall have to check up on this.

And that reminds me – whenever you are on board a ship or other maritime transport, always carry a bar of soap in your pocket. That way, if you fall overboard or are shipwrecked, you can get washed ashore.

Don’t be like one of the survivors of another maritime disaster, the sinking of the Caribou, to whom I talked a good while ago.

He was telling me that he spent 16 hours in the freezing Gulf of St Lawrence, clinging to an upturned lifeboat.
“Didn’t you manage to drag yourself up?” I asked him
“Ohh dear no!” he replied. “I didn’t even have time to put on my lipstick”.

But I had to laugh at this sign – and so should you too.

And not because it’s incorrect – it should be “rue du Ne’erlandais Volant” these days

It is of course anyway the Street of the Flying Dutchman and that conjures up all kinds of ideas in my head … "well, there’s plenty of room" – ed … but possibly relates to the famous ghost ship.

However, I always thought that it was called in French the Voltigeur hollandais, so who knows?

But now its clouding over again and I think that summer is over for another year.

-7

Tuesday 11th June 2013 – I HAD A GOOD …

… night’s sleep last night, just for a change.

In bed long before 22:00 and awoken by the alarm clock at 07:30. The sea air must be doing me some good.

Mind you, I felt better than the weather because once more, it was persisting down and this weather is really doing my head in right now. Happy holidays, hey?

This morning while mumsie had a little snooze Cécile and I went for a wander around the old port

This afternoon, while mumsie was at her Seniors’ Club, we went to visit the posh side of the island.

That’s the site from which you can see the mainland if you look really hard enough and have a good telescope or, in my case, a really good 30mm telephoto lens.

By this time the rain had stopped and so we went for a good walk along the beach

We came across quite a pile of fishermen’s cabins on the shoreline.

Almost any one of which would suit me down to the ground, and I would have been tempted to make an offer.

I would, however be wasting my time apparently. According to Cecile, you could by a two-bedroomed apartment on the mainland for what they would want for one of these cabins.

Down at the south end of the island at the Pointe des Corbeaux is a lighthouse, and you all know about my fascination with these.

It’s 19.2 metres tall and its light can under normal conditions be seen out to see for about 21 miles.

It was built in 1950 to a design by the local architect Maurice Durand, and replaced an earlier lighthouse tat the Germans had demolished on 25th August 1944 when they evacuated the island.

The roads are very much like the roads around Labrador and so I felt quite at home.

What even made it more so was that I encountered a grader, and it must be quite a while since we last saw one of those.

But what made me realise that it was not at all Labrador was the fact that we had a compactor as well.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that during all of the 2000 miles of the Trans-Labrador Highway we encoutered a mere … err … three, despite there being hundreds of graders at work on the Highway.

And while I’m writing this, the heavens have opened again. We really are having some astonishing weather.

Monday 10th June 2013 – IF YOU PEER …

… through the doom and gloom and the fog and mist you can just about make out the town of Port Joinville on the Ile d’Yeu.

I’ve managed to struggle across the Bay of Biscay. Strawberry Moose was smuggled aboard as a stowaway in a suitcase along with the usual bottle of the hard stuff.

As a result we were treated to strains of “It Was On The Good Ship Venus” all the way across.

After all, you can all remember him rehearsing for the chant de marins competition in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec, Canada last year.

Here’s my spec from last night though. Tucked out of the way down a dead-end road near a sailing school kind of place.

That was another comfortable night spent here – as you know, I’ve stayed here before and I had no complaints that time either.

I was up and about quite early too, and took Caliburn to the garage where he’ll be staying for the next week or two.

The owner is a big fan of old cars and we had quite a chat – so much so that I almost missed the navette that would take me to the ferry.

Luckily though I managed to leap aboard – well, with such leaping as I do these days – I’m not as young as I was and we headed off into the briny.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a ship of the day and there isn’t a great deal of choice here in Fromentine.

This little offshore supply vessel will have to do for now. She’s the Fort Boyard, built in 2002 (although you would never think so to look at her) and just 472 tonnes.

She takes her name from the Napoleon-era island fortress just down the coast near Rochefort.

Our boat, which I forgot to photograph by the way, is just a simple jetfoil thing.

It’s the kind of ship that people as old as me would remember that used to do the express connection between Dover and Oostende back in the 1970s and, looking closely at it, it was probably the same boat.

And not a coffee machine in sight. What a waste of time this is.

And so I passed the time on the way across by reading one of the books that I had bought at the bookshop yesterday.

And it wasn’t until I was half-way across that I realised the significance of the book that I had chosen. Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember – probably the most-famous (and most-likely the most accurate) story of the sinking of the Titanic.

How appropriate was that?

Cécile met me at the terminal at Port Joinville and took me for a ride around the island to show me everything.

And one thing that I do like about island life is that the Controle Technique – or MoT regulations to the British – are somewhat relaxed if you have no intention of ever taking your vehicle to the mainland.

And so here’s a vehicle that I would absolutely die for.

A Peugeot 203 plateau, or pick-up. I would pay a King’s ramsom to have one of these, that’s for sure.

It’s been my dream to own one of these for almost 40 years, ever since I first encountered one on my walking tour of Finisterre in the mid-70s

I’ve seen a few since then, and more than just the odd one for sale, but none that was worth having.

They had rather the unfortunate habit of bending in the middle due to rot round about where the rear of the cab joined up with the pick-up bed and that’s not a do-it-yourself repair by any means.

But this one looks pretty sound underneath, due not least to the amount of oil that has been thrown up out of the rear seal of the gearbox

Apart from that, I’ve had the guided tour of the cote sauvage – the wild part of the island, and it really does live up to everything that I was told that it would.

Mind you, it’s only early June and the tourists haven’t yet arrived.

I bet that it will be nothing like this in August.

-2

Saturday 8th June 2013 – IT’S NOT EVERY DAY …

;.. that you are woken up by a steam locomotive these days.

But it does happen every now and again if you play your cards right. and so here I am down on the beach at Dungeness and, true to form, rattling past Caliburn in his nice little spec underneath the old lighthouse went one of the locomotives of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

“Romney Marsh” I hear you say. That’s right. He played on the wing for Queens Park Rangers and later for Manchester City.

But anyway that was where I spent the night of Friday and Saturday although it was really Saturday morning when I arrived.

And I also told you a little fib about being awoken by a steam locomotive, because about 10 minutes earlier I had been burnt out of the van by the heat and that’s the first time that that has happened this year.

So Dymchurch and Romney Marsh – I was here for a variety of reasons.

it’s by the sea
it’s the furthest south-east point of the UK, closest point to the Real World
I wanted to look for the remains of the old standard-gauge railway that ran down to here (and indeed I found plenty, including the remains of the platform and the base of the station buildings)
Most importantly, though, it was only a short drive from where these famous roofing tiles were awaiting collection.

On the way to the tiles I made a detour to the old Lydd-Ferryfield airport, the home of the service that used to fly you and your car across the Channel in a fleet of weird converted Bombay bombers to Le Touquet and now the home of a flying school and a few private planes.

and once again, if your luck is in it’s really in becuse what should arrive at the same time that I did but a Mark XIX Spitfire, ex photo-reconnaissance, making an emergency landing with an overheating engine, according to one of the mechanics who had been called out.

Having blagged my way out onto the tarmac for a closer look, even I was able to diagnose the fault – clogged radiators.

Maybe a bird strike or maybe simple lack of basic maintenance, but there you are. No-one these days seems to be able to understand the principles of basic maintenance unless they have a computer handy.

The pilot was quite garrulous though, and we spent most of the time chatting about the Lancaster bomber that I’m trying to save from disaster, with me trying to enlist his support.

Afer picking up the tiles I went to do the rounds of the supermarkets and tool shops, being entertained by a Red Arrows just off the coast of Folkestone on the way. Pretty disappointing, because no-one crashed or landed in the sea, and we didn’t have a mid-air collision either. Not much point in having the Red Arrows if you ask me if they can’t entertain the crowds properly.

In one of the supermarkets though, passing through the checkouts, I was asked if I had a bag. I replied that I did, but that she was outside in the car. And seeing as how it was Saturday night, while waiting on the ferry terminal I guzzled down the take-away curry that I had bought from an Indian in Folkestone.

“Pushing the boat out” in many senses of the word.

-6

Thursday 6th June 2013 – I MIGHT HAVE BROKEN …

… the back of all of this paperwork. I think that I’ve found it all and I’ve sorted it into at least things that need to be taken home for a further sorting or things that I can simply throw away. A mere 14 sacks there are – and that’s just the stuff for throwing.

Anyway, I’ve started emptying the sideboard in the living room now and that’s exciting too. I opened one of the doors and a couple of bats flew out – it’s that kind of sideboard. I’ll be here for a bit yet.

That was this afternoon though. This morning I made a rather startling discovery – or, rather, rediscovery. I went to Labrador in 2010 as you ll know by now and I wrote all of the web pages to cover the journey from Baie Comeau in Quebec all the way round to getting on the boat at Channel-Port-aux-Basques in Newfoundland that was going to take me across the Gulf of St Lawrence to Cape Breton Island.

But while I was ferreting about looking for something else, I came across a huge file that was in fact a large part of the journey, all properly written up as far as New Glasgow, and I can’t think why I never finished it all off. Anyway, I reckon that now I’ve done all of the radio stuff for the next while I deserve some time to myself so for a couple of hours each morning I’ll be doing that.

And pet hate of the day? When someone asks for my advice and I give it, and they go off and do something else completely, and when that all goes pear-shaped they spend half an hour ranting at me. Agatha Christie wrote in the Sleeping Murder, “Good advice is almost certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason for not giving it” – I’m not convinced of that if I’m going to be getting a pile of earache. I have better things to do with my time.

-5

We had our first …

… letter today addressed to “les héritiers de Mme Orban Marianne”. It was from her Insurance Company – the “Mutualité Chrètienne”.

“We have heard about the death of Mme Orban and we would like to express our sincere condoleances. Mme Orban reeived payments from us due to her incapacity to work, and was paid for the fortnight 1st May – 14th May before we learnt of her death. We would therefore be obliged if you could refund the overpayment before the 27th June next”

That is the “Mutualité Chrètienne” – the Christian Mutual Insurance Company. It totally beggars belief. I’m convinced that Marianne would have been far better off with the heathens for all the good that the Christians did her. What happened to the “forgiveness of sins” and “turn the other cheek”? Poor Marianne must be turning in her grave.

Apart from that, what else have I done? Yes, I’ve updated few web pages that I had rather let go for a while. Most of them concerned the administration of the site but one of them had a rather large role to play in my visit to Labrador in 2010 and I had never brought it up to date. It was high time that I did something about that, seeing as how I wrote it a mere 8 years ago.

I also finished the writing for the next rock programme and formatted it. That’s one more thing out of the way. And then I made a start on the next lot of additional notes, but I haven’t gone all too far with that right now.

Apart from going out for my baguette at lunchtime, that’s really about it, so exciting is my life. Tomorrow is shopping day so bring on the excitement!

-5

Friday 4th January 2013 – IN A CHANGE …

… to the advertised programme, I’m not actually at home right now.

I was this morning though, and it was one of those mornings where nothing much out of the ordinary really happened.

After breakfast, I cracked on with the website for quite a while and then had a few little jobs to do here and there around the place.

Once lunch was out of the way I went round to Cecile’s to help her prepare for her do tonight. That took a while because her preparations are much more thorough than mine ever will be, and she’s far more adventurous too when it comes to cooking.

We were four at the table, all enjoying ourselves which was nice, and then after the others had left we did the tidying up.

The one thing that can be said about more preparation and more adventurous cooking is that it takes much longer than it should (in my opinion anyway) to clear up and wash up.

And when you’ve had a very late night with company, it’s even later still by the time that you have finished.

I was exhausted too and didn’t feel up to driving home and so I ended up staying the night.

Serves me right.

Thursday 3rd January 2013 – WHAT A LOUSY …

… day

Grey, wet, miserable, depressing

But that’s enough about me – the weather was even worse.

So with almost no solar energy today I didn’t do all that much. When I opened my eye and saw the weather, I closed it again and went back under the duvet.

And if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary to visit the beichstuhl I’d probably be there now.

After breakfast and working on the website for a while I started on the floor in the shower room. But I wasn’t there as long as I might have been, and for a very simple reason too.

I will swear blind that I bought 5 packets of tongue-and-grooved flooring planks, but I’ve only been able to manage to find four – there’s one missing somewhere. And the result of that is that I ran out of floor with two planks to go.

GRRRRR!

So that means a trip to Montlucon and Brico Depot on Saturday, doesn’t it? I’m never going to finish this blasted flooring seeing as how all of the fates are conspiring against me.

To pass the rest of the time I started to sort out the firewood in the lean-to in order to make more space.

I could have cut it up as well but I have to do that outside and with it pouring down with rain it wasn’t much of a good plan. But there’s progress all the same.

This evening I had another meal the same as last night and it worked just as well, if not better.

Having a rip-roaring blaze at the beginning is definitely the key to cooking with the wood stove. It heats the oven up quicker and that cooks the potatoes better.

Basically, 2 hours for the spuds, 60 minutes for the sprouts and 90 minutes for the rest of the veg. The veggie-burger takes about 20 minutes or so.

I had a few phone calls too. Cécile called me twice and spoke to me for hours. She’s giving a dinner party tomorrow night and wants to know if I can help her tomorrow afternoon to prepare.

Seeing as I don’t have the wood to finish the floor, that seems like a good plan.

Marianne also rang up for a long chat and to tell me about her adventures at Riom hunting down old historical documents. One of these days when I’m not busy, whenever that might be, I’ll have to go with her.

As for me, this afternoon I telephoned the hospital at Montlucon to enquire about Bill.

The receptionist wasn’t all that forthcoming. After much verbal fencing, she expressed an interest in knowing who I was, and so I explained that I was neither family nor close friend but just an everyday run-of-the-mill friend of no particular significance.

She then said that she couldn’t give me any more information, but would I care to leave my phone number so that she can pass it on the Bill’s daughter – his next of kin

I don’t like the sound of that one little bit

-2

Wednesday 2nd January 2013 – IT WAS BACK …

… to work today.

First time since I’m not sure when.

However, first task was to start on the web page for my visit to Lévis (that’s pronounced “Layvee”, not “Levi’s”) which is across the St Lawrence from the city of Québec. That was a brief excursion on a ferry across the St Lawrence in the middle of the afternoon during my walk around Québec.

It’s usually a bad sign for me to encounter a ferry and I’m never in a good humour, because every time I see a ferry, it always makes me cross.

Once that was out of the way I had a marathon wood-chopping session. I’ve used up a pile of wood over the last couple of weeks and so it needed to be replaced.

That took quite a while and created a nice pile of sawdust for the composting toilet.

It’s also made a nice little space in the lean-to and I’m hoping that I can crack on with that idea. I’d love to have enough space in there for my little workshop by the end of winter

Finally, I carried on with the floor in the shower room, and I’ve worked out why there’s a problem with the floor levels. It seems that with the wisdom that only Brico Depot can conjure up, the grooves are off-centre.

Now that wouldn’t particularly matter if the off-centre was consistent on each plank but in fact, while a pack might be consistent, the batch isn’t.

And that’s just plain ridiculous because there’s a planed side and a rough side, so you can’t even turn the planks over in order to even out the centres.

For tea this evening I tried a little experiment.

As well as starting off the baked potatoes in the oven, I chopped up a few sprouts and carrots, put them in a pyrex dish with some water and put them in the oven too.

Add a veggie burger and onions and garlic in a baking tray and use some of the veg water to make a gravy and I had a magnificent evening meal. Just like a king, in fact.

A wise move indeed, buying this little stove as I have said so many times before.

And setting up a little kitchen in a corner here, that’s working too.

-2

Saturday 29th December 2012 – I went swimming today.

And how!

And the reason for that is that on the informal weather scale that I keep, this morning was classed as “scattered clouds” but this afternoon was classed as “glorious”. Nothing in the heavens to stop the sun streaming down, and I had the amount of solar energy that would have been expected in the summer.

So after a lie-in I finally finished off the Quebec pages after all this time and these are now on line. After that, it was a quick thrash around the shops in Commentry and then off to the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains. And for a change it was reasonably warm in there and I’m nice and clean, and I’m looking forward to a good sleep tonight.

All in all, a very quiet day. I’ve been having a few of those just recently. I’m saving my strength for the new year.

-3

Friday 28th December 2012 – I SOMEHOW OVERLOOKED …

… to write up my notes last night before going to bed. Letting things slide a little, I am, just recently

I really don’t know what you pay me for.

Once again, I started off the morning working on my tour of Québec.

And once again I’ve been distracted in the afternoon.

I noticed yesterday when I was following her that one of her car sidelight wasn’t working. She has her Controle Technique (the French MoT) due next week I told her to bring the car round this afternoon and I’d have a look at it.

Changing the bulb didn’t resolve the problem, so I had a look underneath the bonnet. Replacing a fuse that was conspicuous by its absence resolved the sidelight issue fairly smartly, and there were one or two other little things that needed fixing, so I organised those too.

That was followed by a Hitchcock film (Cécile is as much a film buff as I am) and two and a plate or two of pasta and beans

One of these days I’ll restart work on things around here.

I promise I will.

-3

Sunday 23rd December 2012 – Sunday is a day of rest …

… although that wasn’t the case here today. I couldn’t even manage to lie in after 08:45.

After breakfast and some work on the computer I carried on tidying up in here. After all, I might be having visitors here in early course. And then, after a few hours of working on the Quebec website, I emptied Caliburn of all of the stuff bought in the UK the other week, and put it away. That was not as easy as it sounds, I’ll tell you.

However we finally had the day that I had been awaiting. Gorgeous, blue sky with scattered clouds and 70 amphours or so in each of the two solar banks on the house. That has cheered me up a little and it would be nice to see more of that for the next couple of days if possible. It’ll make the batteries look much more healthy.

-3

Monday 12th November 2012 – SO ONCE AGAIN …

… yet another early morning, another early breakfast and another early start.

We started off the day by tidying up in here in the attic- something that I had been meaning to do over the weekend but somehow never managed it.

And then I cracked on with the website and the next round of radio programmes for Radio Anglais.

But here’s the exciting thing. I’ve decided, as many of you might already have guessed, to go to the UK for a week or so quite soon to catch up with old friends and have a break.

This involves a ferry crossing of course, but my plans to book a ferry on-line ended up being a total failure as I can’t make any of my credit cards work with these new security controls.

In the end I booked by phone with one of these bucket-shop travel agents (my usual one was just totally unhelpful and I won’t be using them again).

Just for a change, seeing as there is nothing to be gained or lost, I’ve abandoned my usual ferry routes and travelling on the Dieppe – Newhaven route. I’ve never sailed that route before and it will make a pleasant change for me.

But over 90 minutes trying to book a ferry is just absurd.

Anyway, I’ll start back to work tomorrow. I’ve plenty to do as you know

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

Friday 26th October 2012 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about one thing.

And that was that I didn’t do too much today.

Up with the cock this morning (but that’s enough about my disgusting habits) and after breakfast (I’m back to 3 meals a day now so I’m clearly feeling better) I cleared off to Marcillat en Combraille.

Today’s the day for Radio Tartasse to record the Radio Anglais rock music programmes for the following month – get them out of the way as quickly as possible.

It didn’t take long either – a mere 28 minutes – and I was back here by 10:45.

Paperwork was next and then I carried on with the website – I’ve almost finished my walk around the city of Québec and it might even be on line by the end of next week.

I did intend to go outside today but the rain, that started as a slight drizzle, was by now a torrential downpour, and so I made a butty and came up here to watch a film. The Lady In Cement, starring none other than Frank Sinatra as a Philip Marlowe-type detective but with Attitude.

This film was a sequel to Sinatra’s Tony Rome, which I found in a junk shop for €1:99 and which so fascinated me that I bought the sequel full-price.

If there ever are any doubts about Sinatra’s acting ability then The Lady in Cement will dispel them completely. There are a few scenes in there that are magnificent, and it’s been a long time since I’ve said that about an acting performance.

These two films are so good that it did make me wonder whether or not they were ever going to make some kind of series out of them.

Anyway, after that I went downstairs and carried on working on the shelving for the cupboard.

Part of the problem with the wood that I buy is that it’s rough-cut stuff and so much of the time was spent sanding it all down ready to assemble. Given a few days of heavy weather though next week even that lot might be finished.

It won’t half be nice to have somewhere to store all of the stuff down there when the shelving is completed.

Tomorrow though I’m off to Montlucon if I wake up early enough. I need to make a mega-shop as I’m running low on stuff.

And that reminds me – the next monthly mega-shop that I do isn’t going to be in France. I might well be having my long-earned break 😉

-4

EPIC HALL

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