Tag Archives: pionsat

Thursday 17th December 2015 – ANYONE WOULD THINK …

… that it was me doing the tiling today, not Terry. Half an hour after lunch I was well out of it – two trips to Terry’s van and back with some stuff for here had finished me off. And back here, I was crashed out on the sofa at 18:00 and in bed by 19:15.

I’ve clearly seen better days – that’s for sure.

But a lot of this could be put down to the efforts that I had made during my nocturnal ramblings. I’d started off with something like a huge contemporary discussion about the qualities of different Roman emperors – and I can’t remember now with whom I was having this discussion. But from there I drove back (it’s good, this time-travel lark) to Stoke on Trent. None of the usual Clayhead characters out in an appearance unfortunately, but I do remember at a roundabout (it might have been one of the newish ones at Longton) I was confused by the exits, took the wrong one, and ended up on the road to Tunstall (a fictitious road of course but one that has featured on my travels before). It then occurred to me that there was one of these old-time sweet shops (just like there is in Longton) somewhere on this road and so I kept my eyes open for it. I ended up walking through this decrepit shopping centre-type of place to try to find it, to the accompaniment of jeers from several people lounging around – and what was that all about?
But back home I ended up chaperoning a young Shirley Temple-type of girl (as if I’d ever be asked to chaperone anyone of the female sex?) who was taking part in a singing competition that was to last all of the weekend. I asked her what would happen if she had to wait right at the end of the competition before it was her turn to sing, to which she replied that there were tons of things that we could do while we were waiting – have a party, go to the zoo, read stories.

No wonder I was exhausted!

So after my blood sample and a painful breakfast, we went off to Pionsat and the bank. I need to build up the fighting fund with all of this going on. Shopping at Intermarche was next, and there we met Clare, Julie and Anne who were off to Clermont-Ferrand for a fun day out. I fuelled up Terry’s van, seeing as how I had some money for once, bought my stuff for lunch and then shot off to the house for the tiling

When we arrived, the batteries were fully-charged already and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus charge was slowly rising. That tells you everything that you need to know about the weather that we have been having just recently.

We had a visitor too! In the jungle that is Lieneke’s field opposite my front door we had a sanglier – a wild boar. We couldn’t actually see it but we could hear it grunting away and see all of the shrubs and bushes moving around as it prowled its way around. Magnificent beasts, these sangliers – I remember being up on my scaffolding when I was pointing the eastern wall and watching those two herds approaching each other and the eventual confrontation.

And while Terry carried on with the tiling, I did some desultory tidying-up. But my heart wasn’t in it and I couldn’t even cut straight today. In some respects I was glad when Terry decided to call it a day.

We’re a long way from finishing (I like the “we” bit, don’t you?) but the most difficult bits have been done. And I know that I promised you all a photo but Terry closed up the house while I was outside washing off the tools, so you’ll have to wait until next time.

And now back here, I’m in bed having an early night but I dozed off for an hour, woke up, and now I can’t go back to sleep again.

This looks as if it’s going to become a regular feature. I wish it didn’t, though, and I could have a decent 8-hours sleep.

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Wednesday 16th December 2015 – I WENT BACK …

… to my house this morning. And what’s more, Terry came with me.

Terry has no work on at the moment and I’m not in much of a state to do much right now, and so I made an executive decision (an executive decision being one in which if it all goes wrong, the person making the decision is executed) that perhaps we should go and do the tiling in my shower room. It’ll give Terry something to do, it’ll help me catch up with work at the house, and so on and so forth.

So that was what we did.

But it didn’t work out quite like that – for the simple reason that my shower room is very small. There wasn’t room in there for both of us and so after five minutes in which we had done nothing but get in each other’s way, I left Terry to it.

And we’ll go back tomorrow and do some more too because by about 16:00 it was far too dark do do anything.

But while Terry was tiling, I was tidying up on the ground floor. And you can now actually see the floor in there, a huge pile of stuff has gone out into the lean-to, I’ve sorted out most of the tools that are in there and so on, and now there’s actually a pile of room to move about. If I can do as well tomorrow as I did today, it will be quite impressive.

Of course, we’d parked the van in the little lane at the back of my house to unload it as there was so much to do, and so of course, not having seen the farmer for months and months, it’s today that he decides to bring his cows to the field, so we have to move the van. You could have bet your mortgage on that, couldn’t you?

On our way to my house this morning, we went into Pionsat. I have a huge pile of used needles from my twice-daily anti-coagulant injections and I need to dispose of them. The pharmacy seemed to be the best place to start, and he gave me a couple of boxes to put them in and take them … to the dechetterie.

And so we did. And there at the Council tip at Pionsat, a woman worker took the box off me and put it in a much bigger box of the same shape and colour, to join many other smaller boxes in there. Apparently, it’s what you do around here. We also went to the Intermarché for some bread for lunch, and I met Nada there. I haven’t seen her for ages.

But back to the shower room, I stuck my head in once or twice to pass Terry tiles, or trim something down with the angle grinder, but I haven’t had a really good look in. I’m saving that for tomorrow because although it will be far from finished, it’ll be good for me to be surprised – pleasantly, I hope. I’ll post a couple of photos too if I remember, but I won’t be posting a photo of the ground floor because it is rather a mess, even with it being tidied up. There’s still too much rubbish in there, although I’ve nowhere else to put it and I need to make some extra room somewhere – anywhere!

On the way back here, we were pursued down the lanes by Liz whose last lesson of the day at Montlucon was cancelled. She’d seen some nice Christmas trees and so after a coffee, she and Terry nipped back up to St Gervais to do the necessary. After all, with little people being around, a Christmas tree is essential.

So I’m off to bed for an early night. I have a blood test in the morning and I need to be on form. And I hope that my blood count holds up because if it doesn’t, I can see me in Montlucon on Friday having another blood transfusion and I’m becoming rather fed up of them.

-2

Wednesday 9th December 2015 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… on my travels today – the first time since I came back from hospital last Friday.

In fact, I was out on my travels during the night too. I was working in an aeroplane hangar and one of the jobs that I had to do was to fit a new wheel and tyre on the undercarriage of ar aeroplane. In fact, the wheel bore a very great resemblance to the wheel and tyre that I fitted the other week on my wheelbarrow. And each time I fitted it, the air pressure went down and the tyre went flat. Eventually I had a good listen and I could hear the air escaping from a puncture in the inner tube. But like a good Civil Servant that I was, I’d been told to put this particular wheel and tyre on the aeroplane, and so I did. Fixing the puncture was obviously too much like hard work.
But from there we moved on a little and I was part of an undercover police force that was investigating the theft of a very dangerous chemical from this hangar. It was one that dissolved almost everything with which it came in contact (so how did they find a container in which to keep it?) and was on the Top Secret list. And as we were searching this hangar for clues, there was a man, badly eaten away by the acid and with bits of his body like his left thigh missing and with yellow skin, trying desperately to hide from our view underneath a 50-gallon oil drum that was lying on its side. But having failed in our search, we did however know that something had been posted to someone, put in a letter box somewhere. We were all crushed inside an old Ford Y van, a red Post Office van, and we were looking at all of the letters that had been collected from various letter boxes. All of a sudden, one particular letter caught my eye so I opened it. It was addressed to a cycle maker, and seemed to be some kind of coding in a five-letter group on an old blue order form. We sent a woman with the order form to give to the cycle maker to see what happened, which she did. And a couple of days later, she was called back and gived a brand new specially-made kids’ cycle painted green and white and she looked totally ridiculous on itn being a rather large woman. But we were no further forward and so we retired to plot our next move.

And this is when the alarm went off and I had to struggle to find the phone which, in the meantime, was waking everyone in the house. And I was thinking what another good sleep I’d just had.

After breakfast and the visit of the nurse to give me my injection, I had a shower and packed my bag and then Terry and I set off for Montlucon, stopping on the way at Pionsat for fuel and my order from the pharmacy.

At Montlucon we went to the hospital for my 11:00 appointment, which turned out to be about midday before I was seen.

The good news is that I don’t have leukaemia. The bad news is that I have a form of lymphoma. There are several types of this illness, some of which are quite aggressive and others not so. It seems that I have one of the lesser kinds. There is a whole range of reasons why this might have occurred, and one of these reasons is due to something to do with an aggressive protein, and my blood count shows that there is a protein that has gone off the scale in the blood count. It’s not the “usual suspect” in this respect, but nevertheless it merits further enquiries and so I’m due for further tests.

But as an aside, two points raise their ugly head. If it is a protein issue, there are not the facilities to treat it at Montlucon and so I will have to go elsewhere. It looks as if I’ll be on my travels again in the New Year. And in the second case, I seem to be full of ganglions. Not that they are dangerous apparently, but their presence has certainly been noted and in all kinds of places too.

On the way back we stopped for a late lunch and then went to Neris-les-Bains in search of chocolates for Liz because it’s her birthday today. After that, I went back home, for the first time for almost three weeks.

We’ve had plenty of sun, plenty of wind and plenty of excess solar energy, 694 amp-hours in just 19 days and that’s impressive for a period approaching the winter solstice. I also had a good rummage around and found a spare door lock, and I fitted that onto the front door so that it can be opened from the outside. This might come in handy if people other than me need access to the house.

I hung around here for a while too because, although it was cold, it was nice to be on my own for a while and relax in the relative comfort and security of my own surroundings. As Barry Hay once famously said on the beach at Scheveningen about 25 years ago “I tell you what man, it’s good to be back home”.

I started up Caliburn, threw some spare clothes, soya milk and vitamin B12 drink into the back and set off for Liz and Terry’s. First time Caliburn has had a run out for a while of course. And I mustn’t forget Strawberry Moose who has been invited to spend Christmas away from home.

As I drove back here, I remembered thinking “wouldn’t it be nice if the next round of tests were to reveal that I don’t need these twice-daily injections and the district nurse didn’t have to come round so often” and then I thought “blimmin’ ‘eck – it’s 19:00 and if I don’t put my foot down I’ll miss the nurse!” I had completely forgotten.

But I was back first and here I am at Liz and Terry’s. All ready for Round 2, and trying to work out a cunning plan about going home. I managed to take a huge load of wood upstairs to my attic without stopping, and that was certainly better than before I went to hospital, so things are looking up. I’ll see what my next couple of blood tests tell me and then I’ll make a decision.

-1

Friday 4th December 2015 – I’VE LEFT …

…the hospital today and I’m back chez Liz and Terry. And the first thing that Liz did for me was to make me a tea of baked potato, vegan cheese, baked beans and a side-salad. And wasn’t it lovely to have some real proper food properly cooked for once? Never mind eating it – I could have dived into it and rolled around in it.

Last night, with my late night, I didn’t seem to get very much sleep. I lost count of how many times I had to go to the bathroom – it was at least 5 times and could easily have been more. And then we had the usual interruptions of people sticking their heads around the door, people coming to give me injections, all of that kind of thing.

But I did manage somehow to get out and about on my travels too. Not that I remember anything much about it, but I do recall a separated couple being involved, and despite having agreed as part of the terms of separation that they would refer to each other as vous , but we did notice, with smiles on our faces, that they were back to referring to each other with the more familiar tu.

So having had breakfast and so on, I went for yet another shower. I’m really making the most of this. And then we had the bad news. It seems that my medical appointment for later this morning has been cancelled. They still haven’t been able to complete the analysis of all of my examinations.

Mind you, this might be good news. I imagine that they would look for the most serious options first and then they would work their way up the ladder, and the longer that it takes to find the problem, the less serious it might be. But of course, I’m ruling nothing out.

But apparently I’m to have an anti-coagulant injection twice a day at home for the next THREE MONTHS, and a blood test twice a week, and I’ve been given a prescription for a lorry-load of medication. Not only that, Liz has bought some vitamin B12 tablets and some iron tablets, and has found a fruit juice that has B12 in it. I need to make the most of my recuperation and keep a close eye on my diet for a while while I sort myself out.

And I did query the “three months” bit too. Would I still be here in three months? But the doctor did confirm that, in his opinion, there was every likelihood that i’ll be here then, and long after that too. And that’s good news;

At the pharmacy in Pionsat, the bill – just for the first month – came to €474. That doesn’t include the smelling salts that they used to bring me round. This is going to be an expensive illness, I can see that.

So after a good evening’s relaxation, I had an early night. We’d bought an ice -pack and we’d had it in the freezer for a couple of hours, so I put it on my swollen arm to draw the heat and give me a good night’s sleep. But it was totally unbearable after about half an hour so I ended up taking it off. But never mind – it had done the rick and, at least for the moment, the discomfort had gone.

I did warn Liz and Terry to make sure though that when they went to bed to wear plenty of garlic around their necks, just in case I feel thirsty during the night.

0

Friday 20th November 2015 – AHH WELL!

So here I am.

It’s 08:00 in the morning and I crawl (and I do mean crawl) out of bed. I can safely say that I’ve never felt as bad as all of this. Getting down to Caliburn was something of a struggle and I’m sure that I couldn’t see straight as I drove down to Pionsat for my blood test. A surprise awaited me at the reception of the medical centre – on duty was one of the girls who runs the pie hut at FCPSH.

So having dealt with the blood test, I staggered back here and had my breakfast (luckily I’d prepared it before I went off) and then crashed out on the sofa.

I managed a coffee at about midday and then crashed out again, to be awoken by the telephone at 14:30. It was the doctor. “You have a very bad case of anaemia and you need to go to the hospital at once. I’ve prepared a file for you and there’s an ambulance voucher here at the office”

An ambulance voucher is one thing, but finding an ambulance is something else. In the end I ring up Terry and Liz, but they are out, but Rosemary is in and so she comes to the rescue. I have just about enough strength to throw a few things into a bag and then we are off.

At the hospital I check in, but I don’t even have enough time to find a seat before I’m whisked off into an emergency room and stuck on a bed. They couple me up to a vitamin tube and give me a good interrogation – and after about an hour, the blood arrived.

I had one “pochette” of blood in the emergency room and then they took me up to a room where they gave me two others.
“We have to check your blood pressure every 15 minutes during the transfusion process” explained the nurse.
“I’m a very light sleeper” I replied
“Well you are going to be in for a very long night” she answered.
And she was right.

-2

Thursday 19th November 2015 – I DIDN’T …

… do anything today.

Well, that’s not quite true. I was up reasonably early (well, reasonably for these days) and after breakfast I cracked on with the rock music programmes for Radio Anglais. By lunchtime, I’d completed the “Miscellaneous” programme and written all of the notes. Tomorrow, I’ll be doing the live programme, although I’ve no idea yet what concert I’m going to choose.

Another thing that I did do was to telephone the local doctor’s to see about a medical appointment, as I can’t go on much longer like this.

And this is the beauty of living in France, and not in the UK.
Our Hero – “I need to make an appointment to see the doctor sometime soon”.
Receptionist – “is it urgent?”
Our Hero – “not really”
Receptionist – “well, if it’s not urgent can it wait until 15:30?”
Our Hero – “today?”
Receptionist – “yes, today”
As one of my friends in the UK commented, “had you been in the UK, you would have been offered an appointment at 2020, and that wouldn’t have been 8/20 in the evening either”.

And so I duly struggled into Pionsat and the doctor’s surgery, and the first thing that the doctor said to me when she saw me was “are you usually this colour?” Apparently I’m totally white – there’s not a patch of pink or anything in my skin or my fingernails and toenails. I had my blood pressure checked – which is within the norms – and she listened to my heart, which also seemed to be normal – and that’s good news – it means that I’m not a Tory, thank heavens.

But she’s worried about something because tomorrow I have to have a blood test at 09:00 – and so I suppose that I’ll have to spend all night studying. It has to be à jeune – namely “in famine”, so no breakfast tomorrow. How can I survive without a coffee – because that’s forbidden too. But she’s taken my ‘phone number and she’ll ring me as soon as she has the results – and I found that rather ominous too.

I also have to go into Montlucon for an ecographie – a heart examination – but I’ll wait and see what the blood test reveals before I ring up for an appointment. Wednesday afternoon would be a good day for me because it would mean that I could have a lift with Liz.

By the time I returned home I wasn’t in much of a state to do anything and crashed out here for an hour or so. Now I’m going for an early night because of my blood test.

-3

Saturday 14th November 2015 – IT SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE …

… to anyone that after the amount of time that I’ve spent just recently discussing Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England, last night I was on my travels up to the Wall with a huge load of uniforms for the soldiers based there. But strange uniforms they were too, nothing at all like the contemporary styles that they would have worn, and it didn’t escape my attention either that they would all look quite bizarre up there confronting the Picts and Scots in what I had fetched them. From there, I went back home by train (my nocturnal rambles are superb, aren’t they?), the kind of multiple unit with lateral seating. This train took me I’m not quite sure where and I came across a huge digger crawling into a railway depot. I reckoned that the engine in this digger would be ideal for my lorry and so I alighted from the train and chased after the digger but couldn’t catch it. I had a great discussion about the engine with the guy on the gate and we agreed after much discussion that it ight have been a Cummins. He eventually let me into the depot and I had a good hunt around the huge hangar without finding it. Never mind though. Back with my friends, I dropped my bombshell. I was going to stay on in the USA for all of five months while I changed the engine over in my lorry. From here we went back to my old flat in an old building in the city centre (and we’ve been here before recently) and I went downstairs to meet some girl friend outside the ladies hairdressers on the ground floor. We arranged to go off somewhere else in the town but I had to leave my huge moose behind so I asked the hairdressers if I could leave it there instead of taking it up to my apartment. They had a little smile and a little bit of a moan about me always leaving stuff with them.

It’s no wonder that I was exhausted before I had to get up, what with all of this going on.

After breakfast I had to turn the place here upside down to find my cheque book. It’s time to renew my web hosting services and this is about the only time that I need my cheques. And after all of this I found it in the glove box of Caliburn, and so I nipped into Pionsat to post off my renewal.

Back here I spent most of the rest of the day working on the new series of programmes for Radio Anglais. I lost my motivation halfway through but I managed to pick it up and I’m about halfway through the Radio Arverne sessions tonight.

I went off to Enval too in order to watch the footy. Pionsat were well-beaten and I shan’t dwell on the match too much, except to say firstly that Enval scored only one goal that contained any kind of skill. All of the rest were presents from the Pionsat defence with some of the worst defending that I have ever seen. It was embarrassing to watch and I was ashamed. Secondly, Pionsat received three or was it four yellow cards. One was for pushing an opponent, an off-the-ball incident, and all of the others were for arguing with the referee. This kind of thing is embarrassing too. It’s all childish, juvenile stuff and counts for absolutely nothing. Stupid bookings that you might think that the Pionsat players would have grown out of by now, especially when one of the yellow cards is shown to the team captain and another one to the President of the club. What kind of example is this?

All in all, what it boils down to is that 4 or 5 of the players aren’t up to the standard required, and four or five others aren’t “grown-up” enough for this level of football. Pionsat needs an under-11s team for players like these until they learn how to behave like grown-ups.

But at least I had my pizza as promised.

Apart from that, almost all other news has been overshadowed by the night’s events in Paris. What I have to say on the subject will be well-known to many regular readers of this rubbish because I’ve said it all before.

Firstly, what are European forces doing fighting in Asia anyway? What has it all to do with us? Who cares if these people kill each other anyway? It’s nothing to do with us. We should stay on our side of the world, let them stay on their side, greet each other with a polite nod and leave it at that.

Secondly, I can’t believe how naive and innocent all of these people are. When you declare war on someone, you expect them to fight back. Surely everyone knows that? And when your opponents fight back, you should expect casualties. Surely everyone knows that too? And so why the surprise and shock that there are casualties in Paris? I don’t understand.

If the politicians were possessed of courage, they would have warned their citizens that WAR = CASUALTIES and the population should have been prepared. But politicians everywhere have no courage and have behaved like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand, hoping that the problem would never arise. And then we have the mock outrage and the crocodile tears. It really is shameful.

But going back to the question of waging war against guerilla forces, it’s a fact that even with the gloves well and truly off and using the most horrible reprisals, no regular army has ever succeeded in defeating a determined guerilla force. The Nazis couldn’t overcome the French, the Yugoslav and the Greek resistance, the French couldn’t overcome the Algerians, the Septics couldn’t defeat the Viet Cong and the Soviets couldn’t overwhelm the Afghans. Why does anyone think that the situation has changed?

After the American defeat in Vietnam the USA government held an enquiry into the war. Here are a few quotes from the report –

The alternative – no matter what we may wish it to be – is almost certainly a protracted war involving an open-ended commitment of US forces, mounting US casualties, no assurance of a satisfactory solution, and a serious danger of escalation at the end of the road – UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE W BALL, ON VIETNAM 1st JULY 1965

No-one has demonstrated that a white ground force of whatever size can win a guerilla war – GEORGE W BALL ibid

The war could well become an albatros around the Administration’s neck – ASST SEC OF STATE FOR FAR EASTERN AFFAIRS WILLIAM P BUNDY 16 APRIL 1966

We will find ourselves mired down in combat in the jungle in a military effort that we cannot win -JOHN McCONE, DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE TO DEAN RUSK AND McNAMARA – 2 APRIL 1965

The USA found itself at the end of August 1963 without a policy and with most of its bridges burnt – PENTAGON REPORT ON SOUTH VIETNAM

While tendentious reporting is irritating, suppression of news leads to much more serious trouble – WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN 17 SEPT 1963

A feeling is widely and strongly held that the Establishment is out of its mind – JOHN T MCNAUGHTON, US ASST SECRETARY OF DEFENCE 1967

The feeling is that we are trying to impose some US image on distant peoples we cannot understand and that we are carrying the thing to absurd lengths – JOHN T MCNAUGHTON, US ASST SECRETARY OF DEFENCE 1967

White men can’t win this kind of fight – WILLIAM BUNDY, US ASST SECRETARY OF DEFENCE ON INVOLVEMENT OF US FORCES IN VIETNAM 1961

You would have thought that with all of these comments, what on earth would the USA be doing, dragging itself and its “Imperialist running-dog lackeys” into other similar wars? It’s as if the Septics have learnt absolutely nothing from their involvement in Vietnam and they are simply making the same mistakes. And as the events unfold and the opposition fights back, the west is sucked deeper and deeper into the maelstrom. You only have to look at all of the incidents here in the West – under attack, overwhelmed by fleeing refugees, all of the border, airport and train controls – to see just how much the opposition has us on the run.

And our politicians won’t tell us the truth either. Brits will recall that over 400 British soldiers died “freeing” Helmand from the Taliban. What most Brits don’t know, because the Government hasn’t made an official announcement, is that most of Helmand has been retaken by the Taliban. So those deaths were really useful, weren’t they?

Just to repeat, “The war could well become an albatros around the Administration’s neck” and ‘We will find ourselves mired down in combat … in a military effort that we cannot win”.

“A feeling is widely and strongly held that the Establishment is out of its mind” – at least, from this particular point of view.

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Saturday 7th November 2015 – IT’S ALL HAPPENING …

… at the swimming baths at Commentry.

Firstly, I forgot my cozzy and had to go back to Caliburn to find it. Secondly, the big pool was freezing. 29°, it said on the temperature, but I reckon that that must have been Fahrenheit, not Centigrade. Thirdly, there was a group of kids aged about 7-8-9 playing on a couple of foam-rubber rafts down one lane of the big pool. They were having an enormous amount of fun, trying to row, totally out of synch and quite often in opposite directions. As a result, every now and again there was a squeal and half of the kids fell off. They clambered back on again and a short while later we had another squeal followed by a splash. And so it went on. They were having a great time and it was quite amusing watching them.

But the fourth thing was the most interesting. There I was sitting on the jacuzzi steps and some young girl swimming past under water grabbed hold of my foot. I thought that my luck was in, but it turns out that she was aiming for her boyfriend sitting next to me.

Ahhh well 🙁

But you can see what the weather was like today. Totally glorious. And there I was, having disconnected the 12-volt immersion heater (I don’t want it to fire up until I’m there to see what happens). In fact, I went off to Montlucon where I spent a King’s ransom. And it wasn’t as if I had bought anything special, except for 2 inner tubes for the power barrow and a new heavy-duty wheel for the yellow wheelbarrow. It was cheaper than buying an inner tube and tyre and I must get myself organised.

But at least I’m stocked up with tins, macaroni, rice and the like ready for when the winter bites. As long as I have plenty to eat, plenty to read and a few good films to watch, I could be snowed in here for amonth and I couldn’t care less

I didn’t meet anyone whom I knew around the shops either, which makes a change. I’m not sure what happened there.

Pionsat had a really good match tonight against Mozac. They won 3-1 and we had four of the best goals that I’ve seen for ages. Peach of the night was Pionsat’s second, which started off with, would you believe, a one-on-one between a Mozac attacker and Matthieu in the Pionsat goal. The ball bounced off Matthieu’s leg and, just for once, went upfield out of danger. It was played forward to Cedric who rode a few good tackles and, surrounded by two or three Mozac defenders, laid it off to Frédéric. He sold a beautiful dummy to his marker and stepped inside, giving him half a yard of space and he coolly spicked his spot in the corner of the net.

For once, Pionsat had the rub of the green, the benefit of a few unclear decisions, and they played like they ought to have played for the last three or four years. I’ve complained about their “powder-puff” approach to the game in the past but tonight they put in quite a few crunching tackles to make their presence felt. If only they had done this in the past, their position would be totally different.

I was on my travels last night again. Once more, as just a couple of nights ago, I was trying to catch an aeroplane out of Canada but I was running really late. During my stay there, I’d used three cars but I only had one to hand back and I was desperately trying to trace the others, and time was running out. It transpired that one of the cars was “in the bodyshop” and wasn’t quite ready. And so, I thought, there goes my return flight home. I dunno why I seem to have this on my mind at the moment.

But tonight, it’s Saturday and there’s a long lie-in, I hope. I’m all clean with clean clothes and clean undies and so what I’m going to do right now is to change my bedding. A nice clean me with clean bedding and a long lie-in and I shall be in my elephant.

-2

Friday 30th October 2015 – ALL GOOD THINGS …

… come to an end. And today, the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump-load for the excess solar energy finally ground to a halt.

Mind you, I’m not surprised. What has surprised me is that it lasted as long as it has – about 4 years if I remember correctly. It’s a 500-watt industrial 12-volt water heater element that I can pick up by the dozen in the USA, fitted into the side of a 25-litre plastic storage box and sealed in with rubber gaskets, and a simple tap. The whole lot is stood on a thick sheet of polystyrene insulation, with some of this thick space-blanket insulation wrapped around it, and a plastic lid covered with an off-cut of a sheet of polystyrene-backed plaster-board. Down on the inside of the space-blanket insulation up against the plastic side is the sensor of a maximum-minimum thermometer.

It’s wired in (with a 70-amp fuse) to a 60-amp Solar charge controller that I have reverse-wired so that instead of being “on” and switching off when the batteries are fully-charged, it’s “off” and switches on when the batteries are fully charged – and so when the batteries are fully charged and the charge controllers on the batteries switch off, the current that would otherwise be lost is diverted down into the water heater element and so heats up the water in the immersion heater for washing up, washing, and all that kind of thing.

And so why did it all go wrong?

The answer is that it hasn’t really gone wrong. A year or so ago I noticed that the positive wire to the immersion heater was heating up dramatically, and so I rewired it. But the thread stripped in the connection on the element so I had to find a small nut and bolt. But I couldn’t really fit a spanner into it so that it wasn’t particularly tight.

Today, I went downstairs to the fridge to fetch something to drink, and I could smell the burning plastic. There was something or a record of 37 amps going down the cables and this was simply too much for the bad joint and the wire was so hot that it was melting the insulation.

I hadn’t designed it particularly well – I can do much better than this, and in any case I don’t have any rubber joints for the element which I’ll need to take out and remake the joint, and so that’s a task for next week if I remember to buy the things that I need tomorrow at the shops. However, I have plugged the fridge back in so that something is being done about the excess current.

And so what else have I done today?

Apart from work on the laptop, which you can take as read, I’ve been tracking down some wood. I went to rescue the wooden box that I used to use to keep my fruit and vegetables in, but I pinched it last year to store my potatoes. But that didn’t work as the potatoes all went off and the wooden box is ruined (but I did in passing cast an eye on last year’s compost and it’s brewing beautifully!) and so I need to make another one.

I found a 50cm pine plank and some 40mm aluminium angle and I’ll be using that on Monday to make my new fruit and veg box.

As well as that, I went to check over the Kubota mini-digger. The reason for that is that the battery in the Kubota tractor is finished and I need a new one, so if I’m ordering one it makes sense to order a second for the digger – after all, that hasn’t run since the end of November last year.

But much to my astonishment, the mini-digger fired up straight away with no difficulty. And so I checked it over and left it running for a good hour or so to warm everything up and top up the battery.

I spent some time downstairs tidying up the ground floor too. It’s now looking as if you might be able to see the floor if I keep up like this. But I need to make a great deal of room as pretty soon I’ll be starting work down there and I’ll need the space.

Last but not least, I had a shower. 33°C in the verandah and 59°C in the 12-volt immersion heater, and so I cleared a corner of the verandah, fetched a bucket of hot water with some cold mixed in, found the pouring jug, and hey presto! Now I smell like coconut. I finished it off with a shave too, so now I’m all ready for the weekend.

But I could have done with a shave and a shower last night, as I was on my travels again. It was Marianne who had the pleasure of my company, going to the airport for a flight to Portugal. At the last minute she asked why I didn’t come with her, so with three hours to go before take-off I nipped off to my apartment for some clothes and the like, and to run one or two errands.

Once I’d done all of that, I had to return to the airport so there I was, driving through North London (flitting in and out of another nocturnal ramble from ages ago) on my way to Brussels Airport. The road was certainly very familiar to me, but I wasn’t convinced that it was the road that I should have been taking. But I arrived at the airport and reached the security gate with just 15 minutes to take-off and I still had a long way to go, not to mention passing through the “security”. And here I was, panicking in case I missed the flight, which was looking more and more likely as time passed by.

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Saturday 17th October 2015 – SO FAR TODAY …

…I’ve changed gear three times with Caliburn’s indicator stalk and put him into first gear twice when I’ve been trying to back him into a parking space. And I can’t get the hang of this tiny button in the place where the steering wheel ought to be.

Yes, I’ve been to the shops today – first time since I’ve been back here of course. And I did a full shop that came to just €27:00 even with a few extra bits and pieces. It’s good to be back in Europe where you can buy the food for a week for the same price that you would have to pay for a few bits and pieces in a North American supermarket. All those people who complain about the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy ought to go for a month and do their food shopping in North America. Even with the benefits of mass-production and cut-throat competition, they can’t match the prices that we Europeans pay for our basic foods.

To give you an example – a baguette in a real boulangerie costs about €0:70 – that’s about 90 cents. In a North American supermarket, you’d pay $2:59 for it. These are the prices that people will be paying in Europe if the CAP is dissolved.

And so the first night back in my nice comfy bed.

And so comfortable was I that it was also first night back at my old school for I’ve no idea how many years. I’d been to the school gymnasium for the rehearsals of the school presentation of a Harry Potter play, and there I’d met the girl who was playing Luna Lovegood – who, as regular readers of this rubbish will know, is my favourite character in the series and the girl who should have been paired with Harry Potter – and we’d started dating. I’d agreed to take her home afterwards but when the bell rang, she was pushing her green and yellow bicycle towards the exit. “I’ll just take my bike home” she said, “and then I’ll come back afterwards and you can take me home” (such is the logic of these night-time voyages that I undertake). Anyway, I’d been waiting half an hour and she hadn’t come back so I wondered if I was waiting in the right place. She’d written down her name (it was Lalana or something) and phone number on a piece of paper, but somehow another piece of paper had become stuck over the top and when I peeled that back, it took off half of the girl’s writing. I then went to look for her classroom to see if she was waiting there, but there had been so many changes at the school since I was there that her class year was scattered throughout the building, not like it used to be with three or four classes adjacent when I was there. Eventually some boy gave me a school directory and so I started to thumb through that to see if I could see her in there. But by now it was 20:30 and I’d almost given up hope of finding her again, and I was distraught.

Considering how late I’d gone to bed, waking up at 09:30 (fully-clothed in bed) was something of an achievement. And even though the temperature hadn’t risen from last night, it felt rather warmer. But what I’m going to do is take the gas heater up to the bedroom. I’ve one of these portable calor-gas heaters and it’s not doing anything, so I reckon that half an hour before I go to bed and half an hour before I wake up with one bar of the fire will work wonders in there, even in the middle of winter.

While I was sorting out my breakfast, it suddenly occurred to me that last night I’d gone to bed without taking the stats, and that might well be the first time that I’ve ever done that. Ahh well – no matter.

I spent some time on the internet and then went off to do the shopping. And I’m convinced, as I’ve said before, that Rosemary has a secret camera focused on my house because I hadn’t been back 5 minutes (and the water for the coffee hadn’t even boiled) before she called me up.

Apparently her mobility is worsening and she needs a hand to move some stuff around, so in exchange for some home-made vegetable soup and bread, I’ll go round and help out – and we can catch up with the latest news.

And so FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI was relegated to Division II at the end of last season. It’s hard to believe that just three or four seasons ago they were challenging for promotion but I’ve mentioned so oftenall of the problems that have been happening off the pitch that you are probably sick to death of them right now.

Tonight they were playing the team from the Portuguese Social Club in Clermont and so I went down to see how they were doing. They’ve managed to retain most of the 1st XI from last year and made one or two additions who looked quite useful. And they looked a lot meaner and more aggressive too.

The Portuguese defence was dreadful – even worse than Pionsat’s legendary Easter island statue defence and how Pionsat only managed to score three (from three dreadful defensive errors and mix-ups) is totally beyond me. Pionsat just failed to put the defence under enough pressure despite all of the ball that they had.

And conceding two as well against this attack. The first one was from a direct free kick that curled nicely around the blind side of the wall, and the second was from the usual Pionsat tactic of failing to clear the ball out of a tight spot in the defence and playing it right into danger instead. If I had an Euro for each time that I’ve said that the ball ought to be kicked into the cemetery, the school playground, the abandoned railway line or the garden of the Queue de Milan, I’d be dictating this rubbish to a bunch of floozies sitting on my knee somewhere on a beach in the Bahamas. And still they don’t listen.

They threw away dozens of points like this over the last couple of seasons – this is what cost them promotion all those years ago, and this has what has caused them to be relegated last season. They ought to bounce straight back, but they have already been on the end of a heavy defeat and they are going to have to work much harder than this to fulfil their potential. There are some good players there at this level. The Portuguese are bottom of the league, and quite rightly so, but Pionsat made such heavy weather of this victory.

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Saturday 8th August 2015 – MISERABLE DAY

Too hot in the bedroom last night so I had the window open. But it wasn’t the dawn chorus that awoke me, it was a torrential rainstorm. In fact 31.5mm of rain fell today.

It goes without saying that the guy whose Hyundai is on my drive never turned up to move it, and I wasn’t working in these conditions.

I was doing a few bits and pieces here and then went off to St Eloy to meet Rosemary. She’s off to the UK next week for a medical appointment and needs plenty of moral support before she goes – although since when has any support that I have been able to give anyone been moral?

On the way back, I went via Pionsat to do some shopping at the Intermarché, and it did spring to my mind that the next time that I’ll be doing any food shopping will be in the Metro supermarket in the Cote des Neiges in Montreal. I’m not sure if breakfast is included in my hotel room, so I’ll be needing my bagels and strawberry jam.

Back here I caught up with another few things that I needed to do and then I was engulfed in controversy. The football club that I follow, Bangor City, is in financial difficulty which is astonishing seeing as they are the best-supported club in the WPL and have the second-best exposure. Clearly things aren’t right in the club and, due to British law about slander and libel I shan’t go into them on here. But despite releasing three or four of their best players last season (remember that the club finished just third from bottom, even with these players in it) and having kicked out half of the development squad, today they have just sold their best player to a league rival.

These directors just don’t “get it”. Struggling near the foot of the table will cause attendances to fall, so they will lose just as much, if not more, than they have gained. And then with the inevitable relegation, they will lose the Welsh Premier League prize money, league sponsorship, all kinds of financial support and the club will go on a great big downward spiral.

It’s a classic case of “short-termism”. Press the panic button and the Directors all run around like headless chickens. There’s no long-term plan, no vision, no nothing. People like these aren’t fit to be in charge of a whelk stall, never mind a half-million-pound business.

Just one close-season signing – and he’s from a club two leagues down.

At least Afan Lido two years ago waited until mid-season to throw in the towel. Throwing in the towel before a ball has even been kicked is totally shameful.

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Wednesday 15th July 2015 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the flying shelf this afternoon.

flying shelf shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt took quite some effort and a pair of arms about 2 metres longer than mine, but nevertheless, after some considerable amount of ado about a great deal, I managed to do it. Strangely enough, the part that I thought would be very difficult was comparatively easy, and the part that I had expected to do quite easily was the part that took the longest.

However, looking for tools, nuts and washers was a considerable part of this too. But then that’s only to be expected.

It’s not as good as I would have liked – I can see several shortcomings in my work, but the design was good anyway. Just the execution was wrong and I’ll have to do better than this if I do it again.

But anyway, it looks OK if you don’t look too closely, and everything works as it is supposed to, so I suppose that that is something.

I was on my travels last night, visiting a football ground at a sports club in Crewe with a cement mixer – the lorry-based cement mixer thing. Someone connected with my family had connections there and they had ordered the cement, and meeting up with this person was the last thing on either of our minds. So I tipped the cement and when I tilted up the mixer into the vertical position, the lorry started to roll back. But someone from the football club grabbed hold of the bumper of the truck and hung onto it to stop it moving.

I was up before the alarm clock and so I spent a very profitable morning on the laptop doing some various assorted computer work, including finishing off a couple of radio programmes. I even managed to telephone the insurance company to have a duplicate label for Caliburn sent to me – which means that I will definitely find it now.

I had to go into Pionsat to buy some bread today for lunch, and also to try out the new bank card that I have received.

And tonight, I had a lovely warm solar shower that has made me fit for anything.

Tomorrow, I’ll be finishing the ceiling in the shower room, or at least, doing as much as I can.

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Monday 13th July 2015 – IT’S JUST LIKE OLD TIMES …

… up here in my attic tonight. I’m surrounded by papers everywhere – all over the floor and over the bed-settee and it feels so good to have reverted to all of my old untidy habits.

It all started off so promisingly too. I had a nice lie-in to reward myself for my efforts over the weekend and then after breakfast I attacked the dictaphone notes from my voyage to Canada in 2014 – must get that done.

No bread today because the boulangère is off on holiday so I needed to go into Pionsat, and that led to a little complication.

The insurance on Caliburn will expire on Wednesday and here in France, you have a little sticker to put in your windscreen to display your insurance details. I need to put the new one in the windowand I know that I have it – it’s been in my sticky little mitt at least once just recently and I’ve probably put it safe somewhere so that I know where it is.

But where?

This led to a search around up here, in the most obvious places, but it still hadn’t come to light by 14:30 and so, fearing that there would be no bread left at all in the Intermarché, I shot off to Pionsat where I was lucky enough to buy the last baguette. Not even one for tomorrow and that’s sad, as it’s Bank Holiday here and all of the shops will be closed.

After lunch, I started to search in the less-obvious places and that led to an unearthing of a load more paperwork – nothing to do with what I’m trying to find but there’s no sense in ignoring it so that’s being ruthlessly sorted out as well. I’m finding tons of stuff, a lot of which is really important and that I wish that I had found ages ago, but no sign at all of the insurance sticker.

Like I said, I know that it’s here somewhere, but the question is “just where?”

So guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow on my Bank Holiday day of rest? It’s not as if I don’t already have enough to do.

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Wednesday 8th July 2015 – IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to leave the comfort and safety of my comfortable bed. 3 alarms went off but it was still something of a struggle to heave myself out of my stinking pit. You wouldn’t ever have thought that last night I was in bed by 23:15 and was in such a deep sleep that the midnight buzzer in the verandah woke me stark upright.

After a rather tired breakfast, I spent some time updating the Radio Anglais stuff – the databases that I keep of what we’ve done and when we’ve done it – and then I updated out Facebook page, and now that’s online too. You can see it here if you like. I hope that you’ll pass by and give us a “like”.

When that was done, I carried on with my own website – I want to bring that up-to-date too but that’s an impossible task, which I fully realise.

However, in between times, I put another coat of varnish on the shelves that I cut yesterday and also on the shelf that will be going over the door. The aim was that they would dry ready for this afternoon.

I forgot that the boulangère is on holiday. That meant that I had to wander off to Pionsat and the Intermarché to buy some bread for lunch. And I wasn’t there five minutes either. It was a baguette today, and I have some speciality bread for tomorrow and Friday.

shelf over shower room door les guis virlet puy de dome franceFirst job after lunch was to fit the shelf in the shower room.

Space, or lack thereof, is something from which I’ve always suffered and so I’m fitting as many shelves as possible as I carry on with the development. There’s at least two feet (60cms) over the door in the shower room and that’s crying out for a shelf for the washing products and the like until the kitchen is done (whenever that might be). No sense in wasting the space

But the rest of the work isn’t so straightforward. The flying shelf is actually two layers of wood sandwiched together. The idea is that the electrical plugs and the 12-volt LED strip light will fit in the bottom part with the cables sandwiched between, and the top part will go over the top to keep everything covered.

That works fine with a 20mm-thick shelf when your mains plug is 18mm deep, but when your light switch is 25mm you need to think again. Accordingly I spent much of this afternoon making a pattress out of a pine offcut. 18mm deep, this home-made pattress, and that will do the job quite nicely. And it’s also enabled me to have a think about fitting a 12-volt DC socket there too.

And that, dear reader, took me until 20:20 tonight – something of a record for just recently. But today was much cooler, the temperature in the attic never passed beyond 30°C, and it gave me much more of an incentive to work. I even managed to tidy up a little in here too.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

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Monday 18th May 2015 – AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT …

… we had something of a slow start this morning. After my long drive of yesterday and my bad night’s sleep thanks to the Swiss Highway Patrol, I was in no mood for an early start.

Nevertheless, I did heave myself out of my stinking pit at something like a reasonable hour and after breakfast I set to work.

And the result of today’s efforts is, quite frankly, in the words of the old poem three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … badger all.

Anyone reading this rubbish will recall that the laptop that packed up on my voyage is my second Acer Aspire. The first one has a broken screen and a smashed keyboard where something fell on it (but despite that, this is what I’m using regardless, with “cut-and-paste” for the missing letters and manoeuvring the workspace around the screen, which shows you just how resilient they are, not to mention the five hours battery life) so the idea was quite simple – two identical machines so just swap the hard drives over.

After about two hours, during which time I realised that despite the outer casing being identical, they are far from identical inside and not even the batteries will swap over. Moving the disks produces the error message “No bootable device detected” even though the disks are both being picked up by the BIOS.

Acer’s technical help was interesting too. On their live chat system, I had a brief discussion with a “technician” who then copy-pasted a huge long screed about “you need to send your machine in for repair. Please send us £50-odd to open a file for you, and then we will send you instructions”.

So much for that.

The ultimate solution to the problem is a new machine. And there was an Acer Aspire – a more up-to-date version of mine – for £219 which by the time I’ve added the £50 for the file, the cost of a new hard drive, the labour for the installation and the postage and packing is mere peanuts.

So that is that. Meanwhile, any tips for hacking the information out of the old failed drive would be much appreciated.

On that note I went down to the Intermarche in Pionsat to buy some food seeing as how there is nothing here to eat. But badger that for a moment – here’s something exciting.

old citroen 2CV intermarche pionsat puy de dome France may 2015You can tell by the louvred bonnet that this is one of the earliest Citroen 2CV’s, and the deckchair interior goes to prove it too.

And while I was having a good look around, the owner came out. None other than Marianne’s friend Francois Legay, who has quite an interesting collection of old vehicles.

This Citroen is a 1952 model and is about 98% original. The seat material, the cooling fan and one or two other bits and bobs have been replaced, mainly due to the difficulty of resourcing the original parts.

There’s a 375cc engine in there, air-cooled of course, and flat-out, downhill with a following wind the car might just manage 70kph.

So that cheered me up somewhat, and I went off quite happily to do my shopping.

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