Tag Archives: st eloy les mines

Saturday 17th May 2014 – TOTALLY ASTONISHING!

Yes, Pionsat go to Lapeyrouse, 3rd in the table, to continue their desperate struggle against relegation whereas Lapeyrouse desperately need 3 points to keep their slim promotion hopes alive.

First things first, though. It was nice to see Matthieu finally back where he belongs – between the posts of Pionsat’s goal. Two years, is it, since he broke his leg?

fcpsh football club de foot Pionsat St Hilaire nico defaye goal us lapeyrouse puy de dome ligue une france, Lapeyrouse scored three times, but even more astonishingly, Pionsat scored 4 times. Two of them were throroughly excellent goals and Nico’s will be goal of the season I reckon.

Frederic’s opener was another superb opportunist effort out of nothing and the fourth goal (I didn’t see who scored it) was down to Frederic’s perseverence on the goal line chasing after what looked like a hopeless cause.

Had St Priest lost this evening, Pionsat would have been safe but they managed a surprise draw at St Gervais. This means that Pionsat need 1 point next weekend (against Lempdes who have already achieved promotion) to be totally safe, unless St Priest drop points at home to Beauregard.

But Pionsat can look at 2 totally silly, needless goals that they conceded the other week – that has what has made them suffer. Had they won that match instead of lost it, they would have been home and dry a few weeks ago. It’s the story of the last couple of seasons.

So I had another disturbed night in which I was very active on my travels, but it was all wiped away as soon as I woke up so I can’t remember where I was. But I did another rock programme for Radio Anglais this morning to put myself out in front a little.

I went shopping in St Eloy and bought nothing special except some tomato plants seeing as I have just one that seems to have run aground now and stopped growing. But back home with solar water temperature at 30°C, I chucked 5 litres of water out of the dump load (for that was a healthy 62°C) into the tank and had a most delicious shower. Now I’m all clean and smelling of coconut.

I’ve also continued my play around with Audacity and I’m making progress. Trouble is that large files are taking so long to load and are thus so slow to edit. I need to work on something that has a built-in DVD drive rather than an external drive. Maybe that might speed things up.

Finally a word for Bangor City who progress into Europe next season after their victory over hated local rivals Rhyl at Nantporth this afternoon. Let’s all hope that they can find the consistency that they need to make some progress in the Europa Cup. it’ll be nice if they can make it to round Two.B

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Saturday 26th April 2014 – HE’S DONE IT AGAIN!

Two weeks ago, you may remember, Matthieu scored a stunning goal from a free kick miles out from goal – a shot that went through the wall and through the keeper into the net.

Last week, you may remember, he scored a goal directly from a lay-off from the kick-off – standing on the half-way line.

matthieu malnar free kick goal fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot montel villosanges puy de dome league division 4 saturday 26 april 2014 franceTonight, he took a free kick from about 45 yards out. It sailed right over the defensive wall, right over the flailing arms of a despairing keeper and right into the top corner of the net.

He took another free kick a short while later from even further out, and that didn’t clear the bar by much. And then we were treated to the astonishing spectacle of the Chimps (because it was Montel-Villosanges that Pionsat were playing this evening) lining up a defensive wall in Pionsat’s own half when Matthieu took a free kick from deep in his own territory.


Pionsat’s second goal (because they beat the Chimps 2-0 ha ha ha!) was even more bizarre. Didier broke through the defence into space in the Chimps penalty area and was pushed off the ball flat on his back.

The game came to a standstill with everyone awaiting the obvious penalty whistle, but it never came. Consequently Didier poked out his leg while still flat on his back and kicked the ball through the Chimps’ goalkeeper’s legs and into the net.

As for the rest of the game, I’m not going to say a thing at all. I shall simply remember the wise words of Ron Atkinson, who famously said “I make it a rule never to comment on referees and I’m not going to change my rule for that tûsser”.

And it’s also the first time that I’ve ever been threatened by a footballer that he would come into the stands and sort me out. Mind you, when I went to look for him after the final whistle to discuss his bad attitude, he had fled into the dressing room. Obviously the tremedous rainstorm that we had near the end had calmed him down.

But life is so sweet when you have properly stuffed the Chimps, especially when there was so much controversy.

Apart from that, I was round at Liz and Terry’s this afternoon, rehearsing our radio programmes. Normally we do that on Sunday but Liz isn’t available tomorrow. And we had a nice tea too.

I had planned to go to Montlucon today too but with having to do the radio today, I needed to check everything over, and so it was simple shopping at St Eloy, with no frills.

But there was a tragedy in LIDL. Some woman doing her shopping didn’t have enough money on her card to pay for her bill. She was obliged therefore to return one of her bottles of whisky. I was eagerly anticipating her returning some of the food instead but, apparently, wiser councils prevailed. But it does sum up St Eloy pretty much.

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Friday 25th April 2014 – NEW TOY!

kubota b 1220D diesel tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou may remember the other week that while I was out shopping one Saturday I spent a huge pile of money – more than I’ve ever spent on any previous shopping trip?

Well, here’s the reason why – delivered this afternoon.

It’s a Kubota B1220d mini-tractor, diesel-engined, 4-wheel drive with tri-point lift and power take-off


Anyone who has followed this rubbish for any length of time will have seen me spending three days with a hand-winch moving an old van 20 yards, or seen me shifting a couple of tons of rubble two buckets at a time, or shifting a trailer-load of sand in a wheelbarrow, or dragging logs one by one up from my forest.

Well, the fact is that I’m fed up of doing all of that and I’m not getting any younger. And on my birthday the other week I had a small insurance policy come to maturity.

kubota b 1220D diesel tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray!" – ed … when I was in St Eloy the other week, the local DiY place was just taking deliver of four of these for sale with the price slashed something like 40%, as they are old stock and a new model is coming out.

Not only that, the French government’s “cash for clunkers” programme also covers agricultural machinery and if I traded in an old auto-tractive machine, I’d get another €1,000 off. As it happened, I had an old, rusting, rotten auto-tractive field lawnmower that’s done nothing at all since I brought it here in 2002 and never will do either.

And so I thought “what the hell!”


What I need for it now is a flat-plate mower, a tri-point blade, a chain harrow and a small trailer. I already have an electric winch and that’ll do me for now. I can think of loads of other things, but all of that in due course.

So here I am now, totally broke, but ask me if I care. I’m as impressed with this as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin. It means that I won’t get to go on Trixi’s week in Corfu in May, which is a huge disappointment as I was really looking forward to seeing her again, but that can’t be helped.

So after the usual morning’s activities were dealt with, I went outside at midday. With not being sure of what to do, I had a look at the little greenhouse and it now seems that I have a cucumber, piles of lettuce, three leeks, some broccoli, some chives and some basil. It seems that things are very slowly coming to life.

And the … errr … 37mm of rain that we had in 12 hours late yesterday has caused a huge pile of weeds to spring up. I need to look at them.

Where I cleared off the space for the new raised bed the other day, I noticed that I had covered it over with sheets of corrugated iron. That had prevented anything from growing in there, which was the aim, but also loads of stuff had fallen on there over the last three or four years and was well on the way to making a nice compost.

I cleaned all of that off – there was 4 barrow-loads of it – and all of that has gone into the compost bin, which has filled that.

So this afternoon, after playing with the Kubota, I dug over where the raised bed will be and then made the framework. I’ve put some wood-preservative on that to see if that will slow up the decaying process any, and I’ll do a second coat over the weekend. That can then be laid down at the beginning of next week.

That took me up to 19:20.

Yes, I’ve been very busy today but it’s all been productive.

And I’m really pleased that I bit the bullet and bought the Kubota.

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Saturday 19th April 2014 – I’VE JUST SEEN …

… one of the best football matches for ages. No football at Pionsat tonight so I went to Marcillat en Combraille who were playing Mercy-Chapeau. An excellent game that finished 3-3 but Mercy can consider themselves robbed of a victory. 2 of AS Marcillat’s goal came from free kicks, one of which I wouldn’t have awarded and the second I would have awarded, but in the other direction.

And I have at last seen a player in the Allier who I would pick for FC Pionsat St Hilaire. Mercy-Chapeau’s n°5, playing at the heart of the defence, was big, quick, intelligent and commaanding and if Pionsat could find a player like him, they wouldn’t have anything like the issues that they are having now.

Apart from that, after breakfast I tidied up in here. Not much, it has to be said, but just a little but at least the table is clean and tidy and I’ve vacuumed the floor round by where I sit. Not with the new vacuum cleaner – I’ve yet to try that out – but with the 12-volt cylinder vacuum cleaner that I found again the other day.

In St Eloy les Mines, I did the shopping and at Carrefour they had 12 lettuce for €2:60 and the brasica was reduced to €3:95 for 10 so I bought some sprouts to go with the cabbage I planted a few weeks ago. They will be in the garden on Tuesday when I restart work.

I noticed today as well that the lettuce seed that I sowed in a tray – there’s signs of life in there as of this afternoon. That looks quite optimistic as I was beginning to think that I’ve been wasting my time with the gardening effort this year. Only the courgettes (and then only some of those) seemed to have done anything.

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Saturday 12th April 2014 – SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY …

… is the Pionsat 1st XI’s habitual method of play. But just for a change this evening, they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. And if they had played for 90 minutes of every match with the same fire and spirit that they played the final 10 minutes of today’s match, they wouldn’t be anything like staring relegation in the face.

They won 4-3 with two goals coming in the final 10 minutes, and it’s just as well that they did, because being rlegated by losing to the Chimps of all people would have been more than any man could bear.

But the story of the three goals conceded sums up Pionsat’s season-

    Pionsat concede penalty fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot montel villosanges 12 avril 2014 puy de dome ligue division 1 france

  1. A moment’s inattention and hesitation lets in a Chimps attacker. A beautiful sliding tackle from a Pionsat defender wins the ball and the attacker goes down over the defender’s outstretched leg. How the referee could award a penalty for that is something that totally mystified me.
    But then, had the defence been awake and attentive, the defender would not have got that far.
  2. Unmarked attacker at the far post heads in a superb cross past Frederic who is once more standing in for Michael who has been standing in for Matthieu. It was indeed a superb cross, taking every totally by surprise, but there shouldn’t ever be anyone unmarked and onside in the penalty area.
    It’s true that a more experienced keeper would probably come out for the cross, because as long as he got a fingertip to the ball, he could have flattened the attacker without fear of conceding a penalty, but you can’t blame a stand-in keeper for that, and it would have been worse if he had hesitated and been caught in no-man’s
    land

    frederic poumerol good save fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot montel villosanges 12 avril 2014 puy de dome ligue division 1 franceAnd in any case, Frederic kept his team well in the game with a spectacular full-length diving save from a free kick halfway through the second half. Any regular keeper would have been proud of that effort
  3. A loose ball in a crowded penalty area. Frederic runs out for it, shouting “leave it” to his defence. Instead, one of his defenders passes it back to him.
    With a defender touching it last, Frederic can’t pick it up and so has to kick. Surrounded by three Chimps, the result is inevitable



vianney brette scores 3rd goal fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot montel villosanges 12 avril 2014 puy de dome ligue division 1 franceSo from 2-1 up, they are now 3-2 down and with just minutes to go. Pionsat win a couple of corners and from one of them, Vianney rises highest and heads onto a post and bounces into the net for the equaliser, past the keeper’s outstretched fingertips.

But a point isn’t enough to keep their slim hopes alive -they need all three and there are just seconds left.


blond frederic scores 4th goal fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot montel villosanges 12 avril 2014 puy de dome ligue division 1 franceAnd then we have a most astonishing thing.

Pionsat win a free kick just inside the Chimps half, right out on the far touchline probably 50 yards from goal. Blond Frederic takes it and swings it high into the penalty area. The ball sails over everyone’s head right into the keeper’s hands … and right through the keeper’s hands into the net.

Stunned silence in the crowd and I’m not sure who was the most surprised – the keeper or blond Frederic. But a goal is a goal is a goal, and Pionsat finally manage to win after several weeks of lack of success.

If only they had done this a few weeks ago.

So this morning, another early start. And I was in Crewe during the night at my old taxi office in Wistaston Road (but a different one at the back of another car sales place). And I was to audition for another rock group and needed some equipment and so went to the music shop just down the road (that isn’t there of course) where I bumped into Zero and her father.

But after breakfast I cracked on with my website work and then at lunchtime went round to Cecile’s to see how things were and to pick up some mail seeing as how her redirection has finished – and taking advantage of her washing machine too.

Then into St Eloy to shop (where I bought some seeds that I needed) and to pay a huge pile of money to someone in a shop there. Yes, I’m going to be having a new toy – more of which anon.

After picking up my washing (and thinking that maybe I ought to mow Cecile’s lawn sometime soon) I came back here – and crashed out for 2 hours. And a deep sleep it was too for just a crash. I was back in Crewe again at a house that bore more than just a mere passing resemblance to the one in Davenport Avenue where I lived with my parents.

And so then the footy. I’ve had a busy day today.

But watch these pages over the course of the next few days.

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Monday 7th April 2014 – I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

strawberry plants raised bed les guis virlet puy de dome franceWell, I suppose that I ought to really. It should be something that I’m used to by now. But do you remember me saying that I replanted 4 strawberry plants the other day? I had a look today and there are now only 3, with a hole in the soil where the 4th one was, as you can see in this photo.

I’ve no idea what happened there. I suppose some local bestiole has taken a fancy to it.

But you can see the soil just there – clay with a barrow-load of sand worked in. That should lighten it considerably.


garlic shallots raised beds potager les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the garlic and shallots though, I don’t know if you can really see them here in this photo but they have mostly done the business.

One or two garlic bulbs seem to have failed but I have some of last year’s crop to plant in there to replace them. And one or two of the shallots needed reseating, but otherwise they are fine. The onions in another bed are pushing up too.

Nothing stirring with the carrots, parsnips and radishes yet. I’m not surprised about the parsnips, but the carrots might have done something by now and I’m bewildered by the radishes. They should be almost ready.

I have a courgette plant about to rear its ugly head out of its pot too. And where there’s one, the others shouldn’t be far behind.

So today after website work I went out and the first thing that I did was to empty out all of the herb beds. I have a row of flower boxes and I use them as herb beds and they were all overgrown.

If anyone wants some mint and thyme cuttings, let me know as I have tons of the stuff here. It really did run wild while I was away last year. Anyway, everything is now rosy in the herb beds and I even had fresh rosemary from my own garden in my onion and mushroom gravy tonight.

For the rest of the day I’ve been sowing seeds in pots. And here’s a list of what’s gone in –

  • Aneth
  • Coriander
  • leeks
  • cucumbers
  • lettuce
  • aubergines
  • basil
  • chives
  • cayenne peppers
  • mixed peppers
  • broccoli

They are all in pots in the little greenhouse thingy that I bought the other week.

I also have some beetroot seeds soaking ready to plant tomorrow, and I’ll also look at the rest of the brassica to see what I have an what I need.

All that needs doing then is to make some more pea and bean frames and then start some of those off, and to sow some more carrots and parsnips.

Mind you, that’s not all that I’ve done. I went to St Eloy at lunchtime and spent a whole shed-load of money, in fact the only time that I’ve ever spent more money than this was in buying Caliburn and buying my various houses and apartments. Yes, there will be a new arrival here shortly, more of which anon.

And I forgot two pieces of news from yesterday. Firstly, the mystery of Matthieu’s appearance on the football pitch Saturday night is now solved. He had no intention whatever of playing, so it seems, but someone couldn’t make it at the last minute so he went out rather than let the teamplay short-handed. If that’s not courage and devotion to duty after all he’s suffered with his injury, I don’t know what is.

And Nane rang me up for a very long chat, in the middle of which she announced that a mutual acquaintance of ours had died on Saturday. It’s never nice to hear of a death, especially of someone that you know, but this friend and I did have some issues between us that have been the subject of a considerable rant from me in the past. Nevertheless I wish her bon voyage to wherever it is that she wishes to go.

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Saturday 5th April 2014 – WELL DONE PIONSAT!

Yes, for once, a competent and workman-like display from Pionsat’s 2nd XI this evening saw them deal effectively with a St Maurice side that, it has to be said, would have been good enough for most teams in Division 4.

The team was reinforced this week by Julien and Gregory, and it was really nice to see Matthieu back on the field after an absence of two years due to injury.

matthieu malnar fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire biollet st maurice division 4 puy de dome league 5 avril 2014 football franceNot playing in goal but in the outfield and though clearly unfit (which is no surprise after what he suffered), he was out there doing his bit.

He scored a screamer of a goal from a free-kick which went through the wall and right through the keeper’s hands, and probably would have gone through the net and the hedge at the back too had it not hit the stanchion in the corner. A superb effort.

gregory richen fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire biollet st maurice division 4 puy de dome league 5 avril 2014 football franceThe other two goals were scored by Gregory who was playing on the left side of the attack – and he had the ball in the net a third time too but was disallowed for a foul on the keeper.

He’s small and quick and holds onto the ball well, and Pionsat’s tactics were to lift the ball over the defence into space down the inside-left channel for him to run on to – and it worked like a charm.

It can also be said that for the first time for years, Pionsat’s defence held up really well. Didier dropping back as an extra full-back whenever Pionsat lost possession, but the highlight has to be Julien, who played in the centre of defence
(he’s a winger for the first team) and didn’t put a foot wrong throughout the match.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire biollet st maurice hit the post division 4 puy de dome league 5 avril 2014 football france
St Maurice hit the bar and the post, and Christophe tipped a shot over the bar, but while they had plenty of possession, it all broke down in the final suarter of the field thanks to Pionsat’s good defending tonight.

So well done them. Let’s hope that they can keep it up.

So what else has happened today?

With no pressure on me to do any gardening or any radio work, I had a quiet morning on the website. And at lunchtime I went to St Eloy to do a little shopping.

But what I encountered there may well mean that I shall set a world-record for a Saturday shopping trip, depending upon the result of a phone call that I will have to make on Monday morning. And if I receive a positive response, you won’t be hearing much from me for a while as I will be recovering from the shock.

I carried on with the website again when I returned, and then seeing as it was warm in the verandah and I had plenty of hot water, I had a shower, a shave and some clean clothes.

I’ll change the bedding over too (I forgot the other day) and have a nice long lie-in tomorrow morning. After my exertions this last few weeks I deserve it.

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Tuesday 1st April 2014 – IT WAS A LITTLE BETTER …

… getting up this morning, which was just as well as I had a lot to do today. So I was sitting eating breakfast before the 08:00 alarm reminder went off. I can’t remember when (or if) that has ever happened before.

And at 08:55 I was at the bank at Pionsat ready to withdraw some cash, only to find that the Credit Agricole plays right along with this Poisson d’Avril lark by having expired my bank card yesterday. And, according to the guy behind the counter who has tken over since Madame de St Rémy retired, “we posted your enw one to you three weeks ago”. So now I’ll have to sift through this enormous mountain of post that accumulated while I was in the Pyrenees.

Off to do this furniture removal and either I’m becoming much less tolerant as I grow older or else people are just losing all sense of proportion and priorities, in that the place wasn’t even packed up – even down to last night’s leftover food still in the saucepan on the cooker.

Everything should have been packed up and the furniture dismantled … "disPERSONtled" – ed … a long while ago and we could then have slung it into the van and cleared off. As it was, we didn’t even have the first load (because we ended up having to do two trips) into Caliburn until long after 11:00.

On the way into Montlucon we had to make a diversion as the mother of the guy who was helping us had had a power failure and Yours Truly was asked to take a look. But I tell you what – I am never going to complain about the standard of my wiring ever again. The fuse box of this house had been assembled on a wooden frame and whoever assembled it had trapped a wire in the framework and then driven a screw right into it, missing the wooden support completely.

So we just dumped the stuff into the garage and went back for the second load, by which time we were having the hottest day of the year so far. There was tons of stuff left over, but none of it packed and so they can pack it themselves and move it in a car.

Then of course we had to take it all upstairs. And by that, I mean three and a half storeys without a lift. And no hot water here – I spent about an hour trying to make the gas water heater work, but with no luck.

We’d done about three quarters of the work but they decided to knock off for lunch (it was about 15:30 by this time) so I left them to it and went to Neris-les-Bains. Yes, an absolutely gorgeous day and so I sat in the park and read a book until 17:00 when the swimming baths opened. First time for ages, and I was feeling all hot and sticky and sweaty.

Feeling much better, I came back here and had a coffee and then crashed out. Finally I managed to make one of my legendary aubergine and kidney bean casseroles, and that will keep mein business for three or four days.

And now that I’m clean, I’m going to have clean bedding tonight. Definitely pushing the boat out here.

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Saturday 22nd March 2014 – YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE IT …

… but I’ve been outside working this morning!

I nearly didn’t though. After a night of driving rain that stopped me sleeping properly, and waking up before the alarm clock because I needed a gypsy’s, I wasn’t in much of a mood for it.

After an early breakfast, I did a couple more hours on the web site but by 11:00 it had stopped raining and there was a little glimmer of light outside. “Now or never!” I reckoned, and went outside.

I planned to be out there for just an hour and so I finished off the raised bed that I had started. I gave it a really good raking and hoeing, and then added a plie of wood ash, a natural source of potash. It had another good hoeing and raking after that, and then I planted the shallots and garlic. And just as I was about to finish the last row of planting, the heavens opened again.

Never mind, I stayed to finish it, even though I was soaked to the skin. And that was when I noticed that it was 13:00 and I’d been out two hours. Still, it’s all finished now and I’m glad that I did it.

I went shopping in St Eloy but there was nothing exciting, and this afternoon I carried on in a desultory fashion with the web pages.

No footy this evening at Pionsat so I went to Marcillat, who were playing in the Cup against St Remy En Rollat, a club from the suburbs of Vichy. St Remy was the better side on the whole but lost 2-1 in something of a controversial match.

But there was no controversy about Marcillat’s first goal. The centre-forward did well to shrug off a couple of hefty challenges that pushed him over to the right of the goal. He managed to squeeze off a shot from about 15 yards that swerved round and behind the keeper at the near post. That cannoned off the inside of an upright and came soaring out of the goal at about head height, right into the path of a Marcillat player running in. No mistake about that one.

The other two goals were from free kicks, both rather dubious in my opinion but in one of them I would have awarded a free kick – but in the opposite direction. Lots of contested decisions in the match, and I do have a little sympathy for the players. But the Marcillat linesman was clearly quite incensed with some of them, and the referee had words with him on several occasions. He was lucky to have stayed on the field in my opinion.

The temperature was plummeting while we were there ad we are going to have a cold night. Only natural, seeing as how I’ve done all of this planting. I’ve had to cover my raised beds with black plastic to keep the frost off.

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Thursday 20th March 2014 – IT WAS 19:20 …

… when I knocked off work today. I know I’m on summer hours but –
1) I was rather carried away
2) it was still light enough to work outside at 19:20 this evening.

Mind you, it was my own fault. I’d crashed out for half an hour this afternoon.

Through the night though, I’d been busy again. I was back at work in Brussels and I can’t remember where I’d been but I returned with a car loaded with all kinds of things. I stopped at the petrol station in the rue de Luxembourg to fuel up when I received a message that I had to go to Luxembourg to pick up a director. And so off I set and arrived at a hotel there and I didn’t know which director I was to pick up and at which hotel he was staying. I hadn’t made enquiries at Brussels because I was so confident that it would be alright on the night.

That sounds about par for the course, doesn’t it?

So after breakfast (and I was up early for a change) I was on the website for a couple of hours. Summer Hours as I said.

I had some jobs to do at Pascal’s apartment this afternoon and so loaded up Caliburn and set off. On the way I called at LIDL as there was something that I wanted in the special offers. Of course it had gone but I still managed to spend €51:50 there. Lots of plants and things were on offer and I needed some seeds.

But we also had a pile of fun there too – a couple of us were watching an old woman trying to reverse her car into a parking space. No other car for miles around but after a while we lost interest and drifted away. She hadn’t managed to park it by then either.

Back here I had lunch eve though it was 16:00 and that was when I crashed out. But by 17:30 I was back outside and now I have a nice bed for the onions tomorrow. But I’m not sure when tomorrow – I have to meet someone else at Cécile’s house.

But I’ll have to get a move on. Incredible though it might seem after a day of 28.2°C, apparently snow is forecast next week. And I’ve just changed Caliburn’s tyres over too.

-6

Wednesday 19th March 2014 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… good day today.

And not only was I awake before the alarm went off, I was up and out of bed like a lark too. Such are the benefits of being in bed before midnight (just for a change).

After a spell with the computer I was off the Cécile’s for this visitor. Cécile had asked someone from an Estate Agency to come round and look at her house and Yours Truky has a set of keys. This visit took ages too – the person was certainly thorough.

Cécile was on the phone this afternoon for a progress report and we had a lengthy chat. Pascal, Marianne’s son, also rang up. He needs some help in his apartment in St Eloy so I won’t be doing much on my house and garden tomorrow.

You’ll notice how I’m including the “garden” in the descriptive too. I did actually manage to have a couple of hours out there late this afternoon. The bed that I was digging over and weeding yesterday – that’s now finished, potash has been added, it’s been hoed and raked over a couple of times, and now the cabbage that I bought at the weekend has been planted there. We’ll see how that lot goes on.

I started a third raised bed too – I’ll be putting the onions in there. And the soil in that one is beautiful, nice, dry and crumbly. It’s a shame that the rest of the soil isn’t like that.

-5

Saturday 15th March 2014 – ONLY THIS MORNING I WAS PONDERING …

… about how I’m going to extract all of this dust and the like from the house as it is getting on my nerves. And I was still pondering when I entered LIDL this afternoon.

500 watt fireplace vacuum cleaner LIDL st eloy les mines puy de dome franceBut not now, anyway. In LIDL today they were selling some 500-watt fireplace cleaners. I had a good look at one and from what I saw, with a few small modifications here and there, it will make quite a useful cylinder vacuum cleaner.

And 500 watts will run fine off my system for 10 minutes here and there, you know. So at just €26:00 it had to be worth a gamble.


Thatwasn’t all the exciting stuff in the shops at St Eloy this afternoon. Carrefour had something of a plant sale. Most of the stuff was rubbish but I managed to make up a tray of lettuce and a tray of green cabbage. I need to put the potager into order and this will hopefully help me make a start. I did nothing last year as you know and baby lettuce plants seem to do fine here.

This morning I dashed off 2500 words for Radio Anglais. It started off on something about the communes of France but it now seems to be something of a geography/history/politics lesson, and there’s plenty more to come as well. A real pot-boiler you might say.

At the football tonight … well … I was going to say that I’m speechless but I’ve seen this happen so many times that I ought to be used to it by now.

Pionsat had only 10 players out there tonight but of those 10, 4 of them were 1st Xi players and another one or two had featured for the 1st XI too.

jerome brunet scores fc pionsat st hilaire st angel puy de dome france
By half-time that had a comfortable 2-0 lead and looked like they were getting ready to run out of sight. I’d lost count of the number of shots on goal that they had had. But then they simply switched off.

St Angel pulled one back out of a defensive error from nothing, something that took me by no surprise at all given the previous 10 minutes, and I had this uneasy feeling running down the back of my spine that I’ve had so many times before.


jerome brunet scores fc pionsat st hilaire st angel puy de dome france
However Jerome, who I haven’t seen for ages at the club, roared back up the field and scored a third goal before anyone had drawn breath so it was ok, I suppose. But then, the whole team went back to sleep.

And in two ridiculous moments of madness the team gave away two of the silliest goals that I have ever seen. I couldn’t believe it, and neither did anyone else.


But if that’s not bad enough, just as the team galvanised itself into action and laid siege to the St Angel goal, the referee blew for full time – by my reckoning a good 10 minutes short. Yes, we kicked off at 20:00 on the dot, played 45 minutes of fist half (plus stoppages), had a 15 minute break at half-time, and then played another 45 minutes (plus stoppages) and I was back in Caliburn at 21:38 on the clock. No, that doesn’t add up at all.

But then it shouldn’t really have mattered. Pionsat should have been down the road and out of sight, having fielded the strongest side that they’ll ever field for a hundred years.

-4

Saturday 8th February 2014 – WITH IT BEING SATURDAY …

… that signifies “shopping”. But first I had to heave myself out of bed, and that wasn’t easy. I heard all of the alarms of course but as I was under no real pressure to leave my stinking pit, it was … errr … some time later that I finally surfaced. Mind you, I had been busy. There was a sale on at IKEA through the night and once I’d managed to explain to the salesman what “memory” was all about, I bought a 4GB I-pod for just €15 in the sale. I wish that I could do that in real life.

First job was to write the script for the next rock music show on “Radio Anglais”, and that didn’t take me too long as I was in a creative mood. And then I went round to Cécile’s. She had asked me to check the post (there wasn’t any) and to check the attic to see if there were any leaks given the miserable weather that we have been having this last three or four weeks (and there was nothing evident). I did however take advantage of Cécile’s washing machine again while I was there.

In St Eloy there was nothing exciting on sale except a hand-powered vegetable dicer. I’ve been looking for one of these for ages and sure enough, LIDL had them in the sale.

Back here, I hung up the washing in the verandah (no point at all in hanging it outside unless I want it to have another rinse) and then I came up here with a coffee and crashed out for a couple of hours. Going to sleep some time after 03:30 and trying to wake up at 07:30 is doing me no good at all.

And no footy tonight, nor tomorrow either. Everything is postponed given the state of the pitches around here. And it’s worse in the Creuse just dosn the road where the entire football programme for the weekend has been cancelled. This weather is beyond a joke.

-4

Tuesday 21st January 2014 – IF I’M NOT INTERRUPTED …

… tomorrow, I might actually finish these shelves.

I didn’t do anything this morning though because I wasn’t here. I had to go to St Eloy to see Marianne’s son Pascal. He’s giving up his little apartment there soon and moving to Montlucon to be nearer work. He’s not much good with a screwdriver and there are a few tasks that need to be done to put the apartment back how it should be. I said that I’d go for a look around and see what needs doing.

I took advantage of my visit to go to LIDL. Their special offer this week is D-i-Y stuff and I needed some screws so I stocked up with them.

After that I went to Cécile’s and the Post Office at Gouttières to negotiate a little about collecting this letter. After a lengthy period there with the guy who runs it, we agreed that Cécile needs to telephone him, and so I duly passed on the message.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, all of the washing (or, at least, all that I remembered to bring back from Cécile’s) is now hung up outside, so nice was the day, and then I attacked the shelving.

All 6 uproghts are now cut and shaped and because the floor is uneven and so they are all different lebgth, I’ve but a bracing bar across the three at the back to hold it all in position.

5 of the uprights are now screwed into position and the horizontal fitted to two pairs. I was trying to work out how to fit the 6th – it’s a little cramped in there and I need the room to pass the shelves through into position.

But having a stop and a think has made me think of a way to do it and so tomorrow I can press on.

Tonight I just lit a small fire and had a tea of pasta, veg, tomato sauce and veggie-burger. And it was the nicest meal that i’ve ever cooked on my little stove. I must be improving.

-3

Saturday 11th January 2014 – I was right …

… about the downstairs room lookng like it did for very long. Four hours down there this morning and it’s all disorganised again.

At least I’ve been finding new stuff, much of which I had forgotten about, and I’ve also binned quite a few items including the European carpet squares mountain that I accumulated. I was going to use those to cover the floor but now as you know, I’m going to be fitting a false suspended wooden floor down there so there’s no need to keep them.

I’ve moved the fridge and the water heater to under the stairs and the insulation that was there is now stacked up against the wall behind the table which is now parallel to the stairs with enough of a gap between to walk down.

Then apart from that, everything else is messed around and needs to be sorted out, and there’s still piles of stuff to
go.

This afternoon I nipped down to Pionsat and the intermarche to pick up a few things that I had forgotten. And while I was checking the BIO shelves I noticed that their products were cheaper than Carrefour in St Eloy. Shame there’s no LIDL in Pionsat otherwise I’d shop there.

After lunch I finished off the outstanding radio programme for Radio Anglais and that’s up to date now. But there’s some good stuff in a little magazine that I’ve been sent so I’m okay for the next few weeks after.

Tonight I had a fire going – the first since Sunday – because it was a little chilly and I wanted to cook tea. Now I’m sitting in my shirt sleeves with the windows open. Not a very clever idea gicen the heat that my stove gives out.

-3