Tag Archives: http://www.lesguis.com

Wednesday 12th September 2012 – I HAVEN’T BEEN …

… on my website for the last couple of days. The footy has now started as you know and so I’ve been redesigning the footy website and doing the pages for the first two matches.

Those pages are now on line so that’s something accomplished.

This afternoon, in between the rain showers, I’ve been driving myself up the wall again.

I’ve got down to the bottom on part of the wall at long last and I need to reach the bottom on the other bit that I’m working on. And it does look much better without the scaffolding in the way, doesn’t it?

That should be lunchtime or thereabouts tomorrow if I put my mind to it, extricate my digit and have a good start. Then I can start on the other half of the wall.

But anyway, banging a few of these oversize stones in really tight seems to have helped the wall settle, although of course the proof of the pudding …

In other news, never mind the temperature, I have all of the windows closed tight and I’m wearing a sweater. The temperature has collapsed and winter is on its way.

Tomorrow I’ll have to start wearing clothes underneath my overalls and won’t that be a novelty?

-2

Wednesday 29th August 2012 – WE HAD OUR FIRST …

… no-show today.

Marianne and I went all the way out to Vergheas this afternoon for our Wednesday walk. Unfortunately no punters showed up, which was rather sad.

Mind you, it was only to be expected, I suppose. There had been the walk here a few weeks ago – the good one that I had been on, and then there was the pélerinage to the statue of the Black Virgin 10 days ago.

I suppose that everyone is simply Vergheased out.

Mind you it was just as well that no-one came because the sky was clouding over rapidly. We didn’t want to hang around too long. But long enough for one thing that I had wanted to do.

Vergheas is an old (and I DO mean old) fortified site – the mound upon which the church is built looks artificial to me, and that’s a good-enough indication.

What I had wanted to do was to see if there might be any trace of the old walls still remaining. When we had been here before, I’d had a good prowl around and had made a mental note of a couple of places that might be likely.

There was another flattened terrace on a lower level than that upon which the church is situated. This looked artificial to me.

The edges of this terrace were quite steep and in one or two places sloped down considerably towards the stream at the bottom. And sure enough, the side of that was lined with dressed stonework.

On the way back to Pionsat the heavens opened and we had 6mm of rain that fell in minutes. I can’t say that I’m sad about that, because we needed a good torrential downpour.

I was going to carry on working when I arrived home but I went upstairs and crashed out instead. I’d had a long, hard day.

This morning I was up early and met Rosemary at Montaigut en Combraille. She hopped into Caliburn and we went in to Montlucon. She ordered her new window at Lapeyre and I bought a load of stuff from Brico Depot.

I was back home for 13:15 – plenty of time to put the final coat of paint on the new woodwork ready to fit it tomorrow.

And in other news, and a bit of malicious gossip, if the conversation that was reported to me today means what a couple of people think that it might mean, no-one will be surprised if there’s a tiny addition to our little expat community’s population round about the start of the New Year.

-3

Wednesday 8th August 2012 – I HOPE THAT YOU ALL …

… liked the photos of the wall as it stands right now – the ones that I went back and posted for yesterday.

Anyway, here’s another photo for today, especially for Marianne in Brussels who has passed comment to the effect that I seem to spend most of my time in rural France photographing churches.

This one is the church of La Cellette, for La Cellette is the destination of this week’s Wednesday walk around the communes of the Canton of Pionsat with our friend Marianne.

And didn’t we have a nice day for it too?

This is actually the third church to have been built in La Cellette and dates from 1883.

The previous one was far too small apparently, and because of its constrained situation and site, (and on our travels around, we’ve seen quite a few churches in the Auvergne that have been in constrained situations and sites) it was not possible to enlarge or alter it.

Consequently it was demolished.

The claim to fame of the village lies actually a kilometre or so outside, down a dirt track.

And this is the viaduct of the Paris-Orleans railway on its branch Montlucon-Pionsat-Gouttières.

I’ve talked … "at great length" – ed … about this railway line in the past – how it was designated as “a line of national importance” long before the turn of the 20th Century.

But it was dogged by delay after delay, construction held up by World War I, and when it was finally, after many vicissitudes, opened in 1932 its utility had passed with the collapse of the coal-mining projects in the Gouttieres region.

It was closed “as a war economy measure” in 1939 after just 7 years of operation and the section south of Pionsat was never reopened.

There are still a few traces of the former track if you hunt around long enough to find them though.

At what was once a level crossing for a country lane, there are still the railway sleepers embedded on the roadway. This actually is a good indication of how much maintenance has been undertaken on the lane since the closure of the line.

While you admire yet more railway sleepers, propped up against the viaduct where they have stood for probably 50 years or more ,let me tell you about the biggest irony of all.

And that is the fact that that the Paris-Orleans Railway Company, which built the railway line, was GIVEN the land free of charge by the commune, but under certain conditions.

The stipulation was that the railway company had to build a railway station for the village – it had been dithering about whether it would or not and the gift of the land was meant to sway the decision.

And so the railway company took the land, built the line – and then dropped all plans for the station, which was never built.

But the viaduct still remains, and it’s well-worth the effort to clamber up to the top because the view to the north is stunning

In the foreground we have the village of La Cellette and poking out above the trees to the right of centre is the spire of the church that we have just visited.

Away in centre-left is the spire of the church of the town of Pionsat, and disappearing into ths simmering heat-haze are the rolling hills that lead on up to Marcillat-en-Combraille

There were only a few of us today, which was a pity, but we had a lovely time wandering around the countryside, and then we all repaired to the village café – one of the only two village cafés still surviving in the whole of the Pionsat canton – for a nice cold drink.

And this is where the excitement begins.

A woman who lives in an old house in the village is in charge of the church and we went to thank her for opening it for us. I know her husband – he’s something to do with the FC Pionsat St Hilaire football club – and so we all ended up having quite a lengthy chat.

Now I mentioned earlier that the present church is the third, and I told you a little about the second. And so what about the first one?

We know that it existed because it’s mentioned in a Papal Bull of 1118, being described as a tiny chapel. While its location is the subject of … errr … much debate, one particular theory has been adopted by those who might know a thing or two about it.

Accordingly, Marianne has been trying to visit the cellar of this particular house for half a century.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … the owner of this house, by now in an expansive mood, gave us a guided tour of the cellar on condition that we don’t photograph it and we don’t describe its location.

So there we were – perfect primitive vaulted ceiling, pre-medieval beaten earth floor, a bricked-up external door that wasn’t much more than 5 feet tall.

Marianne was in heaven of course, and I was well-impressed. We had probably at least 1200 years at least underneath our feet.

It really was the climax of an excellent day.

-1

Wednesday 1st AUGUST 2012 – I’VE BROKEN …

… through the wall between the house and the lean-to.

It’s not properly through, yet and to be honest I don’t think that it will ever be, because one of the down-sides drilling from both sides of the wall is that the two holes never mate up and mine is about 5mm out.

This morning I was working on the website but for one reason or another I couldn’t concentrate. Add to that the fact that we had so much solar energy this morning, and so I decided to go out and run the huge drill for half an hour or so

That used up some of the surplus electrical energy while I was doing it (only 82 amps made it into the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus energy I capture) and it broke through.

I need to tidy the hole up now, which will take a while, run a tube through the hole, and pass 6 wires through the tube – 230 volt mains, 12 volt DC power and 12-volt DC light, and then the world will be my lobster in the lean-to.

One of the benefits of having power in the lean-to is that I can tile the floor, make a kind-of work area and then install the big washing machine.

I’d love to see how that works and how much current that it uses, bearing in mind that I’ll be running it off the hot-fill from the dump-load with the machine on a low temperature setting and on the economy wash low-water programme.

Talking of the lean-to, I spend a few hours on the wall too and it seems that I’m advancing rapidly.

While I was scavenging around for stones in the house, I came across a pile of smashed-up lightweight brick, plaster and the like from when I knocked a wall down and so I’m shovelling that up and using it as infill.

Apart from the fact that it is of course quite light, it’s slowly emptying the house and that can only be a good thing, killing two birds with one stone.

For our Wednesday walk this afternoon, we went to Roche d’Agoux, a small village right out in the wilderness on the edge of the world.

Roche d’Agoux has a couple of claims to fame, not the least of which is this really impressive outcrop of milky quartzite. There’s a whole seam of this stuff that runs diagonally through the whole of the north-west of the Combrailles, making the odd spectacular appearance here and there, and spectacular is certainly the word.

The photo of the Roche is quite well-known – it’s a typical touristy thing of course – but what isn’t so well-known is the quartz. And so I’ll show you a close-up photo of that, and you can see what I mean by “milky quartz”.

Incidentally, it’s from this rocky outcrop where the Roche in the name comes from and it is, incidentally the same root for the word that is used for the area of the Staffordshire Moorlands in the UK the Roaches – that place where the wallabies hang out

When you look around here today at the sleepy little village of … errr … 91 people (a far cry from the heady days of the 1840s when 450 people were living here) it’s hard to remember that at one time, this was quite probably the most important town of the region.

You look at towns like Marcillat en Combraille, for example. A big, bustling village today yet it didn’t receive its charter for a market until 1258 – and that charter was granted by none other than a certain nobleman called Guillaume de la Roche d’Agoux.

He was certainly the most important nobleman in the area at the time and he did have his castle here in Roche d’Agoux.

Many people will tell you that the Roche d’Agoux is actually the ruins of his castle, or chateau-fort, but that isn’t so.

That was something that was mentioned in a guide book of the region of the 1880s and which has lingered on in current folklore.

In fact, that’s the site of his castle over there on that mound. However, it was dismantled in the early 15th Century and that date is interesting.

It’s quite early for this to have happened – long before Cardinal Richelieu’s edicts of the 1620s against the nobility that led to the dismantling of most of the castles in this area – and nothing has come to light which might suggest a reason for this.

However, certainly a few years ago there were some quite substantial remains to be seen, but no-one knows the present position today, because the current owner does not welcome visitors.

I spoke … "at great length" – ed … last time that we were here about the magnificent church.

Like every church almost everywhere in Medieval Europe, the rapid expansion of the population in that period led to the rapid expansion of the church, and having a crafty nose around, I came across some really good evidence of this.

Up there we can see the remains of a window that has long-since been filled it. It’s very reasonable to assume that this wall was thus an outside wall of the building and the light was lost when the annexe was built on behind it

So I dropped Marianne off at Pionsat and went back home to carry on working for a while.

No point in wasting the day.

-2

Monday 30th JUly 2012 – YOU CAN TELL …

… what kind of day I was having today. When I looked at the clock after heaving a bucket-load of concrete into the lean-to wall, I noticed that it was 19:24 – 24 minutes after knocking-off time.

But at least, the one part of the wall, outer shell, inner shell and infill, is now complete. That’s the part from the field-end up to the window aperture. I can now turn my attention to the next bit.

But not tomorrow – I’m fixing Liz’s car. and not Wednesday either – I’m walking with Marianne on another one of our Wednesday walks.

In fact, Marianne and I were out walking this afternoon for a couple of hours. In a few weeks time she’ll be doing a walk around the village of Vergheas and she needs to plan for it.

It just so happened that this afternoon someone from the regional tourist office was giving a talk in the church to another group of people about the history of the village. Marianne accordingly blagged a couple of invitations, I went down to Pionsat to pick her up and off we went.

It was quite interesting too, for Vergheas is a very important place for such a small village, with something of a history.

It’s right on the border between the Limousin and the Auvergne and during the 17th Century many of the locals made their living by smuggling salt. The salt tax, or gabelle – was at a different rate in different areas and while Vergheas was a cheap area, the Limousin just down the road was one of the most expensive areas.

Buying salt outside your home area was not allowed, but the inhabitants of the Limousin came to Vergheas by their hundreds, with just 6 tax collectors to stop them.

But if Vergheas is famous for anything, it’s famous for its statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. This was brought back here by some Crusaders after the 4th Crusade and may well have been loot gained in the Sack of Zara (modern-day Zadar) in 1202 or even the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.

The Crusaders donated it to the Church and here it sits, attracting pilgrims from all over the place and it is said that various miracles have been performed here.

The biggest miracle of all, though, is what happened to the statue in 2001. Nothing can surpass this.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have mentioned on several occasions that the Religious Authorities every now and again take an inventory of the relics and possessions of the churches.

In 1973 there was an inventory taken of the treasures of the church here, and as soon as this was published, the church was raided by burglars and the statue was amongst the items stolen.

And that was the last that anyone heard of the statue until the astonishing events of 2001.

In 1997 an antique collector from Le Mans died and his executors spent the next few years hawking his collection around the antique shops of Paris in order to obtain the best price.

They called at one antique shop in 2001 to offer the articles for sale, just as the owner was reading a 1943 book that showed a photo of the statue.

And, by pure coincidence, at the same time on his desk was a newspaper article with a photo of the statue. It was the anniversary of the theft of the statue and the local residents using the medium of the Press to plead that someone might have a pang of conscience and return it.

Truth being stranger than fiction, the shop owner recognised the statue straight away, bought the collection and promptly returned the statue to the village.

From the church we then went for a tramp in the woods. Unfortunately he got away and so we went for a ramble to the edge of the village and the fontaine – the spring from where the locals formerly obtained their water.

Pretty similar to the one that we visited last week in St Maigner but, as far as I am aware, no miracle has ever been acclaimed for this fontaine

I suppose that one miraculous event is enough

And I was told that I am apparently persona non grata with a couple of English people in Chateau sur Cher.

At the petanque yesterday, one of them went to pay his entrance money with a €50 note. Me being me, I turned to Marianne and said “I know these people. Make sure that that note is dry!”.

Apparently my comment was not appreciated.

Ahh well – ask me if I care. I hate people who don’t have a sense of humour.

And while we are on the subject of the petanque, I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw the doppelganger of a very dear departed friend. That quite knocked me back a little.

Apart from all of that, I’ve had the usual few hours on the website this morning.

This afternoon though, I managed to find an hour or so and I’ve planted some more carrots, spinach, radishes and some lettuce that I had setting in a few pots.

I’ve also noticed that a few of the lettuce seed that was out-of-date and so which I threw away on the garden a few weeks ago, some of that is sprouting.

Fancy that!

Sunday 22nd July 2012 – IT’S NOT EVERY …

… day that I’m up and about at 08:30 and having breakfast.

For it to happen on a Sunday, when I don’t have an alarm clock set, is really quite extraordinary.

Mind you, it’s just as well because between then and 10:00 I had three telephone calls

Radio Tartasse telling me that the Monday morning session is cancelled
Marianne reminding me about our morning at St Hilaire
Rosemary who wanted to talk about cheese

Just imagine me being polite on the telephone early on a Sunday morning! But then they were all important, especially the one about cheese!

Marianne is doing this Sunday “tour of the communes” of the Canton of Pionsat thing this summer, and I’ve been tagging along as technician and general labourer. Marianne isn’t as young as she used to be – which goes for all of us.

Today was the turn of the commune of St Hilaire to be honoured by our presence.

But we weren’t actually “in” the commune (although we were, if you understand what I mean”. We were out in one of the Lieux Dits – the hamlets associated with the Bourg – the Lieu Dits of Baudry

Here at Baudry is the “Domain de Baudry”. It’s a pisciculture or fish farm where they rear trout and carp for sale or for release into the river system.

It’s very popular with fishermen of course, and everyone can try his hand at it, whether you are an experienced fisherman or a rank beginner. Even the equipment is available to hire.

And it’s not as if you are going to have much difficulty in finding a fish, is it?

The place was absolutely heaving today, and I hoped that they had all come for our exposition and not just for the fishing.

There were loads of people whom I knew too, including Anne and Mike and daughter Misha from up the road in St Fargeol. Misha had tried her hand at fishing and I had spent much of the morning watching her on her maiden fishing expedition.

And to everyone’s surprise and delight, she actually caught five fish! Well, well done Misha! I hope that mum prepared the chips for tea.

Musical entertainment was provided by the fanfare de Pionsat – the Pionsat jazz band.

We have encountered them before and I remember saying at the time that they are more noted for their enthusiasm than their technical abiity. And that still holds true today.

However, as I said when watching the rock band at St Gervais d’Auvergne last month, the comments of Samuel Johnson are relevant – “It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all”.

This isn’t a big city where you can choose from 200 musicians. You have to take people as you find them. They do their best, we are all grateful for the effort that they make and we all have fun.

What more can anyone expect?

After dropping off Marianne back at Pionsat I had a couple of hours off in the afternoon (well, it IS Sunday) and then went round to Liz and Terry’s to go over our radio programmes.

Mushroom risotto was on the menu too – a huge improvement on the last mushroom risotto that I had, the famous one at Hardon House in Newport Pagnell, that looked as if someone had eaten it before I had.

Ginger cake for pudding too! That really made for an excellent Sunday.

-6

Wednesday 4th July 2012 – This was another day …

… where I didn’t really do all that much. An early start, though, and plenty of time on the computer even though I wasn’t feeling myself … “quite right too – disgusting habit” – ed … but at 12:00 Terry came round for a chat – he’d been working at Lieneke’s this morning.

One thing that we did was to look at that hole that I’ve been trying to drill for about 6 months. We came to the conclusion that I had grounded out on of all things a piece of granite which had somehow contrived itself to be in the wall. You wouldn’t believe that! Anyway, we took a gamble and hammered away at it for an age with a SDS drill and we managed eventually to shatter it. Drilling became a lot easier after that.

However I didn’t manage to do any more because Lieneke came round for a chat and it’s always nice to see her. She’s staying for 3 weeks, she says, and that’s good news.

After this I went to Marianne’s to erect one of these IKEA-type wardrobes for her. She’d been struggling for a while to do it but the Ryobi drill and the IKEA drill-bit soon solved that problem.

Once we had organised that, we went off to St Maurice for her walk. We had 5 clients and we spent most of the time in the church there.

It’s really interesting as churches go because the original part is a tiny 12th-Century church that has been considerably expanded over the years in several different architectural periods, as you can tell.

And yet the original bit, now largely abandoned, is still pretty much intact and original although it does have I suppose what in a theatre would be the circle – an upper floor balcony-type seating arangement dating from the 16th Century as a first attempt to increase the capacity.

I’m not quite sure that I’d want to go and sit up there, close as I might be to my maker. It’s not the soudest structure that I’ve ever seen.

Astonishingly, when an architectural survey of the church was undertaken by the bishop in 1842 he called it “worthless” and recommended its demolition. The congregation did move out into a temporary place of worship.

However that place deteriorated even quicker than the church did and so when that was condemmed they moved back into the church and instead of demolishing it, they planned its enlargement.

It just goes to show that Bishops and all these kinds of people can’t recognise a religious treasure when they see one, as I have said on a previous occasion. It really is a magnificent church and to think that the bishop wanted to demolish it.

Some people have no taste.

-2

Thursday 28th June 2012 – ONE OF THE REASONS …

… and there are many of them, to be sure, as to why I keep a blog is that I can refer back to it and find out when I did something.

I forget all too easily these days what I’ve been up to and when I was up to it – and just remember, before you start laughing, that you will be as old as me too one of these days too.

So I looked back and found that it was exactly a week ago today that I planted the courgette, cucumber, gherkin etc seeds, and sowed some lettuce seed in pots.

And while I was sorting out the herb buckets (those nice heaps of oregano and tarragon have gone – cut down now and hanging up to dry in my attic) I happened to notice that the lettuce were growing.

Blimey! That was quick!

So they had a really good watering, and they need it too in this heat.

And so, out of curiosity, I went to look at the beds where I had planted the courgette etc seeds.

And guess what?

Absolutely! They are rearing their pretty little heads too.

There’s even some beetroot from what I planted a week earlier, but the carrots are once again doing nothing at all.

Anyway, it seems to be all go in the garden again.

I didn’t manage an early start today, unfortunately. It was so hot that at 03:00 I was still up and about and I would probably still be flat out on my back right now if a hornet hadn’t come in at about 08:45 and chased me around the bedroom.

Still, makes a change from Percy Penguin, who doesn’t feature in these pages half as much as she deserves, chasing me around the bedroom.

This afternoon I started to draw up the plans for the next stage of construction work, and began to make a list of the bits that I need. Right on cue, Rosemary rang me up and asked if I would be interested in going to the Brico Depot in Montlucon.

Seeing as how it won’t be very easy getting all of this wood onto Caliburn’s roof rack all on my own, and it’s no skin off my nose whether I go tomorrow or Saturday.

And when I heard that half a day’s gardening was the reward on offer, then that was it, mercenary that I am. It’s a good job I emptied out Caliburn yesterday, wasn’t it?

In between the surveying I dragged out the tabletop washing machine and did a load of washing seeing as I had a pile to do, it was gorgeous and warm, and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus solar energy was at 60.5°C.

To finish off the day I treated myself to yet another solar shower seeing the temperature of the water in the black plastic solar hearing box had reached 41.5°C. And that was gorgeous too

It’s all go here right now, isn’t it?

-3

Wednesday 27th June 2012 – 28 DEGREES CELSIUS …

… it was this evening at 19:15. So you can see what the weather has been like all day.

After having several days of mediocre weather, cool, wet and windy, too. So you can tell that there was something afoot.

As indeed there was. We had another one of our walks. Bound to be a heatwave (or a torrential downpour) today.

You may remember from a couple of weeks ago that Marianne and I went off to do a recce of Chateau-sur-Cher. In her capacity as approved tourist guide for the area she is doing a programme of walks around rhe various villages.

It’s the kind of thing that interests me deeply as you know, so I’ve gone along as Minder. And here we are today in Chateau-sur-Cher

I have said, on many occasions and at great length too, that here in rural France, the situation of many old churches gives reason to believe that they are sited on old historic fortress sites.

The mounds and the sometimes stunning defensive positions of the buildings underlines this – for example, look at the view that you have from the site where the church at Chateau-sur-Cher is situated.

Any nobleman bent on maintaining his power in the region (and many were as bent as they come) would have had a fortress up here in a flash as soon as he were to see the excellent position

Anything passing on the road down there would be under his immediate surveillance and he would soon pounce in a twinkling of an eye to launch an attack or to exact a toll.

The valley in the middle is the River Cher, to the left is the département of the Creuse and to the right is the département of the Allier. We ourselves ae in the département of the Puy-de-Dôme.

In the days before the unification of France, these were all independent Provinces and with the only bridge over the River Cher for miles being situated just down there at the foot of the hill, he would be in a magnificent position to control the trade, and his fortress would have been pretty-much impregnible to a surprise attack from another province

How this would have all come to pass would have been that the nobleman back in the days prior to the arrival of the Romans would have stuck his oppidum up here straight away.

Christianity slowly came to the area and when it took hold, he would have himself been amongst the first to be converted, and he would have provided a little place somewhere in his oppidum for worship to be held.

During the passage of time as the region settled into more peaceful ways (remember we are long before the period of the 100 Years War which devastated this region) the need for a fort grew less and the population expanded.

Hence the need for a bigger church, and much less need for a fort. And in the end, the fort would fall into decay.

And that’s exactly what has happened here in Chateau-sur-Cher because during some archaeological excavations in the past, they did actually find some evidence to suggest this was indeed a fortified oppidum occupied by the Gauls.

But the key to the village was the fort. And why the fort was there was because of the key position that the promontory held – over looking the only practical crossing of the River Cher for many miles either upstream or downstream.

A packhorse train of goods or a herd of cattle crossing over the bridge from the Creuse into the Allier or the Puy-de-Dôme and our noble could swoop on it like a hawk and exact an appropriate amount of tribute.

That estaminet there would have been an exciting lively place 150 years ago in the days of pack horses, drovers and horse-drawn waggons, everyone stopping for refreshment after a long arduous travel through the mountains

Today though, the estaminet is long-since closed and the village is pretty-much abandoned. From a heyday of well-over 700 people living here 150 years ago, the number of inhabitants now totals a miserable 78.

The sites of many abandoned buildings that have crumbled away into nothing are quite evident, and many other buildings are lying abandoned, likewise to suffer a similar fate.

The exodus to the urban regions of France from little communities like this is tragic. As you know, on my own property I have the remains of half a dozen houses.

We ended up going for a walk along the bank of the river heading northwards, because there was something important to see here, at least from my point of view.

There’s a mill – the Moulin de Chambon – down here and although it’s long-since ceased to function and its machinery is all dismantled today, it’s nevertheless quite an interesting place to be

Interesting for several reasons too.

the water arrives via a system of weirs and locks, rather than the more usual millrace.
it’s a hybrid mill, in that the water powers a system of pulleys and that other machinery – not just a corn-grinding wheel – was operated here. There was even talk of a sawmill in one of the sheds.
it’s an undershot wheel ie where the water passes underneath, not an overshot wheel where the water passes over the top

. It’s such a shame that I couldn’t have a better view of it.

It was a shame that there were so few of us out for our walk today. It was a really beautiful afternoon and this was, from my own point of view, probably the most interesting walk that we have undertaken since we started doing them.

We were ready for a drink after all of this and so Marianne and I headed back to Pionsat and refreshment. Nothing of course available here.

And this was when I noticed the temperature.

I nipped back home quickly where the water in the solar shower was still 36°C, and had a nice warm shower. I needed it too.

This evening, while watching one of the most boring football matches that I have ever seen, I sorted out a pile of paperwork. That’s not like me. I must be feeling the heat.

You’re probably thinking “what an exciting day” but I’ve not told you the half of it yet.

This morning I was up and about long before the alarm went off. Before 08:00 in fact, and that’s not something that happens every day.

I worked for a few hours on my web pages and then went outside for some more tidying up and throwing of stuff down at the dechetterie. That’s all gone now and I can move about comfortably in the barn where the Ebro is.

And it’s been a few years since I’ve been able to do that.

>Tomorrow I need to measure up for the stuff that I need for the next stage of renovations, and to do some washing if the weather stays fine.

I’m also planning some more shelves in the barn now that I have the space to stick them up.

Watch this space.

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Tuesday 26th June 2012 – THIS PHOTO …

… probably won’t be all that significant to most of you but it certainly will be to Liz and Rosemary because they have seen the front of the house since I came back.

You have seen it too, in a general sort of way, and you would have seen how you couldn’t move out there, the weeds having grown so tall and so thick.

But anyway, there you are. I finished the weeding in front of the house this evening and I can actually see the pathway that I laid out all those years ago.

You can see the table and chair too, on the terrace thingy made of old pallets with an old tarpaulin underneath it. And wasn’t it lovely sitting on there to eat my butty at lunchtime, and even to eat my potato and lentil curry tonight?

All of the weeds, by the way, were pulled up by hand. Huge handfuls of the stuff. That was the hard bit

And can you see the herbs in their pots in front of the verandah? They really are going berserk and if I can have three or four days of dry weather I’ll cut them back and bring them up here to dry like I did last time.

That’s not all I’ve done either. I weeded the path that led down to the greenhouse and I’ve also weeded in front of the barn by the entrance to where the Ebro is stored.

I can now open and close the garage door.

As well as that, I’ve filled a few more bags of rubbish ready to go to the dechetterie at Pionsat tomorrow and while doing that I found the vertical-axis wind turbine that I bought a year ago and promptly forgot all about.

It’s currently stuck on the roof of Caliburn, held on by its magnetic mounting, but I will have to think of a more permanent way to attach it.

But it’s lovely being able to walk around in the garage part of the barn now, and I’ve not finished in there yet either. I’ve not found a roll of wire netting though, and I know that there’s one in there somewhere that I bought on my travels.

This morning I was up and about before the alarm and I spent 4 hours on the computer. I’m cracking on with these web pages but I’m only a couple of days from Québec and that’s something that will slow me down a little.

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Thursday 7th June 2012 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

… that we discussed weedkiller the other day.

Joy suggested a 50-50 mix of vinegar and water and so I tried it. And you can see the result.

A pile of burnt and scorched grass. And so there’s clearly some mileage in that idea,

Thanks, Joy, but I shudder to think about how much vinegar I’m going to need.

This morning it was work as usual on the website but I didn’t get much done due to a couple of lengthy and complicated phone calls that led to a lengthy form-filling session.

All of that made me late for my trip with Marianne and while Liz was wishing me all the best for the afternoon and me saying something like “knowing my luck it will pour down with rain” we suddenly had the most terrific thunderstorm and cloudburst.

Right on cue, you might say.

And so I picked up Marianne and off we went for a good wander around Chateau-sur-Cher.

The village is so named because the remains of a Gallo-Roman fort were discovered on the promontory overlooking the River Cher, on the spot where the church sits today.

It’s certainly an impressive site for a defensive fortification – surrounded on three sides by a very steep climb and I can understand why the Gauls would have chosen it

not only were there some interesting sights to see around the village and around the river, but that we were also directed to an intact chalk-oven and to an outcrop of a coal seam somewhere out off the beaten track on the way back to St Hilaire-près-Pionsat.

The chalk oven took some finding and that’s hardly a surprise. You can see that the chimney is all overgrown with all kinds of everything and you really did have to know where it was before you could see it properly

But it was totally fascinating, as a good exploration confirmed once I’d been able to hack my way through the vegetation into it.

It seems to have been built from a kit or something like that, because the fire bars are noted with Roman numerals – presumably indicating the position and order in which they should be assembled.

I’ve never seen that before.

Apparently the coal seam that we visited 2 years ago and about which I posted on here breaks out in a few other places in the Combrailles.

We had a good scratch around in the vicinity and, sure enough, we found some evidence. Not worth coming here with a mechanical shovel though – the Highways Department’s sign erectors would have been here a long time ago had it been worth the effort.

There are even some mining remains where someone had a go at trying to exploit it, but they are all overgrown apparently (as if the chimney was not) and so we need to wait for winter to hunt for those.

Highlight, for me at least, has to be this beast sitting here abandoned inthe garden of an abandoned cottage in the village.

It’s a Cadillac DeVille, one of the “fourth generation” models from the early 1970s I reckon, and what is significant about it is that according to the maker’s plate under the bonnet it’s actually a “Bienne” – a Swiss model made in that town where general Motors had an assembly plant for 40 years until 1975.

But scrambling over vehicles like this brought back some very happy memories. How poor Nerina must have suffered.

Meanwhile, in other news, I’ve run out of black ink for the printer. I’ll have to see if Terry can order some more for me.

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Wednesday 7th March 2012 – I’VE BEEN CRACKING …

… on in the garden today.

I’ve finally dug out where the new bed is to go, so that’s all prepared.

But in a slight change of plan I decided that the old raised bed was too badly knocked about and damaged to be reused and seeing as I have plenty of wood, I threw my bonnet over the windmill and knocked myself up another.

It’s slightly larger than the other and it fits so much better into the scheme of things as you can see.

I then had a pleasant hour or so weeding some of the pathways.

Now that I’ve found the stuff that I was going to use as a weed blanket (as I knew that I would as soon as I no longer needed it) I’m going to lay it on the pathways, cover it in the sand and mud mortar that I raked out of the house wall, and then top it off with the broken slates from the house roof.

For the rest of the afternoon I did some weeding of the raised beds – starting with the two that had the main crop potatoes. Unfortunately the bad weather has done for most of those and there aren’t very many worth salvaging.

But never mind. I did notice that the garlic is looking quite healthy though and it won’t be much longer before I can pull that up.

This morning though I spent my computer hours working on some of the footy pages. I’ve been letting them slip just now so I need to get myself up to date.

I won’t be doing that tomorrow though – I’m expecting visitors so I need to tidy up a little.

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Monday 26th December 2011 – BOXING DAY …

… and despite, for me, it being a traditional Day of Rest, no such luck unfortunately. I have plenty of work to do.

I’m not sure if you know why I’m here, but basically my friend Marianne has written a book. It’s called Les Secrets du Moine, a mystery thriller involving buried treasure and an Abbey.

It’s written in French of course, and she would like it translated. But it isn’t easy because there’s such a lot in there that can’t be translated literally or it will lose the sense. And there are all kinds of stuff in there that needs a lot of careful thought.

When I had been here in July Marianne had given me a copy to read on the ‘plane over to Canada. And on my return she asked me what I had thought of it.

I told her that I enjoyed it tremendously (which is true) and so she asked me if I would like to translate it.

And so I had done some research on what it was that I was expected to know, and here I am – ready to set to work.

And this will be my task for the next week or so – to thrash out a whole plan with Marianne and to discuss the technical issues involving the plot of the book (I don’t pretend to understand it all).

So I’d better stop blogging and get working, hadn’t I?

Thursday 15th December 2011 – A WISE DECISION …

… staying here.

Not the least of reasons being that I’m warm and comfortable and at a reasonable price too.

It means that I can load up Caliburn a lot earlier than I would otherwise have done. And so I’m not rushing around panicking at the last moment like I always seem to do.

Having picked up the scaffolding yesterday I can run off to Manchester today, do a trip around Trafford Park for Screwfix and Toolstation for more stuff. Including a 35-litre plastic water tank.

As you might remember, the metal drum for my home-made immersion heater melted through while I was in Canada in the autumn. I’ve decided to build the next one with a plastic container. This is a cold-water container, it’s true, but I’m hoping that it will withstand a regular 60-70°C heat without too many problems.

I’d love to find a copper container somewhere, but I’m not sure how I’m going to do that. Eventually though, I’ll be lucky enough to find a good 50-litre copper immersion heater, and I can then make a new mounting plate for the element.

Later on, I went round to rescue Percy Penguin from work, and enticed her back to my lair to see where I was staying. She doesn’t live too far away from here. I had thought about taking her out for a meal, but when I asked her if she fancied some coq au vin, she got into the back of Caliburn.

But tomorrow I’m back on the road. I’ve a long way to travel and a lot of things to do.

Saturday 10th December 2011 – SINCE WHEN …

… has one day’s blog started with a full account of what happened the next morning?

It’s not a very usual occurrence, I know, but it does happen to me now and again – usually because I don’t keep “normal” hours like everyone else. Years of working nights driving taxis and coaches means that I’m more “nocturnal” than “diurnal”.

My days usually finish when I go to bed, no matter what time that might be. And when there have been days when I haven’t gone to bed at all – which also happens very occasionally, I find a convenient break-point.

And so I hit the road tomorrow at 00:30 with still a long way to go before the day is ended.

Today though, I had a very desultory, leisurely day. Taking it easy due to the long night which I knew that I was going to have.

And my heart wasn’t really in the packing and I didn’t really do as much as I should. As a result, I set off on probably the most ill-prepared voyage that I have ever made. And I have made a few of those in my life as well, as you can probably imagine.

The road to Le Havre took me on a merry, mazy way via Bourges, Orleans and Chartres.

Parts of the road were really quick and I was able to make quite good time, whereas others were … err … not so quick, especially when it came to navigating my way through the cities with the endless strings of traffic lights.

Finally I found a service area about 20 or so miles beyond Chartres and that’s where I went to sleep.

And it was freezing as well – frost and ice everywhere – but I’m not that easily defeated.

A few years ago I stripped an old Volvo saloon and that had heated seat pads in it. And so I wired one of them up to one of these 12-volt powerpacks, and you’ve no idea how warm my feet were in bed.

That is – until the powerpack’s battery went flat.

EPIC HALL

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