Tag Archives: eric hall

Saturday 5th November 2011 – ONE THING …

… that I will never understand is how tonight Pionsat’s 2nd XI, with a full complement of players, a decent goalkeeper and several players back in the side who have been missing for ages, can totally outplay an opposition so convincingly and STILL lose 4-3.

It simply beggars belief and those who were watching it will still be pinching themselves tomorrow about this. It seems like as if the football team has been and gorn and done it again and it’s driving me to despair.

Mind you, what also had many spectators scratching their heads was why one of the left-backs and who had played sweeper so successfully for the 2nd XI the last time he played, was playing as an attacking midfielder.

And why a guy who had played in central defence for the 1st XI so successfully (to such an extent that he won my “man of the match” awards the other week) was playing in midfield, and why one of the usual centre-forwards was playing at centre-half.

And why this formation was persisted with after the guy who was playing centre-forward this week (and who was quite effective too) was carried off injured after 30 minutes.

It was all totally mystifying.

This morning I was up early and into Montlucon. I picked up the new wheel for Caliburn that I had ordered last week and I also bought some stuff in Brico Depot, including some cheap kitchen worktops that I’ll use in my laundry room.

But pride of place, and the reason why I went to Montlucon today, was to go to Lapeyre to order the window for the downstairs here.

And Terry was perfectly right, as he usually is. A made-to-measure window for the bedroom cost me €650 back in the early part of the year. The window in the living room is larger but rather than go for a made-to-measure window, there’s a standard-size window that’s 1cm narrower and 2cms shorter than the opening.

If I don’t mind filling in around the window opening, then that window will cost me all of €342. Do bears go for picnics in the woods?

And it will be ready on 25th November as well. That means that it will be installed before the severe winter sets in.

So what I’ll do on the next rainy day or two is to plan the fitting of the front door. It probably won’t be glazed, but I’ll screw a board and some insulated plasterboard over it and that should stop the draughts.

And with the new fire, I might even be warm here this winter at this rate.

-1

Friday 4th November 2011 – THERE WON’T BE …

… a photo today, folks!

That’s because I did nothing of any importance – well, as far as visually goes.

This morning was a computer morning, even though I’m on winter hours. Someone has asked for a quote for a solar panel installation and I needed to track down some product. One thing led to another and I was all morning doing things like this.

Later on I managed to make my way outside.

First job was to reposition the planks to the correct working position. And then I spent a delightful few hours chiselling out the old mortar. It was only after that that I could start on the pointing.

But I didn’t get much of it done. Each time I was up the scaffolding with a bucket of mix the heavens opened. And by the time I was back down soaked to the skin and with an empty bucket and covered up the lean-to, the rain would stop.

And so I would start again and then so would the weather.

This kept on until about 16:00 when the heavens truly opened. By 22:00 we had had 25.5mm and it was still coming.

But the advantage of having plenty to do is that I could go and work indoors. I’ve now measured in the beam in the lean-to where I want the studding to go for the stair rails for the inside and I’ve cut the lets.

And so on Monday when I start back I can either start on the wind turbine, carry on with the pointing or finish off the stud walls and stair rails in the lean-to, if the weather will let me.

That wasn’t everything either. I’ll have to go to the UK soon as a client wants a huge load of electronic items that are only available from Radio Spares. Don’t like that idea very much, but there we are.

-2

Thursday 3rd November 2011 – IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed. I was aching in places I didn’t even realise I had places after the exertions of yesterday. The sections of scaffolding are quite heavy and carrying them up ladders and manhandling scaffolding planks into position is strenuous work, especially at my age.

Still, if it’s hurting then it must be doing some good.

Once everything was sorted out around here I had a set-to with the pointing on the side wall.

And isn’t it easier doing it from a scaffolding than from a ladder? If I had had a scaffolding up here from the start I would have finished it long ago.

And you are probably wondering why it is that the pointing that I did today hasn’t joined up with the pointing from before. That’s easy to explain.

When you assemble the scaffolding you need to have the planks set at 2-metre heights so that you can have something solid to stand on while you fit the one above,and then climb up to that one to do the next one above, and so on.

And then when you have assembled your scaffolding you can reposition the planks at the height that you want for working.

That was in fact going to be the first job this morning, but with winds gusting up to 40kph throughout the day and the wind turbines going round like there was no tomorrow, this was not the time to be manipulating heavy scaffolding planks while standing on a ladder 8 metres up.

That can wait until the wind drops.

There’s plenty of wall to go at and so I can pick a part at a safe working height from an existing plank and point that bit.

And so it’s definitely easier working from a scaffolding, especially in a gale-force wind. And the wind was so strong that it’s blown down my wooden fence. That gives you an idea as to what we were going through. So that’s yet another job that I shall have to add to the backlog of work to be accomplished around here.

Two steps forward, three steps back.

However I was enjoying myself on the scaffolding and I was surprised when it suddenly went dark.

“A rainstorm approaching” I thought, but in actual fact it was knocking-off time. The day passed really quickly.

We did have the rainstorm later, however. 19mm in two hours and it’s still raining now. I hope it dries up for tomorrow as I’m itching to get back to work. I want to have this wall finished.

-2

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 – NEVER MIND …

… the Towering Inferno – and never mind the legendary Tower of Power either. This is what I’ve been doing today.

Well, not all today. The first thing was to give the downstairs part of the lean-to a good clean-out so that I could fetch the scaffolding inside, and then I had to sweep up the floor of the first floor so that I could erect the scaffolding.

It was half-way through that part of the exercise that I realised that maybe it was not such a good idea to put the framework of the washroom in position yesterday. It’s bad enough trying to negotiate the small hatch in the floor without having to negotiate a gratuitous upright as well.

But I tell you what – you know these tournaments where the military have to dismantle a field gun, pass it over a wall and through a hoop and then re-assemble it? I’m entering for that next year. Putting this scaffolding up onto the first floor of the lean-to is good training for that.

And so the scaffolding was erected and that took quite a while to do – mainly because it’s the first time I’ve put the scaffolding up on my own, and I’m not as young as I used to be.

But there it is – all in place and 8 metres high. In fact it’s so high that my ladder won’t reach the top. I’ve had to put that on planks 1 metre off the ground and shin up there like a monkey.

What has impressed me is that the floor of the first floor, that I fitted last summer, is perfectly level. I proved that by setting the adjustable feet of the scaffolding to the same height before I began the assembly,and when I checked the first row of scaffolding with a spirit level, it was absolutely level.

The floor is also extremely strong as well. Not only does it take the weight of the scaffolding, it can withstand the shock of a scaffolding plank (and these are heavy) being dropped onto it from 8 metres up. That is definitely impressive.

Mind you, never mind the answer blowing in the wind, my friend, the scaffolding at 8 metres high is swaying about too and not surprising – we’ve had gusts today of over 25mph.

You might be thinking to yourself that tomorrow I’ll be attacking the wind turbine, but not a bit of it, and that’s all Terry’s fault.

Normally I’d fasten the wind turbine pole with anchor bolts drilled into the wall but the problem with them is that they are never a very good fit in stone and work loose after a while – you need to be constantly tightening them up. But when we were doing the windows Terry showed me a kind of mastic that you squirt into holes and which sets like concrete.

And that gave me an idea.

Drill the holes about 1cm deeper than necessary, squirt a pile of stuff into the hole, ram the anchor into the hole, fit the mounting bracket and tighten up. The force and pressure will force the mastic everywhere into the hole, the crevices, the screw threads and so on, and then set like concrete and (hopefully) you won’t ever be able to move it.

I need to wait until Saturday and shopping so that I can get a tube or two of it. It’s expensive but if it does the job it will be well worth it.

And so until the weekend I’ll be pointing the wall, and in the comparative luxury of a scaffolding too. It makes a change from shinning up ladders with a bucket of stones, a bucket of water and paintbrush, a loose-handled brush, a hammer and chisel, some mortar and a trowel.

-1

Tuesday 1st November 2011 – THE ONE THING …

… that I like about having made some space inside the house is that when it rains I can work indoors. And the one thing I like about it raining is that I have plenty of work to do that can be done indoors as well.

And so what with the pouring rain this morning I brought inside the struts for the stud wall-cum-ladder that I’ll be fitting inside the lean-to and I spent much of today working on them.

And to such an extent that I have two of them – the front two – now fitted and screwed into position. Mind you,that involved working in the dark with a torch because we are now on winter hours of course and it goes dark at 17:45.

The bit in front (nearest the camera) will be the wash room, where the washing machine and stuff like that will eventually be installed. Then we’ll have the steps up, and then a little workshop or something behind it.

That’s really all the excitement for today – I haven’t done very much else, although I made myself a really wicked aubergine and bean casserole kind of thing, with enough left over for two more days as well. I suppose that’s fairly exciting.

Tomorrow if the weather is good I’ll put up the scaffolding on the lean-to and plan the erection of the wind turbine. And if it rains I’ll carry on with the stud walls in the lean-to. That’s what I like about having choices.

But I forgot something.

If you have been following my website you will recall that I’ve been talking about the Nova Scotia Museum of Industry, and in particular the restored Mobile Technical College, “Shopmobile 5“.

Anyway I’ve had an e-mail today from the person who was in charge of the restoration project and he’s sent me a pile of photos, together with a promise to sort out a pile more stuff for me if I want it. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

I suppose that that’s exciting, isn’t it?

-2

Monday 31st October 2011 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that the front of the house was looking just as it does in this photo.

But not any more it doesn’t.

Ohh no.

In fact this evening it looks like it does in the photo just here. And if you look very carefully and compare the two images, you might notice that the windows are different.

What has happened is that this morning Terry and I fitted the new windows that you will remember me buying in the spring.

It all stemmed from Terry saying when I was round chez them the other day that he is going to change a door and a window in his house in a couple of weeks time and how it needs two people to do it.

Liz is a busy woman these days (I don’t think that I mentioned that Liz has passed a Diploma or something in teaching English as a Second Language and is now gone back to teaching but in the French educational system) and so he will be stuck for a hand.

Obviously this called for a “well, I’ll give you a hand willingly and you can help me with my windows some time”, and that brought the reply “we can do your windows on Monday”. And here we are.

The old windows came out bit by bit as you might expect, and once we had cemented in where the frames had been,the new windows went in pretty straightforwardly, and that was impressive.

I have to go into Montlucon on Wednesday and so what I’ll do when I’m there is to order the one for the ground floor. And if Julie can cut the shaped glass for the front door, I can fit that as well and it will all be a vast improvement if I can fit those before it all goes cold around here.

The weather is still holding up by the way – a beautiful day in fact.

After lunch we struggled into the attic with the new woodstove. It had to come up bit by bit. It’s quite big and heavy for its size, clearly solidly built and Terry reckons that it will burn me out of here if I load it right up.

So it’s now fitted in place of the old pot-bellied stove, and you can see the oven bit on the top – the lift-up lid and the bit that goes down to the crease just above the window. That will be plenty big enough for pizza, rice pudding, baked potato and the like, and I hope that it works as well as it looks.

I did mention the other day the “cunning plan” about tidying up, didn’t I?

Terry also helped me get the hydro plasterboard upstairs to the first floor as well. It’s of heavy fabrication and it’s also 13mm instead of the standard 10mm that I use. I can manhandle … "PERSONhandle" – ed … standard 10mm plasterboard upstairs on my own just about but there was no way I could have done it with this stuff.

Terry also brought some of our scaffolding around and left it here for me. I’ll put that up tomorrow in the lean-to and once it’s up it will speed up the work pointing the wall. I bet that it’s much easier doing that from a decent and comfortable position.

We shall see.

-3

Sunday 30th October 2011 – THE CLOCKS …

… went back today and so I was looking for a good long lie in.

But the best-made plans of mice and men and all of that, for the rodent who lives in the roof started doing his clog dance at 07:00 and that was that.

Mind you, it’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anybody any good, because I had a good morning on the computer. I’ve uploaded the match report for the football last night, and I’ve also brought the Radio Anglais website up-to-date, and I’m pleased with all of that.

This afternoon I went to the brocante at St Gervais d’Auvergne but I won’t be going there again. It was mostly rubbish, and way over-priced as well. I shan’t waste my time again. I don’t know what gets into the heads of some of these people.

Afterwards I went round to Liz and Terry’s to help Terry load his van, and Liz had made tea again. I’m really getting spoilt these days.

And that reminds me of the two women arguing
“your son is spoilt”
“no he isn’t”
“yes he is”
“no he isn’t”
“well, please yourself then, but go and see what that steam roller has done to him”.

-2

Saturday 29th October 2011 – IT TOOK …

… just 30 seconds of madness for Pionsat to throw away a football match this evening.

4-3 up and in the dying minutes of the game against a team 2 Divisions higher up, one of the attackers elects to take the ball down to the corner flag and sit there to waste a minute or two.

But he loses the ball, it’s played hurriedly upfield into space deep into the Pionsat half. There’s a race on for the loose ball, which is won by a Pionsat defender

Under pressure from two attackers, and after all that I have said and after all that I have written and after all the time that I have been saying and writing, he goes to whack it upfield instead of playing it out into touch to give his fellow defenders time to come back.

His kick is poor as you might expect, and it cannons right into the midriff of one of the attackers, and then bounces out into the path of the other who has only Matthieu in goal to beat and that, dear reader, is that.

So it’s now 4-4, and Pionsat go to kick off.

And from the restart, Pionsat lose possession and Clermont go on the attack. The forward is brought down and a quickly-taken free kick is fired into the penalty area and headed home while the Pionsat defence is still trying to organise itself. And Pionsat are out of the cup and thats a shame because this was an excellent match played at high speed and in a good temper.

One of the best matches I’ve seen played here since I’ve been following the team, in fact.

Today was shopping in Montlucon and I was off on the wrong foot again as I slept through the alarm and so was 2 hours late going.

And I spent a fortune too. I’ve all the hydrofuge plasterboarding for the shower room seeing as how it was on offer at Brico Depot, and I’ve bought a wheel for Caliburn. That’s because I have two snow tyres that I fit in winter and one of them is on the spare wheel but the other is not on a wheel at all and I have to keep getting it swapped over with one of the summer tyres and that costs me €15 a time.

It makes much more sense to pay €65 for a wheel and keep the tyre on it around here like that, and then I can swap the wheels over whenever it suits me to do so.

But I have also spent €279 on a new woodstove for in here. You may recall that I bought a cheap pot-bellied stove for up here and though while it does what it’s supposed to do it has a very small capacity and it needs to be filled every 15-20 minutes, which is quite difficult when you are chatting for 30 minutes to someone on the telephone.

What I saw in Mr Bricolage a short while ago and which I mentioned at the time was a more conventional woodstove with a glass front. It’s larger and it takes logs of 33cms. It burns horizontally and not vertically, then I can stack it up and it should last for quite a long time without reloading.

But that’s not the exciting bit. This woodstove has a rear exit for the smoke and I recall mentioning that the top of it has a lift-up lid, under which is, I suppose, a small top-loading oven about 6 inches or so deep. I’m immediately thinking “pizza”, “shepherd’s pie”, “oven chips with spicy been taco rolls”, “baked potatoes and baked beans”, “rice pudding” and loads of other things besides.

Yes, when winter bites and I feel the need for hot food and it’s too cold to go downstairs and cook in the verandah at -10°C, and when I want to boil some coffee last thing at night and put it in a flask so I have hot coffee in my room first thing in the morning, I can see a lot of benefit in this new stove and its oven.

I’m hoping to have my money’s worth out of this machine.

The pot-bellied stove isn’t going to be lost, though. I have a cunning plan for that, more of which anon.

I also managed to fit a swim in this afternoon at Neris les Bains. And it was perishing freezing in there again. Even the Polar Bears were complaining. I’m going to have to give the piscine at Neris les Bains a miss for a while if it carries on like this.

-2

Friday 28th October 2011 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I took a pic from the birdwatching platform near St Gervais d’Auvergne just up the road from where Liz and Terry live?

Quite some considerable time, I bet.

I was up and about quite early (well, early for me anyway) this morning and after something of a hasty breakfast, in the words of the great Mars Bonfire I got my motor running and headed out for the Highway

It was a cool damp morning but it was heating up quite quickly (well, for this time of year anyway) and this was causing the mist to rise out of all the hollows.

It doesn’t half look impressive when it does that, particularly from up here, and you don’t need any guesses to work out exactly where the Gorges de la Sioule might be when it’s like this. It didn’t half look impressive and it’s one of the sights that everyone should aim to see when they come to visit the Combrailles.

Liz and Terry’s house is down there somewhere and sure enough, they were bathed in mist when I arrived.

Anyway, I picked Liz up and we went to Gerzat for the Radio Arverne sessions of Radio Anglais. We were there for just after 10:00 and so we went for a walk around the town for 20 minutes before Bernard turned up.

It took just over an hour to record the four sessions today – even though Bernard was rather … errr … confused and disorientated. He just now has rather a lot of editing to do.

Back at Liz and Terry’s, Terry and I had quite a long chat about things and then I came back here.

It was raining of course after lunch and so in a change of plan I’ve done a huge amount of tidying up on the ground floor and the first floor and it actually looks like something now to a certain degree. I’ve also done some tidying up outside and that has helped, especially as the vegetation is now dying down for winter and some lost articles are now coming into view.

And tidying up as well. How about that? And to tell you the truth I would have been tidying up this afternoon even if the weather had been absolutely gorgeous because there is a cunning plan looming in the background.

-2

Thursday 27th October 2011 – THE WEATHER …

… changed today.

And what was annoying was that it happened while I was up a ladder pointing the stone work.

I’d done quite a bit too and I was making good progress when the heavens opened on me. There was nothing for it but to put everything away and put the tarps back over. And by the time I had done that the rain had eased off, just as you might ordinarily expect.

I wasn’t going to undo everything and go back up the wall as it was getting late and the light was starting to go, and so I did some more on the struts that I’ll be using to make the stairs in the lean to. I’m well advanced into those and one more day with rain might see them installed

Not that I’m actually wishing for rain, of course. I have far too much work to do outside to go knocking off for no good reason.

This morning I carried on with the website. I’ve left Cap-de-la-Madeleine and now I’m along Highway 138 heading for Quebec City. There’s no doubt that Highway 138, the chemin du roy, is the most beautiful road in Canada.

>And that’s really all I’ve done today. Not very exciting is it? But if I remember to wake up tomorrow, Radio Anglais is off down to Gerzat to record for Radio Arverne. Now isn’t that’s exciting?
.

-2

Wednesday 26th October 2011 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I was up early this morning and I managed to have a really good go at the website this morning. I’ve left Trois Rivieres and arrived at Cap-de-la-Madeleine where I’m having a good wander around the pilgrimage site.

Absolutely fascinating and full of the most unexpected irony.

So this afternoon I was up the wall on the ladder, and in the wind too, chiselling out the old sand-and-clay mortar from the top of the wall. There was so much that came out that I had to do two large mixes of mortar and that still wasn’t enough to do that bit.

And it was exciting up there for several reasons.

I was carried away with what I was doing and it wasn’t until it suddenly went dark that I realised just how late it was. 19:05 when I knocked off this evening.
there was all kinds of noise going on in the brush in the field next door and all of a sudden two wild boar shot out and ran across the field. The first wild boar that I have seen properly here as well. They are bigger and heavier than I expected and the earth moves when they run. They have a hell of a speed as well. And the racket that they make is astonishing. I was really surprised.
You’re probably wondering why I didn’t take a photo of them, and indeed I would have, except that I was up the top of the ladder and the camera was down below. After all, it’s difficult enough trying to manipulate a bucket of water and a paintbrush, a hand brush, a bucket full of stones, a trowel and a hawk full of lime mortar when you are up the top of a ladder, never mind a camera as well.

Tonight I made a curry and seeing as I have no courgette left I used tinned mushroom and tinned chick peas. And it didn’t half come out well too. And there’s enough for another two days as well. Ohhh the luxury!

So tomorrow I’ll be back up the wall. And quite right too.

-2

Tuesday 25th October 2011 – AFTER LAST NIGHT’S …

… early retirement, this morning I was up with the cock.

But that’s more than enough about my personal habits.

I was up quite early and when Liz phoned me to make sure that I was awake, I was already tucking into breakfast.

At Radio Tartasse in Marcillat we did our programmes for the month of November and after a coffee together I came back home.

Working on the website again followed by lunch, and then I took some more roofing sheets off the lean-to and replaced them with a tarp. I also put something underneath the floor of the upper part of the lean-to to prevent any water that might infiltrate from falling on the washing machine that’s underneath.

After all of that I put up the ladder and started on chiselling out the old mortar at the top of the house wall.

However I wasn’t up there for too long. The wind sprang up again quite violently and then we had a huge black weather front that dumped 5 mms of rain everywhere. That wasn’t very good, and I left the wall to itself with all of that, thinking to myself what a good idea it was to protect the washing machine like that.

What I did instead was to go inside the lean-to and point some more of the inside of the wall that I had built up a short while ago.

It needs to be done some time or other and there’s no time like the present. Having something to do under cover when the weather is bad outside is always handy.

If you’ve looked at some of the earlier photos, like this one for example you’ll see the difference in this pic, particularly on the left side of the wall. You might have also noticed a hole in the wall as well in the left side of the back wall. That’s gone too now, all filled up with stones and properly cemented in.

And that was something that I was keen to do, especially with winter on the way. I don’t want the frost to get into it any more than it already has done

Tonight I finished off Liz’s vegan casserole and had some of her vegan chocolate cake. Isn’t it nice to have good friends?

-3

Monday 24th October 2011 – AND JUST WHAT ON EARTH …

…is happening here?

Yes, it’s absolutely ages before midnight and here I am blogging already.

What on earth is going on?

The fact is that I’m absolutely whacked. Three nights without much sleep have finished me off and I shall be in the arms of Morpheus before much longer.

But I dunno why I’m having these sleep issues. I know that I habitually keep late hours but what has been going on just recently is absurd.

This afternoon I carried on with moving the cattle trough in the lean-to. Here is a photo of how it looked after I’d been bashing away at it for an hour or two the other week.

What it looks like now is something else completely thanks to Terry lending me a concrete cutting disk and a huge sledgehammer yesterday.

They made quite short work of the bit that I can get to, and the rest of it will have to be done when I can get to it.

I did say that once I’d done that I would be starting on the pointing of the wall. However we’ve had a howling gale here today with winds gusting up to 20mph. I know that that isn’t particularly fast but if anyone thinks that I’ll be standing on top of a ladder 10 metres or so above ground in a wind like that then they are mistaken.

According to one of the litttle-used functions on the anemometer, we had 20:42 hours of wind in the last 24 hours and that is quite phenomenal. The wind turbines have been earning their keep today.

What I did do instead was to make a start on the framework that I’ll be using to make the dividing wall in there. That involved cutting up a few chevrons and shaping them,and cutting lets into the rafters of the ceiling in the lean-to.

And while I was doing that, the wind dramatically dropped. “Time for me to go and get the ladder out and make a start on the wall” you are probably thinking. But “not bloody likely”, as Eliza Doolittle once famously said, because we had a torrential downpour and it’s still raining now.

Instead, I did some tidying up and sorting out until knocking off time at 19:00 (I’m still on summer hours).

Seeing as I’m still on summer hours, this morning I was working on the website and I’ve put on line the reports for the 1st XI and 2nd XI matches from this weekend.

But Saturday night’s photos haven’t worked at all and I’m going to have to spend money on a decent lens to take better photos in the dark.

Tomorrow Liz and I are radioing, at Radio Tartasse. I wonder if I will have woken up by then.

Good night, everybody.

-3

Sunday 23rd October 2011 – TODAY I HAVE SEEN ….

… what is probably the worst game of football that I have ever seen in my life. US Menetrol were such a poor side that they could only manage to score four goals against the disorganised rabble that was supposed to be the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 2nd XI.

There were three types of player on the field for Pionsat this afternoon. We had those with inclination and no skill (but nevertheless, hats off to them for turning out because clubs need willing players like this), quite a few with neither skill nor inclination, and far too many of those with skill but no inclination.

It was such a dismal showing that had I been in charge of the team, I would have gone home with the bus and left them to walk home.

But I’m not. And that was the root of the problem – there didn’t seem to be anyone in charge. And whoever it was who was supposed to be giving the orders was giving some pretty strange ones, that’s for sure. It really was an absolute shambles.

I shan’t say any more about it as it will be just gratuitous.

On the way down to Menetrol, I had the misfortune to be behind heaps of those kinds of drivers who think that 90kph is 70, 70 kph is 50, and 50 kph means that you get out and push. That started me off on the wrong foot anyway so it’s hardly a surprise that I was in a bad mood.

Afterwards, I went round to Liz and Terry’s to discuss the radio programmes, but we seemed to have spent most of the time dealing with lost hunting dogs.

Terry has very kindly lent me a concrete-cutting disc and a huge sledgehammer to remove this cattle trough, and Liz, apart from cooking a gorgeous tea, has made me up a food parcel. That is really lovely.

So tomorrow, I shall be removing cattle troughs and then carrying on with the pointing of the house wall. We are told that the fine weather will last until Wednesday.

-4

Saturday 22nd October 2011 – AND THIS MUST BE …

… something of a new record.

I went to St Eloy les Mines this afternoon, rather late as it happened, and put my washing in the launderette seeing as there was quite a pile that had built up.

Anyway, once the machine had set off, it announced that the cycle would take 40 minutes to do.

And by the time the 40 minutes was up, I’d been to LIDL and Carrefour and I was back in the launderette. And for what I had spent on the week’s shopping, I had change back from €9:00 as well. Now, as I say, this must be a new record.

But my new plan is that seeing as I have quite a lot of work to do these days, I’m going to be doing the radio programmes on Saturday morning and then shopping in St Eloy les Mines when I’ve finished. And that seems to be working anyway because in 3 hours of work I’d done all four programmes.

Yes, I reckon that if I don’t go shopping until I’ve finished, it’s a good spur.

This evening the 3rd XI match at Pionsat St Hilaire was cancelled as the opposition couldn’t raise a team. Instead,I went and watched the 1st half of the match at Marcillat. Although the AS Marcillat team play at what is nominally 1 level higher in the pyramid (they are in a different region) Pionsat’s Ist XI wouldn’t have too much trouble in dispatching them on a good day.

And talking of good days, Pionsat’s 1st XI played one of the numerous teams from Clermont this evening with a 20:30 kick-off, so I was back down there for the start.

They weren’t under too much pressure except down the left side of defence as usual and that was where they conceded a goal. But a substitution in the second half with a new player in the team shored that side up.

The central defence played splendidly with Alex and Julien in there – and Julien has improved immeasurably this season.

but with Cedric scoring early in the game and this new left-sided player scoring a second, following up a loose ball (and if he can play like this every week he’ll prove to be an excellent signing), as well as two or three goals disallowed, Pionsat were never really in difficulty. They won the match with plenty to spare. in the tank.

But the end of the game was rather ugly as the opposition lost their cool and we had a brawl near the end and another one after the final whistle and it was all unnecessary.

And then afterwards we had the draw for the league cup quarter-final.

And Pionsat drew …. the team that had just played this evening.

This should be quite some match.

-3

EPIC HALL

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