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Wednesday 26th June 2013 – HERE’S ANOTHER …

… photo of the new temporary electrical circuit here at Pooh Corner.

At first glance it looks very much like a close-up of the previous image but in fact a closer perusal will reveal the addition of a pair of American 110-volt sockets.

As you might recall if you are a regular reader of this rubbish and have been following these pages quite closely since right back at the very beginning, my house is powered by solar panels and wind turbines creating energy at 12 volts DC.

As a result I spent an inordinate amount of my time sourcing 12-volt appliances, because I can run these directly off my supply without the need for a transformer.

That calls for a 12-volt DC circuit around the house and that means that the cables will be carrying a heavier amperage (500 watts at 230 volts is just over 2 amps, but 500 watts at 12 volts is just over 40 mps).

And the heavier the amperage, the thicker cable – I use 6mm cable instead of 1.5mm cable.

Because North America runs on 110 volts instead of the European 230 volts, then more than twice as much amperage is required to power an identical appliance, and so the USA uses thicker cable.

Consequently all of their plugs and sockets are much more suitable for my purposes when it comes to a 12-volt system as they are built to handle heavier amperage and thicker cable.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this afternoon, expanding the 12-volt power circuit into the shower room.

All that remains to do now is to fit the wiring for the light circuit, drill two large holes through the outside wall for the air exchange, and then I can wallop the rest of the plasterboard onto the walls.

This morning though, once the sun had climbed well into the sky, I doused the weeds outside the house with this radical weed-killer that Liz gave me. I’m not quite sure just how well its going to work but it has to be better than nothing at all. I really do hope that it lives up to expectations.

I had a little relaxation in the evening and watched a John Wayne film – Fort Apache. This is one of what is known as “The Cavalry Trilogy” and is famous for two particular reasons.

it’s probably the earliest mainstream film to look at the American genocide – if not holocaust – of its ethnic citizens from the point of view of the victims
most of the action takes place over ground which I know extremely well, because you might remember that back in 2002 I drove for a couple of days through the Utah Desert and in particular through Monument Valley and The Valley Of The Gods where most of the action takes place. I recognised almost all of the sites and it brought back some very happy memories.

-4

Friday 21st June – ADIEU, L’ILE D’YEU

At 10:30 am Cécile and I stepped onto the catamaran to take us back to the mainland – 30 minutes of high-speed sailing across the Bay of Biscay.

And I still can’t understand why they don’t have a coffee machine or something on board. Not only are they missing a major income-generating opportunity (which is not to be missed in these days of economic restraint), how am I supposed to go for 30 minutes without one.

>With Cecile being here, I didn’t manage to re-read my A Night to Remember – the story of the sinking of the Titanic.

I did however manage to retake the photos that I took on the way out to the island when it was obscured by clouds or something such, because the weather on the way back across was so much better.

You wouldn’t have thought so, though, if you had seen this morning.

At 07:30 it was miserable, grey, depressing and drizzling – a typical summer day of course, but slowly it managed to brighten up as we packed.

By the time Cécile’s mother’s next-door neighbour Catherine dropped us off on the quayside it was turning into quite a pleasant morning and we were looking forward to the journey home.

As the catamaran (which I forgot to photograph yet again) pulled closer to th mainland, it gave me an opportunity to take a photograph of the Pont de Noirmoutier.

Noirmoutier is an island and before the bridge was built, there was a ferry that set out from Fromentine. The bridge put an end to the ferry when it was opened in 1971.

What the locals considered to be “excessive” tolls led to all kinds of demonstrations, one of which was suppressed by a famous baton-charge of the CRS in 1977.

The tolls were removed in 1994 following a series of accidents to travellers who knew of the existence of a sunken road between the mainland and the island, but not exactly WHERE it was

Having paid a fortune to a licensed bandit to retrieve Caliburn, we set out through the sun for the journey home, but caught up with the rain at La Roche sur Yon.

By the time we reached Chantonnay it was a howling gale and tropical rainstorm and I felt quite sorry for Cécile who I had packed off to buy the food for lunch while I fuelled up Caliburn underneath an overhead canopy.

At least we managed to avoid being hit by a falling meteorite, a fate that befell the town 200 years ago, but nothing would surprise me in this weather.

After Poitiers though we drove into the sun and the rest of the route was in quite nice weather, which made a welcome change.

In Pionsat, Marianne filled us in with the latest gossip and there was also a music concert going on in the square. Had I not been so whacked, I would have stayed on for the entertainment.

Anyway, I didn’t need much rocking last night, that’s for sure.

-4

Saturday 15th June 2013 – MY PEAR TART …

… was something of a wash-out, I’m afraid, and quite literally too.

It tasted very nice with its layers of pear slices and nutmeg, with powdered chocolate and soya cream all over the top but unfortunately, for reasons that I haven’t yet understood, it ended up swimming in liquid.

The cooking in the oven didn’t dry it out at all, so the base was far too wet. I have a lot to learn about baking, that’s for sure.

Another disappointment was the Charity Shop. It did indeed sell books, all of about 50 of them, and there was only one that might have been of interest to me – Fly for Your Life: The Story of R.R. Stanford Tuck.

But as fortune would have it, and as you might expect, it’s a book that I already own.

A third disappointment today was the old castle of the Ile D’Yeu. it’s situated on a large rock about 20 metres off the coast of the island, reached by a sort of suspension bridge.

Not the castle itself, I hasten to add. I’d seen that from a distance the first afternoon that I arrived here and I was quite impressed by it.

I was quite looking forward to seeing it and I certainly wasn’t disappointed on that score.

The walk from here out to it is really beautiful and the setting is stunning.

However, due to the considerable amount of coastal erosion that has taken place over the centuries, there is only one way to approach the castle, and only one direction from which to view it.

And again as fortune would have it, in the early evening the sun streams right into the lens of the camera from that particular viewpoint.

It’s a late medieval fortification dating to the Hundred Years War, Built on the orders of Olivier IV de Clisson.

He was one of the Lieutenants of the King of France during the first half of the 14th Century but fell into disgrace after being captured by the English in December 1342 at the 4th Siege of Vannes.

The manner of his capture and subsequent release (in a prisoner-exchange) led to allegations of treachery which were believed by King Philippe VI and, being tricked into visiting Paris after his release, he was summarily executed on 2nd August 1343

The castle was captured in 1355 by the English under Robert Knolles, born in Cheshire and one of the most able – and probably the most ruthless – of the English commanders of the period in France.

His reputation for devastation of the territories that he captured is still a subject of considerable discussion today, and the burnt-out shells of French stone houses are often referred to as Knolles’ Mitres.

It was recaptured by the French in 1392 under none other than Olivier V de Clisson, son of the Oilvier IV de Clisson who had ordered its building.

It declined in importance in the 16th Century and the dismantling began towards the end of the 17th Century following an edict by Louis XIV – the Roi Soleil.

He was concerned that it might serve as a strategic base for the enemies who might attack France.

But the castle does have a most unexpected claim to fame. The castle in L’Ile Noire, Hergé’s 7th adventure of Tintin, is said to have been based upon the Vieux Chateau de l’Ile d’Yeu

But it isn’t all doom and gloom (or doom and sunlight).

The guard-rail that I’ve built for Cécile’s mother for the steps from her front door down to the street level seems to have worked fine, and has been admired by all of the neighbours.

I dug out a hole at the side of the steps (pulling up mostly rocks, I have to say) and sank a length of downspout into it.

hen I sealed off the bottom end with cement to stop the water getting into it, and them tamped a load of soil and gravel around the downspout to hold it well into the ground.

After that, I fitted a mounting bracket (in fact a flooring joist bracket) to the wall and with two of the lengths of scrap wood that we picked up at the builder’s yard, I made a mortice joint with the primitive tools that are on offer here.

I assembled the joint, stuck the upright in the tube and cemented it in, and the horizontal sloping rail into the wall bracket and screwed it in, and there you have an ad-hoc handrail.

Like I say, I could have done it better but there aren’t really any tools here to work with.

You may remember me saying when I arrived here something along the lines of isolated islands and old cars.

And so when was the last time that you saw a Mini Traveller? I cant even think when it might have been that I last saw one.

So here’s one for you to reminisce over.

But there’s something that doesn’t look quite right about the way this car looks (and I don’t mean the wide wheels either) if you ask me and I can’t think what it might be.

Anyway, tomorrow is Sunday and so it’s a lie-in (I hope). I might even have a day off if I’m lucky.

-4

Wednesday 12th June 2013 – WE ACTUALLY HAD …

… some sun today.

I know that that might be had to believe but it is in fact true.

Not this morning, though.

Horrible, wet, grey and miserable, but that’s enough about me. So was the weather.

I had a bad night’s sleep for one reason or another – probably the rain through the night but anyway, this morning it was my turn to be sociable as we kept bumping into Cécile’s mother’s neighbours and relations as we were doing the shopping.

The bad news is though that I’ve nearly finished my book on the Titanic A Night to Remember, and so we called at the library, which has Wednesday and Sunday mornings as its opening times.

Closing time on Wednesdays is 12:00 and we arrived at 12:05, as you might expect.

Ahh well.

But Cécile has at least been persuaded that, as her future might lie here for a good while yet, she would be better-off opening an internet account on the island and so we coped with that today.

Not sure when they might open the line, though. Probably long after Cécile has left, I reckon.

A stroke of luck in the builder’s yard though.

I want to buy a demi-chevron to make a handrail for Cécile’s mum down the steps out of the house. But Cécile recognised the guy there and he let us have a pile of offcuts for free which was very nice.

Not only that, he’s a rock and blues drummer too.

Furthermore, seeing as how he knows everyone on the island, I’ve sent him off to make further enquiries about this Peugeot 203 pickup that I saw the other day.

For tea tonight I made another one of my potato pies, and that went down just as well as the first one did.

That’s got me thinking that I might go absolutely wild and have a go at making a pear tart next and see what that turns out like.

So after our couple of hours of really good weather this afternoon, it’s now clouded over again and rain is threatening once more.

Will it never end?

-3

Friday 7th June 2013 – WELL, I’M OFF.

But then you all knew that already.

The Postie delivered my monster CD order and now I’m free to leave at any time I like for a couple of weeks. Liz found me a cheapo ferry on the site that she uses – it’s at 04:00 so I’ll be leaving in a bit for the UK.

That’s really all that I’ve done today apart from clearing up and dealing with this load of web stuff that I mentioned the other day. The apartment here is still a mess and I’m not really making much progress but I will have a couple of months when I come back to deal with it all and isn’t that famous last words?

I’m not sure when I’ll have internet access again. After the UK I’ll be off to Fromentine and the Ile d’Yeu to do the two weeks’ work that I promised Cécile in exchange for her two weeks here back in April and there won’t be any internet access there, that’s for sure.

after that, it’s back to Pooh Corner, the radio, and two weeks working on the bathroom here as when I return to Brussels at the beginning of July I want to buy all the tiles from that guy who did us so handsomely when we were working on Expo in early 2011.

So, see you soon. Don’t wander away in my absence.

-3

Thursday 6th June 2013 – I MIGHT HAVE BROKEN …

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

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

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

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

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

-5

Tuesday 1st January 2013 – THAT’S THE HOLIDAY …

… over, then

Tomorrow I start back to work, and there’s plenty to do as you might expect. It’s not been doing itself while I’ve been idling.

So accordingly I had the final day of my DVD marathon session.

There’s still plenty of films to watch but today I’ve seen easily the best film that I’ve seen for ages and ages. An ageing Robert Mitchum starring as Raymond Chandler’s ace sleuth Philip Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely.

At first I didn’t think that he was going to be as good as Humphrey Go-kart and while he acts in a different way, it’s hard to see how Go-kart could have improved on the role.

There’s an “unexpected” twist right at the end but Yours Truly was well ahead of the pack and had this one nailed from about halfway through, but it didn’t detract from the enjoyment of the film in any way.

So now it’s off to bed and an early start for tomorrow. I need to get a move on.

-2

Tuesday 25th December 2012 – THE FIRST NOEL…

… the Angels did say was at about blasted 07:45 this flaming morning.

That’s because despite it being a Bank Holiday and accordingly a Day of Rest, where nothing ever moves before perishing midday, Brain of Britain here forgot to switch off his sodding alarm clock, didn’t he?

Still, the early start gave me plenty of time to relax and open my presents.

Lots of DVDs, CDs, books and computer stuff. All a man could desire – except for Kate Bush and Jenny Agutter of course, but you can’t have everything.

And once breakfast was out of the way I sat down for the start of my marathon DVD session.

Lunch was the typical Christmas Day lunch – nibbling on bits and pieces, and then having had a suitable repose, I prepared the veg for the evening meal.

Boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, carrots, endives and sprouts – all cooked in the steamer.

Cécile came round in the late afternoon, just in time for Carry on Don’t Lose Your Head.

Not my favourite Carry-On film but one that she would understand, with lots of visual humour. High time, given the state of globalisation in the world today, that I started spreading around the spirit of Carry On humour.

So a few more films, a Christmas meal (the aforementioned plus seitan slices in onion gravy, Christmas pudding and vegan cream followed by coffee and Christmas cake), and a good chat, she went home and I went to bed.

Sunday 18th November 2012 – I WAS GOING …

… to go to watch a football match this afternoon.

No match for FC Pionsat St Hilaire this weekend so I had had a search around on the internet.

And I came up with quite a choice too – St Avit to see Le Quartier’s 2nd XI (which apparently is many of FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI from last year, so they say), Neuf Eglise to watch a cup match, or to Baudelaire or Chambon in the Creuse, where there were a couple of matches.

Instead, though, I stayed in, because I was busy. I have a lot to do and it won’t be done if I don’t do it.

I actually managed a lie-in until 09:45 today, although that wasn’t too much of a lie-in seeing as how I didn’t go to bed until about 02:00.

And after watching The Cannonball Run, which is definitely one of my favourite films for mindless, light-hearted entertainment, I sat down and started on a new project.

As you might (or might not) know, I present a Radio Anglais rock music programme twice a week for Radio Tartasse in Marcillat-en-Combraille.

That sounds very grand but it is in fact just a couple of programmes recycled during the month.

However, I’m playing stuff that most, if not all, my listeners have never heard, because I’m not going for mainstream music but for the more marginal stuff that never had the airplay to be a top 20 hit.

So what I’ve started to do today is to prepare a web page listing all of the albums from which I’ve been playing stuff, and arranging them by month.

It’s a long way from being finished but at least it’s started and it’s well on its way

This evening I picked up Cécile at her place and we went down to Liz and Terry’s – for me to rehearse my radio programmes with Liz and for Cécile to discuss some work with Terry.

In the end we all had a very good chat and a nice socialising evening.

And tomorrow, we’re recording our radio programmes, so I’ll be out all day.

It won’t leave me much time to do this floor.

-4

Thursday 1st November 2012 – I’M GLAD …

… that it was today that was a Bank Holiday and I decided not to work, because it has done nothing but pour down all day – at times with some really torrential rain.

And after a not-so-early night, switching off all of the alarms and so on, I managed to stay in bed until all of … errr … 08:56am. So much for that!

so after breakfast (which included coffee for the first time since when I was ill – i’ve been reintroducing foods one by one to see if there is anything that is bad) I sat down and watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone;

It’s a really excellent film, much better than you might expect if you can steel yourself to pass the dire 10 minutes of opening.

I had loads of other things to do as well, but I did … precisely nothing. Sat and vegetated for all of the day. I didn’t even go downstairs to make any food – just nibbled on bits and pieces (but I did make a second coffee though).

Still, as Joy said, I deserve a day off every now and again where I shouldn’t feel guilty about doing nothing.

But if it’s as bad as this tomorrow I’ll crack on with the shelving in the cupboard. I really want that to be finished.

-1

Friday 26th October 2012 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about one thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-4

Monday 15th October 2012 – I HAD AN …

… exciting, if unexpected afternoon out today.

Not this morning though.

I put in a good stint on the computer and wrote the match report for yesterday’s game at Pionsat, which is now on line.

It makes rather depressing reading but nevertheless it needed to be done.

And it took me all the way through to 14:30 – there was a lot to write.

Meantime, I had had a phone call. It seems that the window that Rosemarie had bought had turned out to be the wrong size – Terry had given her the dimensions of the hole, not the window.

It meant that the window needed to be taken back and exchanged – involving some fairly hefty negotiation and it seemed that I was required for that.

And so rather like Janet in Tam Lin, round I went to Rosemary’s I duly went this afternoon, “as fast as go can me” and we loaded up the window.

Being somewhat … errr … financially-challenged at the moment (I can’t get to my Belgian bank’s Montlucon branch right now and remember, I wasn’t anticipating being here at the moment), Rosemary very kindly put some diesel in Caliburn, and off we went.

Changing the window was no problem (except that they didn’t have one in and so it needed to be ordered) but no refund of any difference.

I don’t suppose anyone could complain too much about that – Rosemarie was half-expecting an argument.

Never being backwards at coming forward, I took advantage of Rosemary’s presence and we went off to Brico Depot where I loaded up Caliburn with a pile of grillage – the mesh mats that you use when you are laying concrete onto a hard surface without any hardcore.

I also bought 4 pylons – the steel mesh reinforcing that you put inside hollow breeze blocks to support the walls so that they don’t fall down on passing children.

These come in 6-metre lengths and so we cut them down to 8×3-metre lengths that I can use inside these hollow blocks that I have here to make pillars and so on.

Nothing like having a handy volunteer, is there?

After a coffee and a chat, I came home. It’s cold and damp despite the beautiful day that we had, so I’m not going out again. I’ll save my strength for tomorrow.

Friday 12th October 2012 – A RIGHT PICKLE!

I’ve been pickling today, and it looks as if I shall be eating beetroot for the next 100 years, with the amount that Rosemary and I bottled today.

And that tarragon-flavoured white vinegar didn’t half smell nice. By the time that we had added all of the spices to the vinegar and boiled it up, Rosemary’s kitchen smelt like a Babylonian boozer’s bathroom.

Still, it’s all done now.

We also shelled all of the peas and beans and I ended up with two jars of those. A few of them have chitted and so I’m going to try them out as winter plants under one of my patented plastic-bottle cloches. It might be worth a try.

Another thing that we did was to sort out the garlic and onions. I have enough garlic to last me all my life, I reckon, but not as many onions as I wanted.

I’ve no idea what happened to the shallots though – I had plenty of those a few weeks ago but I couldn’t find any the other day.

So first thing in the morning I went off to St Eloy-les-Mines. Firstly, to buy a recharge for the mobile phone, but the Post Office is closed for renovations for a few weeks so that was that.

Secondly I went to the dechetterie to dump all of the rubbish, but they are on winter hours so the blasted place was closed this morning.

After doing the weekly shopping though (seeing as I’m out, I’ll stay out and it’ll save me a trip tomorrow) I nipped off to Rosemary’s for the pickling session.

On the way back this evening, I “picked up a hitcher, a prisoner on the white lines of the freeway” to quote Joni Mitchell.

Only from Menat to St Eloy-les-Mines, but in my youth I spent lots of time hitch-hiking around the UK and France and I was always grateful for the ride, and so it’s nice to repay the debts that I owe.

I made it to the dechetterie and emptied a van-load of rubbish, mostly papers and glass bottles, and enquiries revealed that it is indeed true – if you go to the dechetterie during opening hours but during office hours, you can indeed help yourself to compost, which is freely available

So Saturday I’ll be having a working day – doing the radio programmes. I’m not going out at all, especially as there is not footy anywhere at all around here tomorrow.

-2

Wednesday 15th August 2012 – I WITNESSED A CALAMITY TODAY!

I mentioned yesterday that I was technicianing for Marianne this morning.

And so I was. We were doing the pot d’acceuil at Bussieres for the tourists this morning.

The weather was fine and so they decided to hold it outside, even though there was a fair wind blowing.

Music was provided by Rick the Belgian trailer guy on the ‘cello and a girl friend of his on accordion. I really enjoy listening to those two playing and indeed they did not disappoint this morning – that is, until the tragedy occurred.

Halfway through the proceedings they stopped for a breather. Rick stood his ‘cello on the tripod and went over to chat to someone he knew.

Just at that very moment a violent gust of wind picked up his ‘cello, hurled it down the street and smashed it into a stone wall.

And “smashed” was the appropriate word too.

35 years he’s had that ‘cello. He was devastated, and so were all of us. It’s an awful thing to happen to someone.

I’ve had my bass guitar for that length of time and I know how I would feel if something were to happen to it.

I felt really sorry for Rick.

All of that put rather a damper on the proceedings.

It’s really hard to focus and have a good time when you’ve been the witness to a personal tragedy such as this.

What made matters worse was that the event was very poorly attended. I’m not sure what had happened to all of the publicity but it certainly didn’t reach the hands of the people whom it was intended to reach

So after that tragedy we went into Pionsat for the kermesse – or more to the point, for the midday meal at the kermesse. Marianne had reserved a table for her and some friends and I took along my butties because of course you won’t find anything there that I might be able to eat.

It comes as a huge surprise to most people when you tell them that the site that they know today as Pionsat is not in fact the original site of the town.

I’m standing roughly where the original site of the town might have been, looking back at the present site of Pionsat with the zoom lens on my camera

We are about one kilometre south of the present site, at a lieu-dit or hamlet known as Durat,

There was said to be an early medieval fortress here at Durat, but no-one is quite sure where.

they say that the fortress has been completely dismantled and that nothing whatever remains – and that they are surprised by this.

This mound here is my best guess, although there is nothing that has ever been found to prove it.

Remember that building that we saw just now on what might have been the castle mound?

I went for a little probe around and I noticed this. Of course, there is nothing whatever to suggest that this is any part of the original fortress, even if the fortress had been built of stone, but it is certainly significant.

People have this strange idea about castles being made out of stone – like in the film The Vikings starring Kirk Douglas.

That is clearly an anachronism.

Stone-built castles wouldn’t come onto the scene for another 100 years. Wood would have been the more usual building material round about this time. A wood castle “completely disappearing” wouldn’t be too much of a surprise

On our way out to Durat we passed another significant Pionsat landmark.

This concerns a citizen of Pionsat, one Désiré Chaffraix, who left the town to go to seek his fortune in the USA.

And having made his pile (some say in the brothels of New Orleans but no-one has ever dared put that in writing), he returned home round about the turn of the 20th Century.

He fancied himself as a “man of the people” and as there was an agricultural recession in the area at the time, he used his fortune to employ the locals to build three huge mansions.

This was one of the earliest make-work projects for the unemployed, but there seems to be little doubt that he was doing it for a rather sinister purpose.

He had the idea that he would lead some kind of new political movement in the region, and used these projects as a means of “encouraging” the locals to vote for him

Of course the locals took his money and started to work on his project, but at the next round of elections, the perfidious locals voted for his opponent.

In an evident fit of pique, Chaffraix stopped the construction, cut off the funds and moved away. And left behind three magnificent but only half-finished stately mansions.

And here they stand, even today, like the Maison Durat which is one of these three unfinished tributes to the ambitions of Désiré Chaffraix.

On our way back into town we were treated by Marianne to a guided tour of the Chateau de Pionsat.

It’s not been possible to visit the chateau for a number of years now because it’s been undergoing a programme of major renovation, so we wre quite lucky.

And Marianne was quite pleased too. The chateau is her chou-chou and she delights in having the opportunity to show people around her celebrated pile.

Not that there’s as much to see of it as there would have been 300 years ago, that’s for sure.

You only have to look at the dressed stone used in some of the most banal buildings in Pionsat dating from the 19th Century to know where much of it has gone.

It’s actually in two parts – a Medieval part that dates from the time of the 100 Years War and was built on the instructions of Charles V as a barrier to marauding English troops from the Aquitaine, and the second part is from a couple of centuries later.

After the Revolution it fell into disrepair but was later listed as a Historic Monument and is now slowly being pieced together.

We finished everything by about 19:30 and I came home.

Completely worn out and it’s supposed to be a bank holiday – a day of rest – too.

But at least we had a pile of rain this evening, and the garden didn’t half need it;.

And I really do feel sorry for Rick the Trailer Guy and his cello.

-1

Saturday 11th August 2012 – Damn Damn Damn Damn!!!!

I went into Commentry this afternoon to do my shopping. I didn’t buy anything too exciting but I spent up at the Bricomarché.

And it was there that I had a disaster.

No glass there – all sold out. But the guy there did have a rummage around and managed to find some offcuts of glass that would do to make the windows for the lean-to.

So he cut them to size and I put them carefully on the floor in the back of Caliburn.

I then took the ladder off the roof of Caliburn so that I could put all the guttering up there. No room on the roof rack to put the ladder back and so without thinking, I simply threw the ladder into the back of Caliburn as I would normally do.

The crash and tinkle told its own story. Nick Lowe might love the sound of breaking glass, but I didn’t.

This morning I was going to work and I managed to select the music for one of the four rock programmes that I need to do, but then I was sidetracked and didn’t do very much after that.

And back home after the shopping I crashed out until 19:30 and if someone hadn’t ‘phoned me up I would still be asleep now.

Dunno what’s the matter with me just now. I’m going to have to put more effort into concentrating on what I ought to be doing.

-2

EPIC HALL

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