Tag Archives: Gerzat

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?
.

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Thursday 29th September 2011 – THE PHONE RANG …

… at 10:00 this morning. And it’s a good job that it did too otherwise I would be still asleep even now.

So much for that early night!

It was Liz on the phone, reminding me about our recording session later doday. And had she not done so I would have gone there for 16:30 and not 14:30. No idea how come that time had entered itself into my head.

But anyway I was in plenty of time to pick her up and we made it to Gerzat with plenty of time to spare. And it’s a good job that we did too because my first task on arriving was to fix their computer which had stopped working. .

Once I’d organised that we could record our next four programmes.

We are using a different format from now on, though. We have 15 minutes rather than 10, and the programmes are divided up into four segments

there are the events
we have the supplementary information – for one week Liz does a recipe, a second week I do a gardening bit, and for the other weeks we discuss useful French phrases.
we have music – English-speaking songs and such-like
we have the legislation bit

And it was hot there too – the temperature displayed on the wall on the pharmacy round the corner was off the scale – more than 40 degrees and I could believe that too. We were sweltering. Late September too!

Liz cooked tea as well which was nice – it’snice being waited on hand and foot every now and again, especially with the delicious food that Liz produces.

Yes, as Golden Earring so famously said that beautiful evening on the beach in Scheveningen in the early 90s – “There’s one thing I want to tell you man – it’s good to be back home”.

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Tuesday 30th August 2011 – DAY ONE OF MY VOYAGE

I’m not sure if this should actually count as Day One because firstly, there wasn’t much of it and secondly, I didn’t actually leave the country. It was however they day that I hit the road (or rather hit the rails) and so for that reason I’ve included it as a fair candidate.

Having said that though, I did actually hit the road rather early. I was all washed up, cleaned up, tidied up (well, sort-of) and on the road for 09:45 because today is the day that Liz and I record the Radio Anglais programmes for the month of September. We did the Radio Tartasse sessions in the morning and then I drove Caliburn down to Liz’s and left him there, piling myself and the baggage into Liz’s voiture for the journey down to Gerzat and the Radio Arverne sessions.

When they were over she heaved me out at the railway station at Riom and that was that. And only a wait of 75 minutes for the train. Good job there’s a coffee machine here.

This is the locomotive that pulled my train for Paris Gare de Lyon.

I sat next to a girl on the train up and we had a healthy conversation for at least 10 minutes before we worked out that we were both British. She was from Inverness and a student at St Andrews studying French for Scientists. She was spending a year’s exchange living in the language but she’d been in Aurillac for a month house-and-dog sitting.

Her family lives in the wilds and they have no mains electricity – just solar panels and wind turbines and so we had a good chat about that and I gave her a card.

We had the usual struggle across Paris with my giant suitcase and there has to be a better way to go to the airport than this – hitting the city in the evening rush hour with swarms of people and escalators out of order and miles to walk. I’m going to have to resolve this somehow.

At the airport, I dunno where this blasted shuttle bus has gone to – I have to wait about a year for it to turn up. And then by the time that I’ve sorted out everything at the hotel and gone for a walk, the only restaurant in this village here is closed. It only opens Thursday Friday and Saturday evenings and closes at 21:30. So that’s no use to me.

Nothing to eat tonight then. I hope that the rest of my voyage is better than this.

Friday 22nd July 2011 – IN HASTE …

… because I’m off to bed in a minute and I’ve forgotten to tell you of my adventures today.

I’ve been busy doing nothing (or very little, anyway) although it might not sound like it. But then again, spending all day talking isn’t very much like work to me, is it?

The morning was spent as usual working on the laptop, all nice and pretty and up and running with its new battery. And that’s almost as impressive as my galvanised steel dustbin.

This afternoon though, I went to Gerzat. You may remember from the other day that our radio recording session down there was cancelled due to this funeral, and so this afternoon was when we had arranged to go down and record it. I wanted it to be done before I hit the road.

I drove down to Sauret-Besserve to pick up Liz and off we toddled to Radio Arverne where we just for a change it all went according to plan.

We drove back to Sauret-Besserve where I dropped off Liz and said “hello” to Terry, and then I came back here.

A quick check-over of Caliburn and there we are. Tea-time and not very much else because I need to muster my forces. The next couple of days are going to be busy and I need to be on form. I believe that I have mentioned that all of my life’s work will come to fruition on Monday, if all goes according to plan.

Tuesday 24th May 2011 – I know it’s not much, but …

… it’s all my own and grown with my own fair hands.

Yes, the strawberries are coming into season and this evening for tea I had the four that have ripened so far. It’s impressive that I’ve got some as well after the devastating winter that we had.

It put the seal on the day too, because it was beautiful. Liz and I recorded our programmes at Radio Tartasse and Radio Arverne, and in between we went for lunch at the side of the River Sioule in Chateauneuf-les-Bains, in the glorious weather that we had.

We went from Chateauneuf to Gerzat by the scenic route through Blot and Charbonnieres and that was a gorgeous drive too – all in all it was an excellent day.

But there are changes afoot at Radio Arverne. As we suspected all along, SMADC has withdrawn its funding from our programmes. And it’s worse than that too because SMADC was leasing the radio aerial that transmits to the Combrailles, at €13,000 per annum. Radio Arverne can’t pay that and so it stops our programmes being broadcast to our own heartland.

However, all is not lost. There are a couple of other areas within range of the other transmitter that want to take the programme, and so could we continue the programmes but direct them there instead? We are open to offers, of course, but we can’t research any events to publicise because we have no contacts there. And so we’ve left it that we will still come, that we will produce our programmes, and that the regions that want to broadcast them will supply us with details of the events.

As well as that, they want us to prolong the running time of the programmes. Strangely enough, Liz and I were talking about that. We had the idea to talk about recipes, local Auvergnat ones for the Brits and British recipes for the French, and also some kind of gardening stuff – “what are you doing in the garden right now?”.

So we’ll have to wait to see what happens. it’s all confusing but then again nothing worth doing is ever easy to do.

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Tuesday 3rd May 2011 – What was so strange …

… about my posting last night was that the moment I pressed “send” there was a tremendous thunderclap outside and we had a storm – and I didn’t have any idea at all that one was brewing. We ended up with 7mm of rain and that’s about 80 litres of water in the water butts. I’m glad now that I worked on my day off.

And so this morning I needed to print off the papers for the radio programme and some other papers that I needed. Terry needed me to accompany him to the quarry for some intense negotiations, and that was effectively the morning sorted out.

At the radio station, they weren’t expecting us. According to the engineer, SMADC (the Societe Mixte pour l’Amenagedment et Developpement des Combrailles) are now not co-operating with the radio station. Nothing new there – the SMADC ceased to co-operate with us a long time ago – but I suspect some developments in this field in early course.

Back home I crashed out for a couple of hours yet again. I’m going to have to do something about this.

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Tuesday 29th March 2011 – I’ve spent all day on the road.

We started off at Radio Tartasse to record their programmes for April. It was the usual disorganised performance there but we managed well enough.

Radio Arverne wanted us at 13:00 this afternoon and so it wasn’t worth going home. We went to Chateuneuf-les-Bains for a coffee instead. That was much more interesting.

At Radio Tartasse, which is much more organised we did 5 programmes in less than an hour, and then went off to the Carrefour at Riom for a butty, a coffee and a nosy around the shops where I bought some 100%vegan margarine for my garlic bread for tea.

Back here, I sorted out some screws and some of the seeds for the garden but my heart’s not in it right now. I’ve not recovered fully from the effects of digging all of these raised beds. It’s taking it out of me getting ready for planting. So with that in mind I knocked off at 17:30 and came up here for a rest.

I’ll have a lie-in tomorrow to see if I’ll feel any better, and then I’ll go out a-planting. I need to get the garlic and the shallots in place pretty quickly. And I’m away at the weekend too.

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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 – Poor Caliburn

Caliburn is not very well at the moment and is currently at the menders awaiting spare parts. And so Liz and I are still here and Terry is still there.

We started the morning by a quick breakfast and a quick search for stuff that we needed to take back to Brussels, and then we had to shoot off to Marcillat to record Radio Programme Number 1. But Caliburn was coughing and smoking a little too much and was not in the best of health so it was more of a leisurely drive.

After that, it was round to my place and to unload him of all the things that he had brought down from Brussels. While we were there, Radio Arverne asked us to come a little earlier to record the programmes for them – this meant dropping everything and shooting off to Gerzat. But Caliburn was a little worse by this time. Stopping for fuel for the return journey at the Carrefour just outside Riom and it was clear that we would be struggling to make anywhere, never mind Brussels, so it was off to the mender’s on the outskirts of Riom.

What is happening is that there’s a valve in the emissions circuit that controls the air intake and exhaust, and it has stuck closed. There’s insufficient air reaching the combustion chambers and so Caliburn is running far too rich and that is the reason for the unburnt fuel and sooty smoke. A new valve has been ordered and hopefully will arrive tomorrow. At the same time, Caliburn can have his (overdue) service and hopefully he’ll be feeling much better and normal service will resume.

Meantime, we have a hired Ford Ka to bring us back to here (it was cheaper than a taxi and of course there is no public transport around here since the railway line closed down 2 years ago) and that will give us a chance to do those things that we were going to do.

I was planning to go back to my house and find some papers that I need but it seems that I have .. errr … left the keys to my house on Caliburn’s keyring which is of course with Caliburn at the menders.

D’ohhhh!

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Sunday 20th February 2011 – And today was Sunday.

And so, we …. errr … worked.

Liz finished painting the woodwork in the toilet while Terry and I went a-breaking and entering. Those of you with long memories will recall that I lost the keys to the apartment while I was at an OUSA meeting at Wyboston in 2008 and although I cobbled together a spare set of keys, there was no garage key to be found.

So this morning we drilled it all out and replaced the lock and then sorted out the stuff in there. A third of it went into Caliburn – all my tools and so on – another third I’m undecided about, and the remainder is destined straight away for the tip without any further discussion. I cannot think why I reckoned, even in my befuddled state, that I needed three double beds for in here. There’s tons of stuff like that which is better off down in the dechetterie.

Mind you, I found all my skiing gear and I washed my ski suits. I quite fancy going on the piste some time in the future but I reckon that I’ve missed my chance for this year. However Banff in British Columbia looks quite exciting – I wouldn’t mind going on the piste over there. I have to admit that I’m disappointed in the facilities down the road at Super Besse. There’s never usually any snow and when there is, there is a low hanging cloud that obscures the runs and you can’t ski there anyway. No wonder everyone is piste off.

There is a reason for our haste today. On Tuesday we need to record our radio programmes in Marcillat and Gerzat but we are a long way away from finishing here. So we have decided that Liz and I will take Caliburn and the big trailer, duly loaded, down to the Auvergne tomorrow, record our programmes on Tuesday and then unload Caliburn and the trailer, and then come back here on Wednesday to carry on. That will mean that half of the stuff will have gone and that will save a trip or two – we may as well combine what we can.

With the radio programmes, it meant that I had to dash off not one but two scripts – firstly one on education for Radio Arverne and then rework the script on Building Regulations for Radio Tartasse. And so I’ve been a busy little bee and it isn’t long since I finished.

And so with all of the travelling that I need to be doing over the next few days, I’m heading for the hills earlier than usual.

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Monday 17th January 2011 – It was Monday today …

… believe it or not, and this afternoon we went to the recording studio to record our radio programmes for the month of February. And no offer of transport from our sponsors either. It seems that whatever budget that was available was only for 12 months and that has now expired.

Anyway, with a view to not taking this lying down, I have taken some positive action. I’ve created a blog for the radio programmes that we do and the intention is that I will stream the radio programmes on there for the benefit of those who can’t receive them or who forgot to listen to them. And in addition to that I will be offering advertising space, at a very democratic €30 per annum for those who run a business or have a service to offer, or €3 per 15 words per month for small ads and the like, people buying and selling articles and so on. And with the money that we raise, we can pay our own travelling expenses to the studio.

So I need help in spreading the word about the radio blog, and I also need customers to buy the advertising space. If you can do your bit to spread the word it would be a great help.

This morning I was up early (just for a change) and with the new insulation that I bought on Saturday I was able to have a profitable couple of hours doing the bedroom ceiling. And it’s advancing pretty well in there. I’m quite happy with that. This evening though we were in St Eloy for the Anglo-French group and we were so carried away with the discussions that instead of finishing at 21:00 as is our wont, it was almost 22:00 when someone noticed the time.

Tomorrow we are recording again – at Radio Tartasse. I need to encourage them to let me have the radio programmes from their end so that we can put them up on the blog too.

I hope it all works!

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Tuesday 21st December 2010 – IT WAS A BUSY DAY TODAY.

It started after the usual fire-cleaning and breakfast by chopping another huge pile of wood ready for the next bout of winter – due on Thursday, so we are told. Now there’s four bucketsfull outside together with a huge pile heaped up against the wall in here – good plan it was to tile the wall behind the fireplace.

Then it was checking over the documents for the radio recording this afternoon – a total of 31 pages! That is a record by anyone’s standard. And it’s a good job I bought that new printer a couple of months ago so I could print it all out. Bye-bye another rain forest.

Next stop was down to see Liz as our chauffeur has abandoned us and we worked out a few more things, and then down to Gerzat. We recorded 4 programmes of the traditional type that will see us through to the 25th of January (back in the studio on the 18th) and then we did the Christmas Special.

1 hour we were allowed, and on the Sunday rehearsal we did the play in 58 minutes (add another Carol to make up the time) but today we had to crop a huge chunk out as we overran by miles. No idea how that happened.

The Christmas Special is going out on Christmas Eve at 19:00 and being repeated a couple of times. You can hear it on Radio Arverne (89.8mhz) but if you can’t get the reception then I have the programme saved to disk and I’ll be uploading it to the internet once the broadcast has passed and you can hear us on the internet.

Tomorrow we are recording for Radio Tartasse – the first radio station to want to syndicate us. Then it’s off to Montlucon with Terry and Liz to do our last-minute shopping before the weather closes in again.

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Friday 19th November 2010 – BACK TO WORK TODAY :-(

I managed to struggle round to Liz’s for 13:30 via a quick stop at Nathalie’s to pick up her meeting schedule that we are obliged to broadcast. And then Liz and I drove down to Gerzat and recorded our next series of radio programmes.

This new guy doing the recording is much more efficient – no more searching for pencils, 10 minute chat breaks, all that kind of thing. Everything is ready when we arrive, we are allowed a few minutes to compose ourselves (which is better than a few minutes decomposing ourselves I suppose) and then we are off.

“We’ll start at 14:40 and break at 14:47” he says
And that’s what we do. And then the next one –
“We’ll start at 14:50 and break at 14:57”
And we do that.

And that’s how it continues until the series of recordings are over. A military precision, you might say.
And then after the programmes are recorded, no panic-stricken 15 minutes of frantic listening and so on.
“Is it OK?” we ask
“Yes” he replies, with an air of bewilderment as if “why shouldn’t it be OK?”

And then the bombshell

“How would you like to do a Christmas Special?”
“Errr …. such as?”
“Well, an hour or so of your programme to be broadcast on Christmas Day?”

Move over, Morecambe and Wise, what?

So we spent the rest of the day, Liz and I, planning our show. We’re aiming for maybe 10 Christmas Carols, a little bit of the nativity, a Christmas Story, a couple of poems and then a pile of the usual mayhem.

But how about that for fame? They obviously like us on the airwaves in the Puy de Dome.

Tuesday 28th September 2010 – WOULD YOU BELIEVE …

… that this is the first time that I’ve been on a French train since all of 1978? That was when I had a brief excursion from Rouen to Paris to escape from a party of schoolkids that I was accompanying.

The trip itself was quite uneventful except that I had to share a table with three other people and a large black dog. Everywhere you put your feet it seemed to be on top of the dog. Probably something to do with me going to Labrador, I reckon.

everything went according to plan at Gerzat and Liz dropped me off at the railway station in really good time for my train. I even managed to have time for a coffee and was on the platform in good time for my train.

The British King Richard I was, as every schoolboy will tell you, nicknamed Richard Gare de Lyon because he was always travelling south with his pal Philip of France. I was here in the Gare de Lyon and I was going west. I didn’t like the analogy.

To seek directions to the RER I enquired of a member of the station security staff. He replied in an English which was absolutely impeccable. When I congratulated him on it he replied
"and so it ought to be. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia".
Ahh well.

So down into the basement, off to Something Halles du Something Else on the RER line A, and then change onto the RER line B for Charles de Gaulle airport Terminal 1. And it wasn’t half a struggle fighting through tides of people with a big heavy suitcase. This was the worst part of the journey without a doubt.

When I finally arrived at the airport I waited outside in the wind and rain in the company of a hundred other people for the Hotel navettes. My hotel was the Comfort Inn and I have no idea why they call it Comfort because the light in my room doesn’t work, the shower is only lukewarm and leaks all over the bathroom floor, the meals and drinks are like the internet service – flaming expensive!

But then it’s the cheapest hotel I could find that had a direct connection to the airport and still had a room vacant. I could have paid a lot more for my room elsewhere. And I’m only going to be sleeping in it anyway. It’s better than a draughty railway station concourse.

And I have my humus butties and a packet of biscuits – what more could any man desire?

Tuesday 27th July 2010 – Terry had other things to do today …

… so he didn’t come down today. Mind you he did ring me at 08:00 to tell me not to wake up, which was kind of him.

So I had a relaxed morning doing not very much. I checked on Lieneke’s house to make sure things were okay and that was that. I was going to do some washing but the weather wasn’t stable enough for that. I need to do some soon as I’m running out of clothes.

This afternoon we went to record our monthly programmes and this was full of hitches. The guy who takes us had his floosie with him and so engrossed were they in talking that he missed our exit on the Motorway and we had to drive miles out of our way to get to the studio. And then they had a technician in repairing the computer so we had to wait an hour or so.

And then the computer still wasn’t working so we had to record our programmes on the analogue tape machine.

And then the tape jammed

And then we ran out of tape.

So all in all it took hours.

And that is really that. I’m thoroughly exhausted and I’m going to have another early night. I’ve not even managed to make myself any food.

But summer has returned. The solar shower reached 35 degrees and if I had made it home earlier than 18:15 I would have had a shower. And the automatic water heater started up again. Only 20 minutes but it pushed the water temp up by 4 degrees.

Tomorrow I may even have a shower if the weather keeps up.

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Tuesday 25th May 2010 – What amazing weather.

Indeed.

This morning was bright and sunny – it was really beautiful and we were heading for another warmest day of the year. The drive down to Gerzat to record our radio programme was hot and sweaty just like an August day and the temperature down there was 31 degrees.

When we left there it had risen to 32 degrees but by the time we hit the motorway to come back there were these huge and onimous grey clouds streaming in from the west at a rapid rate of knots

All of a sudden the temperature plummeted. From 32 degrees it dropped to just 14 degrees in a matter of minutes and as we climbed up into the Combrailles it started to rain intermittently.

After I rescued Caliburn from St Gervais d’Auvergne I drove back here and the skies started to clear.

But suddenly it would cloud over again, we’d have the most tremendous rainstorm and then the clouds would depart leaving us in bright sunshine.

The temperature would rise back into the low 30s almost immediately and the heat would cause all of the roads and the vegetation to steam – just like in this pic near the top of the Font Nanaud on the road between St Gervais d’Auvergne and Pionsat.

Despite what it looks like, it isn’t a hanging cloud.

Back here at home though (just 10 kms from the Font) things had clearly been much more dramatic. 17mm of rainfall had fallen and my water butts were full again.

It cleared up in late afternoon but for the last hour or so it’s been raining heavily, and aren’t my plants grateful for that?

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

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EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: Gerzat

Thursday 27th October 2011 – THE WEATHER …

Thursday 29th September 2011 – THE PHONE RANG …

Tuesday 30th August 2011 – DAY ONE OF MY VOYAGE

Friday 22nd July 2011 – IN HASTE …

Tuesday 24th May 2011 – I know it’s not much, but …

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 – What was so strange …

Tuesday 29th March 2011 – I’ve spent all day on the road.

Tuesday 22nd February 2011 – Poor Caliburn

Sunday 20th February 2011 – And today was Sunday.

Monday 17th January 2011 – It was Monday today …

Tuesday 21st December 2010 – IT WAS A BUSY DAY TODAY.

Friday 19th November 2010 – BACK TO WORK TODAY :-(

Tuesday 28th September 2010 – WOULD YOU BELIEVE …

Tuesday 27th July 2010 – Terry had other things to do today …

Tuesday 25th May 2010 – What amazing weather.

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