Tag Archives: football

Saturday 17th March 2012 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… bad night’s sleep last night.

But I was still up and about at 08:30 in time to go to Montlucon.

The trouble is though that after only about 3 hours sleep I’m never in a good mood, I can’t concentrate and I can’t think straight. I couldn’t remember what it was that I needed from Brico Depot and when I did find some things I wasn’t able to summon up the energy to load them up onto Caliburn’s roof rack.

In fact, for several reasons I wasted my time in going.

It didn’t help in that the Auchan only had early seed potatoes. No onions, no garlic, no shallots, no maincrop seed potatoes and so that was a washout. In the end, I went to Mr Bricolage to see if they had anything exciting.

Nothing at all, as it happened but firstly I bumped into Rob and Nicolette from down the road and we had a good chat;

And then who else should turn up but Liz and Terry. We all had a good chat and then Liz, Terry and I went down the road to Jardiland. They had everything that I needed in the vegetable line, but at quite a price.

Never mind though, Liz and I went halves on most things and so it wasn’t too bad.

After a coffee together my early start ended up being one of the latest returns from Montlucon that I had ever had and I almost missed the start of the footy matches back at Pionsat.

There were two tonight – the 3rd XI of Pionsat St Hilaire against Biollet-St Maurice and the Ist XI against Malauzat.

In the away match at Biollet St Maurice the 3rd XI had led for much of the game but faded away at the end to lose. But today, with a full team out (but no goalkeeper) they looked the business.

At one stage they were 3-0 up but faded away at the end and hung on grimly for a 4-3 win. And if Biollet St Maurice hadn’t have missed a penalty earlier in the game it would have been a different story again.

But a win is a win, and it’s a rare enough event for the 3rd XI so they are quite right to celebrate it.

The big difference in the team today was that Simon, who used to play for the 1st XI, was out there playing at centre-forward. He now lives in Switzerland but luckily the club has retains his French football registration.

He he had come back this weekend to visit his family and one of his friends from the football club had talked him into playing.

It was his irst match for over a year, he told me after the match and to be honest, it looked like it too,

But there was no denying his skill and ball control, and he and Stéphane Gomet, playing on the left wing, spent most of the match tearing the Biollet St Maurice defence to shreds.

It’s a shame that they can’t find a decent goalkeeper for the team because that really is the difference.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI were playing ESV Malauzat in the second match and they also won their match.

2-0 the final score was, and they never ever at any moment looked under any pressure. I don’t recall Matthieu having much to do in the FC Pionsat St Hilaire goal.

However ESV Malauzat’s keeper was working overtime and if it wasn’t for him we would have had a cricket score this evening.

The weather broke too at about 22:00 and now it’s pouring down. And I’m off to bed because I’m really whacked.

-2

Sunday 11th March 2012 – CONTINUING ON …

… with the saga of weird football matches, I went to Terjat this afternoon to watch AS Terjat play a team from Montlucon – Bien Assis I think – seeing as how there was no Pionsat team in action this afternoon.

The trainer for Terjat, with whom I struck up some kind of conversation last time I was there and which carried on this afternoon, told me that in the league tables Turgid were well ahead of their opponents, and that they needed to win (which everyone was expecting) to keep up some kind of reasonable pretensions for promotion.

He was right about the “well ahead of their opponents” bit, because a more one-sided game you would not wish to see.

However from the first attack of the game one of the Bien Assis forwards had a weak shot on goal, well covered by the keeper and which would have been comfortably saved had the ball not taken a wicked deflection off the needlessly-outstretched foot of a Turgid defender and rolled into the far corner of the net.

For the remaining 89 minutes AS Terjat were camped in the opposition half with their keeper being merely an interested spectator.

And the final score?

Yes, you guessed it. 1-0 for Bien Assis.

As an aside, the Turgid keeper had one of the most powerful kicks I have ever seen and his clearances upfield were outpacing his attackers every time. And one of the Turgid central defenders was the best header of the ball that I have ever seen at this level of football.

In fact this game was quite a decent match for aerial prowess. I’ve not seen another match quite like this one for that kind of thing.

But the referee came out onto the field of play having left his cards in the dressing room.

At least that’s the only reason I can think of as to how we managed to reach the end of 90 minutes of this match without a single card being shown, despite the kind of goings-on that we had during the game.

“Hard-fought” is probably quite an apt description.

In other news, I had something of a lie-in today. In fact, 11:29 was when I crawled out of my stinking pit. About time I had a good lie-in.

We are also having a record day for wind power. I’ve had the power meter connected up for about 10 days or so, and we’ve had more wind today than the cumulative figure over the other 9 days.

It really is quite impressive.

-2

Saturday 10th March 2012 – BRAIN OF A DUCK, YOU KNOW!

Yes, Brain of Britain drove all of the way to Commentry to do his shopping this afternoon, only to find when he arrived there that he had forgotten his money, his wallet and his bank cards.

And so all the way back to here to fetch them and then go all the way back again.

That meant that I didn’t have time to do much shopping and so I just did the bare essentials – and then only some because I forgot quite a lot, I reckon.

And after that, a nip to the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains.

It was freezing in there this afternoon and I wasn’t sorry to come out after an hour or so.

But I did have an amusing time watching a group of kids in there. All aged between 6 and 8 I reckon and all came in individually with parents, but after a while I noticed that they were all playing together in a corner of the shallow end.

It never ceases to amaze me how unself-conscious kids of that age are, and how quickly they all seem to integrate.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing Sauret this evening at football down at the bottom of Division 4 of the Puy de Dome District league in Pionsat.

For once they had a full side out with a couple of new players as well as a few decent players who have featured for the second XI. And so they spent most of the match peppering the Sauret goal whereas the opposition just contented themselves with a few breakaways.

And such is the perversity of modern football that Sauret won the encounter by 2-1.

This was another match that Pionsat threw away. They really do need to win encounters like this if they want to crawl away from the basement.

-2

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

… on in the garden today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-1

Sunday 4th March 2012 – IT WAS SUNDAY TODAY …

… and despite me having another one of these “04:30 in the morning” sessions, it was 10:25 when I was up and about.

Just as well, though, because I had to have an early start.

FC Pionsat Sy Hilaire’s 1st XI was playing Clermont Fontaine du Bac’s 2nd XI today and that necessitated a drive almost to Aubière – and the kick-off was at 13:00. That meant an 11:30 start from here.

Finding the stadium was easy. Finding the entrance was something else. Eventually, after many trials and tribulations, I stumbled upon it – in the … errr …”rue du Fontaine du Bac”.

D’ohhhh!!!!

The opponents were a good strong attacking side, and Pionsat’s team was … errr … somewhat makeshift, especially in defence. Not one of the four established full-backs was out there today.

And Jerome, who usually tears up opposition defences, was on the bench (the only substitute as well) and Franck resisted all temptation to put him on the field in place of the one or two attacking midfielders who were clearly only there in body this afternoon.

He managed a brief 15-minute cameo when Cedric was forced to hobble off. It was no surprise that Pionsat lost 3-1, and it was something of a disappointment.

On the way back I stopped to fuel up at the Auchan at Clermont-Ferrand – and €1.42 per litre for the diesel. It’s ridiculous the cost of fuel right now, and it’s not going to let up.

It’s also raining – the first time for 8 days – and the wind has shifted direction and is blowing from the north-west. We’ve been promised snow again on Tuesday and by the looks of things it may well be here before that.

-1

Saturday 3rd March 2012 – THE WEATHER …

… wasn’t quite as nice today.

Based upon the scheme of description that I use, we had “scattered clouds” this morning followed by “clouds” this afternoon. That’s rather a change from the “glorious” of the last couple of days.

I was up quite early this morning and had something of a lazy half-day doing nothing in particular.

From there it was off to Commentry, just for a change, to do a round of the shops there. But there was nothing extraordinary at all on offer about the place today and I didn’t buy anything special at all

I did make it to the swimming baths at Neris-les-bBains though, for the first time in ages, and I’m all clean now.

I finally managed to watch a football match tonight – the first time for what feels like several years.

Down in Pionsat, FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI were playing Menetrol so I went along to lend them my support. And despite playing a little better than they have done just recently, they still managed to lose again.

They are now struggling near the foot of the table with relegation starting to stare them in the face and it’s all looking quite ominous.

-3

Sunday 26th February 2012 – ONE THING …

… that I can never understand is how it is that it can be 4:30 in the morning and I’m wide awake and I only go to bed because it’s force of habit – and yet next morning I wake up, don’t move for ages, slowly come round, eventually make sure that I’m wide awake and then get up because there’s no point in lying in any longer, and it’s only 09:20.

I don’t understand that at all.

And so despite it being yet another day of rest, I did the script for the new radio show, more of which anon, and then went off toi watch the football at Pionsat as the season has restarted.

I was spoilt for choice – FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI were at home to Chanat or the 2nd XI were away at Lapeyrouse?

Now I’ve never been to Lapeyrouse for a match, believe it or not, but the 1st XI match sounded much more interesting and so I waited until 14:50 and went down to the ground, only to find the game postponed.

GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

If only someone had let me know!

Mind you, it’s probably as well that I didn’t go, because the 2nd XI were soundly spanked by the opposition.

But what was remarkable today is that I had to cook my tea downstairs in the verandah on the gas stove. Reason – I’ve not had the fire lit all day. When I woke up it was 17°C and it’s currently 15.5°C.

Isn’t this all a big change from two weeks ago?

-3

Sunday 12th February 2012 – IF ANYONE THINKS …

… that I’m going out and looking for a football match today, then they are very much mistaken.

Sunday is a Day of Rest, and that means not trying to extricate myself out of the little lane here and sliding and slithering around 100 miles of French countryside trying to find a football pitch that might be playable.

Because there will certainly be nothing anywhere in this vicinity.

Instead, I had a lie-in and when I finally did heave myself out of my stinking pit into Ice Station Zebra, I lit the fire and spent most of the day within about 6 inches thereof with the laptop, a good book and a couple of films.

Tea tonight was the rest of the oven chips that I didn’t cook yesterday, and that, dear reader, is your lot.

We are told that it will warm up tomorrow – I suppose that instead of -11°C that will mean -9°C.

We shall see.

Sunday 29th January 2012 – IT’S BEEN SUNDAY TODAY …

… and so I had a nice drive out in the countryside in the freezing (and I do mean “freezing” weather. In fact as far as Terjat, where the home team was playing Target in the Allier League 3rd Division.

It’s a beautiful setting up there at Terjat, and you can see right across the valley to the snow-covered hills in the background. It’s over there somewhere in those hills, at the back of Montaigut where I live.

Another thing about Sunday is that there’s no alarm clock and so with no-one ringing me up at some stupid time of the day, I can lie in until 10:24 without the least pang of guilt, in clean sheets and bedding the bed in its “double-bed” position, back in its old place by the little window.

Luxury!

The temperature in here was 13.2°C and that’s another thing that I like about this new fire that I’ve bought. With the old one, there wasn’t enough residual heat to keep the room warm once the fire went out and the temperature would often drop into single figures overnight.

But this fire keeps warm for ages and it’s maintaining a reasonable heat (up to now, anyway). and first thing that I did, even before breakfast, was to light the fire again. And I’ve been warm all day, which is really impressive and just what the doctor ordered.

In the warmth and comfort of my attic I’m well on the way towards the end of my presentation of the Trans-Labrador Highway – one or two more days and it will be done, I hope.

The football promised to be a real struggle, in the cold (coldest day of the winter so far) and the wind. And with Turgid being 3rd from bottom of the lowest possible league in the Allier, and Target being one place below them, I’m not quite sure what I expected. But it wasn’t much.

But having been overly critical of the football in the Allier, I have to say in fairness that this was a good game. Turgid played quite well, helped by the fact that Target, while they weren’t “bad”, they were rather clueless and ran out of ideas whenever they had the ball.

In the Allier, where there is no official referee, it’s the away side that provides the referee. And so it was a Target referee in the middle today. And he disallowed no fewer than three Terjat goals (two for offside – on one occasion overruling the *home* linesman) and one for pushing in the box.

To be fair I have to say that I was in no position to make any judgement.

But despite the handicap, Turgid scored two more goals that were allowed by the ref, and should have had three or four more. Had those disallowed goals been given and had Turgid won 5-0, it would have been a fair reflection of the match. Third from bottom in the worst league in the area?

Not on this showing they aren’t. I’ll be keeping my eye on the fixture list for whenever Pionsat don’t have a Sunday match, and I’ll wander along here again.

And this evening, with a rip-roaring fire and 24°C on the thermometer in the attic, I carried out what is fast becoming a ritual on Sunday evenings, and cooked pizza and garlic bread and rice pudding in the oven bit of my stove.

At €270 or however much it was, this woodstove is proving to be something of a bargain.

-4

Saturday 28th January 2012 – IT JUST GOES TO SHOW …

… that those people in football clamouring for a winter break mid-season quite simply don’t have a clue about whatever it is that they are trying to say.

Here we are in the Puy-de-Dôme, having had our 6-week winter break in the mildest winter in the area since records began, and the football season restarts this evening.

And today we have had the heaviest snowfall of the winter and so all the matches are postponed.

So much for the winter break

But not that I am complaining too much. I spent the morning and some of the afternoon working on my presentation of The Trans-Labrador Highway for the local village social evening in a month’s time. and I’ve managed to reach the outskirts of Goose Bay – i.e. well over halfway.

It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good.

But at about 13:30 the snow stopped and we had a little thaw. That was the cue for me to race off to St Eloy and so some shopping.

And I was back by 15:00 with the usual stuff, but also two Harry Potter films, the director’s cut versions, for €9:99 the pair. I’ll have to see what Herry Potter is up to – so far I’ve managed to avoid those films (except for one that I caught a glimpse of – in French – with Marianne over Christmas).

This afternoon I’ve turned my room around again. I’ve done a lot more sorting out, repositioned the furniture and by the time you read this I will have the bed back where it used to be. Only this time, with a proper array of chests of drawers behind it for the clothes.

What inspired this was the fact that the new large set that I bought in IKEA in the spring, and the medium sized set that I acquired at a brocante 18 months ago fit together nicely and are exactly the right size to fill one of the alcoves.

But I’m surprised at all of the bedding and stuff that I seem to have acquired since I emptied out Expo. I can see me having a really good sorting out one of these days.

I’ve left Caliburn on the road at the top of the lane in case the weather continues to turn nasty. From there I can drive him out.

Because tomorrow afternoon, Terjat, who I saw last Sunday in a basement Allier 3rd Division clash, are at home again. If I can move around, I’ll go for a nosey to see if they really are as bad as they looked last week.

-4

Monday 23rd January 2012 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again today.

Yes, doing my “Imelda babe – going shopping, shopping for shoes” bit (and quite funnily, I was listening to Golden Heart, the album from which the above-names track is taken, on the way to Liz’s this morning).

The boots that I bought in a Hudson’s Bay trading post in Canada 15 months ago died a death over Christmas (the sole split) and the canvas shoes that I use for wandering around here aren’t really suitable for much.

And a chance glance across a busy road from the Auchan on the outskirts of Clermont-Ferrand revealed a sale on at a shoe shop

So I’ve now acquired a pair of black leather boots, not exactly what I wanted but they look fairly solid and 50% off the retail price of €59 made it look like something respectable, and they will keep my feet warm and dry for the foreseeable future.

But that wasn’t all.

They had some boots that are a kind-of cross between wellingtons and après-ski boots, with thick soles and fur lining and looking pretty solid, and all for €22 as well.

Having frozen my feet off at the football over the weekend and being up to my neck in mud around here as well, I decided that a pair of those wouldn’t go amiss either – for going to to footy and for working outside in the bad weather.

Two pairs of footwear – you really WILL be calling me “Imelda” now.

So what was I doing in Clermont-Ferrand this afternoon?

Well, we’d been to Gerzat this morning to record the radio programmes for Radio Arverne – spending a lot of the time talking rubbish as I predicted.

But I’m running low on soya milk and not having been to Montluçon and the Auchan there for a while, we decided to multi-task and visit the Auchan on the outskirts of Clermont-Ferrand, which is only a cockstride away from the road that takes us home.

And the rest is history.

Back at Liz and Terry’s, I had a really nice surprise.

You may remember that when we were doing the house roof back in 2009, we had Terry’s little cement mixer running here. It’s only small but it runs on just 375 watts and it ticked over all day comfortably on my electrical set-up here.

But it’s really too small for Terry now that he’s in business and so he’s acquired a big professional mixer that needed repair, and he’s now repaired it. The upshot of this is that “would I like a more-or-less permanent loan of the small mixer?”

Well, do bears have picnics in the woods?

A little mixer like that quietly ticking away all day while I do some important building work won’t half make my life easier and I have plenty of work for it in the summer, that’s for sure.

Aren’t I grateful?

This evening, I had the wood stove running hot, and garlic bread, pizza and rice pudding for tea were all cooked in the oven.

All in all it’s been quite a good day today. Hasn’t it just?

-4

Sunday 22nd January 2012 – I’VE ALWAYS WANTED …

… to watch a 3rd Division football match in the Allier, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

This is the lowest tier in football in the Allier (the Puy-de-Dôme has four) but having seen matches higher up the pyramid and not been impressed at all, I wondered how bad an Allier 3rd Division match would be.

As luck would have it, with the Puy-de-Dome still being on the trève, or “winter break”, this afternoon Terjat (about 8 miles from here) were entertaining (if that is the right word to use) their near-neighbours Sainte Thérence in a cut-throat local derby down in the basement of the 3rd Division.

Obviously, with nothing better to do (there was no paint drying and no grass growing anywhere in the vicinity) a visit to Terjat was called for.

And I wasn’t disappointed either, for it was predictably awful.

There was only one player on the field who looked reasonably competent (I’m excluding the Sainte Thérence goalkeeper – what on earth was someone like him doing playing in a team as awful as his?) and that was the Terjat centre-half.

It was clear after the first five minutes that nothing was ever going to get past him as long as he was on the pitch, and it didn’t either.

The trainer of Sainte Thérence clearly had the same opinion as me, and the talk that he gave to his team at half-time was just so predictable.

30 seconds after the restart, with the Terjat centre-half taking off after a loose ball down the right flank, two Ste Thérence players came after him and put him firmly, fairly (well, the referee thought that it was fair – others might not) and squarely into the advertising hoardings with a thump that was heard all over the Allier.

That was his match over.

And so was AS Terjat’s, because the result was predictable after that.

Next stop was to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our radio programmes for the next month and Liz very kindly cooked tea and made cake, some of which found its way in a doggy-bag back to my house, for which I am extremely grateful

So we are recording tomorrow morning, and then I have to crack on with the next outstanding task – my presentation on the Trans-Labrador Highway for the village discussion group.

It’s all go here.

-3

Saturday 21st January 2012 – AND A QUIET …

… day today.

Which, after the hectic weekend I had last weekend, is no surprise.

For most of the day I was writing the scripts for the next few months-worth of radio programmes.And Liz and I will be spending most of our time talking rubbish.

I know that that’s what we usually do, but this time we mean it.

I was at a loss as to what subject to choose, but then on Tuesday I received my Puy-de-Dôme en Mouvement magazine in which one of the topics was the Departement’s plan to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

Then on Thursday I received my monthly magazine from the Bank, in which one of the topics was donating unwanted goods to charities and good homes. A subject therefore immediately suggested itself

What with my thesis for my Open University Diploma in Pollution Control where I wrote about waste and landfills, I’m perfectly qualified to talk rubbish and many people have suggested that I’ve had plenty of practice over the years, so that was that.

I had an interruption at midday on Saturday for a shopping expedition to St Eloy-les-Mines where I spent nothing exceptional and bought nothing exciting, but that was that.

Saturday night was football.

Not at Pionsat as the Puy-de-Dôme football leagues are on a winter break – and doesn’t this weather make a mockery of the idea of a winter break? Six weeks with no footy in the Puy-de-Dôme with some of the mildest weather I have ever had in winter, and when the season restarts next weekend – just you watch _ we’ll be snowed in for a month!

Instead, I was at Marcillat just across the border in the Allier where their 1st XI took on Chantelle. This was a match that is nominally in a division one step higher than FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI but the standard of football in the Allier is total rubbish and it was an appalling match.

I’m not sure why I bothered.

Saturday 14th January 2012 – SATURDAY IS SHOPPING DAY.

And so it was today.

But in a dramatic change to my usual habits, shopping day was a quick one-hour thrash down to St Eloy les Mines late in the afternoon just as it was starting to go dark.

Yes, I woke up this morning (-ish) to a beautiful bright blue clear sky and that meant “sod everything else – up on the roof!”.

I wasn’t intending to miss this unexpected stroke of fortune, even if it was freezing cold and everywhere was covered in ice that started to melt and soaked me to the skin again.

In not all that much time, comparatively speaking, I had another 6 rows of tiles on the roof. They aren’t particularly pretty but they are on, and that’s the bit that’s important. The weather was far too good to miss.

But do you like the IKEA bags? Very useful they are, for all kinds of purposes. And I have one fastened to the top of each ladder and they are used for holding the slates and nails so that I don’t have to keep on going down to the scaffolding.

And two ladders? The scaffolding is in two bays and each ladder is tied to the handrail of each bay. The difference with the metal planks that I have bought compared to the wooden planks of the other scaffolding is that the ladders don’t dig in – they slide across the metal.

So you need to tie them onto the scaffolding to stop them sliding off and of course if they are tied, then they can’t be moved from one bay to the next.

The other ladder hanging off the scaffolding is part of the side of the decorator’s platform that I have in the house. That came in useful when I was working lower down the roof – I could hook it over the uprights and work off the top but now I’m out of reach of it.

On the way to the shops I realised what a good buy this LIDL quilted overall was. In order to leave here I had to switch on the wipers on Caliburn in order to to clear the screen because they were frozen on to it – that was how cold it had been during rhe day, but I hadn’t noticed because I was curled up as snug as a bug in a rug in the quilted overall.

I’m well-impressed with that as well – almost impressed as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin in fact

But by the time that I was finished I was absolutely whacked and aching everywhere.

To such an extent that on the way back, when I noticed way across the valley that the floodlights were switched on at AS Marcillat’s football ground indicating that there was a match on tonight and that would ordinarily have been the signal for me to go over and watch, seeing as there was nothing on at FC Pionsat St Hilaire tonight, I was aching far too much to even consider it.

Instead, I just came in here and crashed out.

That’s a rare event too.

But then again, I said that I would pay for the effort that I’m putting in on this roof, so it’s not unexpected.

But now there are just three or so rows left to do, and they’ll be for the morning of the next working day.

-3

Wednesday 14th December 2011 – HAVING SLEPT …

… in the warmth and comfort of a hotel room, I was up and about quite early and fit for almost anything – if this stinking head cold will let me.

So having gathered my wits which, let’s face it, doesn’t take as long as it might these days, I was off to Liverpool.

As you know, I’m spending a lot of time working on my house and even though I own half a scaffolding, I can never seem to be able to use it as it’s always out doing other stuff.

That’s a situation that is really getting me down so I made a decision a while back that I would buy two bays of scaffolding and keep them just for myself at my house, for use when I want to and at no other time.

And, of course, now that I’m no longer sleeping in Caliburn this trip, I can load him up.

But I had a stroke of luck on the way. Passing a Ford breaker’s down some dingy back street in Speke I noticed a Ford Transit being dismantled. Stopping for a look, it still had one wheel and tyre on it, and the tyre wasn’t too bad.

Not a major manufacturer, it has to be said, but not a remould either. But it wasn’t the tyre that I was really interested in anyway.

Regular readers of this rubbish will know that, being fed up of having to swap tyres over every Spring and Autumn, I’m trying to collect a spare set of wheels so that I can have winter tyres fitted permanently.

This wheel and tyre will do nicely for a spare, and the original spare wheel can come and be rotated onto the road. And so after much negotiation, folding stuff changed hands and there we were.

Even more skilled negotiations down at the Scaffolding place. We had a lengthy chat and I bought what I needed. But because I had my SIREN (French trade registration certificate) with me, I could buy it VAT-free for export. So that saved me a bundle.

Yes, having been lucky with my B&Q trade card when I was here earlier in the year, I brought my SIREN with me so that I could capitalise on whatever other opportunities come my way.

Surfing around on the internet a little later, I noticed that Macclesfield were playing Chelmsford City in an FA Cup replay. That’s not too far away and if I can put my skates on, I can make it. Years since I’ve been to Moss Rose.

So, just like Janet in Tam Lin, off I went, as fast as go can me.

I missed the first five minutes which was no real problem (finding a parking place was, however) but found a comfy seat in the stand behind the southern goal, chatting to a local kid.

But what a dreadful match it was. Macclesfield Town could have played with Stevie Wonder in goal and it would have made no difference because the Chelmsford City attack was woeful.

Chelmsford City had two players – Akurang and Modeste – who looked okay (so it goes without saying that they were both substituted) and Macclesfield had a full-back called Carl Tremarco who was easily the best player on the pitch (and he scored the goal).

As an aside, for anyone who might be interested in football trivialities, Macclesfield’s goalkeeper José Veiga is an International for the Cape Verde national side.

On the way back I found a chippy so had a huge helping of chips and beans to keep me going until breakfast.

And I’m glad that I’m not sleeping out in the van tonight. It’s absolute taters and I’m not well.

EPIC HALL

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