… and a day of rest is called for today. Which is just as well after my late finish last night.
So while you admire tonight’s moon over the bay, I lay in until just after 10:00. That’s a good idea as far as I’m concerned, especially when you’ve travelled as far as I had during the night.
This was a big, long dream last night but I can only remember a little of it. It was in a fish and chip shop and I was waiting for my meal. Someone in front of my had ordered a chinese cabbage and a girl very similar to Marie Warke (what’s she doing making a dramatic appearance in my nocturnal voyages after 35 years?) was serving behind the counter. She prepared this Chinese cabbage absolutely, really nice. I thought that it was an absolute work … “or warke” – ed … of art how she prepared all of this. Beforehand we were talking about football. The question of women’s football came up. In the Puy de Dome they had 5 or 6 womens football teams. That had me remembering the time a few years ago when I tried to start up a women’s football league. The first one, I went to Gouttières to the football club there (which there isn’t) and asked them if anyone think that it’s a possibility to start a women’s football league and does anyone want to join? The guy there drew on a blackboard the addresses of the mairie at Pionsat, St Gervais, Teilhet, somewhere in the Allier and then somewhere else in the Puy de Dome but a long way away – no, not Pionsat, somewhere else fairly local. Pionsat were quite strong in this women’s league so I was surprised that he hadn’t actually thought of Pionsat when he made out this little list for me.
A short while later there we were back in the Auvergne. There was a big group of us and we’d set out on foot walking from Gouttières (Gouttières again?). The guy in charge was leading this big party. We were all to do with the football team on tour, like the Ireland under-21s. I’d just seen them playing at Gouttières. There was one boy, dubbed “the new Pélé” who quite impressed me. Off we set and we walked into the mountains. This guy leading, something like Thierry, was very dynamic and determined ane eventually we found what he was looking for, a whole series of names that had been carved into the ground. If we stood on a certain viewpoint we could look below us and see all of these names carved out. He was told that his name, Meaux, had been carved on there so we had a look at all these names carved into the ground but couldn’t see it. There were hundreds of names in these rolling hills but there was nothing. Only half had been uncovered so maybe it was in the half that was still covered. he was bitterly disappointed after coming all this way that he couldn’t find his name. Then we ended up talking about the team and the Ireland under-21s. This boy came up and I said “Oh I’ve seen him. I thought that he was pretty good”. They asked when I had seen him so I mentioned some ordinary match in which he might have appeared. I didn’t want to say that I had seen him at Gouttières because that was supposed to have been behind closed doors. Again there was still a lot more to it than this
A little later on I was with Nerina at a family party (and knowing my family, this was probably a fête worse than death). It started at 19:30 and we all had to be at this hall by then but we were all still messing around at home. A huge group of us, all different members of the family. It wasn’t until about 09:15 or something that we decided that we had all better go. They were handing out all of the parcels to take and put a lot of stuff in my mitt and I couldn’t manage it all. In the end I just had to take the ones that had handles. I staggered with those and there was my vehicle which was a pickup, something like a Morris 1000 pickup. I put everything in the back of it, but it was looking strange. I knew that I had some trouble with the suspension on it so I thought that the suspension had collapsed. Meanwhile someone else had put some more stuff in the back of my pickup. He had a look and said something “you can’t get this type of S engine any more, can you? It’s getting to be as rare as a big Morris”. I didn’t want to tell him that it was just an ordinary standard engine in here but that got me thinking “why don’t I fit a big Morris engine in it, one of the 1622cc engines?”. Nerina got into the vehicle with me and I let the cluthch out. There was a mighty crash and bang and the vehicle swayed around. I suddenly realised why the vehicle was looking so peculiar. I’d had it up on a set of wooden ramps and I hadn’t realised. I’d just driven right off the end of the ramps. There the ramps were, and chains that held it, all bent and sprawled out in the street. I had to get out and pick them up. There was traffic behind that couldn’t get past me while I was doing it.
Somewhat later still we’d all been to a party. There were dozens of people around here and there were all kinds of things going on. While I was there the bathroom was in a hell of a state so I decided that I would tidy it up and throw away a load of stuff that was in there in this person’s house. I had an ulterior motive in that there was a washing machine there and I had a bag of dirty clothes so I stuck all of my washing into their machine while I was doing it. everyone else was doing something. Then I heard a couple coming back up, absolutely fuming and furious. “That’s the last time I ever come to this house and the last time I ever speak to this guy again. I was looking closely at the die he was using with this card game and it had ‘left hand’ on it. You don’t normally have dice with right and left hand written on it unless there’s something crooked going on with them”. So they were watching and he’d been cheating. Slowly the party broke up and my washing was still going and I still had this bathroom in a terrible state, even worse than it was before I’d started tidying it. I had to get this organised and the washing was still going and they were saying “why do people do this kind of thing?” I said “it’s the power, isn’t it? It all comes from having a repressed childhood, all of this kind of thing”. Some guy was standing there saying “oh, absolutely. Totally! I agree with every word you say”. Of course it didn’t dawn on me until later that he was the guy they were talking about. Someone else came in, a nice woman, and I wanted to go and have a chat to her, but someone else was chatting to her saying “so this is Claire’s mother” pointing to a young girl I’d met before. There were all kinds of other people chatting to me saying “let’s go and find a quiet corner for a chat”. In the end my washing was ready so I got it out of the machine and stuck it in a bag and just put the toilet back, stuck it in its socket. Then we were all ready to go. But the topic of this conversation was this guy’s cheating when he was playing.
Is it any wonder that I needed a lie-in after all of that?
First task this morning was to write up my notes and that took me almost until lunchtime. I’d had quite a lively day yesterday.
After lunch I made the dough for my pizza bases and while I was at it, I also made a pie base. There was some pastry left over from that so I made a strawberry turnover with a couple of my frozen strawberries.
While the pizza dough was proofing I came in here and attacked the dictaphone notes – and that was a labour of love too.
There was the break in the afternoon’s activities such as they were, so that I can go on my afternoon walk.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday I mentioned that the diving platform at the Plat Gousset has been removed. As I walked around the path underneath the walls I could see what they have done.
The post is still there – it would need some decent equiment to move that – but the crown, where all the kids congregate, has been taken away for the winter. They won’t have too many people swimming out there now until the late Spring, especially if the weather is as cold and windy as it is today.
We’re used to seeing crowds of people promenading up and down the Plat Gousset regardless of the weather.
However, today there were very few people taking the air down there. the little vertical-axis wind turbine was going round like the clappers this afternoon in the gale that was blowing. It’s not as windy as it was yesterday but it’s still pretty impressive.
The wind turbine was apparently installed to provide the electricity for the street lighting on the Plat Gousset but I’ve not heard if it’s actually in working order and performing its task.
Across the Square Maurice Marland I went, where I was hit by the full blast of the wind and had to struggle to reach the other side.
There were a couple of brave souls out there in yachts this afternoon and they were canting over impressively in the onslaught. They were the only ones out there and that is hardly any surprise.
As a result I didn’t hang around there very long. I headed off back to the apartment and the warmth and to carry on with my culinary activities for the rest of the afternoon.
By now the pizza dough had risen nicely so I divided it into three, greased two of them and put them in the freezer.
The third one I rolled out and put in the greased pizza tray, folding the edges back over again to make a nice compact edge. That I put on one side.
While I was making the pastry, I noticed that a football match was starting on the internet. A JD Cymru Ladies Premier match between Swansea and Cardiff.
The last ladies’ football game that I saw, leaving aside the kids’ game in Granville a few years ago, wasIN BURLINGTON, VERMONT in 2015 and I was quite impressed by that.
This game was even better than that. Swansea were excellent value for their 3-0 victory and some of their players, especially the two attackers, would fit in with a couple of the mens’ teams. Granville could certainly do with forwards like that.
If SGORIO decides to continue to broadcast the ladies’ matches, I’ll probably make the time to watch them.
Back in the kitchen I quickly made the pastry for my pie case and bunged it in the oven to cook, along with a strawberry turnover that I’d made with the left-over pastry.
My attention then turned to the pizza base. I made my pizza with what was to hand (I’d forgotten to buy any peppers at the weekend) and when the pie base was cooked I put the pizza in the oven.
30 minutes later, it was cooked to perfection and it tasted absolutely delicious. Quite filling too, and I didn’t need any pudding after that. The rice pudding can wait until tomorrow.
Next was the kefir.
The fig had risen to the top – the sign that fermentation had worked correctly. I decanted the liquid off and filtered it and put it into a stoppered bottle that I’d disinfected, making sure that the kefir grains went back into the mother solution.
The frozen strawberries that I’d bought on Thursday, they had been defrosting all day so I drained off the juice and added it to my kefir along with three or four strawberries. That’s now having its second fermentation
Back outside for my evening walk and , having forgotten that I’d been around the walls this afternoon, I went that way again.
The wind was still quite strong but not as strong as it was earlier, so I was able to fit in all of my runs. I was quite on my own too because there was no-one else out there.
That meant that I had the moonlight all to myself. The clouds were scudding across the sky quite quickly in the wind and when the moon was clear the reflection off the sea was even more impressive than it had been yesterday.
By the time I’d finished running into the headwind across the Square Maurice Marland I was pretty exhausted so I stopped to catch my breath.
The leaves are falling rapidly from the trees already and so the lighting effect on the trees was even more beautiful that it has been in the past.
On the way home I bumped into the itinerant. he’s still wandering around the town so I told him that really he ought to be talking to someone in the Mairie. He reckons that he’ll be fine, but I’m not convinced.
But it’s his decision, not mine.
Back at the apartment I took the pie case and filled it with the strawberries.
Then I mixed some agar-agar – quite strong because strawberries are quite acidic – and poured it over the top to make a kind of gelatine.
Being a strong solution, it set quite rapidly and now it’s in the fridge where I’ll be eating lumps off it for the next week or so, along with some of the coconut soya dessert.
But now it’s quite late – I’ve done a lot of work today and hardly stopped. It’s not like me to be working like this, especially on a day of rest like this.
Now I’m going off to bed, later than I was hoping. And I’ll be back at work tomorrow where I’ll be hoping to have a rest from the relaxing Sunday that I’ve just had.
