Tag Archives: chatelguyon

Friday 14th July 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN DOES IT AGAIN!

Yes, remember yesterday? When I told you that I was going shopping today?

So there I was checking the date this morning (I take certain pills on odd-numbered days and certain others on even-numbered days) and it was then that I noticed …

Yes, 14th July. Quatorze Juillet – la Fête de la Bastille. The anniversary of when the Paris communards stormed the Bastille and released all of 14 prisoners.

And, of course, it’s a national holiday, isn’t it? And I didn’t have much food in the house either.

I’d had a bad night too – I’m not even sure if I slept at all. And I was up and about long before 07:00 too. But the Bank Holiday threw me out of my stride.

And so I’ve not done as much as I might otherwise have done. I’ve been spending some time socialising on the internet (something that I decided that I would dramatically cut down on) and also sorting out a huge pile of photos from 2007 that I discovered.

clairvoyant by appointment chatelguyon puy de dome franceIncluding this absolute gem from Chatelguyon in July 2007.

I mean, what kind of clairvoyant is this? Visits by appointment only?

If she were any good as a clairvoyant you wouldn’t need an appointment because she would know that you were coming, surely!

However, I did do some work on the blog upgrade. Not as much as I would like, of course, but then that’s always been the story of my life. And for much of the morning I was working on this page.

This was another one that started off as a mere 100 or so words as a placeholder, but now it runs to well over 1200 words and a pile of photographs too.

I had to do without a tomato at lunchtime (I had some vegan cheese instead – luckily I still have some left) and tonight we had mash and rozen vegeables (all cooked in the steamer) with a veggie burger and gravy, followed by one of my breakfast fruit purées.

Tomorrow I WILL have to go shopping but I’m not looking forward to that. The holiday season is well under way and the grockles will be out in force.

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Tuesday 11th August 2015 – WELL THAT DIDN’T GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

So in the absence of any better offer this afternoon, I set to work to move this Hyundai. First thing though – the battery in the Kubota was flat. Not much of a surprise – I haven’t used it since last October. And so I had to put it on charge for a while.

Later on, I put the battery back and made sure that the Kubota started, and then went back in ready to do the job as it went dark.

later that night, I went back out, to find that the battery was flat again. So I moved Caliburn down to jump-start the Kubota. Once the Kubota fired up, off I went to tow the Hyundai, leaving Caliburn there.

And wasn’t that a fatal mistake?

I eventually managed to put the Hyundai out of my drive (it’s not easy pushing a big heavy car like that and I’m far from in the prime of life) and then set off to tow it away.

But that didn’t work, as the Kubota didn’t have the waft to pull it away. It just dug itself into the gravel up to the axles. Giving it a final whack and the motor stalled. And, of course, the battery is now flat again.

And so, we are stuck in the lane that the farmer needs for access to his field in the following order –

  1. the Kubota, with a flat battery
  2. the scrap Hyundai that won’t run at all
  3. Caliburn, the only vehicle that is working right now

And it goes without saying that Caliburn is stuck down at the bottom end of the cul de sac and can’t move until the others are gone. If only I had moved him first.

I really and sincerely wish from the bottom of my heart that I had never set eyes on this vehicle and that I had never set eyes upon its owner. I am thoroughly and completely fed up.

All I need now is for the farmer to put in an appearance and I shall be well and truly stuck. I am beginning to hate everyone and everything.

But apart from that, the morning was comparatively successful. Liz phoned me up early (and I was awake long beforehand too) and so I took her off to Riom and the hospital, in exchange for which she did a couple of loads of washing for me to bring me up to date.

Although Liz’s news from the hospital might be perceived in some quarters as being bad, for Liz it is in fact good news because it confirms her suspicions, and with the knowledge that she gained today, things can only get better and that is what she needs to know.

We went for a coffee and then off to Gerzat for the Radio Anglais recording sessions there. They passed quite easily and incident-free, which makes a great change and makes it quite a pleasure to go there.

sculpted fountain chatel guyon puy de dome franceIt was such a nice day so we stopped for a coffee on the way back.

Chatel-Guyon is a beautiful spa-town at the foot of the Combrailles. It’s a beautiful place to visit for an afternoon’s walk but we just contented ourselves with sitting outside a cafe near a sculpted fountain
looking at the water, soaking up the sun and drinking a good strong coffee in pleasant company.

And then back home to more of this total nonsense.

How I hate this car.

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Monday 23rd March 2015 – THAT STRANGE ROUND GOLDEN THING …

. .. that I glimpsed in the sky yesterday was there for all of the day today. It was the nicest day of the year so far, beautiful and warm, and down by Chatelguyon all of the trees are now in blossom. Spring is definitely on its way, and a couple of warm sunny days will see it here too.

Liz and I were radioing today, starting off at Marcillat and Radio Tartasse. I was there at 09:30 to record the rock programmes and then Liz joined me for the information programmes that we do. Violette was back in charge of the studio today, and you could tell that she’s not quite with it following the passing of Henri.

I had to go to Pionsat on the way back to drop of Simon’s superb floorboard machine (and I gave him a bottle of wine for his trouble) but the boulangère who I wanted to see – she’s back from holiday now but of course Monday is her closing day, so that was a waste of time.

Liz made a salad for lunch and then we went down to Gerzat and Radio Arverne for the next round of programmes there – and it was as we dropped out of the mountains at Chatelguyon that we noticed the trees and the blossom.

We did 5 programmes for Radio Arverne – I need to start to get ahead for the summer or I’ll be catching up with muself if I’m not careful.

Back here, I crashed out for an hour or two. This is becoming something of a habit now.

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Tuesday 26th August 2014 – WHAT A FLAMING SHAMBLES!

Absolutely!

This afternoon at Gerzat we had about 2.5 hours to record our radio programmes for Radio Arverne before I needed to leave to catch my train. 6 programmes this week, which meant that we would need about 2 hours or so.

Normally we would arrive there at about 14:00 and so our 2 hours would take us up to 16:00 leaving plenty of time for my train at Riom at 17:06. However, thinge never normally go according to plan and so we set out earlier, arriving at 13:45. I’d also had some kind of premonition and so on our way down to Gerzat we had stopped at the railway station at Riom so that I could pick up my ticket and so miss the rush-hour rush.

And I’m glad that we did, too.

When we arrived at the radio station, the junior engineer was outside smoking a cigarette. And inside at the office, the secretary told us that it was indeed the junior engineer who would be recording us. “Ahh well”, we breathed a sigh of relief. “He’ll be here in a minute”. That was famous last words, wasn’t it?

By 14:10 I was starting to become restless so I told the secretary how pressed we were for time. She phoned him up and then told us that he would be here in a minute.

By 14:25 I told the secretary that to call him again and tell him that at 16:30 we were walking out, regardless of wherever we were in the programmes.

Anyway, he turned up at just before 14:30 and by 14:34 we were ready to go. At least, some of us were. The engineer had a friend in the recording booth with him and was too busy chatting to see our cues. Every cue was missed and at one stage we overran because he had failed to give us our time signal.

As a result, at 16:30 precisely, we upped and went, even though the final programme was only half-way recorded. How they intend to finish it, I really don’t know, but ask me if I care.

For a change, everything went well-according to plan at Marcillat with Radio Tartasse. It’s usually there that we have our major issues but today, everything was ready and passed off without a hitch, even if I did forget to take my memory stick with me (good job I had the laptop in Caliburn).

It was nice to see Liz and Terry again after all these weeks and to talk to them about their holiday, and Terry gave me some really good news. Apparently Toolstation, Screwfix’s big rival, has now opened for business in France. They don’t stock the range of goods that Screwfix stocks, but from what I have seen, their prices for what they do carry are cheaper. I’ll be interested to see how their prices compare to Brico Depot. Anyway, it’s nice to see one of the major UK D-I-Y suppliers taking the initiative in France.

local train riom chatel guyon lyon perrache puy de dome franceAt Riom Station, my train came in on time. It’s been upgraded from the original rattletrap to something more modern, but it was jam-packed with people. There wasn’t a spare seat on the train. I’ve no idea what was happening there.

And not only was it on time leaving Riom, it was actually on time arriving at Lyon Part-Dieu too. And I felt so much better when we arrived too – leaving all of this mess behind.

TGV lyon part dieu france
However, being on time at Lyon was more than can be said for the TGV. It was 10 minuts late pulling into the station. And the fact that I’m passing comment on it shows you just how unusual this is. Normally, the trains run bang to time.

And while the luggage space was comparatively full, there were quite a few empty seats on the train. Not like last year when we were crammed in like sardines.

So by the time we got to Phoe … errr … Lille we were 27 minutes late, 3 minutes short of the magic 30 minutes that gives me a 25% return on my ticket. And now I’m in my hotel – a 10 minute walk from the TGV station. I’ve had a hot shower and I’m off to bed.

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Sunday 27th April 2014 – HA! HA! HA!

FC Pionsat St Hilaire are desperately in need of points to keep alive their faint hope of avoiding relegation to Division 2. And today they were playing against Chatel-Guyon, currently top of the Division and likewise desperate for points to keep the chasing pack at distance.

Pionsat had a very-much scratch team out there today too. Blond Frederic was in goal for only the second time in his life, and with Fabien, Vincent and Kevin out there, they had three players who ply their trade in Division 4. Cedric was playing centre-half too.

As you might expect, Chatel-Guyon had 99% of the play and dominated the match from start to finish. But the Pionsat defence was resolute and I can safely say that Cedric at centre-half had the match of his life. With Julien alongside him and Alex just in front, they were totally inpenetrable and when Chatel-Guyon did manage a shot on target, they found Frederic in fine form.

Pionsat rarely managed to get forward in anything like enough numbers to threaten the Chatel-Guyon goal and for much of the match their goalkeeper was actually playing as a sweeper behind his defence.

matthieu sikorsky nearly scores for fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatel guyon puy de dome league division 1 france 27 april 2014But Matthieu Sikorsky came ohhhh so close with one effort and it was only the desperate outstretched fingertips of the keeper that stopped Matthieu from pulling off a shock goal well against the run of play late in the first half.

That would have been oeuf sur le visage of the Chatel-Guyon defence if that has gone in.

It was still 0-0 with just minutes to go and Pionsat, in a breakaway upfield, win a corner. The ball is easily cleared out but the clearance is intercepted by a Pionsat defender who plays it back up to the other Frederic who is about 30 yards out from goal.

frederic poumerol scores for fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatel guyon puy de dome league division 1 france 27 april 2014He advances on the goal with the ball and as the keeper, who is miles upfield from where he should be, back on his own 6-yard line, tries to stop him, Frederic simply lifts the ball over the top and into the net for probably the most astonishing goal against the run of play that I have ever seen.

The silence in the stadium was overwhelming. All of the possession that Chatel-Guyon has had during the match and here they are, 1-0 down in the closing stages of the game.

But look where the goalkeeper is. What on earth is he doing 30 yards out of his goal? It’s a suicide position for any goalkeeper.


Chatel-Guyon now throw caution to the winds, bring on a few pairs of fresh legs and throw the kitchen sink at Pionsat. And they win a penalty, which they convert to level the score.

But they need all of the points here and they fight for everything, to such an extent that the Chatel-Guyon n°14, who has only been on the field for a minute, makes a horror late-tackle on Kevin which earns him a yallow card.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatel guyon n° 14 sent off puy de dome league division 1 france 27 april 2014The referee has hardly put his yellow card back in his pocket before the n°14 does exactly the same thing again, on Alex this time.

This leads to a little unpleasantness on the field from one or two of the Pionsat players which is always regretted but in this case understandable, but the result is that the referee pulls out the red card and the n°14 goes for the early bath. And quite right too, because it really was deplorable.

Just after this, the final whistle blows and Pionsat come off the field having earned a most unexpected point. And if the defence plays like this for the final two matches then anything is possible.

What made things even better was that St Priest, who were at home to Lempdes Sports, were stuffed 7-0. This means that Pionsat are out of the bottom 2 – for the first time for ages and ages. Only on goal difference, it has to be said, and their last two games are difficult, but they have their noses now slightly in front and it’s up to St Priest to try to catch them.

I also saw Xavier there. He used to play for Pionsat but his working commitments nowadays mean that he can’t make the matches. It was good to catch up with his news.

Apart from that, Rosemary is back in the Land of the Living and we had quite a lengthy chat. I’m invited round for coffee sometime, when I can catch up on all the latest gossip.

However, I should perhaps mention that being on the coffee at the footy last night, and having some chocolate when I came home, it was gone 05:00 when I went to bed last night, or, rather, this morning. Something of a waste of my Sunday lie-in.

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Saturday 9th November 2013 – DUNNO IF YOU REMEMBER …

… a couple of years ago and I posted a photo of the local village shop in Ronnet which had caught fire and burnt out.

burnt out shop restaurant fire ronnet allier franceThe owners moved to other premises in the village with their shop and opened a little café-restaurant there too. But that’s not lasted too long, because this was what I discovered when I went through Ronnet at midday today.

We’ve had another fire and all of this seems to have gone for a Burton too. Even more importantly, when the first place caught fire they had a tarpaulin up and over it almost as soon as the flames were extinguished. Here though after the fire at their second premises, they seem to have abandoned everything to its fate and that seems to be that.

Yes, I was in Ronnet today, on my way to Commentry for shopping, and rather later than intended too. I’d heard the alarm go off but I decided that, seeing as how I’m still recovering from my exertions, I was going to have another morning of rest.

But what a beautiful morning it was though, not a cloud in the sky and the batteries were fully-charged by 10:45. I emptied some more stuff out of Caliburn and tidied up some more in here, slinging some filled rubbish bags into the van and then went off to Commentry, via Ronnet.

Christmas isn’t too far off and so I’ve started buying Christmas nibbles today. And nothing else of note or excitement, except that at Centrakor I picked up a couple of small pepper mills on special offer, to use for grinding my cardamon seeds and so on, and also some waxed table cloth. That was what I wanted, because I don’t want to ruin this new table when I use it as my kitchen worktop up here.

As the weather deteriorated, clouded over and started to rain, Neris was next, and the swimming baths. Ages since I’ve been there and it was freezing in the building. About 25 of us poor souls braving the extremes, but at least I’m clean for once.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceSo now that I’m back home I can return to my usual haunts and habits, FC Pionsat St Hilaire being one of them, and tonight the Ist XI were taking on Chatelguyon.

I had to get dressed for it too as it was freezing outside, although the rain had stopped. And it’s as well that I did for nothing that happened on the pitch served to warm me up at all.


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one francePIonsat started the stronger and were peppering the Chatelguyon goalmouth and it was no surprise that they took the lead. A beautiful cross across the goalmouth from Nico and Pavel, this new Polish striker, volleying in a superb shot at the far post.

In that opening spell wre had shots kicked off the line, shots pounded into the woodwork and shots put wide when it would have been easier to score and I can’t think how it was that they missed. Pionsat were threatening to run riot.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceThey were however living dangerously at the back and it was no surprise to anyone that Chatelguyon equalised – with just a few minutes to go before half-time.

A break down the left wing saw a Chatelguyon forward clean on with the ball and although Michael managed to get down and stop the shot he couldn’t hold on and as the ball ran free from his grasp, another Chatelguyon forward following up had a pretty simple tap-in and that, dear readers, was that.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceThe second half started just like the first half. Pionsat came out of the trap like a rocket and for the first five minutes had Chatelguyon pegged right back in their own half and under something of the cosh.

We had the Pionsat missed chances, the woodwork peppered with shots, the Chatelguyon keeper making some excellent saves, and then the unbelievable happened.


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceWell, it isn’t unbelievable if you have been following what I was writing about the matches three and four years ago. Back in those days Pionsat were struggling because they had a defence that had a tendency to switch off and gp to sleep at important moments, and this was exactly what we had here.

And it didn’t happen just once or even twice, but FOUR TIMES, would you believe, and what looked like a comfortable Pionsat victory turned into something of an absolute rout as they went on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceI felt sorry for Michael in the Pionsat goal. He’s not a goalkeeper but with injuries to everyone else he’s in there keeping goal and doing his best.

No one could fault him for any of the five goals that he conceded, but with two Pionsat centre-backs standing too far apart so that an attacker can go straight down though the middle for a one-on-one with him, what is he expected to do?


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceWe had two of those, one after the other, and that was followed up by two balls over the top of the defence when the Pionsat defence was pushing too far forward and not quick enough to get back. For the fifth goal we had Michael on his own against three Chatelguyon attackers and no-one can do much about that.

Back home, I was skyped by an old friend of mine, telling me that he’s moved house. He has, but his wife hasn’t, meaning of course that their marriage of some considerable number of years has come to an end. That’s really sad news as between them they made quite an impressive couple with many qualities. But I suppose that it’s none of my business except to dole out the sympathy.

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Sunday 25th March 2012 – THERE ARE NO PHOTOS …

… of FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI’s match against Blot l’Eglise this afternoon.

I was busy doing other things.

Like running the line.

Well, walking the line actually, if it comes to that. It was a hot day and I’m not as young as I used to be.

“But surely the linesmen have to keep up with play” said Steve. Indeed they do, but that’s never an issue with FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI. They aren’t as young as they used to be either.

But I did feel so sorry for them. Again, playing without anyone with any pretensions to goalkeeping, the first goal that they conceded was from a corner with the keeper stranded in no-man’s-land (or “no-person’s-land” as was once famously said by the legendary Turdi de Hatred on one memorable occasion quite some tiime ago).

Either come for the ball or stay on your line – don’t dither, otherwise you will be beaten by the looping header over the top.

Apart from that, the match was finely-balanced and although Pionsat didn’t offer much up front, the Blot l’Eglise team never ever gave the keeper anything serious to worry about, despite all of their possession.

The second half saw a different goalkeeper (said he, using the term loosely) and once again in this half there was nothing to differentiate either team. That is, until tragedy struck late in the game.

And not once, but twice.

On both occasions the Blot l’Eglise attackers had a decent fiery shot on goal. On both occasions the Pionsat keeper dived full length qnd got both hands to it. On both occasions he couldn’t hang on to the ball. On both occasions he dropped it – right at the feet of one of the Blot forwards. And that, I’m afraid to say, was that.

The big difference was, that I have said at great length on many occasions, that the Pionsat hierarchy is not doing enough to find a real goalkeeper for the 3rd XI.

And the fact that they went off to Blot this afternoon without anyone being asked to accompany them to run the line is something else about which I can rant for ever.

After that I shot off down to Menetrol to watch FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s Ist XI.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire us menetrol puy de dome franceMenetrol have a decent side – not as good as Clermont Fontaine du Bac the other week but decent all the same, and they scored just as I arrived – some 20 minutes late. And they scored another later in the game.

Pionsat pulled one back late in the match but the referee then, inexplicably, blew for the end of the game with, according to Franck, 3 minutes of normal time remaining – never mind stoppage time.

And there were a couple of bizarre refereeing decisions made in this game, as well as a completely one-sided issue of yellow cards, to the detriment of Pionsat.

Apart from that. I had an early start this morning due to an urgent need to ride the porcelain horse,

And so with the hour’s difference today as well, I’m not feeling myself, which is just as well as it’s a disgusting habit anyway. But I did some more work on the radio programme before the early start to Blot.

After the football it was round to Liz and Terry’s to discuss the radio programmes and Liz cooked a gorgeous meal. Penne al arrabiata.

The recipe calls for two chilis but Liz only had small ones so she put in 4, forgetting that the smaller the chili the more concentrated the spicy effect is. But then again who’s complaining? Especially as there was ginger cake for pudding.

I also picked up a hitcher, a prisoner on the white lins of the freeway coming back from Menetrol.

I do that every now and again, really out of thanks to the thousands of people who have picked me up while hitch-hiking in the days of my youth.

But it’s a windy road from Chatel-guyon to St Georges de Mons and I bet he was glad when I stopped to drop him off. It’s doubtful if he knew how quickly a Transit Van can move when the driver has his foot down, and how well the aforementioned handles with decent tyres on it.

Caliburn is running quite well just now. 

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Tuesday 28th June 2011 – And just for a change …

I was up before the alarm clock at 08:30 – dunno what happened there. But it meant that I was in plenty of time to go down to the bank and pay for the bits for my broken anemometer before going to Marcillat en Combraille to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse.

The guy from the Danish company that sells the bits sent me a nice e-mail with all of the information that I needed to know – the IBAN account, the SWIFT number and all of that and so I duly printed it out and took it to the bank. The bank official took one look at it and said “what’s the company called?”. It seems that the information wasn’t as complete as I had thought.

And so after Radio Tartasse it was down across the Puy-de-Dome to Gerzat to record for Radio Arverne – but the major issue here was that the garage at St Gervais d’Auvergne had sold out of diesel. An enforced trip to Les Ancizes solved that issue but that took a good 20 minutes out of our itinerary leaving us with just enough time to grab a butty and a coffee at Chatel-Guyon.

While we were in the Radio offices we could see the storm break over the Combrailles and impressive was not the word. Magnificent is much better and it did really make us wonder what it was that we might be coming home to.

The Carrefour at Riom came up trupms again – not only did I do my shopping but they were selling off electric 12-volt coolboxes at €24:00 – not very big but big enough to fit in Caliburn’s footwell for when I’m on my travels and it’ll hold a good few items and (hopefully) keep them cool. But not only that it was having a sale of SatNavs and I now have a little Western European Mio Moov M305 – for all of €59:00, to replace the other one that mysteriously disappeared. It has speed camera warning installed but not only that, I can sign for a 3-year update of the speed cameras for €49:95 and maps of North America are available for €49:95 as well – meaning that I can sell the Magellan that I bought in Canada last year and get some of my money back.

giant hailstones manzar chateauneuf les bains puy de dome franceOn the way back home the devastation caused by the storm was impressive to say the least. We stopped between Manzat and Chateuneuf to take a pic of what looked like snow but it was in fact hailstones.

I measured them and they were about 20mm in diameter – and that was quite impressive too.

Back here, the temperature reached the high 30s but the storm had brought with it a total of 24mm of rain – and it’s still raining. It’s a mess here but then again the plants won’t be complaining. They will be loving it all.

But talking of coolboxes, I’ve been thinking again – which I know is dangerous. I’m using almost no electricity from the solar panels on the barn, except for the washing machine once a fortnight. And it’s a shame to waste it all. In addition, in a couple of weeks or so I’ll be moving them to their final position and adding the 4th panel that has been conspicuous by its absence.

It’s a shame to waste all of this electricity and so I have a cunning plan. From mystats I notice that in the year to 2009, which was the last complete year that I was relying on the panels over there, I generated 9000 amp-hours of electricity over there with 3 panels. So with 4 panels that should give me about 12,000 amp-hours in total. That’s in the region of 150 KwH. Now in that year about 40% of the days saw the batteries fully-charged, which meant that there was a good deal of electricity wasted. Add to this that with the solar panels in a much better position I ought to be getting much more electricity than I did back in 2009. Half as much again is not too much to hope for – I had 22,000 amp hours from each of the banks on the roof on the house – about 285 KwH.

Anyway, to cut a long story short “Hooray” – ed, I’ve been seeing some fridge-freezers – proper mains ones – that have a start-up motor of about 75 watts and (so they reckon) use about 135KwH on a normal daily basis – and so I’m wondering whether or not to splash out a bit of cash into a decent sine-wave inverter and small fridge-freezer, run it off the power in the barn and leave it in there.

That will be something to think about. But of course the most important thing to think about is where I’ll put it. You can’t even get a cat into the barn at the moment let alone swing it around.

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Friday 6th August 2010 – I had a bit of a day out today.

meandre de queuille gorge de la sioule puy de dome franceOne of the places that I visited was the Meandre de Queuille – where the River Sioule makes an incredibly tight turn around a promontory of hard rock (yes, we ought to put a cafe on it – I know).

I’ve never been here before, even though it is something of a local tourist attraction that brings the crowds a-flocking. But maybe that’s the reason – having spent as long as I did working in the tourism industry my cynicism has made me immune to all this kind of thing.

meandre de queuille hydro electric power station dam barrage gorge de la sioule puy de dome franceThat’s not the only thing that’s interesting about this place – at least, from my point of view. There’s also a dam – or barrage – across the Gorge de la Sioule just here and a very early hydro-electric generating plant.

Following the success of the hydro plant across the Sioule at the Viaduc des Fades, they built this one here in 1905. There’s a drop of 24 metres that powers 6 turbines that have an output of something like 20,000 volts and the power was supplied to the city of Clermont Ferrand.

I had set out originally to go to see these Health Assurance people. As I’m now a French businessman the health cover that I have is deemed insufficient. I’m required to take out a complementary assurance. But as luck would have it, the cover that I do have is recognised by the French government so I only needed to take out a top-up cover that makes up the difference between the total cost of any treatment and the amount that I would be reimbursed.

It isn’t cheap but in actual fact it is cheaper than the insurance I could take out in Belgium.

After that I hit the shops – Carrefour, LIDL and Bricomarche in Riom and the Auchan in Clermont Ferrand. And nothing of any real excitement except a USB fan for €3:00 – I’ll install that in Caliburn.

Outside the Bricomarche I saw the absolute ideal trailer. It’s 4 metres long, takes 2 tonnes in weight and has a double-axle with 13-inch wheels. It’s a bit knocked about but it’s not all that bad. It belongs to a company that is rebuilding part of the Bricomarche and the manager says that they haven’t used it in years. “So is it for sale then?” I asked optimistically. “Dunno” replied the manager “but I can find out”. So now that he has my phone numder we will have to wait and see.

But the most interesting part of the day was just outside Chatelguyon this morning. You’ve all heard of staff-and-ticket single line railway working. On single track railways there’s a danger that if two trains are heading towards each other they will have a collision. So what they do is to divide the line up into lengths with a signalman at each end and a passing place. These sections are called blocks.

Each block has its distinct staff – a brightly coloured stick – and no train can proceed into the block unless the signalman can give it the staff.  If he cant give it the staff, because it is with the signalman at the other end, the train has to wait in the passing place until a train coming the other way brings back the staff. With only one staff then of course there can only be one train in the block at any one time and hence the risk of collision is nil.

Of course it may be a while before the staff comes back to our signalman from the signalman at the other end of the block and if two trains are following each other this could be inconvenient. What our signalman would do then is to show the staff to the first driver who would then sign a movement book in the signalbox to say that he had seen the staff, and he would be given a ticket to proceed, which he would hand to the signalman at the other end of the block in lieu of the staff – effectively reminding the second signalman that the staff is still at the other end of the block and that another train is following.

And so today they were resurfacing the road in the hills outside Chatelguyon. The road was cut down to single-track and there were no traffic lights but a man was there stopping the traffic. There was a stream of cars coming the other way and the last car stopped and handed the workman a brightly-coloured object. Once that car had gone the workman waved us forward and showed us all the object – his authority to allow us to proceed and which he would presumably give to the last car in the queue to take to the other end.

I’ve never seen this done before on the public highway. I was impressed!

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Sunday 25th April 2010 – It was one of the nicest …

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire sayat argnat ligue de football league puy de dome france… days of the year so far, and we had another footfest as the season draws towards a close. We weren’t supposed to have one though – it should have been last night but Sayat refused to play at 18:30 so the match had to go on today.

It was a 2-2 draw which was something of a disappointment, especially as Sayat were awarded a penalty (from which they scored) for a handball in the area that everyone else in the ground except for the referee would have said was “involuntary”.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire sayat argnat ligue de football league puy de dome franceBut the equaliser was a superb goal. Little Matthieu playing all on his own in attack (and he’s normally a full-back) struggles with three defenders and a keeper to get into a good position. His shot is blocked and rebounds to Didier who hasn’t scored a goal in all the time I’ve been following the team, and he simply lifts the ball over everyone and into the net. He’s absolutely delighted as you can see, and who can blame him?

The keeper’s trick of lying down and hoping that the referee stops the game didn’t work, and rightly so as once the goal was awarded he was running up and down like a spring chicken.

Mind you, everything happened so quickly that I doubt that the referee would have had time to stop the game even had he wanted to.

I missed the first two goals though because I was at Chatel-Guyon watching the 3rd XI. And for once all of the chickens came home to roost and they were well and truly thumped – something that has been on the cards for a while.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire chatel guyon puy de dome ligue de football league franceDespite everything that I have said and all the “advice” that I’ve been handing out that has stiffened the defence over the last 15 months, we welcomed back into the centre of the defence Lord Lucan and Martin Bormann and they played with what I call the “Lego” formation – they all go to pieces in the box.

And if that wasn’t enough we had a chase the length of the field by one of the Pionsat players, clearly enraged by an “off-the-ball incident” and deciding to have a little friendly word with the Chatelguyon no8. And no amount of whistling by the ref was going to stop him. What is even more ironic is that the Pionsat player doing the chasing is a member of the French Police Force. How about that?

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome ligue de football league franceIn between the goals, we had more entertainment too. Another one of the Pionsat players had a real go at the ref about the award of a free kick.

This went on for ages and called for some restraint, in every sense of the word. It’s nice to see the Pionsat players showing such … errr …. passion during a match. It shows that they care about the match and the performance but I wish they would reserve it for when they have possession of the ball – the round plastic thing that they kick, I mean, and not one belonging to one of their opponents.

After the 3rd XI match Chatelguyon’s 1st XI had a game. You might say that the 1st game was the “warm-up act” and you wouldn’t be wrong about that. Things certainly got heated out there in that game.

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Saturday 3rd October 2009 – GRRRRRR at Pionsat

I went down to the footy ground tonight as there was a match at 20:00 – FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI v Chatelguyon. But the place was all locked up and in darkness. No idea what was (or was not) going on there. Maybe the match has been rearranged for tomorrow but I’ll be having a run out to Sayat as the 2nd XI is playing there and I haven’t been to Sayat’s ground yet.

beautiful red sunlight puy de dome france But it was a nice drive down to the ground at Pionsat tonight and as I came round the corner to the eastern side of the mountain I was met with this most stunning sunset. Isn’t this impressive?

We had an old saying when we were kids –
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Stoke on Trent’s on fire”
You can argue something like this here, can’t you? That direction is roughly Montlucon.

And talking of Montlucon I reckon I now have everything I need for my room. Even the glass, as Brico Depot had some sheets of perspex on offer at €17 for 80cms square by 4mm thick. I can make some nice windows out of that.

But highlight of today’s trip around the town was in NOZ – the end-of-range bucket shop where they were selling fast battery chargers for €3.90. They are just AA and AAA and take 800 milliamps and such is the rate of charge that they are rated as unsuitable for NiCads – just NiMH. I’ve seen (or felt) how hot NiCads can get in a normal fast charger.

The charger works off a DC adapter which – surprise surprise – is 12-volt.

And talking of 12-volt DC adapters, this next point is all Terry’s fault. We were talking a few days ago about televisions and how low-powered some of the flat-screen TVs are. In the Auchan I had a look at some of them and found a big cheap €275 flat-screen TV that is rated at 40 watts (that means it probably draws half that) and runs off 12-volt DC.

Now how much current does a DVD player draw?

At the Bio shop in Montlucon I bumped into Kate. Haven’t seen her for ages. She tells me that at the end of the month she is going back to the UK. Had enough of the quiet life, she says. It’s 10 years since she was last in the UK and so she will notice quite a difference. It won’t be long before she’ll be back.

But there are a lot of Brits returning to the UK just now. Financial issues play a big part in it. When I first came to the mainland the Pound was getting about 11 French Francs (I can even remember it being as high as 13) but with no raw materials for prime industry and no manufacturing industry to make use of the raw materials the Pound is at the mercy of world markets and it’s been taking a right hammering as the Arabs fight back against the west.

Whenever the West or the Zionists do something nasty to the Arabs the Arabs smile inscrutably and triple the price of oil. All the money then flows to the Middle East where they spend some of it on these new cities like Doha and so on, and the rest is then flooded into the banks of a country of their choice. The banks, awash with cash and needing to generate the interest to pay the Arab depositors, lend it out on increasingly high-risk ventures that return the most interest.

When all the money is actively engaged, the Arabs then ask for it back. The banks need to attract more money from elsewhere to replace the money the Arabs want back so they have to offer higher interest rates, the loan repayments thus go up, people can’t afford to repay, the banks foreclose and find themselves with a load of valueless assets and the economy goes tits-up.

This is 21st Century warfare and you can all see just how effective it has been. The West and the Zionists are still fighting a 19th Century war (and hopelessly losing, but that’s another matter entirely. What odds would you have had on Hamas smashing the Zionist farces a couple of years ago?) and they do it every time and they don’t learn from the previous encounters.

Anyone remember the turmoil of 1992? And the collapse of the western economies and the 3-day week in 1973 just after the Yom Kippur War?

And here the West is, threatening Iran. The economy hasn’t recovered from the most recent crisis yet. What will happen when oil triples in price next time?

So all of these expats are retreating to the UK because their money isn’t going as far as it used to in Europe. But what they haven’t realised is that it’s Europe where things are much more stable and it’s the UK where the economy has collapsed, and they are confronted with what for them has been rampant inflation in the UK over the last few years.

When I left the UK I always fuelled up at Dover as fuel was 2/3rd the price than on the mainland. Now it’s the other way round – everyone fuels up at Calais. And it’s the same for most other products too.

House prices are now starting to return to their previously extortionate levels in the UK and as most of the ex-pats sold their houses to fuel their new lives abroad, where are they going to live if they go back?

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