Tag Archives: damien

Friday 15th July 2011 – AND HERE I AM …

… all nice and safe and sound back in Brussels yet again.

The morning was spent organising Caliburn and making a flask of coffee for the road. Caliburn runs on diesel as you know, but my intake of coffee must rival his fuel consumption.

And after lunch, I headed into Pionsat where I needed to arrange a few things before leaving. And then it was Damien’s funeral.

The first thing that stuck in my mind about it was “never mind standing room only, there were people standing outside”.

Packed to the rafters was the church, such was his popularity. And after the service, which took quite a while, the crowd heaved its way up to the cemetery. I’ve never been to a French funeral before and so it was all a new experience to me, but anyway once the crowd had gathered we all filed past the coffin one after another to pay our final respects. The more religious people made a sign of the cross and sprinkled holy water over the coffin while the laity such as Yours Truly simply made their peace with him. Then everyone left the cemetery except for the family and close friends who stayed behind for the interment.

It was at 17:22 when I left Pionsat and at 02:22, exactly to the minute 9 hours of driving, I was in Brussels. And that includes a fuel stop and stopping for some chips and salad. I averaged 83kph for the whole journey which was quite impressive seeing the roads that I use.

And you can tell that after much time and plenty of trial and tribulation, I have found out how to work the statistics function of the SatNav. And aren’t I in my element now?

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Wednesday 13th July 2011 – I’m having a change of plan …

… for tomorrow – and it’s just as well. I woke up this morning, once more before the alarms went off, but there was no way that I was going to get up. I could hear the rain thrashing down on my roof and it wasn’t a day for working outside. That’s another day lost of course but it can’t be helped. I went back to bed for an hour.

When I finally crawled out of the stinking pit I began to tidy up in here looking for the data head – but even though I even went as far as to move the bed settee, no luck. I wonder where that has gone. Just typical.

After lunch I went to the bank to pay some cash in and then to the funeral parlour to enquire after Damien. His funeral is at 15:00 on Friday and hence the change of plan – I’ll have to miss the Friday in Brussels and go once the funeral is ended. I can’t not go to see Damien off. I’ll just hope that I’ll have time to go to the bank before I pick up Marianne. I can book my flight tickets another time.

Back here I carried on doing a little tidying but at about 17:00 the rain stopped. That was the cue to go outside.

solar panel barn wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe framework on the barn is now finished and I have one of the solar panels in place. It’s not quite fastened up but it’s certainly there. And that took me until 20:30 and I bet you can’t remember when was the last time I’d worked so late. I know I can’t.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to get one of the panels off the roof of the Luton Transit and put it on the end of the barn. That will be two banks of two (one on the barn wall, one on the Transit roof) and while I’m away I can see how well the performances relate.

I’m hoping to have at least half as much again off the ones on the end of the barn.

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Tuesday 12th July 2011 – I’m off to bed …

… in a minute. I’m whacked.

Yes, 08:30 starts are all very well but not if you were still up at 04:15 repairing a rain gauge. And then I was having a most weird and interesting dream featuring Percy Penguin and something to do with the postcode of where she works. No wonder that I woke up bolt upright before the alarm went off, given the most unlikely nature of what I was dreaming.

After computing for a while I went round to Jean Lauvergne’s for 13:00 to do his photography for him. And what an interesting afternoon that was – no wonder I’m whacked.

chateau d'anglard le quartier puy de dome franceWe went to Le Quartier for a good nosey and inter alia uncovered the source of the River Boron, visited the local presbytery and did some informal archaeology at the Chateau d’Anglard.

From there we visited the mills of the Boron, went to see a ford where there used to be a sawmill that was water-powered, and then went to look at this Roman spring that fed water to Neris les Bains, 25 kms away. But that was a disappointment – Jean couldn’t remember where it was, after all that!

Back at Jean’s house, he allowed me to peruse his extensive library of documents, books and press cuttings. And then I cam home through the hailstorm in time to watch the Storm of the Decade through my attic windows.

Who knows? I might even be able to have a whole day carry on with my solar framework tomorrow.

damien fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire puy de dome franceBut on another, sadder note, if you have been following the pages for the Pionsat Football Club, you will have noticed that I make considerable reference to Damien. He played for the 3rd XI and when they were short of a goalkeeper he bravely volunteered to go between the posts and stayed there for a whole season. What he lacked in skill he made up in courage.

Last season he took up refereeing and while he maybe made many decisions that I had seen from a different viewpoint, he was never lacking in willingness to go out there and do it. In fact, he was always the first to volunteer for anything and you could always rely on him. There was always something amusing and exciting happening wherever he was.

Yesterday evening he went out for a bike ride and when he came home he told his mother that he was tired and would go to sit down for 10 minutes. At that moment he had a severe heart attack and died on the spot.

30 years old is no age for a person to pass away, especially under those circumstances. He is going to be a very hard person to replace at the football club this coming season.

Sleep well, Damien.

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Sunday 17th April 2011 – The full moon tonight …

full moon rutland WG901 wind turbine les guis virlet puy de dome france… was really beautiful. As I was cooking my pizza I had half an eye on it slowly moving around. Later when I was doing the washing up it was just appearing above a rare scattered cloud and it had the little Rutland WG901 wind turbine in a perfect silhouette. I couldn’t resist it.

But rare indeed are the clouds these days. I’m going to be tempting fate by saying that apart from two days where there has been a minimum amount of rain, the odd drop or two, there’s been no rain here at all for 14 days. Now that’s guaranteed to produce a thunderstorm, isn’t it?

And talking of full moons, I reckon I should be spending tomorrow planting, rather like Neil Young’s mates in Thrasher I’ll be hiding behind hay bales and planting in the full moon tomorrow. There are the spuds to put out for a start, as well as a few other things. And there’s definitely more than a few signs of life in the cloche now.

It was Sunday today and so a day of rest. But not really – I was up and about before 10:00 and I did some tidying up in here first as well as doing some research into my Newfoundland pages. But the weather was so gorgeous that I went outside and did some tidying up and general nonsense.

After lunch the water in the home-made immersion heater was at 50-odd degrees, what with the blue cloudless sky and all that, so that was the cue for a load of washing, especially as it was a blowy kind of day. While that was doing itself I went down to Pionsat to watch the 1st XI play St Bonnet. They were a loud-mouthed lippy team when I saw them at home, giving the referee all kinds of grief. Today, the official referee didn’t turn up so Damien ended up refereeing.

That was the cue for all kinds of histrionics.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire st bonnet puy de dome ligue football league franceAnd just how stupid are some footballers?

It was 1-1 and one of the St Bonnet defenders had already been given a yellow card for dissent. He actually scores a goal a few minutes later to put his team in the lead and to celebrate, goes up to Damien and says “how about that then, you **** **** ****?”

So he’s sent to the dressing room as you might expect, St Bonnet are down to 10 men, the missing player being a defender of course, and Pionsat win 3-2 accordingly

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire st bonnet puy de dome ligue football league franceAt least, there can’t be any disputes about any of Pionsat’s goals – they are all excellent well-taken efforts especially the second one, which was a peach and worth the price of admission on its own.

But somehow St Bonnet still moan and groan all the way through the final 30 minutes of the match, and carry on long after the final whistle has been blown, but of course it isn’t going to do them any good and I don’t know why they bother.
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So now, with the football being over, it’s back home to finish the washing and while that was doing, I did some more tidying up but this time in the little roon underneath the barn. There’s tons of stuff in there and it all needs to be sorted out.

So tomorrow I have the website to work on for a couple of hours, and then planting my stuff for the second half of April. Tomorrow night is Anglo-Francais night at St Eloy as well – it’s a busy day tomorrow.

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Tuesday 21st September 2010 – I’ve been really busy today ….

… and I couldn’t really afford to spend the time as I have so much to do.

This morning we had to go to this radio station in Marcillat en Combraille to discuss the arrangements for the programme they want us to do. And what we discussed was almost exactly the same and no different from the last time we were there. Mind you, the guy we talked to was as interested in the Ligne Economique as I am and he told me that he has ridden on it to Durdat Larequille. And seeing as the line closed in 1932 and he has ridden on it, then he probably has a good excuse for forgetting things.

He was minded by a woman who may well have been his wife, and while she was much more purposeful about things and helped to keep her husband on track, she had hearing issues. So as you might expect, this meeting was a bundle of laughs. But nevertheless we did fit in a good chat about solar panels, the Anglo-French group and Terry’s little business.

Then it was off to the Mairie to give them copies of the photos from Saturday.They are “internet” quality so if they want them at proper press quality (350dpi and all that) they can tell me which ones.

Then off to Marianne’s where I stayed for ages talking about Pionsat-Patrimoine, the Anglo-French group, the newspaper, the Foreign library and all that kind of thing. Things are moving around here, although you wouldn’t believe it.

The next people to have the pleasure of my company were the people at the bank. I warned them that I would be going to Canada shortly and so not to be surprised at my “extraordinary expenditure” and not to cancel my bank card – not like 2002.  I suppose I ought to do that for a couple of other cards too.

I also bumped into Damien from the football club while I was in Pionsat.

Rob and Nicolette were out so I couldn’t give them their photographs (they were out later too) and so after lunch I wrote a few important letters (it’s great having a printer that works!) and carried on with my researches. And I might just be onto something. A company called Tiger Rentals might let me have a Toyota Yaris for just about $1500 CAN – about €1100. It’s said that this figure includes the collision damage waiver and all taxes, allows unlimited mileage and permits travel to the USA and the rest of Canada. Now this sounds too good to be true so I’ve sent them a mail for confirmation.

Watch this space.

Of course I need to pay for the accommodation on top but a Yaris does just about 50mpg whereas a motorhome will do just about 18 to the gallon if you are very lucky before you even think about the extra rental charges and whatever charges you might have to pay for camping.

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