Tag Archives: desirée

Sunday 12th August 2018 – HAVING LAST NIGHT …

… been tucked up nicely in a spare bed at Liz and Terry’s, tonight I’m tucked up nicely in a spare bed at Ingrid’s in Biollet, just 15 miles away from my place at Virlet.

With it being Sunday there was no alarm but we had to rise early and organise ourselves. After breakfast we loaded up Terry’s van with some bits and pieces, including the plastic boxes that I had brought with me, and then hit the road.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but when I was at my house a few weeks ago I noticed that my tractor had been moved. And subsequently I had a message from Desirée and Simon to say that it had been further moved.

It’s an expensive piece of kit, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall, so it needed to be rescued. There’s a little bit of room on Terry and Liz’s car park and so we had agreed that it should go there out of the way and Terry can use it if he needs to.

And with Terry suddenly having a very rare free day from work on Monday, we went off to fetch it.

terry messenger les guis virlet franceRegular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I was there just now, I couldn’t get to the house because of all of the weeds.

But Terry had brought his heavy-duty brushcutter and it made pretty short work of the undergrowth. It didn’t take him long to cut a path through to the house and the barn.

And then I could enter the house, rescue the keys and then load up the tractor into Terry’s van. Terry had worked out the dimensions and there was plenty of room in his van for it to fit.

I have new neighbours too, Lisette and Berry, as Lieneke and Guus have sold their house. I went round to introduce myself and have a chat, and then we went off.

Ingrid had been to Clermont-Ferrand and we had arranged to meet up at the campsite at Les Ancizes. That serves snacks and is guaranteed to be open on a Sunday evening in the summer, so we had a meal there. Much to my surprise, they had a vegan dish on offer, Thai rice with mixed vegetables.

Back at Ingrid’s, we all had a good chat and I had a shower, managing to walk on a thorn that was stuck to my trousers. And that didn’t half hurt.

So here I am now, tucked up in bed. I’m going to have a really emotional day tomorrow so I need to be on top form.

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Friday 10th April 2015 – I HAD AN UNEXPECTED …

… day off work today.

But that was partly because I had an expected visitor, in that Liz came round to inspect the premises at lunchtime. Consequently I had to spend the morning tidying up. It certainly made quite a difference, and you can actually see the top of the table now, as well as the coffee table.

A job well-done.

Liz thought so too – she was quite impressed with what I’ve done so far (and so am I of course) and then we had a coffee and a long chat.

After she had gone, I installed the new Livebox and, as I expected, it didn’t go anything like according to plan (mainly due to the fact that the screenshots in the destruction manual were nothing like what I had on my screen). This meant a phone call to Orange, and that was the end of the early afternoon.

Still, the thing is working now, and it does seem to be faster, which is good news. maybe they weren’t wrong about upgrading the phone lines.

All of this meant that I had a very late lunch – more of an early tea really – and it wasn’t worth starting work after that. I had a play on the internet instead.

At 18:00 I went into St Eloy les Mines and did the shopping, bumping into the Laotian girl whom I know (and whose name I have forgotten) and also Desirée, both of whom were doing their shopping. We had a bit of rain too, but nothing to worry about.

second hand ford ranger 4x4 for sale montaigut en combraille puy de dome franceDriving past the big car sales place in Montaigut, I noticed that they had a Ford Ranger for sale, just like the one that I own in Canada. So I went over for a wander.

And it’s astonishing. It’s 3 years older than mine, with a much lower spec, yet they want almost twice as much money for it than I paid for mine. Still, the more that I see of them, the more that I like tham and I hope that I’m not going to be disappointed with mine.


And here’s something to record. With the temperature up here in my attic yesterday reaching 23°C and looking like it might be just as hot today, I’ve opened the skylights in the roof.

First time this year, too. It’ll be nice sleeping in here with a little breeze sweeping around the room.

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Wednesday 29th August 2012 – WE HAD OUR FIRST …

… no-show today.

Marianne and I went all the way out to Vergheas this afternoon for our Wednesday walk. Unfortunately no punters showed up, which was rather sad.

Mind you, it was only to be expected, I suppose. There had been the walk here a few weeks ago – the good one that I had been on, and then there was the pélerinage to the statue of the Black Virgin 10 days ago.

I suppose that everyone is simply Vergheased out.

Mind you it was just as well that no-one came because the sky was clouding over rapidly. We didn’t want to hang around too long. But long enough for one thing that I had wanted to do.

Vergheas is an old (and I DO mean old) fortified site – the mound upon which the church is built looks artificial to me, and that’s a good-enough indication.

early medieval stone rampart vergheas puy de dome franceWhat I had wanted to do was to see if there might be any trace of the old walls still remaining. When we had been here before, I’d had a good prowl around and had made a mental note of a couple of places that might be likely.

There was another flattened terrace on a lower level than that upon which the church is situated. This looked artificial to me.

The edges of this terrace were quite steep and in one or two places sloped down considerably towards the stream at the bottom. And sure enough, the side of that was lined with dressed stonework.

On the way back to Pionsat the heavens opened and we had 6mm of rain that fell in minutes. I can’t say that I’m sad about that, because we needed a good torrential downpour.

I was going to carry on working when I arrived home but I went upstairs and crashed out instead. I’d had a long, hard day.

This morning I was up early and met Rosemary at Montaigut en Combraille. She hopped into Caliburn and we went in to Montlucon. She ordered her new window at Lapeyre and I bought a load of stuff from Brico Depot.

I was back home for 13:15 – plenty of time to put the final coat of paint on the new woodwork ready to fit it tomorrow.

And in other news, and a bit of malicious gossip, if the conversation that was reported to me today means what a couple of people think that it might mean, no-one will be surprised if there’s a tiny addition to our little expat community’s population round about the start of the New Year.

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Monday 19th March 2012 – SOLAR WATER HEATING OVERLOAD …

… from the dump load was not an issue today. We didn’t see the sun at all,

it was so grey and miserable. Winter is certainly back, and with a vengeance too.

It’s hard to think that only 3 days ago I was standing outside in the all-together giving the naughty bits a really good scrub under the solar shower. There was no danger of that today.

And so with not going outside at all, I stayed in and started to sort through a vast pile of paperwork that I had lying around. All kinds of stuff here, and some of it has been here for centuries by the looks of it.

Of course I ended up being sidetracked and branching off on something else, but it’s the thought that counts after all. I even found a few things that had been missing for ages, which just goes to show that you can do it when you really try.

I almost had the fire on as well. Temperature has dropped in here to about 14°C or thereabouts and that’s cold as well. We’ve had 10°C more than that just recently.

I had to pop into Pionsat to see someone about something, but I’m not going to go into details about it as I am rather disappointed (to say the least) about the outcome of this meeting.

All I can say is that for once I tried to do something correctly by the book, but even when you do try to do it, it never works out. Years ago, in my misspent youth, I would have forged a letterhead and done it myself.

I’m beginning to realise why.

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Wednesday 14th March 2012 – WHAT A SHOWER!

Even though it is soon to be the annual conference of an … errrrr … organisation (said he, using the term loosely) that featured quite heavily in these pages at one time or another, it is not to that which I am referring.

Neither am I referring to my visitors either.

And I use the term in the plural because I had more than one today.

First off at 09:00 this morning, the phone rang and it was Désirée, the local estate agent.

And 09:00 too, you might be thinking, but to everyone’s surprise, including Yours Truly’s, I’d been up for hours. And I mean hours as well. I’d been trying to speak to Désirée for a while and at last she was free and so she came round here for a chat.

Amongst the things about which we chatted, and probably the most important, was the building that I own in Montaigut. Long-term readers of these pages will know that I own something like a derelict warehouse there and I use it to keep some cars, namely the Traction, the 2000E and the Mark V Cortina estate.

Above it though is a large space that was formerly six large rooms on two levels, but the dividers, both horizontally and vertically, are long gone. I need to do something about this place and converting the upstairs into two apartments is what I have in mind.

And so I had a good pick of Désirée’s brains – after all, she’s the professional.

Another visitor was Bill, who came round with a radio-cassette player out of an old car. There was a tape stuck in it and being an electronic unit you can’t get the tape out without power.

At least, most people can’t get the tape out but with the aid of three long fine-pointed screwdrivers and a pair of fine long-nosed pliers, I can manage to do it.

All these years of a misspent youth, that’s what I put it all down to.

2012 first GARDEN FIRE BONFIRE les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn between the visits I finally managed to light the fire, the first of the year. And that is busy (even as we speak) disposing of much of the waste wood and the weeds that I have been pulling up this last couple of weeks.

You’ll notice though that it isn’t on the site of where the greenhouse will be. There was far too much stuff to burn, and the trees were overhanging far too much.

But I’ve left some over there – I’ll burn that off tomorrow and that should kill off many of the weeds on the site of where the greenhouse will be.

But back to the shower thing. At 18:00 I noticed that the water in the solar water heater was at 31°C today, and that the water in the dump load was off the scale again. So 5 litres of that water into the solar water heater gave me 38.5°C and I had my first home-grown shower of the year.

Just for a change I actually feel properly clean.

And I was right about the wind as well.

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Monday 18th July 2011 – AND SO I’VE BEEN AND GORN …

… and now I’m back after my mega-voyage of this weekend.

Yesterday evening was, as you know, quite an exciting dash through the wilds of rural Burgundy, but this morning it was a totally different story.

There were hay lorries, tractors, all kinds of things on the roads. No wonder I like to travel at night. And the final straw was near Moulins where they had part of the N7 closed for resurfacing – it took an hour to travel 6 kms, such is the traffic on the N7.

Bback home here though, I encountered all of the storms and the rain. I’m not unloading Caliburn in this weather.

And the solar panels on the end of the barn, those that I fitted before I went? They are producing about 20% more than those on the roof of the Luton Transit. I was hoping for more but never mind – it’ll do.

I was however back home in time to attend Lieneke’s party, where I spent most of my time chatting to Tyas, Simon and Desiree. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.

And as you might expect, it all caught up with me later so I came home and crashed out. No surprise here.

And do you know what? I have to go back and do exactly the same thing next weekend too!

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Sunday 26th September 2010 – I’m exhausted …

matthieu malnar fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire herment puy de dome ligue de football league france… and that’s just from watching the football this afternoon. If I had been playing in it I would have been absolutely worn out long before half-time.

We were out at a wind-swept Herment today for the 2nd XI’s match, and I can safely say without fear of contradiction that I have never seen FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s defence play as badly as they played today.

matthieu malnar fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire herment puy de dome ligue de football league franceSlow off the mark for the ball, not quick enough going back, failing to clear the ball when they had possession – you name it, the Pionsat defence did (or didn’t) do it.

And it was only a heroic performance by Matthieu in goal – easily the best I have ever seen him play – performing acrobatic like this that kept the score down to a 3-2 defeat.

But today got off to something of a bad start. I was up early for a change and just as well for at 10:04 precisely Bill came round. He needed some help setting up an e-mail account so I sorted him out. But at 10:04 on a Sunday??

And so after that I worked on my notes for the radio programme and spoke to Desiree the local estate agent who gave me some useful info for a radio programme that I have in mind for the future.

On the way back from the football I went round to Terry and Liz’s to talk radio. Simon was there and so we had a chat about a project I have in mind.

I also found the time this morning to book my train out. I’m on the 17:39 from Riom to Paris as I’ve decided to hang around there through the night. There may well be a left-luggage at the Gare du Nord and I might even find a cheap hotel nearby. And if not I can always go for a wander around the city through the night. There will be plenty to do there rather than sitting curled up on a draughty railway station in the middle of nowhere.

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Thursday 21st January 2010 – I’ve finished the verticals for the studded wall…

upright stud wall first floor les guis virlet puy de dome france… between the bedroom and the rest of the first floor. And you can get some kind of idea how the bathroom is going to look.

The end three verticals are going to be for the bathroom bit, and the gap between the third and the fourth (ie the first from the left) will be the door into the bedroom. From the third vertical across to the vertical by the shower base – that will be the door into the bathroom and the shower base will be between there and the wall. You can just about make out the sink – that will be on the diagonal in the angle in the bathroom and there will be another sink in the angle in the bedroom. The toilet is in the far corner underneath the window.

This afternoon Terry Liz and I went to see some houses. We’d heard of three cottages for sale at €27,000 for the three in a village near St Maurice and it was worth a look. Money in the bank is fetching nothing right now and three cottages in a small village have the potential to be three income-generating holiday homes. We don’t mind the hard work in repairing them and so on and realistically for the price we weren’t expecting much, but these three were right at the limit of what was achievable. Furthermore there was no land to go with them – not an inch – and there was no view. They really were right in the middle of a village.

The estate agent took advantage of our presence to show us a few more houses and there is one of them that has got us talking, but we’re going a-hunting over the next few days to see what else we can turn up. It’s all about income generation at the moment and cash in the bank with almost-negative interest rates and inflation at 3% isn’t working right now.

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