Tag Archives: football training

Friday 7th May 2010 – I’ve finished doing the fireplace in the bedroom.

boarding up fireplace bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceI cut a piece of insulated plasterboard to shape, stuffed it in the hole over the top of the boarding and then screwed it in place. It was a perfect fit too, much to my surprise.

After that I filled in all of the joints with polyfilla stuff and that was that. Perfectly windproof and draftproof.

I’m not going to smooth it down or do a final filler coat for of course it will be covered by the space-blanket insulation, some more polystyrene stuff and then some plasterboard. In fact, if you look you can see where I’ve got to with the battening for all of that.

I’ve been working hard in the bedroom this afternoon, but in the morning I was out in the garden. I did some more succession sowing and then planted the main-crop potatoes. I’d left them in the sun and the warmth hoping that they could chit but they didn’t do all that much. But anyway I didn’t have enough so I went into the bag to get a couple more (there were about 30 left) and to my surprise those in the bag had chitted more than those in the sun. So I hastily prepared another bed to stick them in. No point in wasting them.

At training tonight they had a proper 6-a-side match seeing as how they had two goalkeepers. And I was ashed if I would referee it. Franck the trainer said that it would be a good opportunity for me to practise my technique but I reckon that it was more of a comment on my footballing skills last week. I’ve a lot to learn about refereeing – it’s easy doing it behind a desk in a classroom but it’s a different thing entirely on a pitch. But at least I got my positioning right. That’s always been one of my major gripes about referees.

In other, depressing news which will upset more than a few readers of these pages, Liz’s autopsy has now been published. It appears that while they were doing the surgery on her main artery they “nicked” another small artery nearby with one of the wires that they were using. Ordinarily that would have caused no problems but of course she had been pumped full of anti-coagulents so the cut didn’t clot and she bled to death.

Yes, medical manslaughter as we all suspected.

I remember just before the General Election of 1997 talking about the NHS with a friend of mine, a lifelong Labour supporter. Someone was extolling its virtues (it did have virtues then) and Nina replied grimly “yes, so they had better be careful in whose hands they leave it”.

Nina knew Liz. I wonder what she is saying now.

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Friday 30th April 2010 – Well I was wrong about the rain.

We didn’t get 10mm at all. In fact we had a mere 9.5mm, most of which came around midday. So I nipped downstairs and uncovered everything so that everywhere can get wet. I uncovered the cloche but forgot to cover up the thermometer in there and now that’s wet too – I’ll have to see about drying it oit.

I stayed in, did some work on the computer in the morning and then started the unpacking. I’ve managed to put it (or most of it, anyway) away and I can actually see the floor no without walking on anything.

With the weather having cooled down I went to training tonight and had a good run around for an hour and 15 minutes. It’s totally worn me out, which is a good sign. It shows that things are doing something. And I managed to have a shower too, which is another good reason for going. Clean bedding tonight!

But no footy on Saturday – it’s Labour Day! They don’t even think that the shops will be open either. That will be an inconvenience. On Sunday the 3rd XI are playing Effiat in a right bottom-of-the-table encounter.

But right now, I’m off to bed before I fall asleeep.

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Wednesday 28th April 2010 – Today was busy.

This morning first thing I had to go round to Michael’s. He’d just come back from the UK and bought me 10 kilos of oats. And as he was off again this afternoon I needed to rescue them (and pay him) before he went.

Back home I had time to plant some of the seeds that Clare had given me before leaping aboard Caliburn, my trusty steed, and heading off to St Gervais d’Auvergne to meet Liz and go on to Gerzat to record our radio programme. And of course to meet this photographer guy who wanted not just to photograph us but to interview us too. It seems that in the Combrailles we are becoming major news and our publicity is reaching its height. Yes, we are going to be the feature article in … errrr …. a free advert-type newspaper in the Combrailles with a circulation of about 350.

Not quite Le Monde or Paris Match I know, but we remain confident that one day we will be there. I’m eagerly awaiting the day that we will be asked to open our first brocante or be the guests of honour at a concours de belote.

Back at St Gervais d’Auvergne Liz and I went for a coffee or two and discussed our plans for next week. We are going to hit the Chambre de Metiers et de l’Artisanat in Chamailles and get all our business affairs in order. Neither of us has received our formal inscription of our business registrations despite having had an acknowledgement almost a year ago. High time we did something about it.

Back here I planted all of my early potatoes. And I think I’m going to run out of room for the lates and so I’ll have to invent something about that. And I should have gone to football training this evening but today was the hottest day of the year and it’s still 25 degrees up here even with all of the windows open. That’s not a temperature for someone of my age and my level of fitness to be running around. But the weather is supposed to break tomorrow or Friday morning, with rain (the first since April 9th) and a major drop in temperature. If that holds, then training at the Friday night session is a distinct possibility.

Now where have I put my footy boots????

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Wednesday 14th April 2010 – I’ve finished all of the beds in the garden

raised bed gardening les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see the last one just here on the right of the image.I can’t go any further for to the right are some fruit trees, behind me is the scrap Ford Transit van and to the left of the raised beds are the old Ford Cortina and the diesel w123 Mercedes 240D. And once we get round to next winter I can think about moving all of the vehicles elsewhere.

But 9 raised beds is enough for now, what with the megacloche as well – you may remember that last year it was just 8 raised beds.

There’s a caravan window across the megacloche for the moment. My tray of radishes and my container of carrots are underneath it hardening off ready to be planted. I needed the space in the greenhouse for the April sowing of seed, which I also did today. But nothing much seems to be germinating and that’s pretty disappointing. I’m sure it didn’t take this long last year.

15 of us at football training tonight. We started off with a few laps around the pitch and then had a game of quick-passing football. After that it was a heading match and then we finished off with a 7-a-side game. There was a new player there tonight – someone who I hadn’t seen before. A big guy, bald and a little on the senior side and called Christophe, which is bound to complicate things as there are already more Christophes than you can shake a stick at.

It reminds me of the old days with the Cheese Hall pub in Crewe. If you wanted a labourer or two to help on a job you would stick your head through the door and shout “Paddy”. You’d be trampled to death in the stampede.

But I digress.

There’a a goalkeeping crisis in the club right now – just one fit keeper for all three teams … “I bet he’s busy then” – ed … and this Christophe is someone who somebody else knows who retired from playing a few years ago but he’s been enticed out of retirement to keep goal for the 2nd XI for the next few weeks while Francois, Michael and Philippe recover from their injuries.

But this training lark – I’m miles off being match-fit and at my age I doubt if realistically I can get back into the right kind of fitness. But there is hope for me yet. If Tomi Morgan can crack it in the Welsh Premier League at his age then I can do it in the 14th level of the French pyramid at two and a half years more.

The proof of the pudding will be when I wake up tomorrow morning and see how the bones feel. I did notice that I was running much more freely tonight, and that’s a good sign.

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Wednesday 7th April 2010 – Think of a phrase that contains …

… the words “booze-up” and “brewery” – and we aren’t talking about the Open University Students’ Association either!

Yes, I thought that incompetence at its most stunning inefficiency could only be reached in the hands of that august body but I am fast changing my opinion. I have been reliably informed by one of my “moles on various committees” that this week’s radio programme was the one for the 1st week of March – the radio station appears to have thrown the wrong version onto the cutting room floor and gone with the one we discarded which is now 5 weeks out of date.

And that isn’t all either. I’ve been given a task to undertake by the footy club which requires them to send in a form. So I’ve been waiting 3 weeks and it’s not made it there yet. I obtained a duplicate and I rang up the President of the club about completing it – the deadline is Friday – but I got the answerphone so I left a message.

No callback by the time I went to training, so never mind – I’ll see the President’s son down at the ground. But down at the ground there were just 4 of us, and we were locked out of the stadium. It appears that the trainer has given the players the night off so that they can watch the footy on the box.

Unbelievable, isn’t it? Last Wednesday they were rained off; last Friday was someone’s birthday; today there’s something better on the box. And all the teams are struggling right now and need a change of fortune. Fitness is a big issue with the teams – watch them drop off the pace in the last 15 minutes – but the trainer cancels the training session. Stand by for a right spannering on Saturday and Sunday.

I did a couple of laps around the field and then came home. The President eventually rang me back at 21:00 and I explained the situation. “I’ll ring up the secretary right now and call you straight back”. It’s now 02:30 and guess what?

But it’s not all doom and gloom. You remember my action photo from the footy 10 days ago? Well the local rag has published it. It might only be La Montagne but it’s still nice to see my name in lights and it’s another addition to the portfolio. And Claude came back from his holiday in the Midi so we had coffee on the terrasse. We could do that because there was a moment when the rain stopped. After me crowing about the good weather yesterday it p155ed down for most of the day. But in between the showers I dug out a few more treestumps.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be starting to build the new megacloche. The afternoon will be spent at a talk on the history of the area of La Cellette. Marianne wants me to meet the organiser.

And 02:30 in the morning? This 3D program has taken hold of me. My two characters have now made it to the beach with a herd of wild rhinocerous hot on their heels. I shall be scanning the world-wide web tomorrow evening to see if I can find a freeware boat otherwise my little animation will come to a premature end.

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Wednesday 31st March 2010 – Yeeuucchhh

A couple of weeks ago I made a comment something along the lines that summer had finally arrived because over the previous 7 days the minimum temperature had risen from minus 9 to plus 9.

Well, a week ago we had just had a 7-day period of extremely minimal rainfall. This last 7 days though we have had a grand total of 54mm. 7 days ago I did a load of washing and noticed that the water butts were running really low. Tonight they are overflowing.

Terry and I went down to football training but there was no chance of any football tonight. Those girls from Saturday could have held their swimming gala on there, there was that much standing water.

But the plants seem now to be bursting into life. The herb trays are bursting forth, the radishes have gone berserk and now the carrots, spinach and beetroot have come to life. They are obviously enjoying this weather. I’m glad someone is.

This morning I did two hours work upstairs. I’ve transcribed all of my outstanding footy notes and I can bring the football website up-to-date. But while I was transcribing the footy notes I came across some notes that I had dictated on a journey to Hamburg back in early 2007. I’d forgotten all about those.

After that I carried on laying the paths around the raised beds and I’ve done as much as I can. That’s another pile of builders’ rubble and old slate accounted for. So bearing in mind the garden springing to life I’ve started to dig over where the last (for now) of the raised beds will be. And while I was digging up tree roots and the like I noticed that one of the apple trees I planted all those years ago seems to be coming to life, even though it is thoroughly overgrown by rampant ground alder. I reckon I ought to have a go at clearing some of that rubbish away from it to give it some room.

But back at the football there was only a handful who had turned out for training and someone suggested we practised dribbling around some old bollards that they have for training purposes. But I cautioned against it. It recalled too many memories of when this kind of training became a la mode back in the late 1960s. Crewe Alexandra, my home team, was one of the first to try it back in 1967 and during one of the very first training sessions the sports editor of the Crewe Chronicle rang up the club
“How’s this new training session going?” he asked.
“Dreadful” replied Ernie Tagg, the club manager. “The bollards are winning 2-0“.

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Wednesday 24th March 2010 – I must be off my head

Yes – at my age (which I shudder to think about) I’ve restarted football training! I’m out of condition, I realise that, and it’s one of those things that if I let it drag then it won’t ever improve. It’ll just get worse and worse. It’s probably 25 years since I last played a football match and 10 years since I last did anything serious in the way of fitness. When I lived in Brussels I used to go running every night and I could run for miles, but when I moved from Duysbergh to Expo in 2000 I stopped as the terrain was not suitable. And since I was ill and lost all my energy I’ve just not been able to do a thing.

Three laps round the football pitch tonight finished me off and then we had a 7-a-side game for 30 minutes each half. But after about 10 minutes I went to play sweeper as you don’t have to run around very much.

At least I managed to get a shower out of it (and we aren’t talking about OUSA here!) – but it’s a hell of a way to do it. I’ve a feeling that I’m going to regret this tomorrow morning and I can already feel my leg muscles tightening up.

This morning I went round to discuss this newspaper thing. Apparently there’s going to be a committee of three running it – an owner/editor, a financial consultant, and a typestter/website manager. You can guess which role I’m earmarked for. Two years of doing General Electric’s training leaflets followed by 11 months redesigning The Conference Board’s documents has sttod me in good stead as I knew it would. I also took the opportunity to rustle up the deatails of events taking place in due course – we need to pad out our radio programme with stuff.

And while we are on the subject you might remember a photo that graced these pages a while back – that of Le Quartier all lit up with Christmas lights. I sent it to a friend who is the reporter for that area for the local newspaper. She sent it in to the paper and apparently they featured it in glorious technicolour as “photo of the day”. Now how about that?

In other news, back at the ranch I don’t just have my radishes coming up, I also have my marjoram and my spinach. This garden is looking impressive if it all works. And I put in my fourth raised bed today.

But somehow I have a feeling that I won’t be doing too much tomorrow. Ouch!

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