Tag Archives: henri

Monday 23rd February 2015 – I’M NOT SURE WHAT’S HAPPENING …

… but I’ve had a bit of a bad day today.

Despite having something of a decent night’s sleep last night, I almost crashed out recording the radio programmes this morning, and it was something of an effort to drive back from Gerzat this afternoon. Back here, I crashed out for 3 hours or so and now, at just 22:40, I’m dying to crawl into bed and forget about today completely.

Mind you, I had something of an exhausting night last night and that might explain a great deal. I was walking from Brussels back to here and in the traditions of the well-known Irish joke, I’d fund a boarding house with a typical boarding house landlady, and I was setting out there to walk the route. When I reached the end of the day and was tired out, I would walk back to the boarding house for the night, and then next morning, walk back to where i’d left off the previous evening, and start out along the route, walking back to the boarding house at the end of the day.

No wonder I was exhausted.

At Radio Tartasse, we learned the news that we had been dreading – that Henri had not recoverd from his illness. He was 90 years of age but looked probably no older than 70 and was full of vitality, but a short while before Christmas he went down as if he had been poleaxed, and aged 40 years overnight.

It’s something that catches up with all of us eventually, sooner or later, but I really enjoyed Henri’s company, his knowledge and his good humour and I shall miss him.

After lunch, during which I demolished the leftovers of Liz’s vegetable pie from yesterday, we went off to Gerzat. and although we had a half-hour wait for the studio, the recording sessions went perfectly and we’d done in an hour with no delay at all.

And then I had to come back here.

But now I’m off to bed, I’ve cancelled the alarms and I’m going to sleep for ever. I really must be sickening for something.

Monday 17th November 2014 – WE’VE BEEN RADIOING TODAY

Just at Marcillat though. Liz had to work this afternoon and so we recorded it as she drove past. And Henri doesn’t look too good at all. He’s aged 100 years this last few weeks and I am concerned.

Afterwards we went to the hotel up the road for a coffee and a chat seeing as how we had half an hour to spare. And here we learnt some more devastating news. The owner of the hotel is retiring at the end of the year and there is no successor. It is therefore closing down. The other cafe in the town went a while ago, and so the place will be left with no facilities.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when we were discussing a year or so ago the Mayor of Pionsat’s plans for the town and his aim of expanding the commercial facilities available, I predicted that this will have a knock-on effect on the other small towns in the neighbourhood. I didn’t expect to be proved so right so quickly.

After that, I came back here and started on the next batch of radio programmes. I’ve fallen behind with the rock music ones and I can’t afford to do that. I need to put in a couple of decent shifts on these and build up an advance catalogue of programmes for the future. It’s teeming down with rain again and so I may as well do that as anything else

And it’s cold tonight. Hovering just above my magic limit of 13°C in my attic here. I try to hang on for as long as I can before the first fire, but once that limit is passed, I’ll light up the fire. Probably by the end of this week if it carries on dropping.