Tag Archives: Lapeize

Monday 12th May 2025 – IT HAS BEEN …

… one of those days that has been a disaster from start to finish, a day when nothing has gone right at all.

At least, that’s how it seems The truth is that most of the disasters relate to this afternoon and concern the dialysis centre. The rest, well, ça va as they say around here.

The morning actually started quite brightly, but before we arrive at that point, let’s just mention last night, which was another late-night calamity when I couldn’t summon up the energy to go to bed early.

Not that it would have been early either. It would have been about 23:30 by the time that I finished my notes and that’s not early by any means. And even then, it took me over half an hour to stagger off into the bathroom and then into bed.

Nevertheless, I was asleep quite quickly though, but not for long. And I tossed and turned throughout the night until round about 06:30 when I finally gave up trying to go back to sleep and headed off back into the bathroom.

After a good wash and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. We had some silver pie base container things. For some reason we were going to have our evening meal in them. The girl who was nominated to do it had first of all to fetch our knitting files from Sam Apple Pie or wherever into the mix and merged properly. That took her a while. The supper came and it was leek soup … fell asleep here … I’m sure that one of the players playing alongside me was Adam Davies but anyway, going back to the story, these pie cases were flattened by some kind of road roller and we had to have them so that the sides came up again. We were managing a block of three hundred houses and apartments so imagine the cheer when one of them was rectified. Then it would go dark again and it, it would join one of the others that had yet been seen with floodlights and this carried on all the time. It was very, very rare that the product … fell asleep here … but we had these silver dishes and looking for one that we’d thrown out and trying to find one that was this Adam Davies, trying to make the sides stand up for some usage.

Adam Davies is of course centre-forward for Caernarfon, whom we watched yesterday, and “Sam Apple Pie” is the group in which my friend Dave Charles, the recording engineer for Rockfield Studios, played before joining “Help Yourself”. As for the rest of the dream, I’ll let you lot work it out and if you come up with an answer, don’t forget to let me know, because I don’t have a clue … "nothing new there" – ed ….

By the way, seeing as we are talking about Caernarfon … "well, one of us is" – ed … HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF YESTERDAY’S GAME

And next, we were offered a pile of dressed stone for two shillings apiece so we arranged for them to have these stones delivered to the Haurace (?). They brought it in through the ice and deposited it just by his front door so he couldn’t move it and couldn’t open his door. He had to start to put it away quickly and do it well so that we could press on but that wasn’t his speedy work at all, wasn’t his thing. He’d seen the things that take the ghost when he played with the cards from Metz and he wanted to go to … fell asleep here … and we were peddling works after six series of taking it, I suppose you’d call it, where each club has been on it for over a month. It doesn’t work beforehand like that.

It seems that I have ashlar … "and rubble" – ed … on the brain right now with all of this medieval architecture that I am reading. As for the rest of it, this is something else that seemed to degenerate into the usual load of … errr … nonsense.

Finally, I went for a walk with a couple of friends of mine. One of them might have been Cécile. We’d been strolling over this agricultural area where she said that she had bought some land. The further we walked, the closer we came to something that looked like an old mill with a big, tall chimney. It was an abandoned place in this field. I went to look at it, but as I did, my attention was distracted by something in a quarry that was covered in rocks. I climbed up this ladder into this quarry. There were these two boys playing at the foot of the ladder. In the quarry it turned out to be an old American 6×4 lorry, camouflaged by being covered over in rocks. I took a couple of photos of it and had a good look around it, then climbed back down. I nearly put my foot on the hand of one of these boys. I told him that it was dangerous, playing around like that. I walked off to rejoin my friends. They had come to some kind of ruined house of the kind that you find in North America. Cécile, if it was Cécile, was extremely depressed because she’d bought it thinking that it was a place to live but it was in fact a ruin. We had a really good look around inside it. There was abandoned furniture and everything and the floors were unsafe. It was in a terrible condition. The two girls decided that they would go upstairs so I said that I’d stay down here to take some photos because there was a really good view of the mill from up here on the top of this hill where we were at this house. I walked out onto the verandah ready to take some more photos of the mill while they were upstairs looking around.

Cécile of course, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, featured in my life quite significantly for a six-month period. And the American army lorry presumably relates to the one in the Grès de Lapeize … "we’re talking “ashlar” again" – ed … quarry at … errr … Lapeize where Clotilde lives, the quarry that we visited BACK IN 2010 and found the lorry. However, climbing up on a ladder to the quarry is a new departure.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up early. "I can’t stop long" she said. "There are plenty of blood tests to carry out back at the office". Of course, it’s her final day today before her week off, and her colleague’s “reluctance” in this respect is well-known.

After she left I made breakfast and then read some more of MY BOOK. We’ve had the guided tour of Ludlow Castle and we’re now having the potted history of the place. What this has to do with the “Medieval Military Architecture” I really have no idea.

Back in here I attacked my Welsh homework and I actually managed to complete three-quarters of it. It was quite difficult too, especially seeing as I had missed the one-and-a-half lessons that covered this section.

When my faithful cleaner turned up, I was still bashing away at it, so I gave up and went to have my patches fitted.

And just as well that I did, because the taxi came early – 12:20. And it was my favourite driver too. After she installed me, she told me "we have to go to the Centre Normandy to pick up another passenger". So much for my hopes of an early arrival.

Even less chance too. The other passenger was in a wheelchair and he took some rounding up. It was 12:45 when we drove away from the “Normandy”.

And when we arrived, they weren’t ready for us. They had been explaining to a new stagière how to clean and then calibrate the machines.

There were some additional tests to perform on me too today, which meant that I wasn’t finally coupled up until 14:15, fifteen minutes after the effectiveness of the anaesthetic patches has worn off, so you can imagine how the coupling up went.

At least they left me alone pretty much once the machine began to work, although there were still some tests to carry out. But everyone finished at roughly the same time, so guess who was left until last.

Once I was finally sorted out, I went outside to find that the vehicle sent for me was the minibus. And, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have an extraordinary amount of difficulty climbing into it. In the centre, I’d banged my wounded leg putting on my shoes, and now I banged it again trying to enter the vehicle. And it was so complicated and difficult to climb in.

The torrential rainstorm didn’t help. I was soaked to the skin trying to climb in.

To cap it all, the guy in the wheelchair from the “Normandy” was in there already, and the driver wanted to drop him off first. Not much that I can do about it.

It was 19:30 when I arrived home, soaked, uncomfortable, in pain and completely fed up.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with plenty of stuffing left for the rest of the week, followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert.

So now, thoroughly fed up and thoroughly exhausted, I’m off to bed where I shall sleep for a hundred years.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about “Sam Apple Pie” and “Help Yourself” … "well, one of us has" – ed … It reminds me of when I was arranging my CDs on shelves down on the farm.
Half-way through the exercise I burst out laughing.
"What’s so funny?" asked Cécile
"Have a look!" I replied.
I’d been labelling the shelves with the musician at the start and the musician at the end, and one of my shelves was labelled "Help Yourself to Kate Bush."

0

Sunday 26th July 2020 – IT’S SUNDAY …

… so today was something of a lie-in. Plenty of time to go off on my travels during the night, and I took full advantage. I started off somewhere, I dunno if I was on board ship again. I can’t remember a lot of what was going on but I remember having to go somewhere. I was driving a car and I came across that girl with very blonde, very curly hair who was walking a dog, a girl who I knew to be a friend of a girl I knew. I crept up behind her in the car and went to blow the horn but it didn’t work. In the end I blew it a second time – it worked and she fell down on the floor. I went to open the window to say something to her but the window wouldn’t open so she couldn’t see who it was. There was something else that led from there with a couple of girls. They put a ladder up to climb to this basket because there was something that they could see there. These girls were very very interested in this. When they came back down again they were ever so disappointed because all that it had been had been some kind of bolt on the masthead that had broken off. But there were all kinds of things invloved in this – school dinners, bus rides going on with the THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR, zodiacs, this kind of thing and I can hardly remember any of it now.

Later on I was being chased around by all these fascists and a really aggressive woman who was going to make mincemeat out of me. She had the law on her side but we kept on being ahead of them kept on making more remarks and so on. It turned out that we were in Shavington in Edwards Avenue looking up at Edwards Close. That wasn’t how it used to be – there were only two or three houses at the side of it and then a road that went through. We were saying that I bet she knows where she is going for she’s here for the very first time to do something with Mick Matthews who was a member of the British Union of Fascists. Someone else siad “that’s alright. We have nothing to worry about. She can fetch the police because we are all under 12. We can’t be prosecuted and we can’t be found guilty of anything”. She was chasing us all round this situation with her friends and we were doing everything we could to keep one step ahead of her. There was one point where we were invited to a royal banquet. We got there and we had to do this procession round. There was this woman who had also been invited and sitting at a table. We weren’t sure whether she recognised us, whether the scowl that she gave us was just the usual scowl or meant that she recognised us. We noticed that there were two places set for us but we decided that we weren’t going to sit there and we’d get something to eat from somewhere else.

There was something else involving the President of the USA and I can’t remember what that was now.

Sometime later on I was driving a lorry somewhere with a trailer on the back. The trailer was just clipping the lamp-posts, all that kind of thing. I was sure that I was too far over the nearside and on one occasion I’d hit a car that was waiting at a road junction but I didn’t feel a bang so I carried on driving. It turned out that we were at Shearings waiting for a couple of coaches to come in. They were running hours late and we wondered why they hadn’t rung up to say how late they were but of course that would have made them even later. I had to check a coach over but they asked me how much water it had taken. I said “about half” although it was a lot more empty than that – it had taken a lot more than just half the amount. Then I head a voice calling. It sounded as if one coach was on its way in. I wondered who it was but it turned out that it was Rosemary calling offering me a cup of tea.

Yes, a cup of tea brought to me in bed and that’s all very pleasant. I could quite get used to this, but not really at 07:20 or thereabouts on a Sunday morning.

09:20 was when I finally arose, and so I organised a few things here, helped Rosemary set up her television, uploaded the July 2019 photos of Iceland and Greenland to Rosemary’s laptop and then collected my things together.

We drove to La Peize in Rosemary’s car. We ended up at Clotilde’s, who I haven’t seen for a good few years. Christiane was there too and I haven’t seen her for even longer. Clotilde had prepared a nice lunch for us all that was very nice.

puits michelin la peize puy de dome france eric hallAfter lunch we had a walk round the village and ended up at the Puits Michelin, the old coal mine on the edge of the town.

We’ve been here before, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall, many years ago, and there’s quite a story behind this coal mine. For this, we have to turn the clock back to the end of the 19th Century.

Coal had been discovered near St Eloy-les-Mines (which wasn’t “les mines” then of course) back in medieval times but commercial exploitation began in the early part of the 18th Century, with a mine reported as being in existence by 1741. In the latter part of the 19th Century deep mines began to be sunk. Little by little, the valley of the River Bouble was explored and further pits were sunk.

puits michelin la peize puy de dome france eric hallEventually they reached the village of Gouttières.

The railway was expanded down to here and a huge marshalling yard was built for the coal that was expected to be transported from the area. Several more pits were sunk and then they found a beautiful thick part of the seam on the edge of La Peize.

This led to the creation of the Puits Michelin here with its substantial structures and the huge area set aside for an enormous slag heap and spoil tip.

puits michelin la peize puy de dome france eric hallThere are two stories about the subselquent events that occurred leading to the abandonment of the mine.

Here, we’re actually at the border of four different communes and the story that’s often bandied around in the area is the communes could not reach an agreement as to how the rights, the obligations and, more importantly, the taxes would be apportioned between them.

But knowing a little about life in the Auvergne, having lived there for long enough, I consider that to be an unlikely tale. Around here, money certainly talks and I’m certain that a large organisation like Michelin would have been able to overwhelm a few local concillors by waving a handful of used fivers around at various commune treasuries.

However, a good while ago I was having a scratch around in the vicinity and I came across the coal seam where it came out on the surface. So I’m much more inclined to believe that the seam, despite being so thick where the mine was sunk, simply petered out a short distance further on where geological inclination brought it to the surface.

The mine closed down after a mere 5 years and it’s significant that none of the other pits in the area survived all that much longer
.

clotilde rosemary christiane la peize puy de dome france eric hallThe four of uscarried on along oour route past Arno’s and round by the carrière de la Peize where a lot of the stones for the substantial builtings in the are was quarried..

After we left we went Clotilde’s back to my house and collected a few things that I had forgotten and which I needed. I spent 25 minutes looking for A BOOK that I needed but couldn’t find. And after I had given up I put my hand straight onto it by accident.

Having also collected a few other things that would come in handy back at Granville we then drove to the camp site at Les Ancizes.

Ingrid was there already so I treated her and Rosemary to a meal with thanks for all the help that they had given me over the last few days. It was nice to be together for a quiet social occasion after all of the hard work that we had done.

Now I’m back at Rosemary’s and I’m off to bed already. I want an early night as I have a heavy day in front of me tomorrow. There’s a lot to do and I don’t think, the way things are going, that I have a lot of time in which to do it.

0

Wednesday 24th December 2014 – I HAVE HAD A CALAMITY HERE TODAY.

Most of you know by now that my favourite comedian – in fact, my favourite media personality, is none other than the famous, if not legendary Frankie Howerd. My first serious encounter with him was in my early youth, in the TV series “Up Pompeii” in which he played Lurcio, the slave. About 20 years ago, the BBC rebroadcast all of the episodes and I recorded them on Video, and they were my first transfer onto DVD.

All of the episodes, including the pilot issue and the “Further Up Pompeii” series, were crammed onto 3 DVDs and I’ve been watching one episode each morning over breakfast now that I’ve finished the marathon that was the Saint.

I went to put the second DVD in today but it wouldn’t play, and a closer inspection revealed that the disc is split. So that’s destined for the bin and I’m devastated, particularly as the cassettes from which the DVDs were copied went into the dechetterie at Brussels when I emptied my apartment there.

So what do I do now?

ON the other hand, I’ve had a surprising evening this evening. I was invited out for a meal at a friend’s house. This friend has a friend who is chef at something of a famous restaurant in the Allier and for New Years Eve he’s on duty. And for the first time ever, he has two clients coming who are vegans.

He put a bit of research into a menu but seeing as how he had never cooked anything like this before, he wanted a guinea-pig to taste his concoction. Hence my invitation to dinner.

And the result? all I can say about it is that if the guests receive what I received this evening, they will be delighted. This was about the best meal that I have ever eaten in my life and I will give his restaurant five stars on this basis alone.

During the night, I was on my travels again. I was in Crewe – Mill Street in fact, and Mill Street before all of the demolitions and slum clearances in the 1960s. I’m not sure exactly why I was there.

At work, I pulled up the stairs that I had put into position yesterday, and the first thing that I did was to varnish the upper side of the wood. While it was drying, I sanded down the filling that I had done in the plasterboard that I had fitted yesterday, and then wallpapered the plasterboard. Once I’d done that, I masked off everything ready for painting.

While the paste was drying I suddenly had rather a dramatic revelation that stopped me dead in my tracks. It seems that I have forgotten to buy any paint to paint the wallpaper. This is a serious setback and that’s going to hold me up for a few days.

I varnished the reverse side of the wood for the stairs and then called it an early day. After all, it is Christmas Eve and I’m a bit stuck right now for the moment. but one good thing is that having cleaned out the chimney, I could bank up a really good fire and I had a big kettle of water boiling away in less than half an hour. I had a lovely hot wash ready for my trip out this evening.

-1

Saturday 29th November 2014 – WHAT A PLEASANT DAY.

We were invited round to Clotilde’s for lunch today. It’s been ages since I’ve seen her so I was quite looking forward to it.

I had a little lie in this morning (slept through the alarms again – whoops!) and then had a nice relaxing morning catching up on a few things that I’ve let go while I was doing this Christmas Special

At 11:30 I cleared off down to Clotilde’s for lunch, and was delighted to see not only Clotilde, Liz, Terry and Rosemary, but also Ingrid who I haven’t seen for years. There was also another couple there who I had never met before.

Clotilde had cooked a really nice vegan lunch, which was very thoughtful of her and then seeing as how the weather was quite reasonable, we went for a walk.

st priest les champs combrailles puy de sancy puy de dome franceFrom Clotilde’s house there’s a good walk through the old quarries of the Gré de lapeize, the stone with which much of St Gervais and St Priest was built.

From the top of the hill at the back, near to where Arno lives, there’s a magnificent view of the town of St Priest les Champs across the valley in the distance, with the Puy de Sancy in the distance.

puy de dome franceFrom there we went round the corner and up to the top of the next hill, and from there was a lovely view of the Puy de Dome in the distance.

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of it. And I’m glad that we are in late autumn because the absence of leaves on the trees at this time of the year add some different kind of dimension to the photo.

This evening I was down at Pionsat for the football. Pionsat’s 2nd XI were playing Teilhet. And despite the strength of the team that Pionsat put out (and there won’t be a stronger team than this on the field for the 2nd XI), they really struggled and the attack offered absolutely nothing at all. And that’s a surprise considering the fact that in the 8 games to date, they’ve scored 31 goals. An utterly impotent offering.

They ended up beating the Goatslayers 1-0, with the goal coming from a corner. The ball was headed out but only as far as blond Frederic on the edge of the area who put everything into it that he had, including the kitchen sink.

Still, a win is a win, as anyone will tell you, and the top 4 clubs, including Piosat, have now broken well clear of the pack.

-2

Monday 9th July 2012 – THIS IS WHAT …

… I was doing today.

RENDERING CONCRETE lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve painted the end wall of the lean-to that I’ve been rebuilding.

And even looking carefully, you can’t really see the join between the original rendering and the rendering that I did.

You can however see the original colour of the rendering if you look between the ground floor window and the 1st floor window – a horrible manky dirty grey paint. This cement-based paint that I’ve been using to paint the house – a pale yellow colour, makes it look so much nicer.

And it will look nicer still when I do the second coat.

You’ll notice the door of the lean-to. That was one that I made back in 2000 and as I was leaving, and not due back for 6 months,

I painted it in used engine oil to preserve it. It’s the best treatment that you can ever do to wood and when I’m preparing wood to be buried in the ground, like fence posts and so on, I always soak the ends in used engine oil, even today.

This morning though I was as usual on the computer doing my web pages. And quite early too – I was awake long before the alarms went off. A couple of consecutive early nights are what I have to thank for that.

But I had a weird dream again – I was a-wandering down West Street in Crewe and met up with an old school-friend, and we chatted for ages about one or two people we knew and the cars that they owned. We all – a large group of us in the end – ended up back at a hotel. Bizarre!

This evening, with the hotel in St Gervais d’Auvergne closed for holidays, the Anglo-French group went round to Clotilde’s and spent a very pleasant evening there. Clotilde made loads of stuff to eat, which was really nice of her, and she gave me a doggy bag, the contents of which I have just this minute demolished.

It’s nice to meet up with good friends and chat away for ages. I really should do it more often.

-2

Friday 31st December 2010 – Happy New Year everyone.

And this year seems to have gone out with a whimper. I managed once more to sleep right through the alarm clocks – all of them – and so it was rather a late morning start. But once breakfast dissolved itself I set about chopping some more wood.

gibson EB3 bass guitar ibanez acoustic bass guitar pile of kindling wood woodstove les guis virlet puy de dome franceNot that I need it (I’m rather overflowing up here right now) but with needing some space in the lean-to and being depressed about the general overall quality of the stuff, I’ve stood some more outside and covered with some more of that clear plastic roofing stuff. The idea being that if ever the sun reappears, it might dry out the wood under the sheeting.

I also chopped up a huge bundle of kindling as there was plenty of that in the way too and it needs to be moved on.

Once that was done I connected up a couple of batteries to the Rutland WG901 wind turbine on the barn roof. We’ve had quite an amount of wind just recently and it seems to be a shame to waste whatever electricity is generated, especially when I have a few batteries loitering around and doing nothing. I’m planning to move the solar panels and the main batteries up that end in due course, but that’s not going to be for a while, until I get a huge load of 32mm saddle clamps.

Arno’s bed is now moved, and once we finished he invited me back home to look at his house. He asked me if he could give me something for my diesel, which was nice of him, and so we settled on a nice hot shower. I explained my difficulties about having a shower, to which he retorted “Yes – you aren’t a member of the OUSA Executive Committee any more” – keen reader of my blog is Arno. But a shower meant a lot to me just then. Nice and clean for New Year, and it saves me having to drive all the way to Neris and paying €3:00 for an entry. So that was fine by me.

I’ve also finally managed my Christmas dinner this evening – it was warm enough to stay down in the verandah for the one hour and 45 minutes it took to cook it. A slab of soya protein, with vegan sausages, roast potatoes, sprouts, chicory, carrots, broccoli and some thick gravy. Over a week I’ve been waiting for this, and it was well worth it.

What was even nicer was that it was followed by some Christmas pudding (I got to that today as well) and soya cream. And that was lovely too. It was just a pity that I’ve had to wait all this time to get to it.

And so that’s the year all done and dusted. And for 2011 I wish every one of you exactly the same as you wished on everyone else for 2010. 

-1

Monday 19th July 2010 – There was no conversation group today …

clotilde lapeize espinasse puy de dome france… so Clotilde invited a couple of us round for a chat and some snacks, which was very nice of her. Of course Strawberry Moose came along too to meet some of his admirers.

Clotilde’s house is gorgeous but it’s really discouraging to hear her say that it took 46 years to get it into the condition that it’s in today. And she showed us a photo of how it was when she bought it – and it really was a right tip too.

birdwatching centre ornithologique st gervais de l'auvergne gorge de la sioule church sauret besserve puy de dome franceOn the way down to Clotilde’s, I went the long way round with my new camera via the birdwatching centre at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne seeing as how it was a beautiful early evening. This as you know is my favourite photography spot.

Here’s a beautiful view of the Gorge de la Sioule just down there in the centre of the photograph and over away to the left is the church at Sauret Besserve

puy de dome franceI wanted to take a couple of photos of the view from there – a view which you all know is one of the best in the whole of France – and see how the new camera performs in the excellent weather conditions.

This is a close-up of the radio antenna on the Puy-de-Dome – a little bit of crop-and-enlarge from a full-size image. We have a new high-quality lens and I was keen to see how that performed too.

moon puy de dome franceBut that wasn’t all that was exciting about my little visit to the centre ornithologique this evening. As I was there this evening, the moon rose. Quite early for once, I know, and so I gave it a little go with the new lens too.

Quite honestly, this photo couldn’t have come out much better, could it?

All in all, I’m well-impressed with my new camera and lens. And quite rightly so, considering the money that I’ve spent on it.

Back at Pooh Corner this morning, Terry has started on Lieneke’s roof and I’ve been roped in to help. That’s going to be the plan for the next few weeks I suppose. And her roof is a right mess – far worse than mine was – and only patching a part of it is not going to be a long-term solution, for the more that you rip off the more damage that you find.

The chimney is leaning quite ominously too and I don’t like the look of it.

But it was hot up there on that roof today and my being stung by a wasp didn’t help matters much. 30-odd years since I was last stung by a wasp and now it’s twice in as many weeks.

And we’ve set a couple of records today. A total of 317 amp-hours on the two banks in the house will take some matching. And 44 degrees in the solar heat exchanger and 42.5 in the electric heater – those figures are impressive too. I’ve been thinking about the electric water heater – a 25-litre oil drum would do the job but an old milk churn with lid would be even better. I need to search the brocantes.

But at Clotilde’s this evening I did hear a story about a man who ran some cold water slowly onto his tin roof and took a shower underneath the downspout – and burnt himself, the water was so hot. And here I am, just having fitted about 150 sq m of metal roof on my barn. I’d love to try that out!

Monday 24th May 2010 – There were about 15 of us …

… including Clotilde and Heidi from the Conversation Group, who went for this tramp in the woods today. Unfortunately the tramp got away but never mind – we’ll get him next time.

coal mine abandoned pithead winding gear gouttieres puy de dome franceFirst place we were taken to was deep in the woods at the back of Gouttieres, and here we uncovered some old machinery.

It is in fact some old pithead winding gear – a winding frame of sorts and a steam engine to power it – and dates from the turn of the 20th Century when this mine-shaft was sunk to exploit the coal seam here.

St Eloy les Mines was well-known for its coal mines, as I have said many times in the past and as the quest for fuel intensified at the end of the 19th Century they started to sink shafts at the peripheral edges of the valley.

coal mine abandoned pithead winding gear gouttieres puy de dome franceThey struck a good, profitable seam at Youx and Montjoie and so they followed it right through to the edge of the plateau where the valley opens out into the valley of the Sioule.

Early indications were promising and several mines were sunk in the area between Gouttieres and Lapeize, including this site in the forest at the back of Gouttieres. They had high hopes for the area – even going to the lengths of making a huge goods yard at the railway station at Gouttieres for the trans-shipment of the mined coal.

A great deal of investment was made in the area, not just with the mine installations themselves but even dividing up farmland into tiny plots for housing for the workers, but all hopes were dashed as the coal quite literally turned to dust.

puits michelin abandoned coal mine lapeize gouttieres puy de dome franceNot one of the pits that were sunk lasted more than a handful of years. It was quickly discovered that the reserves were nothing like as prolific as everyone was expecting and there was insufficient coal to make the proposition an economic one.

Even the massive Puits Michelin at Lapeize, the remains of which can be seen in this photograph, lasted no more than 5 years. The huge area that was set aside for a slag heap rose to no more than about 20 feet high.

surface coal seam lapeize gouttieres puy de dome franceWe visited the site of 3 or 4 mines but the highlight of the visit, from one point of view at least, was finding the final outcrop of surface coal.

Here, we are probably no more than 300 metres from the Puits Michelin and this is where the coal seam ends. It just curves upwards to the surface and that is that. No wonder that it wasn’t possible to make an economic proposition of coal-mining in the area with the coal seam petering out like this.

A small amount of open-cast mining was carried out here but it was done in a very desultory, half-hearted fasion and never amounted to very much at all.

After a stop for iced water we went to look at the quarries at Lapeize.

gres de lapeize quarry puy de dome franceThe area is famous for the “Grès de Lapeize” – a hard silty millstone grit type of rock with a close affinity to sandstone and there are 5 major outcrops in the Lapeize area.

These have been quarried for centuries, if not millennia, and many important buildings in the area, including the Chateau de Pionsat, are made from the stone.

They closed down just prior to World War II but some kind of desultory attempt was made to restart them but it was doomed to failure. But in 1970 one of the quarries was bought (for a pittance) by a man from St Georges de Mons who was going to build a hotel there and he needed the stone.

old car american GMC world war II lorry side valve - cylinder gres de lapeize quarry puy de dome franceNow Krys told me to look out for fossils (I suppose she meant something other than my fellow walkers)  but never mind that – the guy who bought the quarry took a wartime American GMC truck – 6-cylinder petrol sidevalve – into the quarry. And people say that it was fitted with a mechanical crane to scoop up the rock.

And one day he simply stopped coming and his truck is still there.

So I had a good nosy around it. It’s been robbed of many parts but its major components are still there. And it’s not a mechanical bucket on the back, it’s a mechanical prodder-type of ram-type of drill for breaking the stone off the wall and into manageable chunks.

Still, hottest day of the year so far – 34.5 degrees and the heat exchanger went off the scale – the first time since 6th August last year.

However it got off to a bad start. Being a Bank Holiday I was planning on a lie-in but not one but two phone calls shortly after 09:00 knackered that idea.

And it’s still warm now. It reached over 27 degrees in here even with all of the windows open and as I type – at 01:40 with all of the windows open and a pleasant breeze blowing in, it’s still 24.7 degrees. Summer has well and truly acumen in. Lude sing cucu, hey what?

-4

Saturday 31st October 2009 – I had another working day today.

This morning I masked off everywhere in the room and then went off to St Eloy for the shopping. I spent up in LIDL – they were having a musical day so I bought a couple of guitar stands and a guitar tuner.

Also buying a guitar stand was Michael – I haven’t seen him in ages.
“Do you play?” he asked me
“Yes – bass guitar” I replied.
“I’ve started to play electric guitar” he said

So we had quite a chat about guitars and music and other exciting stuff. I told him I was planning to get back on the road, and it turns out that he knows a drummer that lives near to him. He’s going to put me in touch with him
“You can come and join in too” I suggested
“I don’t know enough chords” he replied
“Look – Status Quo toured for 30 years and they only knew three chords!“
“I see what you mean“
I might be on to something here.

At Carrefour my favourite shop assistant (she’s the spitting image of a girl I used to work with) was there. But she’s had her hair cut!
“Who cut it for you?” I asked
“The coiffeur at St Pourcain” she replied
“Doesn’t he like you then?“

Back at home I spent the afternoonpainting attic walls painting, as you can see. Half of the room is done, and I’ve used half of the paint. So it isn’t going to get a second coat any time soon. I’ve brushed it on too rather than rollered it – to make it go farther.

Krys’ suggestion of cream would have been an excellent choice but it’s a bit too late now. Blue will have to do. It’ll get the rest tomorrow and if I run out I can do one of the walls in white.

And while I was up on the ladder doing a complicated bit the blasted phone rang. I scrambled down, lowered the ladder down again and climbed down to the phone but just as I got there the perishing thing stopped ringing.

Once I’d finished the first tub of paint I cleaned myself up a bit and set off for Clotilde’s, who was having a farewell evening before she goes into hibernation at Annemasse. But I must have driven around Lapeize about three times and I couldn’t see her house. Nowhere with plenty of cars parked outside. Even some local yokel couldn’t set me right for her house so after gnashing my teeth I came back home again.

As you know I don’t do “social stuff”. It takes me a whole load of effort to get out of my house but it’s one of the things I need to do so I force myself. But it’s twice now I’ve been to some social event like this where the directions have been … errr …. rather vague and I’ve ended up not going. maybe it’s fate trying to tell me something.

In other news, LIDL has been having a British week and selling loads of traditional British stuff, most of which I imagine has never done anything more British than watch an episode of Coronation Street on satellite TV in some factory in South Korea. One of the things that they have on offer are boxes of Jelly Babies.
And do you know how you can tell which of a box of Jelly Babies are the illegitimate ones/
The answer is really easy.
If you turn the box upside down, all the b@$t@rd$ fall out.

-6