Tag Archives: lieneke_guus

Monday 27th July 2020 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

river allier vichy 03200 france eric hall… horrible day today. At one point during mid-afternoon the temperature inside the cab of Caliburn was 42°C and I had to stop and get out of the cab.

Luckily I was able to find a nice place to do so. To my surprise I found a parking place in the street in the centre of Vichy down by the River Allier so I could park up and go for a walk to cool off a little.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

This morning I was awake and about of bed before the first alarm, something that is always a healthy ambition as far as I am concerned. Plenty of time to attack the notes on the dictaphone because by the sound of things I’d trvalled for miles during the night.

I’d been with Ingrid on board a ship obviously going somewhere and it’s quite clear that we are a couple. We were watching a few other things happening. A notice that we saw said something like “COVID 19 flights to Egyot suspended at the end of April”. As we were roaming about at the end of the stairwell which was cut into the rock evidently we came across another couple and we chatted to them. We ended up down in the basement of the ship trying to find out which were the doors to our particular deck but we were fooling around and quite clearly a couple, the two of us.

Later on we ended up back at my house but my house had been sold, although my possessions were still there. As we walked in through the door there were all these cats there. 3 small cats in waste paper bins and so on. I said “this is typical. Look at these cats. My cats are still in possession and they have sorted the other ones out”. We walked around the kitchen but heard a noise from the living room. I said “hello, anyone there?”. Eventually a Dutch guy came out, youngish, very tall. he came round and shook my hand, said “welcome back from your holidays” and had a really good chat to me, most of which wa in Dutch which I didn’t quite understand. I was with Rosemary and Lieneke. Of course Lieneke was very much in demand for this conversation too.

By now we were all on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR but it was a coach. it was time for us to get off so I walked down to the front of the coach saying goodbye to everyone. Castor and Pollux were there so I said goodbye to Pollux but Castor, I smiled at her, put my head very close to her and said “thanks for everything”. She looked extremely uncomfortable when I said that. That was when I walked down the coach and got off. This was somewhere about Scholar Green and we were looking at a map to work out our way across to Alsager, that way. It was a bit difficult to work out exactly where we were because there were two roads, both of which went across and we could have been stuck by either of them. We were certainly out beyond the confines of Stoke on Trent in that particular area. But it was the look on Castor’s face that got me – a look of real fear. That was what awoke me.

Rosemary had brought me a cup of tea at about 07:30 and by 08:30 we were having breakfast. Afterwards, I packed and loaded up Caliburn, even rescuing my pushbike from Rosemary’s barn where it had been hiding for the last 6 or 7 years or so.

Before I left I fixed Rosemary’s settee and also finished off connecting up her television to her livebox – a task that involved telephoning the helpline.

Off on the road I went, as far as Clermont Ferrand. First stop was the Auchan where I encountered a most unhelpful Secury Guard, bought some more supplies and then I fuelled up Caliburn ready for the long haul east.

Second stop was at IKEA where I bought the rest of the storage jars that I needed, as well as a few other bits and pieces. But I didn’t buy a temporary mattress for Caliburn due to the absurd price that they wanted for one – €79:00 for a folding foam-rubber chair that opens out.

Ad as for the food, that was a major disappointment. I ended up with just a plate of chips and a lump of bread. No salad or anything.

The heat was stifiling when I went outside and it was really uncomfortable and the drive wasn’t very comfortable. Leaving Clermont Ferrand, I went north-east through the countryside and arrived at Vichy

home made raft river allier vichy 03200 france eric hallBut here I had to stop. It was impossible to go any further in this weather. I was melting.

There was a parking place at the side of the road near Parc Kennedy so this was where I stopped. It was a pleasant if not sweltering walk down to the banks of the river but once I was in the shade it was very nice indeed. I was quite envious of the people who were out there on their little home-made rafts going up and down the river.

Being a Pisces I would quite happily have been out there with them.

plage des celestins parc kennedy river allier vichy 03200 france eric hallThere’s a beach there too, the Plage des Celestins, and that was quite a popular place, as you can see in the photograph here.

There’s an ice cream stall, a place to hire deckchairs and also a place where you can hire little boats and so on. And then the row of yellow buoys out there mark the limits to which people can swim in the river. You can see that the boats going out into the river from the slipway at the far end of the swimming area.

A really nice walk along the river in the shade for half an hour cooled me down and I resisted the temptation to see if they had any vegan ice cream on sale. I didn’t fancy standing in the queue.

parc kennedy pont aristide briand pont bellerive river allier vichy 03200 france eric hallAt the end of the Parc Kennedy there’s a bridge across the River Allier.

It’s know, locally as the Pont de Bellerive because it connects Vichy to the town of Bellerive sur Allier on the other side of the river, but as the legendary French politician Aristide Briand had died just a couple of months before its official opening, it was named the Pont Aristide Briand in his honour.

Until the eary 1960s it was the only bridge across the Allier at Vichy but it’s by no means the first bridge. There was even a bridge across the river here recorded by Julius Caesar in 54BC although it might have been built by his soldiers on their way to the Battle of Gergovie.

There have been several subsequent bridges here and this one dates from 1932.

having cooled down a little I headed off eastwards through the mountains towards the Rhone valley, but I didn’t get very far. Tonight I’m in a modern unit hotel in Paray-le-Monial. Because of the heat I had the air conditioning on full blast for an hour and then a shower and a clothes wash.

Tomorrow I’m not going far but I’m still having an early night. I’ve already crashed out once this evening and I’ll be gone again if I don’t get a move on.

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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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Thursday 16th November 2017 – RED SKY AT NIGHT …

RED SKY granville manche normandy france…Shepherd’s delight
Redsky in the morning, Avranches is on fire.

We were treated to a most glorious sunrise this morning – one of the nicest that I’ve seen for quite a while. And so I snapped a photograph of it through the window. It was rather too cold to open it.

It’s the kind of thing that can cheer me up. We’ve said before about how Ancient Man worshipped the sun and it’s seeing things like this that helps you to understand why.

And I needed cheering up too because I’d had another bad, congested night. It took hours to go off to sleep and I was awake quite early on.

But I’d been on my travels too. Back to the back garden of Vine Tree Avenue where I was ill and the place was all overgrown. And who should come along to help me (in reality to do it for me) but Guus and Lieneke.
And later I was with Nerina and I was itching to show her the waterfall that I had discovered out in the wilderness. She agreed to come, and this meant descending into the bowels of an emigrant ship past all of the desperate people in there, and then going down through the holds and bilges. I could see that Nerina was unhappy about it and I was doing my best to encourage her and urge her on. I knew that it would be well worth the effort once she got to see it, but it was hard to motivate her.

After breakfast I loitered around for a while to give my tablets an opportunity to work and then I hit the streets.

combattant granville manche normandy franceFrom my vantage point by the drawbridge I can look down on the harbour and see what is going on.

And we can see what Combattant is doing down there right enough. There’s a lighter now moored up alongside and that has a digger on board. I’d heard about a project to dredge the harbour and it looks as if they are making a start.

As an aside, I did once hear a story about dredging in the Port of London where a dredger pulled up a car that had been in there for 30 years – and still had the occupants in it.

grima granville manche normandy franceGrima was still down there too. She had unloaded her cargo of scrap – it was one of these mini-Ford-Transits –
and was busy loading up a pile of stuff to take back to Jersey.

But what caught my eye was the pontoon tied up to the side of the boat. It made me wonder what was going on down there and so I resolved to go down for a look on my way back.

At the moment, I was off to LIDL.

It was a struggle for me to get up the hill. I clearly wasn’t feeling much like it at all, being ill as I am. But eventually I made it up there and picked up a loaf of bread and some pastry. I fancy having a go at another pie

combattant ar-mor granville manche normandy franceI had a slow walk back down to the harbour for a look at Combattant.

The lighter by her side is called Ar-Mor. That’s an old Celtic word for Brittany and means “Land of the Sea” or “Land by the Sea”. Until comparatively modern times Brittany was known as Armorica.

There was a crewman working on the Combattant and we had quite a chat. He confirmed that she was here to dredge and would be here a few days. That explains,
by the way, her erratic port movements.

pontoon grima granville manche normandy franceDown the dockside to the Grima and I soon found the reason for the pontoon. We have a frogman in the water having a good look at the underneath of the ship.

Talking to the skipper, it seems that there’s something blocking one of the water outlets – and while we were chatting, the frogman pulled a huge pile of seaweed out.

And here’s an interesting thing – to put a diver in the water in the port of St Helier costs a minimum of £1,000. Here in Granville, it’s simply an hourly charge. And that’s the reason why he was having it done here

We had quite an exciting chat too – putting the world to rights, and as he was doing that, a lady went aboard. Subsequent enquiries revealed that he has a licence to carry 12 passengers, and that there are some cheap hotels on the Quayside at St Helier. Now doesn’t that conjure up all kinds of interesting ideas for a weekend away?

But the most interesting part of our discussion was when I mentioned that I had a Ford Transit van. He occasionally needs the odd pallet of stuff collecting and no way of doing that, and so he eagerly wrote down my phone number.

After lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so and then did some tidying up on the shelves again to make even more space.

Tea was delicious tonight. I wasn’t in the mood to cook so it was a tin of ratatouille with pasta. And doesn’t the ratatouille taste better with a teaspoon of garlic powder and half a teaspoon of chili powder?

I’ve been for a walk tonight and now I’m hoping for an early night and a better sleep.

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Thursday 17th December 2015 – ANYONE WOULD THINK …

… that it was me doing the tiling today, not Terry. Half an hour after lunch I was well out of it – two trips to Terry’s van and back with some stuff for here had finished me off. And back here, I was crashed out on the sofa at 18:00 and in bed by 19:15.

I’ve clearly seen better days – that’s for sure.

But a lot of this could be put down to the efforts that I had made during my nocturnal ramblings. I’d started off with something like a huge contemporary discussion about the qualities of different Roman emperors – and I can’t remember now with whom I was having this discussion. But from there I drove back (it’s good, this time-travel lark) to Stoke on Trent. None of the usual Clayhead characters out in an appearance unfortunately, but I do remember at a roundabout (it might have been one of the newish ones at Longton) I was confused by the exits, took the wrong one, and ended up on the road to Tunstall (a fictitious road of course but one that has featured on my travels before). It then occurred to me that there was one of these old-time sweet shops (just like there is in Longton) somewhere on this road and so I kept my eyes open for it. I ended up walking through this decrepit shopping centre-type of place to try to find it, to the accompaniment of jeers from several people lounging around – and what was that all about?
But back home I ended up chaperoning a young Shirley Temple-type of girl (as if I’d ever be asked to chaperone anyone of the female sex?) who was taking part in a singing competition that was to last all of the weekend. I asked her what would happen if she had to wait right at the end of the competition before it was her turn to sing, to which she replied that there were tons of things that we could do while we were waiting – have a party, go to the zoo, read stories.

No wonder I was exhausted!

So after my blood sample and a painful breakfast, we went off to Pionsat and the bank. I need to build up the fighting fund with all of this going on. Shopping at Intermarche was next, and there we met Clare, Julie and Anne who were off to Clermont-Ferrand for a fun day out. I fuelled up Terry’s van, seeing as how I had some money for once, bought my stuff for lunch and then shot off to the house for the tiling

When we arrived, the batteries were fully-charged already and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus charge was slowly rising. That tells you everything that you need to know about the weather that we have been having just recently.

We had a visitor too! In the jungle that is Lieneke’s field opposite my front door we had a sanglier – a wild boar. We couldn’t actually see it but we could hear it grunting away and see all of the shrubs and bushes moving around as it prowled its way around. Magnificent beasts, these sangliers – I remember being up on my scaffolding when I was pointing the eastern wall and watching those two herds approaching each other and the eventual confrontation.

And while Terry carried on with the tiling, I did some desultory tidying-up. But my heart wasn’t in it and I couldn’t even cut straight today. In some respects I was glad when Terry decided to call it a day.

We’re a long way from finishing (I like the “we” bit, don’t you?) but the most difficult bits have been done. And I know that I promised you all a photo but Terry closed up the house while I was outside washing off the tools, so you’ll have to wait until next time.

And now back here, I’m in bed having an early night but I dozed off for an hour, woke up, and now I can’t go back to sleep again.

This looks as if it’s going to become a regular feature. I wish it didn’t, though, and I could have a decent 8-hours sleep.

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Tuesday 27th October 2015 – TIMBER!!!!!!

I’m not going to be short of wood for the next couple of years, that’s for sure. Not after today, anyway.

I own a parcel of land next to Lieneke’s house and about a year or so ago, a branch snapped off and snagged in trees right above the pathway that she uses to go to her barn. She had a few words with me about moving it, which is no surprise as I wouldn’t like a branch like that poised right above my head.

Anyway, with it being so nice this morning, Terry came round to attend to the branch. We had a good look around the tree and we noticed that there were several other branches that were unsafe. Furthermore, the tree itself was swamped with ivy and there were few leaves on it. It really was in poor condition.

And you’ve no idea how much noise a 50-foot tree makes when it comes crashing to the ground. It certainly shook the neighbourhood. And once it was down (which wasn’t easy) we set to work to cut it into 30cm lengths. While Terry was doing that I was carting it all away with the powered barrow and I now have a huge stack of wood, much of which needs splitting.

It won’t be ready for another year or two as it will have to dry out, but when it is ready it will be astonishing. Not only that, we had a walk around on the plot of land and identified three or four other trees, much smaller, but wood nevertheless, that have almost died out and so they will be coming down next.

I bought a chainsaw from the USA years and years ago and so we had it out. It worked fine but after having been stuck in the tree as it fell over, it’s bent the rail and needs to be repaired. Terry is looking into that and when it’s done, there are piles of things that I can be doing with it.

While we were tidying up we had the threatened rainstorm and so Terry came in to measure up for the plumbing and then went home. I’m not as young as I used to be – in fact I was struggling with the power barrow – and so I came up here and crashed out.

No reason why I should be tired though – after all, I’d had a good sleep last night and I’d been on my travels too. I was driving a taxi quite a distance away and when I reached as far as Sheffield, I realised that I could call up my base on the radio from the hills around there, due to the atmospherics in the air. Up and down the hills through some really depressing scenery, and then suddenly I had the idea to go to another taxi office there where I could call back to my base. I immediately appeared in a taxi office in the cellar of a big building, called back home, and then went up to the ground floor and outside. I remembered that I’d been “transported” into this taxi office and this caused a problem in that I couldn’t remember where my taxi might be, and I had a good prowl around the area, even in the local scrapyard, but that didn’t help and I ended up wandering aimlessly around. And at a certain moment I even had Zero accompanying me on my travels, and I’m no idea what she was doing.

Tonight, I finally had my Sunday night pizza that I forgot yesterday, and now I’m off for another early night and see where I end up.

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Friday 7th August 2015 – I’M NOT QUITE SURE …

… what happened this evening.

I came back up here at 18:00 and I don’t remember anything until about 19:00 when the evening buzzer went off. The best that I could do then was to haul myself off into bed – at 19:00!! – and I didn’t move until 23:30 when I crawled off to do the stats.

It’s not as if I’d done very much either. Up at the usual time and then a few hours on the website.

After lunch, I went out and tidied up the drive, collecting all of my tools because, as you might have expected from yesterday, the owner of this Hyundai never turned up at all.

Lieneke came past though, and we had quite a chat for a while.

But now all of my tools (except my trolley jack, which is holding up this Hyundai) are now put away. I’ve officially finished work until I return from Canada towards the end of October. Just some tidying up, cleaning up and doing a pile of paperwork.

And that was when I came up here to sit down for five minutes.

What a waste of an evening.

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Saturday 25th July 2015 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that working late on a Friday night was exceptional, how about working on a Saturday morning too? Yes, I reckon that I didn’t even have 12 hours off.

shelob shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd I wasn’t alone while I was working either. I had company – or, rather, an interested spectator.

I don’t know where Shelob came from, or where she went back to, but she was certainly there while I was sweating away. And to be honest, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a spider quite like this one before. The photo makes it look huge, but nevertheless …

suspended ceiling fitted varnished recessed lights fitted les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd I was there for a good couple of hours too this morning.

But now we have all three coats of varnish on the doors and on the shelves and it does look good in there. And all of the wiring is finished and the recessed LED lights are in place. And wasn’t it a good plan to buy that pile of recessed light fittings at Brico Depot? That works in spades, doesn’t it?

And you’ll see the LED striplight on the far wall. The bathroom mirror will be going under there when the tiling is finished. And that’s the next job, starting on Monday when I’ve done this car that I have to do.

Just as I was settling down, Lieneke came round for a chat and she stayed here for a good few hours. She was really impressed with the work on the house too – and so am I, it has to be said. It’s looking quite good so far.

But that diverted my attention and I’ve not done anything after that – just relaxed. Tomorrow, I need to press on with the radio programmes.

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Saturday 18 July 2015 – THIS IS NOT SMOKE FROM A FIRE

hanging cloud forest valley les guis virlet puy de dome franceOf course it isn’t. This is one of the typical Auvergnat weather phenomena that one encounters around here – a hanging cloud. And it’s blowing up the valley through the trees in my forest.

That’s right. We’ve had a storm here today. And much to my (and everyone else’s) surprise, the weathermen had it right too because they forecast it for today. The first time since I don’t know how long – at least 25 days – that we have had rain apart from two small showers. 12.5mm of rain fell during the hour that the storm raged late ths afternoon.

This morning, I crawled out of bed with some difficulty and hit the road straight away. I Was at Brico Depot by 08:45, in time to have a couple of mugs of coffee. And buying the tongue-and-grooving (and a bag of 8mm nuts bolts and washers that I can’t find around here) didn’t take long.

So why did it take until 10:00 am to leave the car park?

There was a white Ford Ranger, just like Strider, on the car park. British plates too, and while I was admiring it, the owner and his wife appeared. He’s from Devon, a new arrival and a footballer. His wife is from Belarus and knows Minsk, which was one of my old stamping grounds behind the Iron Curtain in my Salopia Saloon Coaches days. Consequently, we had an enormous amount to talk about.

Off then to LeClerc and shopping. And that was supposed to be a quick visit where I was going to buy everything regardless of price in the interests of speed. But as it happened, while I was being dealt with by the cashier, I realised that I had forgotten to weigh my fresh veg. Dashing back to the scales, there was only one working and the queue was a mile long. I was obliged to abandon it all and ended up going to LIDL which was disappointing, because I could have saved a pile had I bought half of the rest of the stuff in LIDL anyway.

Back home here for midday and bumped straight into Lieneke who is now here. And then I came back and watched the weather change, doing a pile of tidying up in the attic too.

And today was the first day in I don’t know how many weeks that I had to heat up the water in order to do the washing up. That tells you how bad the weather was today

So tomorrow, I’m having a lie in and a day off. Recharge the batteries before I start back to work on Monday. It’s going to be a hectic week.

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Saturday 12th July 2014 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day today. I was on my wanderings during the night although when I woke up, I couldn’t remember where I had been. And then after breakfast, I sat down and started on the next lot of radio programmes for Radio Anglais. However, my heart wasn’t in it and I didn’t stick it for long. I need to be much more resolute.

This afternoon I went to St Eloy to do the shopping and who should I bump into but Lieneke and Guus. They have apparently returned for the summer. We ended up having a good chat for quite a while.

Back here I crashed out for a while, then carried on reading Clay Blair and watched Austin Powers – International Man of Mystery

And that was that. And with Monday being a Bank Holiday, it’ll be like this for another two days as well.

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Wednesday 19th February 2014 – I THOUGHT THAT I WOULD SHOW YOU …

new staircase attic les guis virlet puy de dome france … a photo of the staircase as far as I have got today, because for the next couple of weeks this is as far as I am going.

There are 8 stairs in position as you can see – that is, 8 treads and 7 risers, and all are properly battened. For the first time in this house, it’s felt as if the stairs really are secure and solid.

I had to move the light that illuminates the stairs down to the ground floor, and then I had to carry out another major task. If you look to the right you’ll see where the plasterboard stops a huge beam bolted to the side wall of the house. I fitted that in 2009 and you’ll notice that the bolt heads are proud of the beam. They need to be set in flush and the easiest way is to use a hole cutter over the heads, make a recess, and then tighten up the bolts further. But do I have a heck as like hole cutter that fits over the bolt head that doesn’t have a spindle-centring drill? So after much ado about nothing, I had to unbolt the nuts, drill pilot holes all round, chisel out a recess, refit the nuts and then grind off the surplus lengths with the angle grinder.

No wonder it took me ages.

But anyway, Now I have one of the plasterboard pieces on the wall to the right, and I can do the rest tomorrow and see how far I can reach.

Terry rang me up and wanted me to contact Lieneke. Much to my surprise, she’s here right now and so we had quite a chat to catch up on what we missed. And then later on I made one of my legendary lentil-and-green-pepper curries and that will see me through to the weekend. No point in working if I don’t have to.

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Tuesday 22nd October 2013 – I’M SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING IT EASY …

… today, but you wouldn’t have thought so. First on the ‘phone was Rosemary. Her roofer is staying on for a day or two and so he’s going to have a quick go at her barn. Of course, we took the scaffolding down on Sunday, so could he borrow my roof ladder?

So at 08:30 they were here at Pooh Corner to take it away, and from there it all went downhill. Marianne called me to remind me of an errand that needed doing in Brussels and about which I had clean forgotten. Then I had two other calls in quick succession and I can’t now remember who they were and what they wanted – such is advancing age.

Then I had another task to perform. Seeing as how I’m not leaving until this afternoon now, I went to put another plan into operation and that involved meeting an estate agent in Pionsat. We had a pleasant morning out, but this idea that I have will not come to fruition, which is a shame, as there is a major stumbling block with my idea.

Back at Pooh Corner I fell in with Lieneke and Guus who are here for a week, and we had quite a lengthy chat. It’s always nice to see friendly people – they are in quite short supply here. And Raoul the cat put in his first appearance of the autumn. Checking up on his sources of food supply for the winter, methinks.

I loaded up the van and after a brief repos I set off for Brussels. And I got well on my way before I realised that I had forgotten my passport, and so I had to come all the way back again. I made it as far as Melun where I stopped for fuel and also for a bag of chips and a vegetarian pitta. I’m going for a little luxury in my old age. Another sign of old age is that I only made it as far as Valenciennes, a good 90 minutes short of Brussels, before I pulled off for a kip. I’m clearly not as young as I was. Consequently I didn’t make it here until about 02:30 – to find a major change about the property and also the fact that the internet is disconnected – more of which anon.

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Thursday 18th July 2013 – MYSTERY SOLVED

It wasn’t the old abandoned house that fell down the other night. I managed to have a wander around there to see, and although I walked past it twice without seeing it, because it was so covered in ivy and weeds and so on, it’s still there, or, rather, what’s left of it is,

But I know what it was that made that noise.

I managed to make my way down to the compost bin today (high time I emptied the composting toilet – it certainly needed it) and I’ll tell you what – a cordless Ryobi Plus One hedge trimmer makes a magnificent strimmer for dealing with tall grass and weeds and the like – it’s a long time since I’ve been as impressed as this.

But back to the plot

There are piles of dead wood and twigs and branches covering the bottom end of my garden and there, in the next field where Lieneke had a huge old tree of some description, well she doesn’t have it now.

There’s about two metres of stump and then there’s absolute carnage. I’m not surprised that it heaved me out of bed.

shower room false wall plasterboard les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the shower room, well, it’s all finished as far as I can go until I buy the tiles.

And it was finished at lunchtime too (mind you, it was 14:45 when I stopped).

The good news is that the sink is not 50cms at all but just 43cms. That means that I can have a 45cm worktop instead of a 52cm one and that will give me much more room.

I have to admit that, in all honesty, my shower room is not going to be the place to be for anyone suffering from claustrophobia.

But there will be plenty of shelving and even a very small 20cm deep linen cupboard.

But seeing as I had finished by 14:45, how come I didn’t knock off until 19:45 then?

The answer to all of that is that, as I explained just now, I fought my way down to the compost bin, and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either as you can imagine.

And once I had finished attacking the vegetation, I emptied, cleaned and recharged the composting toilet. And it needed it too, as I have said.

After that, changing the habits of a lifetime, I attacked the the room which will be the bedroom and which I’ve been using as a workroom.

A pile of wood went straight out of the window for a start, and then I started to sweep up and tidy up. 3 large bin bags of rubbish and a bin full of sawdust for the toilet, and it’s not finished yet.

But it’s amazing the space that you can make if you put your mind to it.

I’m going to have a serious go tomorrow and see if I can’t make enough space to lie flat all of the sheets of plasterboard instead of having them propped up against a wall bowing away to themselves alarmingly.

They ought to be lain flat but I’ve never really had the space to do it.

Tons of tools recovered, as well as tons of nails and screws, and I bet that there will be others recovered tomorrow. But I’m not going to do too much – I have a pile of correspondence to deal with and some of that is urgent.

I felt like cooking tonight too, and ended up with a gorgeous meal – potatoes, carrots, cauliflower in a cheese sauce and a veggie burger. Absolutely marvellous.

Went down a treat with the ice cream sorbet that I bought for myself as a treat for finishing the shower room.

And we’ve had a storm tonight. First rain since July the … errr … 2nd? And we needed it too as the water situation was getting desperate.

I’m glad that I cleaned out the filters the other day.

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Saturday 6th October 2012 – IT WAS SATURDAY …

… today and to be honest, I didn’t do very much.

Up with the alarm as usual, and after breakfast wrote the text for the Radio Anglais rock shows for next month. That seems to be the current way of spending Saturday mornings these days as I try to organise myself so much better.

After lunch I went for a whizz around St Eloy-les-Mines.

LIDL now has acquired a bakery, like the LIDL in Commentry. It was the grand opening today and so they were handing out free bits of bread and also coffee to the clients.

Nothing of any such at Carrefour though, and in any case I just bought the usual items – nothing at all that was special.

It was my day for meeting people though.

In Carrefour I met some friends of my Dutch neighbour Lieneke and we had a lengthy chat.

In LIDL I met Michael from the footy club, and we had a lengthy chat too. And he had some exciting news.

The draw for the Cup was made this morning and FC Pionsat St Hilaire, for their pains, have been drawn against none other than Clermont Foot Auvergne. They were in the French Premier League not so long ago and now play in Division Two – only about 9 levels higher than FC Pionsat St Hilaire.

Even if they send their reserves, which is likely, it’ll still be the biggest day ever in the history of FCPSH. We’ll have to go all out to attract a bumper crowd.

This evening I went to see AS Marcillat play, and a more one-sided match I have never seen.

About 89 and a half of the 90 minutes were played just outside Marcillat’s penalty area and how Villeneuve only scored one goal is a total mystery to me.

Even so, it still wasn’t enough to win the game as during the 75th minute one of AS Marcillat’s players, the n°8, took the ball all the way from his own penalty area through about 30 tackles and into the Villeneuve box. His shot was blocked but another player following up slotted the rebound into the net.

Taking the ball out of the net and kicking it upfield was all that the Villeneuve keeper had to do during the entire match.

And me? I’m off to Cellule tomorrow for FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI match against AS Cellule. Michael thinks that we might be at almost full strength tomorrow and won’t that be a change?

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Sunday 19th August 2012 – THERE WAS SO MUCH …

… that I wanted to do today but I ended up doing nothing at all this afternoon;

And I mean nothing except spending most of my time sitting with a damp tea towel on my head.

The reason for that was that the temperature today reached an astonishing – unheard-of 44.7°C outside, and that must be a world record by anyone’s standards. In my attic it reached almost 36°C and that is unsupportable.

I ended up sitting on a chair downstairs amid the rubble. at least it was a cool, balmy 33°C down there. But this really is ridiculous and it can’t keep on going like this.

Mind you, I understand now why they have four-hour siestas in mid-afternoon in Spain, and why many people from around the equator are said to be indolent.

Well, I certainly was indolent today and if it carries on like this, then tomorrow I’ll be even more indolent. No-one can work in conditions like these.

pot d'acceuil village fete le quartier puy de dome franceThis morning though Marianne and I were out for the pot d’acceuil at Le Quartier.

It’s the turn today of that village to have the pleasure of our company on this series of rotating exhibitions.

We had the jazz band – the fanfare – from Pionsat playing the music today and Lieneke was there with her flute. They played outside too but their sort of instruments are not the sort that blow away in the wind like poor old Rick’s cello did in Bussières.

pot d'acceuil village fete le quartier puy de dome franceThere was quite a large crowd there too this morning, sheltering in the shade ‘neath the spreading chestnut tree, or whatever kind of trees they might be, out of the sun.

It was nice to see so many too, and that makes a change from some of the more recent pots d’acceuil.

However, chatting to some of the visitors, it appears that some had turned up by accident – just passing through and seeing the crowds.

it looks as if the mayor of his committee had not let everyone know that the do was on today. None of my friends from Le Quartier (Bill, François, to name just two) had made it to the occasion and I was looking forward to seeing them.

Now, here’s something of note.

I haven’t had a coffee at all today. 29°C in my attic when I woke up and that’s definitely NOT coffee weather.

And that’s quite a change for me, isn’t it?

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Wednesday 18th July 2012 – WHAT A NICE …

… surprise!

Yes, sounds of friendly voices and laughter down the road at Lieneke’s – good to hear her having fun.

And then silence, followed by a couple of voices out here. “Hmmm – I recognise those voices” I thought to myself;

And, yes, Claude and Françoise came to say hello. It’s been over 2 years since they were here, my neighbours from up the road who moved back to the Midi. And they’ve come back for a week’s holiday and to tell me all their news.

Firstly, they are no longer in the Midi.One thing that we forget, living out here in the wilds, that there is no stress at all except the stress that you make for yourself. Being in an urban environment you are involved with everyone else’s stresses. 10 years out of all that, and Claude couldn’t re-adapt.

Now they’ve found a quiet rural place in the Haute Loire.

All kinds of other changes too, and so we had quite a chat today about all of it. It’s nice to see them again.

Today was easily the best day of the year so far – totally glorious and 36°C outside. so why only 83.2 amp-hours of surplus energy?

holesaw bathroom wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceFirstly, I’ve had the core drill going for about an hour and I’ve made another 5cms of depth – now up to 42 centimetres.

The problem with this is that the drill is so heavy and the motor is so powerful and I’m working up a ladder, and so I can’t do more than a couple of minutes at a time without stopping for a rest and trying to stop my arms vibrating and my ears buzzing.

But at one point, being completely fed up, I used a long drill to break up the granite that’s in the wall and you can see that that has broken through in a few places.

From now on it should become easier and easier. But that sounds like famous last words, doesn’t it?

The second reason is that I had the electric vegetable steamer working again (just as well that I had some electric vegetables, isn’t it?).

I cooked the remainder of the potatoes to add to the mega-curry that was on the menu for tonight, and seeing as it did such a good job, I let it have a go at some rice as well.

And I’ll tell you what – I have never had rice that was cooked so well or tasted so nice. If this vegetable steamer holds the pace, it’s going to be an excellent little machine.

If that wasn’t enough to be going on with, I carried on building my wall today.

I didn’t actually build too much of it though. I didn’t think that I had enough stones to do it all (all those breeze blocks in view will eventually be ripped out and replaced by stones) and so I had a good scavenge around to see what stones I could find.

I’ve managed to unearth quite a pile – I hope that there will be enough by the time that I finish, whenever that may be.

lean to rebuilding stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see that I’ve hung a window frame up there. It will be pretty dark, especially as I forgot to install the roof-light that I had to hand, and so I need to be able to let the light in.

A glass door will go on the front, but a window in the side will do the rest.

I’ll build up underneath the sill with stones and then put brick pillars down the side. It should look quite nice when it’s done, whenever that might be.

With it being such a nice day, I finished off with a solar shower – the water was certainly warm enough. But I’m not sure what happened because at a certain moment the whole assembly dropped on my head. I’ll have to fix that tomorrow.

I also had a chat with Percy Penguin this evening. It’s her birthday today!

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