Tag Archives: Riom

Sunday 23rd May 2021 – YOU WOULD HAVE …

… expected that I would have learnt enough about tempting fate about my postings.

“An early night” I said. “Fighting fit for tomorrow” I implied. Well, quite. Not even the usual good-old reliable stand-by of watching an old black-and-white film of the dozens that I have downloaded from THE INTERNET ARCHIVE for copyright-lapsed media and many other similar sites, something that has worked WITH MONOTONOUS REGULARITY AND RELIABILITY in the past

In fact I’d watched 2 films and there wasn’t even the vaguest possibility of sleep.

What was happening was that a pain developing in the very region that they had mentioned. And as the evening, and the night had worn on it became worse and worse. Why I hadn’t worried about it at first was because it was a pain that I’d had before and had eventually gone away all on its own.

And I hadn’t mentioned it before in these notes because it was rather a delicate subject.

By 04:30 the pain was indescribable and eventually I succumbed. In all my life I’d never had a pain quite like this. The nurse told me to wait for an hour while she monitored it and as there was no amelioration she called the night doctor.

He had a look and a poke around, and the next thing was that a porter turned up and whisked my bed off to the operating theatre. And after a considerable amount of moving about and swapping rooms, they eventually found where I was supposed to be.

The surgeon was only a young girl but she tried a trick or two first, none of which worked so I was moved yet again. She came along as well, I suppose because I did see her later. But when I arrived, it was just about 08:30. I was undressed and someone clamped a mask over my face. “Have a whiff of this” he said.

The next thing that I remember was that it was 12:35 and I was in the post-op room. “When can I go back to my room?” I asked. “There’s an important football match at 13:15”. And there was too. Pen-y-bont v Y Drenewydd in the other European Competition qualifier. “Later” replied a nurse.

Had I known and had anyone said, I’d have taken my phone with me to watch it down there because by the time that they had monitored everything and the blood transfusion had finished (blood count down yet again to 7.5 despite yesterday’s transfusion) and a porter had come to take me back, I was just in time to watch the final 30 seconds of the game.

Y Drenewydd won the match 1-0 so we are all set up for an intriguing final with Caernarfon for the last place. The 6th and 7th teams have knocked out the 4th and 5th. These two clubs are quite equal but I think that Caernarfon are playing at home and they have that certain little something.

So that’s the Kiss of Death duly given then.

intravenous drip gasthuisberg university hospital Leuven Belgium Eric HallSo here I am in my room with a pile of intravenous drips on the walkie thing. And that’s not all because there are another couple … errr … elsewhere and I’m not photographing them. You’re probably eating your meal or something right now.

Down below I’m all bandaged up and I’m confined to bed, so the nurses are pretty safe at the moment. My request for a gondola’s pole so I can punt my bed around the hospital corridors in hot pursuit has been denied which is a shame.

This would be just the ideal moment for Castor to come along and put in an appearance, enter my bubble and soothe my fevered brow. And wouldn’t that be nice if it were ever to happen. But it’s not unfortunately so I shall have to cope on my own which is a bit miserable.

hospital meal gasthuisberg university hospital Leuven Belgium Eric HallAt least the food here is better than at that dreadful doss-house in Riom where they served me up half a plate of overcooked courgettes that time.

Tonight’s tea was a couple of small breadcrumbed quorn burgers of the type that I once bought in NOZ, with potatoes and endives. With tomato soup to start and although I couldn’t eat the dessert (a milky chocolate dessert thing) the nurse brought me a bag of crisps instead.

The issues with the diet by the way are due to the fact that both the dietician and cute Kaatje who says that she is my social worker but is really my psychiatrist (all terminally ill patients have a psychiatrist allotted to them) are on holiday until Tuesday.

When it all went quiet I made up a playlist of my favourite albums so I’m surrounded by some really good music, I’ve had internet chats with Esi and Alison, internet chats with Rosemary, Liz (whom I’ve convinced that my suffering is worth at least 2 cakes) and TOTGA as well as a few others, friendly nurses who run off and bring me bottles of Sprite and packets of crisps, and reasonable food, a comfy bed and some peace and quiet.

What more could any man desire? Apart from TOTGA, Castor and Kaatje to bubble up and soothe my fevered brown of course.

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Tuesday 29th January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day.

There was so much that needed doing and so much that I wanted to do, but I spent the afternoon flat-out on the bed under the covers.

And I’m not just talking about a little 10-minute snooze, or even a really deep one-hour sleep. I was flat-out from about 14:30 to long after 17:00. I’d awoken at 16:50 but there was absolutely no chance whatever of me getting up.

Going back a couple of years, I can remember when I could go a whole day without dropping off. And gradually we started with the little 10-minute snoozes. And then, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I started to complain about the hour-long sessions that were coming my way. And look where I have ended up now.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s the beginning of the end.

It probably has something to do with the late night that I had had. Despite pushing on for all day yesterday, I still wasn’t tired at bedtime and I couldn’t go off to sleep.

Mind you, I must have done at one point because I was off on my travels. I was doing a huge load of tidying up at my old apartment in Brussels, and much to my surprise the person who was actually helping me with tidying away the paperwork was Nerina.

The alarms went off at 06:00 as usual although it was more like 07:00 when I actually arose from the dead. After the usual morning performance I had a shower and a good clean-up too. High time – and I do mean “high” too.

This morning I attacked some more photos and then there was a slight interruption. I have to make a file up of all of my official expenses and the like over the last … gulp … 5 years, but amongst the papers that I can’t find are two of my household charges bills – for 2013 and 2015.

I’d written to the Hotel des Impôts in Montaigut for copies and so I received copies for … 2016 and 2017. Clearly no good.

And so I had to telephone them to find out what was going on.

It turns out that they no longer keep hard-copy records. Just those for the last two complete years. Any further information for other years needs to be obtained from the Tresorerie in Riom.

And so I had to write a letter.

Another project that I had in mind was to start printing off my bass guitar lines. I have the rhythm tabs saved on the laptop but I want to print them off to take with me to places now that I have a decent printer. First off was “Bobby McGee” – the old Kris Kristofferson song.

And that took me longer than it might too, because the printing wouldn’t align with the paper, or vice versa

We had lunch of course and then I came back in here to carry on. “In here” refers of course to my bedroom, because the long wall in here has been transformed into a rather comfortable office.

But, as I said earlier, I didn’t last long. And I missed my afternoon walk, my guitar session, my afternoon coffee, my slice of Christmas cake, all of that too.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And then biting the bullet, I went for my evening walk.

When I had awoken this afternoon, there was a howling gale outside and a torrential rainstorm going on. This evening though we still had the hurricane but the rain had gone. At least, for half of my journey. For the second part of my walk I got the lot and was like a drowned rat by the time that I returned.

Another day when I haven’t spoken to anyone at all. And I’m not tired after my afternoon sleep. It’s all becoming some kind of circular performance and I can’t break out of it.

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Wednesday 1st June 2016 – YES, 1st OF JUNE ALREADY …

… and here I am, stuck in here still. I was going to complain about missing all of the summer but, looking out of the windows and hearing all of the news from home, then maybe I’m better off here. And so I would be too, if it weren’t for the health issues and the monotonous food (which is still, nevertheless, &0 times better than in any other hospital that I’ve visited. Heaven help me if I had still been incarcerated in Riom where the food was the worst that I have ever tried to eat).

Last night I was on my own in my room (and don’t worry – it didn’t last) and I has possibly the best night’s sleep that I have had. I didn’t go to sleep early and I had to nip off for a ride on the porcelain horse at 05:00 but apart from that, I didn’t feel a thing until a nurse awoke me at 07:40 to take my blood pressure and temperature.

I’d been on my travels too – driving around the south of England somewhere around London. Someone asked me what I was doing for lodging so I explained that I was quite comfortable with everything that I had “in the back” – implying that I was in a lorry with a sleeper cab but in reality I was, as usual,camping out in the back of Caliburn. From here, a bunch of us decided to drive back north and (shock! horror!) I let someone else drive Caliburn (which as you all know, is something that would never ever happen) while I was dozing off in the back. But I was awoken by the sound of the driver over-revving the engine and that annoyed me so I told him to take it easy. and then we turned off the A5 somewhere round about Dunstable to go to pick up something that ha had bought on eBay. Where we went to was some housing estate – all modern expensive flats in a kind of woodland-parkland surrounded by an old stone wall, a parkland that was actually the grounds of the local council offices which were in some kind of stately home. You could see where all of the 19th Century terraced houses were built and came to a dead stop at the stone wall.

I wasn’t given any breakfast this morning. Upon making enquiries I was told that nothing was allowed before my “visit”. That was apparently due at 11:30, so the doctor told me. And I made a big mistake when the doctor came round. She told me that I could go home this weekend but not being quite “with it” at that moment I told her that I had nowhere to go. Fool that I am, I should have said yes, gone anyway, done my shopping and then nipped down to Soissons to pick up my telephone. I wonder if it’s too late to change my mind.

It was 10:30 when they came to pick me up, and dressed in the new modern fashion – to wit, one surgical operating gown – off I trollied to the operating theatre, being pushed on my bed. And once down there, I had to wait for ever until someone came to deal with me. And while I was in the waiting area I could observe everyone entering and leaving the area and if I were to have a Pound for every person who thought that the exit door was automatic rather than manual, I’d be dictating this to a couple of floozies sitting on my knee, somewhere in the Bahamas.

I’m not going into detail about what happened in the operating theatre except to say that it was unspeakable and indescribable agony, but what was worse was that they strapped something like a huge stone to my back where they had made the incision, and I had to lie on it without moving for three hours. This, apparently, was to close up the incision.

And after three hours, believe me, that was even worse than the incision and I was feeling like hell, especially as seeing that I developed cramp in my left leg and couldn’t do anything at all about it. Believe me, when they finally unstrapped me, I was in paradise. At least the ecography that they gave me showed that I haven’t suffered damage due to what they did.

When I returned to my room, I found that I have a new room-mate. That’s a disappointment for sure. But still, I don’t suppose that it can be helped.

This was when I found myself in trouble too. Sitting up on the edge of my bed doing something or other, I was told that I was supposed to be lying down to give me intestines a chance to recover. No-one said anything at all about that to me.

and so I lay down – and promptly crashed out until about 22:00 when the most enormous thunderstorm awoke me. I didn’t realise that I was so tired, especially after such a good night’s sleep.

And my new room-mate snores. B@$t@rd!

And on a final note, I’ve been receiving many expressions of solidarity from well-wishers who have been reading this rubbish just recently. I’d like to thank you all for your comments – they mean quite a lot to me in this difficult time.

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Monday 4th April 2016 – I WAS UP …

… quite early this morning and on the road almost straight away. I wanted to be at the hospital early and it’s a good job that I was because there were traffic queues and road works all over the place.

Once I’d found a good spec for Caliburn (there’s an outside car park that I needed to locate as the main car park has a 2-metre height limit), I went off on a route march to sign myself in. And that reminded me of the queue for registering a vehicle at Riom – I was ticket 259 and they were dealing with n°208.

But with 10 registration desks open (not like at Riom where there is just one) I was all done and dusted within 10 minutes and even had time to go to the café for breakfast. That worked out to be somewhat expensive for some bread and jam, but it would have been a lot cheaper had I realised that what I took to be orange juice was actually freshly-pressed mango.

I found the day hospital, and it’s nothing like Montlucon in that there were probably 100 people there. But I was pretty quickly whisked into a side ward and had a drain fitted. From there, I was shunted off into another room to wait for my blood.

But it’s not like Montlucon in another respect either. I hadn’t been in there long before someone from the Welfare Department came to see me. And never mind the interminable wrangle that we had at Montlucon (and is still going on) about payment – she was brandishing photocopies of my Insurers’ registration form and we filled it in on the spot. They are of course much more used to my situation here and are fully prepared.

We also discussed the situation about my accommodation for when I’m released. She went off and came back 20 minutes later with the news that I have been booked for two weeks into the “family guest-rooms” at the old hospital in the city centre. That’s pretty quick, I have to say. And it’s pretty good news too. All of which is compounded by the fact that the parking here at the hospital (€4:00 per day for inmates) is capped at €12 per week for long-term visitors, and they expect me to be undergoing treatment for … gulp … six months. And so this two-week “stay of execution” gives me time to think of a “Plan B”.

But treatment here wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been. They needed to do all kinds of tests and so on that hadn’t been carried out at Montlucon apparently, and by the time that they had finished everything and the blood had finally arrived, it was 15:30. For food, it was jam butties because, having caught them à la depourvu, there was nothing arranged for me, but at least there was a free coffee machine just around the corner.

By the time that my transfusions were over, it was 19:30 – far too late for chemotherapy and far too late for me to go anywhere else, and so they have found a bed here for me until Wednesday, and chemotherapy will start tomorrow morning. But I’ve missed the evening meal tonight because of all of this, and so I had … errr … jam butties for tea. However, I went down to Caliburn for my things, and profited by stuffing the suitcase full of goodies.

But damn and blast my neighbour. I’m having to share a room and of course, he snores. It’s been a long time since I’ve been still awake at 01:00. This is going to be a very long night.

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Monday 30th November 2015 – THIS WAS A TOTAL DISASTER.

We had the usual performance of falling asleep in the middle of a film, being awoken relentlessly during the middle of the night, the injections, the blood tests, the total rubbish food etc etc.

And then the doctor appeared. He wasn’t totally convinced that I had a phlebite – he was more of the opinion that I was suffering from an infection and he proposed a course of antibiotics. I told him that I didn’t agree with the use of antibiotics but he reckoned that it was essential given the gravity of the situation.

Anyway, a short while later, it was agreed that I should go back to the hospital at Montlucon. After all, they had been treating me in the past and they will still be treating me later in the week. Accordingly a private ambulance arrived to take me. And then this is where it all went from bad to worse.

In France, you have to pay for ambulance services, and this is covered by your health insurance, which means effectively that 99% of people don’t actually pay for it. But with my insurance scheme I have to pay for most things unless they are pris en charge and with this being sprung on me at the very last moment, I hadn’t had the opportunity to make a phone call to arrange it. And so I had to pay … gulp … €190.

And the driver asked me if I could pay for it, to which I replied that if we stopped at a cash machine. And then five minutes later she asked me “do you really have your cards on you?” to which I went totally berserk. It’s a long time since I’ve been insulted like that, and I’ll tell you something – I bet it’s been a long time since she’s been insulted like she was just then by the time that I had finished.

Some people might say that it’s not very gallant of me, but my response is that you shouldn’t give it out if you can’t take it back.

Back at Montlucon, the receptionist at the hospital asked me what I was going to do about my outstanding bill. I replied “nothing at all”.
She looked at me strangely, and so I continued “when I came here the other Friday, I gave your emergency admissions people my Insurance card with contact details and everything on it, so that you could set up a direct billing account on the spot, but they refused to do anything about it.
“And so I had a form sent to me on Monday and I filled it in and gave it to you on Tuesday to fax off so that you would know that it had gone and that you had a copy with all of the details, but you refused to do that too, and so as far as I’m concerned, what’s happening now is all your problem, not mine. I couldn’t care less”.

Back up here, the doctor looked at my arm and was horrified by what he saw. He was astonished that I had been discharged like this. He drew quite carefully on my arm the area of interest.

They managed to rustle up some food for me and even though it was rather ad-hoc, it was streets better than anything that I had had to eat in Riom.

I was ushered into a bedroom where a rather elderly gentleman was already installed. And as the afternoon drew on, I could see that it was going to be another one of “these” nights as my room-mate was clearly not at the races. But what did help was that one of the nurses found a type-of alcohol-impregnated covering that was freezing cold and when she put it on my inflamed arm, I could feel the relief immediately and I wish that someone had thought of doing that a few days ago.

And then the pantomime began. My room-mate had a seizure. I was evacuated and eventually ended up in a totally empty room, with my bed, chair, table and possessions following on behind. And so I settled down again, only for it to be decided that the empty room was more valuable as an empty room and I was moved yet again, this time to one of the empty day wards.

I had my alcohol pad changed, and then settled down for third-time lucky. I switched on a film and slowly dozed off into a deep sleep.

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Sunday 29th November 2015 – AND SO BACK AGAIN …

… in hospital, and back to the usual hospital routine. An early night, falling asleep watching a film on the laptop, and then waking up at about 02:00, lying awake for a few hours and then dropping off again just in time to be awoken by the continual comings and goings of nurses in and out of my room.

And I wasn’t alone last night either. I was in Vine Tree Avenue in Shavington, where we lived in the 1960s, and I was working on my 2000E saloon, TNY 143 M, sanding down the offside rear wing where I’d just welded on a wheel arch repair panel, and Nerina turned up. We were admiring a tree in the garden next door in Edwards Avenue – a small tree or plant about 2.5 metres high that looked like a very immature weeping willow – and we decided that we would like a cutting to go in our garden here too.

Strangely, when I went back to sleep a few hours later, I stepped right back into the dream where I had left off and was reading a catalogue that was displaying all kinds of kinky Christmas underwear made of tinsel. Nerina didn’t think very much of that and made a few typical disparaging remarks, and I was thinking that it was a good job that she hadn’t noticed what I’d been looking at on the first 10 pages of the catalogue.

So after breakfast, such as it was, we had what can only be described as a perfect example of extreme boredom. I hadn’t brought anything with me because I hadn’t expected to be here, so no laptop and a flat battery in the telephone because I didn’t have the charger. There wasn’t anything around to read either which was even worse.

But I did find a brochure about the terms and conditions of the hospital so I can tell you all about that now. And apparently I have the right to have a person of my choice in my room with me, and a spare bed will be provided. I did wonder what Kate Bush might be doing right now, and they needn’t bother about the spare bed.

At 15:00 Liz came round and brought me some clothes, my wash bag, a phone charger and the laptop. And not just that, but a couple of snacks too. Which is just as well because the food in this hospital is thoroughly disgusting. Part of the hospital’s charter, which I read assiduously this morning, tells me that the hospital will “take into account the tastes and the eating habits … of the patient”. How they do that is simply to remove from the plate anything that one isn’t allowed to eat. and so for lunch I had half a plate of carrots and green beans, and for tea I had half a plate of overcooked courgette. And that was that. It’s a question of whether they find out what’s wrong with me before I die of starvation. I can see me striking up quite an acquaintance with the lady who runs the cafe across the road and having regular wisits from her;

But there’s another thing as well about the hospital at Riom that is even more important. And that is that there is no internet. Luckily, Liz had helped me to set up “tethering” on my mobile phone and so I can stay in some kind of contact with the outside world.

But whether or not the outside world wants to keep in touch with me is another matter. Of my 132 “friends” on my social network, I’ve had just 14 expressions of best wishes. I know that everyone has their social network account for their own particular reasons and that’s not an issue with anyone, but I don’t see the point of being “friends” with anyone if you aren’t going to take an interest in them and their own personal issues. Consequently I’ve had yet another major purge of my “friends” list. and quite right too. it’ll soon be down to just me.

On that note I settled down to watch a film on the laptop because it’s the most sure-fire way that I know of falling asl……

… ZZZZZZZZ

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Saturday 28th November 2015 – DAY THREE …

… of my rehabilitation has ended up being something of a disaster. I had the worst night’s sleep yet.

I had a couple of hours sleep but that was basically it – I remember watching the clock go round at least three hours and I didn’t watch it after that – but I did somehow manage to go back to sleep, because I woke up again at just after 09:00.

By this time, my right arm was swollen out of all recognition and was starting to turn a blotchy red. When I had briefly chatted with the nurse on the phone about this yesterday, he told me that if it started to go red, I needed to have something done about it. As a result, we telephoned Liz and Terry’s doctor in Les Ancizes and as luck would have it, she was there and so we went round.

There’s no doubt that the world is a small place, and getting smaller day by day. The doctor’s son (or was it nephew?) had the same day and month of birth than me, and she was born in the same year as me. Furthermore, she comes from Romania and closer discussion revealed that she came from Brasov, which, as long-term readers of this rubbish will recall from one of its many, many previous reincarnations long-lost in the mists of time, was the scene of some of my many triumphs back in the early 1990s.

But returning to our moutons, as the French say, apparently I have a phlébite, which judging by a few things that people have subsequently said, might be a blood clot in the arm. I had to seek immediate attention, and the casualty department at Riom was by far the closest.

And so here I am. I’ve been inspected by a couple of nurses and a junior doctor, I’ve been injected with warfarin to stop the blood clotting (so it’s a good job that I’m really not a rat) and then I was stuck on a trolley in the corridor waiting my turn for a scan on the arm.

Unfortunately, despite waiting about 4 hours, we ran out of time and so I’ve been “detained” until at least Monday. I felt sorry for Liz who had to wait this long for no good purpose, but at least she nipped out to buy me some grub because I’ve missed all of the meals in here and I’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast

They’ve found me a single room for the next two nights, and this was touch-and-go. Riom Hospital is quite small and there’s not much in the budget, but the rooms are light and airy and comfortable enough although the walls haven’t been painted since the place was built.

And so I wonder what the nurses are going to be like here. There has to be some kind of consolation for being stuck back in a blasted hospital yet again.

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Thursday 15th October 2015 – NOT A SINGLE PHOTO …

… for the return journey today, and I’ll tell you why in a moment.

But I left you last night with me dozing off in the middle of a film. And I awoke to find that not only were we starting our descent to Frankfurt Airport, I’d actually missed my breakfast seeing as how I’d been asleep. And that’s not something that happens every day – missing out on a free meal. Mind you, I made sure that they knew that I was awake and so they quickly brought me my breakfast and coffee before we landed.

And I’m not quite sure if we landed or if we were shot down over the airport. It was a really rough arrival and when I looked out of the window I could see why. It was blowing a howling gale and teeming down with rain.

I had to travel right across to the other side of the airport for my connecting flight to Lyon. That took a good few minutes and a tram ride, I can tell you, as well as another passage through “security”. And I’ll tell you this – if the passage through “security” at Frankfurt could be completed in the same friendly, relaxed and informal manner in every airport throughout the world, then flying would be a pleasure. I spent more time discussing cameras with the guy at the gate than I did discussing security issues.

Our plane was parked up on the concrete pan right back across to where I had originally arrived, and so we were bussed right back over there. And as we turned around a corner of the building, a huge Airbus 380 took off right alongside us. It was absolutely immense and dwarfed the A340 upon which I’d arrived and which we drove past a minute or so later.

There was no chance of my taking a photo of my aeroplane in this wind and rain. I was drenched just crossing the pan from the bus to the ‘plane and it was freezing too – much colder than it was in Montreal and that’s a change. Anyway, it was a Boeing 737-300 that we had and it’s been years since I’ve flown on one of those.

And here’s a thing. Why is it that when the chief steward of the plane announces on the PA system announces that “you should not be sitting next to an emergency door if you are unable to open it”, they become quite upset and all peevish when you try to open it just to make sure?

And there was no snack for me on this plane either. But the stewardess found me a banana, which was very nice of her and I much appreciated it.

At Lyon, the wind and rain continued and it was even colder than at Frankfurt. We had a little drama on the tram at the airport as a foreign lady had boarded without having a valid ticket. She was waving around the receipt, claiming that that was all that she had received. However, when I had bought mine, two tickets had fallen out of the machine. I’d taken both with me onto the tram intending to give the spare one to the conductor, but here was the reason right before me.

At Lyon Part-Dieu, there was no train for 2 hours and so, now that there’s free public access internet at the station, thanks to the SNCF, I caught up with some stuff on the laptop and then went to the Subway around the corner for lunch. Handy places, these Subways, even though the price in Europe is twice what it is in Canada which is totally ironic seeing that food is twice as dear in North America as it is in Europe.

I had a good deal on the train – €33 and a bit – for my journey to Montlucon. And I had to run between trains at Riom as ours was 5 minutes late arriving from Lyon, so no time to photograph either train (no chance of doing the Lyon one at Lyon with the rain) and I arrived at Montlucon bang on time, with Liz waiting in the booking hall to take me home.

But I didn’t go home. Instead, she took me home for a nice meal and shower, and a nice warm bed. 2°C it was as we passed over the Font Nanaud and I can see me lighting the fire as soon as I return home. Have I ever lit a fire so early in all the time that I’ve been living here?

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Thursday 13 August 2015 – FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE …

…I’m ready well in advance of time to go.

Well, I’m not. I have been looking for three days for the $200 that I drew out of my Canadian Bank before leaving last October, so I’m having to go without it. And now I know why I drew it all out too. My Canadian bank card expired back in May!

So I hope that my European cards work, otherwise I’m going to have a couple of problems.

Mind you, it was touch and go that I got here in time this morning. I’d been out in Eastern Europe in a city that straddled the border between the East and the West. I was in the east with a party of people (as it happened, people with whom I worked in Stoke on Trent) and we were in a coach or a train that wasn’t moving but the seats were comfortable. Anyway, who should turn up but Nerina, with her Afro haircut of the early 90s. She sat next to me and ended up sharing my bunk, and I could see all of the people looking around and quizzing each other as to who she was.

I asked her how she had made it over to here – did she come by rail through the East, because I was interested in the trains that she might have seen, but she had come to the railway station in the West and walked across the border, which disappointed me.

So first job was the washing up. And that was when I made a startling discovery – that I had brought some water up last night to do the washing-up, and then left it on the side and went to bed. I’m definitely getting old, aren’t I?

And then there was the beichstuhl that needed emptying, cleaning and refilling, such delightful jobs that I have.

I’ve also cleaned the waste bins and isn’t that a first?

Liz came for me and we went to the mairie to pick up a Certificat de Domicile but as I expected, it’s closed for the holidays. I must remember to ring up on Tuesday! I did meet Valentin there though, loading up the Commune’s little van. We had a good chat and it seems that he’s re-signed for Pionsat this year, and that’s good news! I’ve no idea why he went to play at Terjat.

piaggio APE brasserie de la gare montlucon allier franceLiz and I went for coffee in the brasserie opposite the station.And while we were there, this interesting Piaggio APE pulled up just opposite.

I had a brief chat with the owner but he didn’t say very much. But he didn’t mind me taking a few photos of it (it’s always polite to ask).

It brought back a few memories of the Piaggio APE50 that we discovered on waste land in Brussels and which now resides – or it did, the last time that I heard anything about it – in Stoke on Trent

SNCF single unit diesel passenger train franceHere’s my train – a little single-unit diesel. I’ve not been on one of these before. But it’s nice, clean and comfortable – a far cry from anything that you find on the rails in the UK.

And we set off bang on time too, which is another far cry from life on the rails in the UK. And one thing that I like about France – “we regret that the toilet on board the train isn’t functioning. If you need this service, please make yourself known to the guard who will arrange for a longer stop at one of the stations that we visit”.

Mind you – I was half-expecting that we would be offered the possibility to pull up on the main line at a suitable hedge.

I didn’t realise that there were two railway stations in Montlucon – but I do now!

The line to Riom is what can best be described as “bucolic” – what one writer once wrote as a “merry, mazy ramble” across the Auvergnat countryside. I’ve advanced about 25 kms but it’s taken me an hour and a half and about 90kms to do it.

diesel multiple unit riom puy de dome lyon franceAt Riom it’s pouring down – a real torrential downpour – and my train is bang on time. And then this is where I realise that it’s lunchtime and for once in my life I’m caught without a supply of food about my person.

By the time I reached Vichy it had stopped raining, but it had started again at Tarare.

place part dieu lyon franceFirst stop at Lyon was at the Subway for a very late lunch. And it was at here that we had the usual Subway dialogue-
Our Hero – could I have a 12-inch with nothing but crudités?
Serving Wench – do you want cheese with that?

trolley bus lyon franceThere are trolley buses in Lyon these days – I hadn’t noticed that before. It seems that all of this “obsolete” transport of the 1950s – trams, trolley buses – was not obsolete at all. In fact, it was a hundred years ahead of its time. And it seems to be doing its work here in Lyon too because the streets are much less crowded than any other European city that I’ve visited recently.

As for my hotel, it’s 5 or 10 minutes away from the station. It’s modern and clean and tidy, with all of the services to hand. I had a lovely vegetarian pizza (I always bring my own cheese) for tea. It seems that this idea of flying out of Lyon, at least to here, is paying off in spades.

And as good an idea as it might have been, it could be even better too, believe it or not, because there’s a cheap budget hotel – the Athena – with rooms at €58:00, actually built into the station block. A walk of about 50 yards.

I shall have to look closely into this, but not tonight because although it’s only about 22:00, I’m crashing out.

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Tuesday 11th August 2015 – WELL THAT DIDN’T GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

So in the absence of any better offer this afternoon, I set to work to move this Hyundai. First thing though – the battery in the Kubota was flat. Not much of a surprise – I haven’t used it since last October. And so I had to put it on charge for a while.

Later on, I put the battery back and made sure that the Kubota started, and then went back in ready to do the job as it went dark.

later that night, I went back out, to find that the battery was flat again. So I moved Caliburn down to jump-start the Kubota. Once the Kubota fired up, off I went to tow the Hyundai, leaving Caliburn there.

And wasn’t that a fatal mistake?

I eventually managed to put the Hyundai out of my drive (it’s not easy pushing a big heavy car like that and I’m far from in the prime of life) and then set off to tow it away.

But that didn’t work, as the Kubota didn’t have the waft to pull it away. It just dug itself into the gravel up to the axles. Giving it a final whack and the motor stalled. And, of course, the battery is now flat again.

And so, we are stuck in the lane that the farmer needs for access to his field in the following order –

  1. the Kubota, with a flat battery
  2. the scrap Hyundai that won’t run at all
  3. Caliburn, the only vehicle that is working right now

And it goes without saying that Caliburn is stuck down at the bottom end of the cul de sac and can’t move until the others are gone. If only I had moved him first.

I really and sincerely wish from the bottom of my heart that I had never set eyes on this vehicle and that I had never set eyes upon its owner. I am thoroughly and completely fed up.

All I need now is for the farmer to put in an appearance and I shall be well and truly stuck. I am beginning to hate everyone and everything.

But apart from that, the morning was comparatively successful. Liz phoned me up early (and I was awake long beforehand too) and so I took her off to Riom and the hospital, in exchange for which she did a couple of loads of washing for me to bring me up to date.

Although Liz’s news from the hospital might be perceived in some quarters as being bad, for Liz it is in fact good news because it confirms her suspicions, and with the knowledge that she gained today, things can only get better and that is what she needs to know.

We went for a coffee and then off to Gerzat for the Radio Anglais recording sessions there. They passed quite easily and incident-free, which makes a great change and makes it quite a pleasure to go there.

sculpted fountain chatel guyon puy de dome franceIt was such a nice day so we stopped for a coffee on the way back.

Chatel-Guyon is a beautiful spa-town at the foot of the Combrailles. It’s a beautiful place to visit for an afternoon’s walk but we just contented ourselves with sitting outside a cafe near a sculpted fountain
looking at the water, soaking up the sun and drinking a good strong coffee in pleasant company.

And then back home to more of this total nonsense.

How I hate this car.

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Monday 3rd August 2015 – I HATE PEOPLE …

… who post on the internet photos of what they have been eating.

vegan meal clermont ferrand puy de dome franceHowever, just very occasionally, there are rare occasions where a meal merits being photographed, and this is one of them.

Right in the centre of Clermont-Ferrand this lunchtime, not one of the restaurants had a vegan meal on offer, but there was one where the chef was busy plying his art (and art it was) in the corner of the dining area and so I went over for a chat.

And this is the result. And no complaints whatever from me. I had a struggle to finish it.

So after a telephone call at a time where quite often I hadn’t even been to bed, I was down at Sauret Besserve and picked up Liz, and off we went to Riom for Liz’s hospital appointment.

I had a wait of about 50 minutes for a groggy-looking Liz to emerge, and then we went off for a coffee so that she could recover.

Next stop was the Auchan but there weren’t any of the Nikon D7000 cameras there – it’s an end-of-range deal and the prices had been slashed so I wasn’t expecting much, but nevertheless, we were nearby so it was worth a try.

tram clermont ferrand puy de dome franceAnd then a first for Liz.

We decided to go into the centre of Clermont Ferrand and the tram lines pass at the rear of the Auchan so, leaving Caliburn on the car park, we hopped on a tram that whisked us silently and effortlessly into the city.

€1:50 a ticket and there can’t be much better value than that. Anyone who has driven into the centre of Clermont Ferrand and tried to find a parking place will tell you all about that.

We went for a walk, went to the Tourist Information office and down to the Conseil-General – and I had a brainwave. I need to insure Strider, the Ranger, in Canada and I wondered if I could obtain a printout of my licence showing my motoring history.

We queued for a good while and, at the counter, “yes, we can do that. Do you have your driving licence?”
So I duly produced it
“And do you have your identoty papers?”
“Ohh blast! I’ve left them in Caliburn, haven’t I?”
“We are really supposed to see some identity papers in order to do this over the counter, but I’ll tell you what – let’s do it anyway”

So there we were!

pope urban II crusade cathedral clermont ferrand puy de dome franceBack to the city square and in the shadow of Pope Urban II preaching the First Crusade to the pigeons fluttering around the Cathedral, we had our lunch.

Back on the tram and off to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais programmes for the next few weeks, giving Samantha Fish her first run-out, and then back home.

All in all a quite profitable day.

And hats off to the reception staff at the hospital at Riom, hats off to the chef in Clermont Ferrand and hats off also to the lady at the driving licence desk at the Prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. Things are definitely looking up!

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Sunday 2nd August 2015 – PHEW!

I’m glad that it was Sunday today and I could have a lie-in. Because I was thoroughly exhausted after my journeys during the night.

It started off with me looking for a vehicle to convert into a mobile home (obviously what’s going on in North America at the moment is preying on my mind). I ended up with a Leyland Leopard 53-seater with a Plaxton Supreme body – the body from 1979-81. It was blue, the same colour that YNT was when we bought it, with the company name in black block letters down the side. I had it parked in Buchan Grove but, thinking on now, it was on the wrong side of the road. We moved on from there to a newish house on a housing estate and Nerina appeared. We met in a dark and gloomy bar like the Crown Hotel in Nantwich, and she was telling me that she was going to move back. And so she did, but with a proviso that every now and again she would be staying in a hotel somewhere. But whenever she did, she was always back by 21:00. We ended up at my father’s, who was actually Terry, and he’d moved into a new house which had had half of the side wall demolished. It had been rebuilt but the repair and the bricklaying was dreadful – even I could do better. But as I said to Terry, at least it’s done and it’s easy to tidy it up.

So after that, it was 10:00 when I arose and quite right too. I was still not on the same planet as everyone else but a coffee dealt with that.

I’ve been doing more of this updating the blog and with summer having dramatically returned (189.9 amp-hours of surplus electrical energy – a record as far as I can tell) and water in the dump load off the scale, I put 5 litres of hot water into the solar shower and had the nicest shower that I have ever had.

Round to Liz and Terry’s for rehearsals and Liz had had a go at making home-made ice-cream, which wasn’t bad at all. Terry gave me some screwdriver bits that he had bought for me, and Liz had a cardboard box of supplies which I promptly forgot.

On the way back, there was one of the biggest moons that I have ever seen – really impressive, it was. And back here, I had some stuff to do and then off to bed as I have an early start in the morning.

Liz is off to Riom for a hospital appointment, Terry has some work, so I’m chauffeuring.

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Monday 1st JUNE 2015 – I’M RELIEVED …

… that it’s not just me who doesn’t do mornings. I had to take Caliburn to the garage to have his brakes fixed, and when I arrived (at 07:50) the garage owner was busy opening up the place. I said hello (or, rather, bonjour) and I was greeted by a series of grunts.

Yes, 07:50. I was up and wide awake by O7:00, which makes a change, and having gathered everything that I needed for today, I was on the road by 07:30 and that’s not like me at all.

garage jaillot st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceMind you, I couldn’t help a little smile as I left the premises. Here I was, taking Caliburn to a garage to have the rear brakes fixed, and here are the rear brakes on the garage’s van.

It’s certainly true to say that garages always have the worst cars, just as electricians have the worst electrics, and plumbers have the houses with the most leaky pipes.

abandoned railway station st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceSeeing as I was much too early for Terry, I walked into town. And my route took me past the abandoned railway station here at St Gervais.

The station and the railway line here were closed suddenly and dramatically when it was announced that a snap inspection of the Viaduc des Fades, the highest railway viaduct in the world when it was built, had discovered that the viaduct was totally unfit to take the weight of trains.

But anyone who came with me on out little walk across the viaduct will have noticed that there was nothing sudden about the state of the viaduct. It had been decaying for years and no-one had bothered to look at it – or, rather, they had put off the work so that it would all need doing at once and that would be a good excuse for closing down the line.

Terry and I went off to Riom and much to our surprise, at the sous-prefecture we were number 48, and they were dealing with number 33. That meant a wait of about an hour, a far cry from when I went to register Caliburn in 2009 and I was number 143 and had to wait until after midday.

It was painless at the sous-prefecture and then we went off to have the number plates made for his new van and for me to deal with a taxation issue at the Tresor Publique.

After lunch it was back to Gerzat for the Radio Arverne sessions, and I didn’t feel much like it due to my early start. Liz and I went shopping afterwards and had a coffee, and it was back to see how Caliburn was doing. They had managed to free off all of the mechanism but they needed some parts, which won’t be here until tomorrow. So Liz ran me home and I crashed out. I can’t last the pace these days.

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Thursday 4th December 2014 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… that I was in bed before 23:00?

It wasn’t last night, to be sure, but it wasn’t long after 23:00. Certainly at 23:00 I was downstairs taking the stats, the last thing that I do before going to bed.

However I was awake at about 06:00, despite having an exciting night where I was in Montreal. I’d been to see someone about mounting a wind turbine on my land in New Brunswick but he told me that it was a waste of time. In fact he had had the same idea as me and bought some land on the Canada side of the Mars Hill wind farm in the USA, but has decided to sell it on as the projected extension of the farm wasn’t ever going to happen. We then had a long drive around Montreal with me taking the wrong turnings all the time, and him jumping out of the car each time that I did so, and waiting for me on the corner when I realised my error and turned back.

Once I was awake, I couldn’t go back to sleep and was tossing and turning until the alarm went off.

After breakfast, I went round to Liz and Terry’s. Liz was at work but Terry had a medical appointment at Riom and needed someone to go with him.

That was a pleasant morning, not the least of reasons being that I met a couple of people there who go to watch the football at Pionsat. I have’t seen then for w while, and it turned out that the guy has been quite ill. He’s had an operation in the hospital and was going back for a check-up.

On our way home, we had a major surprise. Just outside Les Ancizes we noticed something big and black moving at quite a substantial rate of knots across the field in the distance. As it drew closer (and what a good artist it was) we realised that it was a sanglier – a wild boar – and one of the biggest that I had ever seen. He roared across the field and right across the road in front of us – a really impressive sight. Magnificent beasts, these wild boar. No wonder I love living right out here.

I stopped off at the Intermarche at Pionsat to do my shopping. These shopping trips are getting earlier and earlier in the week but there’s no point going out shopping when I don’t need to.

And isn’t this attitude a change?

Back here I don’t know what happened but at one moment I was sitting eating my lunch (it was 15:00) and the next thing I remember, it was 18:06. I had crashed out completely and I’ve no idea why, especially after my early night last night.

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Thursday 9th October 2014 – WELL, I WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING.

I missed the connection at Brussels.

And not by 5 or 10 minutes either, but by a whopping couple of hours too. It took all night to evacuate this ill person and her baggage and we were about a couple of hours late before we took to the sky.

The flight itself and the food were excellent but the in-flight entertainment was rather rubbish. There wasn’t a single film that I was interested in seeing. On the Sports Channel however there was the World Cup semi-final between Brazil and Germany from 2014- the match where in a devastating spell of just 6 minutes half-way through the first half the Germans totally demolished the Brazilians.

At Brussels, those of us with onward journeys to attend to had to regroup in order to see what they airline had in store for us. For me, they could move me onwards to Paris via … errrr … Frankfurt am Main. That was clearly out of the question. However, there was one person who was flying on to Lyon and so that gave me an idea. When I was at Montreal I heard them call an Air Transat flight to Lyon and while I’m not overly impressed with Air Transat, I still put into the back of my mind the idea to go around to the airport at Lyon to see what I could see and to spy out the land.

This seemed like the opportunity and so I made the appropriate noises at the airport staff. There was indeed flight to Lyon but at 17:00 in the afternoon, meaning that I had 5 hours to kill. A meal voucher for €16:00 to compensate me in part for the inconvenience meant that I could have a meal but even that voucher only made a slight hole in the price of the meal, prices in Belgium being what they are. But nevertheless, the choices of meal here seem to be better than what was on offer when I was stranded at Paris Charles de Gaulle last year.

zaventam brussels national airport belgium october 2014For the rest of my stay in Brussels, I also took the opportunity to go for a wander around the airport, inside and outside. It’s been a long time, 9 years in fact, since I’ve been here and there was a time when I was here a couple of times a week, back in the good old days.

So braving the horrendous weather outside, because it really was bad outside, I went for a look around.

zaventam brussels national airport belgium october 2014There have been some tremendous changes to the airport in this time. Outside, there’s an enormous amount of redevelopment and much of the old building is being swept away and replaced ith more modern stuff.

There have been even more changes inside the place. A huge programme of expansion has taken place with all kinds of new terminals and departure gates and I do have to admit that it is quite a significant leg-up from how it all used to be in the past.

The plane to Lyon was one of these small 70-seater things with about 40 passengers on it. The flight took a quite reasonable 75 minutes which wasn’t bad at all, even if there was no special meal for me. That came as no surprise seeing as how I’d chopped and changed from one flight to another – it can’t be helped. I was glad that I had had a meal at Zaventam. And descending into Lyon through a thunderstorm, we were being tossed around like a cork on the ocean. Not for the faint-hearted, this descent.

Lyon was a very nice airport, quite modern and up-to-date, and the tram connection to town, quite shockingly expensive at €15:70, was nevertheless straighforward and direct, to right opposite the main railway station in town. No issues whatever with this at all (apart from the cost of course).

The ticket for the train to Riom cost a mere €16:00 with my senior citizen’s railcard (and that puts into perspective the astonishing price of the tram ticket) but there was a wait of 100 minutes for my train. No mind – it gave me an opportunity to look around outside the station. In the square behind the railway station there were all kinds of food shops, including a Subway sandwich store so I grabbed a foot-long vegetarian and orange juice there – that was tea sorted out.

Further investigation revealed that just a 10-minute stagger away from here is one of these Premier Class tourist hotels. A modern unit-type hotel with en-suite facilities.

So the verdict on Lyon as a departure point for Montreal? Well, even if the only flight offered is an Air Transat service, then I am no longer going to struggle all of the way out to Paris Charles de Gaulle. Apart from the tram fare, everything else that I would need is right here in front of me at Lyon, much more so than at the airport hotels in Paris. There will also be a saving of over €200 on my travelling costs and that, dear reader, is all that you need to know.

The train to Riom presented no problems whatever, and Terry was there to meet me at the station. Liz and Terry offered me a bed for the night, for which I was extremely grateful, and I was out like a light. It had been a long day.

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