Tag Archives: st jacques

Saturday 29th June 2013 – WELL I WAS WRONG …

… about my weather prediction today. In fact it started off grey, wet and miserable and simply got worse and worse.

And in something that must be a new world record, I was in Montlucon, a quick round of all of the shops and back home by 12:30, would you believe?

What has contributed to that a great deal is that theres a new Leclerc hypermarket opened just a little way down the road from Brico Depot.

It’s huge, clean and tidy, the parking is really easy, the aisles are nice and wide and, in common with most Leclerc hypermarkets, there are plenty of checkouts and they are always well-personned so there are none of these enormous queues that you find in the Auchan and the Carrefour.

For these reasons alone, the new Leclerc will get my vote for shopping for the forseeable future.

I didn’t in fact leave my notebook at Brico Depot. It was in my pocket all the time.

Nevertheless I went and redid my shopping there this morning and with no pressure from any outside influence I bought everything that I’m likely to need to finish off this bathroom properly.

I’ll restart in there on Monday and put my back into it.

I came back a different way that usual and I’m rather glad that I did.

1962 opel rekord domérat montlucon allier franceDespite everything that I’ve recently been saying about old cars on islands, you do still occasionally find them on the mainland too.

And here just down the road from LeClerc at Domérat I stumbled across probably the most exciting car that I’ve seen for quite some considerable time – Peugeot 230 pickups excepted of course.

And isn’t this a real beauty?

1962 opel rekord domérat montlucon allier franceShe’s a 1962 Opêl Rekord 1700 P2, in almost-mint condition, one owner from new and with just 67000 kms on the clock.

It’s for sale at just €7500 and I could easily be tempted by this, although Opel did make a pick-up version and a convertible, one of which would be even an more exciting find,

Even nicer though would be the Soviet Union’s copycat GAZ M21 III but I wouldn’t have a clue where even to start to look for one of those.

This afternoon I did a little (yes, just a little) tidying up here and then, despite the miserable weather, it was time to go out.

fete de st jacques virlet village walk puy de dome franceRegular readers of this rubbish will recall that at the weekend round about the Fête de St Jacques it’s the custom here in Virlet to go for a walk to beat the bounds of the commune and have a little party afterwards.

Despite the miserable weather, a hard-core of about a dozen or so of us set out, up tp our knees in soaking wet grass and sliding about on the mud.

It made me feel quite at home.

fete de st jacques virlet village walk puy de dome franceIt did brighten up slightly as we made our way around, and it became much easier to walk once we were on the metalled road.

Neverthless, it was still far too wet for our traditional feu de joie, but someone did bring a DVD, a copy of the Fernandel film En Avant La Musique – a tyical whimsical film of village life in Italy during the war, and we sat around and watched that instead.

All in all we had a good time. I wonder what tomorrow will bring me.

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Saturday 23rd June 2012 – PHEW! I’M EXHAUSTED!

And I’m not surprised either, for I’ve had a busy day today.

This morning I was busy tracing the antics of Séraphin Margane de Lavaltrie and his regiment, the Carignan-Salières along the banks of the St Lawrence River, as well as unravelling the tangled web weaved around Quebec by the enigmatic Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac.

Yes, this is all very exciting, doing these web pages. I’m certainly learning a lot – and that’s the whole point.

Anyway, in the afternoon I shot off to Commentry and did a pile of shopping, but didn’t buy any wire netting. The price of the stuff is exorbitant and I’m sure that I can do far better than that elsewhere with a bit of exertion.

In the meantime I’ll see what I can conjure up or otherwise invent.

I did however manage to fit in an uncomfortable hour in the swimming pool at Neris-les-Bains. Note to self- “don’t go swimming straight after eating a tub of LIDL sorbet”.

bonfire feu de joie fete de st jacques Virlet puy de dome franceAnd so in the evening a nice clean me went back out and off to the village for our traditional, annual walk to explore some of the lesser-known back lanes of Virlet.

I’d stuck a note on the board of the Anglo-French group and so instead of the usual 20 or so people we ended up being quite a crowd – many of whom I knew – and we all had a really nice, cheerful and friendly walk around.

People from all ages were here and that’s nice to see – I like the idea of the youngsters being involved.

strawberry moose bonfire feu de joie fete de st jacques Virlet puy de dome france. It’s not only the villagers who are drawn out by the likelihood of crowds and of an audience.

Whenever there’s a possibility of a photo opportunity with a new group of admiring fans, you can bet your life that Strawberry Moose won’t be far away.

And sure enough, he leapt out of his seat in Caliburn to mingle with the crowds and made the acquaintance of a few more admirers. His fame is certainly spreading and he had just as much fun as everyone else did tonight.

bonfire feu de joie fete de st jacques Virlet puy de dome franceBecause fun there was, and plenty of it too, and for all ages.

After the walk we all headed back to the field at the back of the church. Here, seeing as it’s the Fête de St Jacques we had a feu de joie, a barbecue and snacks, a film and dancing with music provided by my friend Rick the Trailer Guy on cello and his violinist friend.

All very convivial.

A good time was had by all although I didn’t stay too long. I didn’t stay as long as I might have though. For some reason I was absolutely exhausted, and so I was home by midnight.

It’ll take me a week to recover, I reckon.

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Saturday 25th June 2011 – It’s been all go here today

karl hagen chantier communaux lapeyrouse puy de dome franceYes, I crawled out of the heaving pit rather late this morning, at about 10:30 to be precise, and it was off to Karl and Lou’s for their chantier. The girls spent the day painting the front of the house while Jean, Francois and I were building a woodshed at the back of the house.

There was the obligatory pause for lunch of course and I took advantage of the moment to take a photograph of all the attendees

fete des nouveaux arrivants marcillat en combraille allier franceI couldn’t stick around for long though because at 14:30 I had to piddle off to Marcillat en Combraille for this meeting. And now I know why they wanted me – apparently they didn’t have a translator and so Yours Truly was stuck with the task.

But it was well-worth going for I met a Dutch guy there who sells and hires out trailers. I’d talked to him a while back about car transporter trailers but he doesn’t do them, and so I made it clear that I had one that I might hire out if he says the magic words.
“Stop messing about Eric. You’ll be well-paid”
“Ahhh. So you know the magic words then!”

One thing led to another and it turns out that he plays music in a folk group of sorts. I mentioned my previous existence when I played bass guitar in a rock group and he’s going to pass my details on to a friend of his who plays in a folk rock group.

annual village walk virlet puy de dome franceLater this evening we were all round at Virlet where we were going to have our annual evening walk, exploring the highways and, more importantly, the byways of the commune. Just for a change the weather was good this year and the walk was enjoyable even though it was done at the pace of a route march.

This here is the old road into the village, long-since replaced by a more modern route and that down there on the right in the photo is an old well for the village

feu de joie virlet village bonfire puy de dome france Afterwards we had the traditional village bonfire – the feu de joie at the back of the church. There was a picnic too – the village had done us proud in this respect – and there was dancing to music provided by …. our friend with the trailer.

With the backdrop of the firework display at Montaigut en Combraille, it really was a most enjoyable evening and Jean, Elizabeth, Clotilde and Rosemary all certainly enjoyed it.

What with one thing and another it really was a good, enjoyable day and I’m off to bed quite happy for a change.

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Saturday 3rd July 2010 – Today was really decided for me.

You may remember that last night I was undecided about what to do today and so while musing over the problem with a coffee this morning, the phone rang. Nada had been wanting to come round and see Pooh Corner for a while and could she come this afternoon?

I told her to come this evening instead and I legged it into Commentry where I bought all of the stuff I needed to finish off the guttering, the stuff I needed to make the puzzolane water filter (except the puzzolane), a pile of stuff from the cheapo shop (including a load of those clip-together storage bins at €1 for 3) and then back here and a quick tidy up.

While the tidying up was in progress we had a huge thunderstorm that presented us with 5mm of rain and flattened my potatoes (but at least it soaked all of the plants which is a good thing) and then Nada came round for her visit.

virlet crossroads puy de dome franceThis evening was the annual walk around Virlet to get to know the commune and Nada came with me for the walk – it turns out that she knows the Mayor’s wife. Going for a tramp in the woods was out of the question due to the thunderstorm and the fact that we wouldn’t have caught him anyway

Instead, we visited the highlights of the village – namely the church that blew down in the hurricane in 1999, the old house that is on the point of falling down, and the cemetery which is of course right in the dead centre of the village.

Virlet is of course a very healthy village – so much so that they employ a man to go round the cemetery at closing time to tell the deceased to go back to sleep. It’s a huge cemetery for such a small village and an American tourist said “do people die here often then?”
The cemetery keeper replied “no – just the once like everywhere else”
The wall is quite high too and our American visitor wanted to know why they bothered to put a wall around it. The keeper replied that it was because people were dying to get in.
And I was impressed with the cemetery keeper. He told me that his job carried a great deal of responsibility – he had 500 people under him.  
One thing that he did try to tell me was to reserve my plot. There were no English people buried in there (not that I am English but let’s not spoil this story by introducing facts into it). He did say that there was a Scots grave in the cemetery. So I wandered off to have a look, and there it was – “Here lies Jock MacTavish, a loyal father and a devoted husband”. Now isn’t that just like the Scots to bury three men in one grave?

One of the issues with burials here is the cost – it isn’t cheap. You can now get burials done on the instalment plan – they bury your left arm the first month, the right arm the second month et cetera. And I did ask the keeper what happens if you miss an instalment. “Well”, he replied “we simply dig them up”.

On leaving the cemetery this old guy was struggling his best to catch up with us.
“How old are you?” asked the cemetery keeper
“I’m 102 years old” he replied
“Well, it’s hardly worth your while going home then, is it?”

strawberry moose village fete virlet puy de dome franceBecause of the inclement weather, they decided to abandon the idea of lighting up the bonfire. Instead, we all went into the village hall for drinks and cakes and to have a good chat. It’s just a shame that there weren’t more of us.

You can’t have a village fête without inviting Strawberry Moose. He is very popular and took advantage of the occasion to have a photo opportunity with some more new friends. He’s always up for that.

bonfire feu de joie village fete virlet puy de dome franceA little later we decided that regardless of the weather we would indeed all go outside and have a go at lighting the bonfire after all. Perhaps the wine played something of a part in this decision.

I tried to encourage the deputy mayoress to play the leading role in my new production of “Joan of Arc” but she wasn’t having it. Shame. Everyone else thought that it would be a good idea.

We had a good time talking and telling jokes, all that kind of thing. It really was a nice friendly gathering and represents the best of French village life – something that you probably won’t understand if you have never taken part in it. And at midnight, with dogs and children all long-since asleep we all called it a night.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to make up for this by painting the wood for next week and doing the gutttering. I shall have to get my finger out.

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