Tag Archives: vegan cake

Saturday 15th October 2022 – GUESS WHO …

… had company in bed last night?

And before I went to bed too, because I was still sitting on the edge of the bed starting to undress when Cujo the Killer Cat jumped on the bed miaowing. And as soon as I settled down under the bedclothes she snuggled up and that was that.

She stayed for quite a long time too but when I eventually awoke, she was gone. Still, it was nice while it lasted. It’s the best offer that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone from the night too. We were babysitting this girl of about 11. I got on really well with her and spent a lot of time with her. Her father came to pick her up afterwards. My father told him that the bike that he had found for her was a Raleigh or something. I went into the hall to look and there was a kid’s bike there, a Raleigh, the type that you would have in the 1960s for a child so I took her to try it. It was a little big for her but nothing that you couldn’t adjust out. On the way we saw a circus across the road. She looked and said “that looks great”. I replied “guess where we’re going to come the next time you come round?”. I could see that there was a look of disapproval in her father’s eye but the girl seemed to be reacting a lot more with me than she did with him. You could see that he was disappointed by that.

This next one was another long, rambling dream with loads missing. It involved a funeral and burying a coffin. There was a big argument about the grave. They’d dug out the grave but it wasn’t really big enough but these people insisted that they knew what they were doing. In the end they prepared the coffin to drop into the grave but found that it wasn’t going in because the hole wasn’t big enough. They had to lift it out again and enlarge the hole. In the end I had them dig a huge pile out to make an enormous hole because that was the only way to stop the bickering and the arguments, to make sure that there was more than enough room to drop the coffin in and then back-fill it but it was one of these typical small village things where everyone knew better than everyone else. There were the local experts who had never done this before, that kind of thing, and it went on for hours.

Finally I was at work. I’d just come back from lunch 5 minutes early so that I could cut my hair. I was there busily shaving it away and the manager came in, rounded up everyone and said that a file was missing. He gave us the number and insisted that we searched the entire office for it. He said “when you’ve finished cutting your hair of course”. I replied “I’ll go and look for it now and cut my hair later”. We all stood up and went our separate ways searching everywhere to see if we could find this file. There was a cheque that needed issuing on it and we needed the file to check the validity.

After I had finally come round from the dead I went up to the mill in the pouring rain. We weighed the two parcels and I was surprisingly accurate in my guesses. I thought 25kg and 20kg but in fact it’s 30kg and 20kg. That’s not too bad.

They were really busy up there today but I couldn’t help them any as shifting sacks of grain is rather beyond me these days but I waited around for quite a while chatting.

Back here I had beans on toast for lunch and then transcribed the dictaphone notes from yesterday which are now on line, and then I made a start on last night’s.

When Rachel came home we started on tea. We discussed all kinds of cookery recipes and in the end I made a pyrex dish with my veggie balls, tomato, onion and garlic to go with the baked potato and vegetables that she was cooking to go with the lamb chops. And my meal was delicious.

For dessert I had a surprise. On her was home Rachel had called at the home of the old lady whom we had visited yesterday and she had made me a “demonstration cake” of egg-free molasses cake.

And that was delicious too.

After tidying up I came in here to finish off the dictaphone notes and then wrote up today’s entry.

And now I’m off to bed. We’re dining out tomorrow morning so I won’t have too much of a lie-in. And I probably won’t have any lie-in at all if Cujo the Killer Cat comes to visit me.

Not that I’m complaining, of course.

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Sunday 30th April 2017 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

I went to bed early and fell asleep after just about 10 minutes of a film that I’ve tried to watch on several occasions. But it didn’t do me much good because I was awake again at about 01:30, really uncomfortably, and I couldn’t go back to sleep again.

Not only that, there was some kind of incident early in the morning. I thought at first that the cat had caught a seagull or something, but apparently the landlady’s dog had had a fit – and I bet that it was a tight one too.

Mind you, I must have gone to sleep at some time or other during the night because I had been on my travels. I was with Roxanne and Laurence, trying to negotiate Roxanne’s entry into a different school. But the negotiations were extremely complex and I discovered that you had to pay for the lessons – including the basic ones like English (which surprised me – by the way, it was English as a first language too). In the end I turned to Laurence and suggested that Roxanne stay at home and Laurence teach her – after all, Laurence is a qualified teacher (which she wasn’t, but never mind).
We ended up being on a coach going down a steep hill – I wasn’t driving but the man who was driving it was having a few difficulties. trying to negotiate his way between a couple of parked lorries he ripped the right-hand side mirror out of its housing. No amount of fiddling about could get it to go back into position.

After breakfast I had a shower and a good clean-up, tidied up my room, packed up everything and then spent an hour or so catching up with some stuff on the internet. Once I’d finished organising myself I got my motor running and headed out on the highway.

There’s no electricity in my new place until Friday morning and so Liz and Terry had told me that if I didn’t mind sleeping in the middle of a building site, I could stay at their new place for a few nights. Of course, it’s not where you are and what you are doing, it’s who you are with that counts and so I headed off through the rainstorm (the first real rain that we have had since I’ve been up here) to Roncey.

Liz had cooked a gorgeous soup for lunch, and then I had a little surprise. Liz and Terry had bought two really nice sofas for the living room at their house in the Auvergne but there wasn’t room for both of them in the living room in the place that they have just bought. And so in thanks for a service that I had rendered to them a few months ago, we heaved the redundant sofa into the back of Caliburn and drove off to Granville.

Once we had dropped off the sofa, we went for a walk around the area where my new place is. It’s an old town full of beautiful stone buildings, narrow alleyways and city walls. And we found a café that looked like something out of the 19th Century, with live music too.

Back through the rainstorm and the roadworks for another one of Liz’s special meals followed by home-made vegan cake and a nice wood fire. Here I can sit and watch the rain falling outside while I am in the warmth.

And I have some furniture now. I’ve slept on that sofa before and I’ll be sleeping on it again until I can organise myself a bed. It’s only a sofa, but it’s a start.

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Saturday 3rd December 2016 – AND IF YOU THINK …

… that the last couple of nights were bad, you ain’t seen nuffink yet. Because there I was, it was 06:30, and I was still wide-awake. I just couldn’t drop off at all, and I’ve no idea why.

But I must have done shortly after that. And I heard the alarm go off at 07:00, and the next one at 07:15, but that was nothing like enough to make me leave my bed. Instead, I breakfasted at something like … errr … 10:30.

vegan cooking van leuven market belgium october octobre 2016I was up in town a little later to buy some stuff for my butties. And here I had a big surprise.

There was a new van on there and it seemed to be advertising home bakery products, including bio, lactose-free, gluten-free and vegan products.

I had quite a chat with the owner and he pointed out to me the products that he had which were vegan. There were two varieties of cake that you buy by the slice and some biscuits too. That was so exciting.

He’s here every Saturday so I shall be frequenting him when I come back.

After lunch, I had a shower and a clean up ready for Alison coming round. We went down the road to the café for a coffee and a good chat about this and that, all that’s happened to us for the last couple of weeks.

train railway station leuven belgium october octobre 2016Alison ran me down to the railway station afterwards where I bought my ticket.

OH Leuven are playing away tonight against AFC Tubize. Tubize is a town that I have never visted and of course I’ve certainly never seen the football club play. Apart from that, as I said to Alison, I ought to get out more often and connect with the real word every now and again, and going to the football is one way of doing it.

The ground is a good 20 minute stroll south of the railway station and, would you believe it, there’s no fritkot between the town centre and the ground that I could see. That meant that I had to do without my tea. But isn’t that astonishing?

stade leburton afc tubize belgium october octobre 2016The ground is a modern two-sided wonder with a couple of concrete stands with basic seat forms put on there. Underneath the stand where I’m sitting is a long hall with a pie hut inside and the players’ changing rooms and the like. It’s all very basic.

It cst me €15 for a seat which wasn’t so bad, but actually finding my place was something else. The security guards clearly didn’t know the stadium all that well and I was sent from pillar to post before I found the correct entrance.

stade leburton afc tubize belgium october octobre 2016I suppose that a good number of other people had difficulty finding the ground too, because I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such an empty stadium at this level of football. At a rough estimate of what I could see, there can’t have been 1500 people in the ground for this match. 100 away supporters if they were lucky.

The Kop for the home fans is a little standing area on the far side -capacity about 500 I suppose and maybe 120 people in it. They made a bit of noise I suppose, but it wasn’t anything to be worked up about.

stade leburton afc tubize belgium october octobre 2016There’s another small stand behind the goal, out of shot to the left. That maybe has room for 700 people I suppose but it was empty and closed off.

It’s not quite a one-sided wonder that you might find in Scottish lower-league football but it’s not far off. One of those places where they set out with the best intentions and then ran out of money.

As for the match itself, the first half was pretty uneventful. Both sides had their chances, including a shot from an AFC Tubize player that hit the post, rolled along the goal-line and back into play, with Gillekens in the Leuven goal totally flat-footed.

But there were a few strange decisions out there. The OH Leuven n°10 was being kicked, pushed, dragged and swatted off the ball by the defenders and never a foul was awarded despite how much protesting he did; It totally astonished me.

And when he was booked for complaining too much, I really did feel for him.

At half-time, I went down for a hot drink. I dunno what they flavoured my hot water with, but at €2:00 it was flaming expensive

The second half was a little more lively at first, and OH Leuven took the lead. They have a centre-forward called Casagolda who somehow has always flattered to deceive. But today, he had a really good game, living up to his promise. as a Tubize player dallied on the ball à la Pionsat defence, ha was harried out of it and Casagolda whacked it into the net.

The game them came alive and we had about 25 minutes of exciting football and it was a shame that the match couldn’t have been played like this all the time.

OH Leuven scored a second with about 15 minutes to go, and they hit the bar and had another cleared off the line too. As it finished, they thoroughly deserved the victory.

I walked back into town looking for a fritkot. I photo-bombed a group photo and so was invited to be formally included in it, which was good fun, and then carried on my search.

eglise st gertrude church tubize belgium october octobre 2016I walked past the really beautiful Church of St Gertrude and eventually came across a fritkot on the way out of town. a big bag of chips and garlic sauce was beautiful and as I sauntered back to the railway station I noticed that if I had come out of the station building via the second door, I would have been right by a fritkot.

GRRRRR!

The train brought me to Brussels-Midi and then we had more excitement as our train to Leuven via the Airport arrived at the wrong platform and we all had to run for it.

By 0045, freezing cold, I was back in my little room in my hostel. I’d had a lovely day out with good company, and now I’ll have a good night’s sleep ready for my trip tomorrow.

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Sunday 13th March 2016 – PHEW!

When was the last time that I was up and about and eating breakfast long before the alarm went off? And on a Sunday too! And what has surprised me more than anything else is that after all of the travels that I was on last night, that I managed to make it back here in time.

But start as you mean to go on. And before you start, I perhaps ought to warm you that the sum total of my travels last night comes to something about 2200 words.

You have been warned.

I started off last night by falling asleep watching a film on the laptop last night and it wasn’t long after that at all before I was on the road. It started off at first as if I hadn’t done a great deal because I’d been away with a group of people. There was a timetable for us and on the first day we had to inspect half a dozen countries and on the second day another half-dozen, on the third, yet another half-dozen and so on. This didn’t leave me much time to be going off on a nocturnal ramble but then I found myself in Chester. I don’t know exactly where I was living but it was on top of a bunk-bed somewhere and this was quite a long way off the ground and difficult to climb on to. There had been a young girl that I had quite fancied in the past when I was younger, and so had a few of my friends, but she had started to go out with a boy who was older than us and quite a bit older than her. There was some kind of correspondence that had taken place between the two of them, and one of these letters had fallen into my hands. I was busy parcelling up this letter into a brown envelope and trying to write a letter to one of these friends of mine to tell him about this letter. Obviously the contents of this letter were interesting and I reckoned that it was worth a couple of quid for me to give him this letter to read and I could buy myself a pint of beer. The difficulty that I was having was to make my letter sound sufficiently encouraging and interesting to make him part with the money and it was taking me hours to think of the ideal form of wording.
The next port of call started off to be quite amusing. I was out and about with a dwarf and we were trying to book ourselves into a hotel. While we were there at the reception desk, a message came downstairs to the effect that a woman in one of the rooms required a companion. Of course, the ears of the dwarf and I pricked immediately up, imagining full well what might have been meant by that and so as soon as we had finished registering ourselves into our room, we shot off to the room that had been mentioned. In the room we found a girl who was totally surprised by our intrusion because that wasn’t the kind of companion that she meant. She wanted a companion to talk to and confide in. All three of us were taken by surprise at what had just unfolded. The dwarf then left the room to go back down to reception and arrange a room for himself I started to chat to this girl and it seemed that she was intending to stay not for just one night but until the middle of next week and so I jokingly suggested that I could check myself into her room for a couple of nights and see how it goes. I slid quietly into her bed (it was a big double-bed)while she was adjusting her hair and her night attire and she didn’t seem to mind at all.
I’m clearly going to have to keep up these injections and anti-allergy patches and so on if this is the kind of thing that happens to me during the night. I’ve never had this kind of luck when I’ve been on my travels in real life.
Anyway, after all of this, I made a guest appearance as Sherlock Holmes (not for the first time just recently either) in the case of a girl who had been murdered. There were five people who had been arrested in connection with this and the newspapers were making ever such a fuss about all of this, how there was some really rough street in Leicester (why Leicester?) where all of the criminals seem to live and how this case was connected with this. But it turned out that only one of these five people was connected with this street
I next found myself out and about with Terry and Liz, but it wasn’t Liz but my friend Helena from when she was quite young (and making her debut in these voyages too). We’d all been for a drive out and had stopped somewhere in the salubrious surroundings of somewhere that looked like a gent’s restroom and changing rooms for a sports ground, but somewhere that had clearly seen better days and was creosoted rather like an outdoor toilet of the 1950s. We were all hot and sweaty, having been for a really good walk and we were all thirsty. Terry produced a tangerine for himself and Liz (or Helena) said that she was going to have something else and no-one asked me what I wanted. This depressed me a little, but then Helena produced an orange, a really nice juicy one, peeled it and gave it to me, which I thought was really nice. She asked me to save her a segment, which of course I was only too happy to do. While we were here, we were listening to the radio. Speaking was Mike Harris, the chairman of the TNS football club. The club used to play at a ground in the village of Llansantffraid but had moved up the road to the old army football stadium at Park Hall near Oswestry. He’d offered to sell the ground to the local community on some kind of share basis, £10 per share. This was of course about 10 years ago and property prices had risen dramatically since then and now the local council was trying to buy the ground at the price that Mike Harris had asked for it 10 years ago, presumably to sell on for redevelopment and make a profit based on today’s values. It goes without saying that Mike Harris was not at all willing to sell it under those terms and conditions, and this discussion was the basis of the radio programme that was being broadcast. What was interesting about all of this is that from where we were, we could see the old football ground across the valley behind a shopping precinct in the distance (which incidentally bears no resemblance whatever to the actual site or situation of the ground). I immediately dashed to the car to fetch my camera because what was going through my mind was that if this broadcast was live, everyone would be down at the football ground right now and the ground would therefore be open. After all, the old ground at Llansantffraid is one of the places that I’ve yet to visit while I’ve been on my travels around the various Welsh football grounds (this is in fact actually the case). The others saw my camera and wondered what I was going to do, and so I explained. But I had to go to the bathroom first, and this was when I awoke – right at that moment, because I actually did have to go to the bathroom. And once more, I found all of my bedclothes all over the floor. Rushing to the car for the camera must have been the reason for that.
After the bathroom break, which was actually the Easter break for me, I found myself back at work. The first thing that happened was that one of my colleagues said “hello” to me, which took me completely by surprise. And all of the new vehicles had arrived – new white vans of various shapes and sizes (and “H”-registered too, which was something of a complete surprise). We were to swap our vehicles for the new ones but I couldn’t find the one that had been allocated to me, and I couldn’t find a place to park my own either as the car park was full. So I went back to my desk and started to chat to Anne-Marie, a chat that went on for ages while I was trying to do some work. And someone had put a pile of files on my desk with all kinds of post in there dating back to 12 months and even more, all kinds of legal stuff and so on, a problem that I solved in the good old-fashioned and well-tried way of simply “losing” the post somewhere inside the file and filing the file away on the filing racks, where they would be lost for quite some time. Once Anne-Marie had wandered off, I went to take my coffee things back but I couldn’t leave the office by the front as it was all closed in with windows rather like the front end of the upper deck of a double-decker bus. Walking back up the other end I came upon Anne-Marie and her two friends Caroline and Theresa, lounging about on one of the side-on seats that you find over the rear wheel of the lower deck of a double-deck Lodekka type bus. I said “hiya, girls”to them but they all turned their backs to me which I thought was rather impolite. What had I done now? So downstairs with my coffee things, I found myself out on the edge of a cricket ground where a match was due to be played sometime soon, somewhere out towards Stafford. There was a huge discussion taking place about this match and about the players. I hadn’t been selected (I don’t think that I expected to be) but it seemed that a couple of footballers from FC Pionsat St Hilaire, Gregory amongst them, were going to be playing and the person who was organising it, none other than Mark Dawson, was urging the rest of the team to welcome them. Mark had been waving around a yard brush which had a plastic handle, but people had been stubbing out their cigarettes on it and burning the handle, so I took it from Mark and put it back up against the wall. “It wasn’t me” said Mark. “I don’t smoke”. I replied that I knew that he didn’t, but nevertheless it was marked and so I put it out of everyone’s way. There was someone else there with a Velocette Venom which had become the subject of some discussion. The owner said that it had cost £129 new but now it’s worth about £66,000. The bike was being pushed around and so I put it up on a piece of hard-standing right by this little building where we were congregating. Someone said that we had been told not to park motorbikes up there but I replied that it was OK because it had its centre-stand up on a paving slab. From here I was heading off onwards down south past Stafford and I noticed that Mark didn’t have transport and so expecting him to be heading now for the cricket pavilion, I asked him if he wanted a lift. I was in my big old Senator so I opened the door for him and he told me to drop him off near the town hall in Stoke on Trent, about 10 miles away through the traffic in the opposite direction and that will cost me a couple of hours in time. But a promise is a promise so I bit my lip and set off.
And I still haven’t finished yet either. Because all of this ramble about me being at work seemed to have started off with me being on a wide-bodied jet aeroplane (and I do mean “wide” – it was rather like a cinema auditorium). I seemed to be the first on board so I chose my seat in the central part but against the aisle, and put my black fleece there. There were four air hostesses in a bunch over on the other side in the aisle and they waved me over, so leaving my jacket behind, I went over to see what they wanted. “Ohh, come over here and sit by us” they said. “Why? What’s up?” I asked. “Am I the only passenger on the aeroplane?” “Ohh no” they replied. “But you’re first on so you can sit here if you like”. And so I went and fetched my jacket, and then came back to sit by these air hostesses. I’d boarded this plane by chance, really, just looking to get away for a few days and this was the first plane in. It was flying out to the Channel Islands somewhere on this Friday late afternoon and was coming back on Sunday evening, which suited me fine for a short break.
No wonder it was a surprise to find me up and about so early this morning after all of that.

So with all of this effort I had another day of sitting and vegetating. I mean – it took me all morning just to type up my notes from through the night.

But this afternoon, I finished all of the notes from September 2015 and I’ll soon be ready to start on the ones for August. And then, I have 2014 to do. Then, I can take the 2013 notes and merge all of them together in the appropriate places. It’s not going to be something that will be over in a day or so.

But with it being Sunday, Liz has been cooking. For lunch, we had home-made mushroom soup (made with real home-made mushrooms of course), followed by vegan carrot-cake for our afternoon snack, and then for tea we had home-made nut roast followed by home-made vegan chocolate chip ice-cream. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … whenever (if ever) I’m fit enough to leave here, I’ll immediately try to find something else wrong with me.

And so on that note, I’ll leave you all. I’m not even going for a walk because I need the early night as I’m off to Montlucon and the hospital early in the morning and I’ll be doing more than enough walking while I’m there.

And if you’ve managed to read down this far then congratulations because it’s a mere 2474 words, a new record posting for a blog entry, and by a country mile as well.

Good night!

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Friday 25th December 2015 – MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I was going to say “Merry Christmas to all my readers” and to refer you to the old tale about Crewe Bus Station – the one that I have recounted before. Every year, in fact, or so it seems, so I’ll give you a rest this year.

Instead, I’ll simply refer you to my nocturnal rambles, such as they were and, more importantly, such as I remember because one thing that I’ve learnt this last evening was that it doesn’t matter whether I do have anything to drink or not during the evening, I still have to leave the comfort of my stinking pit on several occasions, something that breaks up my rhythm of sleep and, more often than not, causes all memory of my nocturnal rambles to disappear.

What I do remember about last night was struggling up Gresty Road past the football ground, dragging two huge suitcases with me. I was heading for a cheap hotel and I knew that there were rooms available at my price range in a dingy hotel down on the east side of Mill Street (in the days before that whole area was wiped away in the slum clearances) but much nearer to where I was going was the Royal Hotel up on Nantwich Road. And while this was a much more expensive hotel, there were a few rooms available at just £20:00 and I’d stayed in one of them once before. So hoping that there was still something of that nature available, in I went. Struggling through the door was one thing, navigating my way through the dining room and all of the false partition walls was another thing entirely. And when I did finally find the reception desk, people kept on pushing in front of me and there I was, worrying that if there were any rooms at £20:00, they would be all long gone by the time that I was seen to.
Somehow we wandered on past there into Nantwich and there I encountered a girl who had lived close to where we lived as kids in Shavington and who went to the same school as me. In real life she was a “big” girl, and I DO mean big, but last night she was a quarter of the size, with different-coloured hair and a very different personality – a completely different girl in fact. But seeing as how I never ever thought for a moment about her at the time, then how come, over 40 years later, she suddenly appeared last night? That’s probably the most bizarre thing about all of this

There was much more to it than that too, but that’s long since gone out of the window.

Anyway, there I was, crawling out of bed some time (but not much) after 07:45 and having my morning injection. Breakfast consisted of speciality bread (I had fig, nut and raisin bread rolls) and a huge home-made fruit salad that was absolutely delicious.

opening presents sauret besserve puy de dome franceNo need for me to tell you what happened next.

With a couple of young kids in the house we had Christmas-present-opening. Father Christmas had been and left piles of presents around the tree. And even Strawberry Moose entered into the festive spirit of events by supplying presents to all of the people present, such a friendly and generous moose that he is.

Everyone had a great time opening their presents and then we stopped for food

We decided that there would not be a big meal as such, but instead we would eat at intervals throughout the day. 12:30 saw us tucking into the starters, which was a kind of running buffet of all kinds of different nibbles. Raw vegetables in France prepared ready for eating are called crudités which is highly appropriate considering that I am here. After all, if you want crudities, then no-one is more qualified than Yours Truly.

There was a great deal of chatting to friends on the laptop too, although I didn’t have much to say to anyone. Most of my friends have their own family lives and Christmas is, after all, a time for families.

We had our main course at about 16:30. A real Christmas dinner with all of the correct veg including roast potatoes, and brussels sprouts cooked to perfection. I had a big slice of nut roast that went down a treat.

Dessert was at 18:30 and, unfortunately, no Christmas pudding. No-one but me likes it around here. Instead, there was a couple of bûches de Noël and for me, a Black Forest gateau, made of home-made vegan chocolate cake and home-made ice cream in a very large coupe and topped off with soya cream.

christmas day full moon sauret besserve puy de dome franceBut one thing that was astonishing this evening was the moon. It’s full moon today, the first time that it’s been full moon on Christmas Day since 1977. And a huge moon that it was too.

Unfortunately, the camera on my mobile ‘phone isn’t up to as much as I would like it to be and so it can’t reproduce the moon as it was, but it’s the best that I can manage.

And so that was Christmas. Nothing much happened from my point of view but that’s not important. In a house with young kids, the most exciting part of it all is watching the delight on their faces as they see what Santa has brought them. That was certainly very much to the fore today. It’s all about kids and all about families, and I can have my own private Christmas another time.

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Monday 26th October 2015 – AND THERE I WAS …

… deep in the arms of Morpheus, when the alarm went off. And I sat bolt upright and as I did so, all memory of where I’d been and what I’d been doing was completely wiped away.

After an early breakfast I reviewed everything that I’d written, collected up some music and then shot off to Marcillat, dodging the tractors on the way.

Recording the programmes didn’t take long, but what did take a good while was to find the events for the next month. We hadn’t been sent the dates by the tourist information office and the office was closed today. But scrounging around produced enough events to make up a decent programme or two.

Back at Liz and Terry’s, we had lunch (I had what was left over from last night) and vegan ginger cake, and Terry and I made some plans for the rest of the week.

Recording the Radio Arverne sessions was straightforward too and then Liz and I went off to do some shopping. With grapes at just €2:49 a kilo I bought a supply, but it goes without saying that they didn’t make it home.

In exchange for a coffee, Liz showed me how to use my mobile phone as a modem to power my laptop and now I can use my laptop anywhere in France provided that there’s a mobile phone signal, even if there isn’t a wi-fi signal.

Back here I had some work to catch up on and I made a quick meal too. But what has caught me by surprise was that with not having used the inverter at all today, of the 200 amp-hours of solar energy that I received today, 168 amp-hours of it went into the 12-volt immersion heater and the temperature went off the scale. Consequently I went and had a really good washing-up session of plates and dishes.

Tomorrow, what I’ll be doing depends upon the weather. If it’s raining, I’m off to Terry’s. But if it’s dry, he’s coming around here.

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Sunday 25th October 2015 – I’VE RARELY SEEN …

… such a one-sided football match as this. It wasn’t that Charensat were any good because they weren’t – it’s just that Pionsat were so flaming awful. For the first half, the whole team was asleep – their bodies were out on the pitch but the rest of them were miles away. For the second half, three or four of them managed to wake up and it was slightly better, but equally, three or four could have stayed in the dressing room for all the good that they did and no-one would have missed them. Pionsat, relegated from the 1st Division last season, are going to be spending several long, cold winters in Divison 2 if they can’t get it together.

Time and time again, Charensat swarmed right through the Pionsat defence as if it wasn’t there (which it wasn’t) and there were about 20 one-on-ones with Matthieu in the Pionsat goal. A few he saved, but by far the most of them were ballooned miles over the bar or miles wide of the post. The Charensat finishing was appalling. On one occasion Pionsat’s defence, such as it was, stayed around arguing with the linesman for not giving an offside instead of following up the ball while two of the Charensat players beamed down on Matthieu. He saved the first shot and had his defence been playing like grown-ups they would have intercepted the loose ball at the very least. But instead, the ball fell kindly to the other Charensat player, who blasted it about 30 feet over the bar, unmarked from about 10 yards out. This was totally embarrassing, from both teams’ points of view.

In fact several Pionsat players spent so much time arguing with the ref and the linesman instead of following the ball and it was totally unnecessary. Players of Pionsat’s experience should know better. In fact, one of Pionsat’s attackers, too busy arguing with the ref instead of concentrating on the game, was caught offside in what would have been a marvellous attacking position had he been paying attention.

Charensat did score one goal, and how they were limited to one is totally beyond me. They were completely in control of this match. And then we had the totally unbelievable. Matthieu kicked a long high ball right out of the area high up front. Cedric leapt up and headed it on over the defence, and Nico, running on, lobbed it over the keeper for the equaliser. The ball didn’t touch the ground until it was in the back of the net.

But like I said earlier, it’s going to be a long hard couple of years for Pionsat.

Now this morning, I would have had a lovely night’s long sleep except that Bane of Britain somehow confused things so that the reminder for the radio programmes went off this morning instead of tomorrow morning.

And I was on my travels too. I’d been in the far north of Labrador in a vehicle which was like a “Bigfoot” but with a car body of the late 1940s and how that cruised over the uneven roads. Back in civilisation I’d met up with Nerina again and we’d spent a while in a cheap hotel in some dingy town before I had to leave. Given the price of the return ticket on public transport, I went to the darker side of town to buy a really cheap car (I actually did this once in 1995 when I was in London and ended up with a £70 Ford Cortina instead of a Eurostar ticket, and on another occasion it was cheaper to hire a car and put the petrol in to drive from London to Bath rather than pay the fare for the train). Anyway, we had a good look around all of this area at the cheap cars for sale and one of the vehicles at which I was looking was a BMC MG-1300 in white and pale green. I was wondering whether I should ask her if she still had her Wolseley but I decided that it was best not to sho too much interest.

After breakfast I had a relax and didn’t do too much at all. But by about 13:30 the temperature in the verandah was 19°C, the temperature in the 12-volt immersion heater was 36°C thanks to the sun that we had and thus the fully-charged batteries, and so I had a tepid shower in the corner of the verandah with the warm water and a jug. And nice it was too, especially now that I have clean clothes too.

Still plenty of time before I needed to go and so I cut my hair and made myself some butties, and then I was off to Charensat.

After the football match I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the radio programmes that we will be recording.

viaduc des fades gorges de la sioule puy de dome franceThe way that I went is not a road that I take very often. It’s from St Priest down to the Barrage des Fades and for the first time today I noticed that at a certain spot there’s a stunning view of the Gorges de la Sioule and also of the Viaduc des Fades from an angle from which I’ve never seen it before.

We did what we had to and Liz made a beautiful vegan meal complete with ginger cake, and Terry and I made a few plans.

Back here, I haven’t done much and I’ll be having an early night. We have a lot to do tomorrow.

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Saturday 11th October 2014 – BACK TO THE DAILY GRIND

I was on my travels again last night, and it was once more with the guitarist/singer and drummer with whom I played for a couple of years in the mid-70s and who have been featuring rather a lot just recently in these pages.

We were in a pub in Liverpool sitting at a table waiting for things to happen before we went on stage and who should come and sit next to us but John Wetton. He’s a bassist/singer of no little repute, having appeared in several supergroups of the 70s and early 80s and though while he’s not on my list of top-10 bassists, I was still relishing having a good chat with him and maybe even getting him onstage with us in some capacity.

But for some unknown reason, the other two were being rather abusive and offensive to him and after a couple of minutes he left. I was quite upset at that because it’s not every day that one has the opportunity to be in the intimate presence of a superstar.

With all of those issues having been dealt with, I heaved myself out of my stinking pit and set about making breakfast. That wasn’t as easy as it might have been either, because I couldn’t remember where the coffee was, and I couldn’t remember which glass I used for my orange juice, all that kind of thing. It’s astonishing how, after just 45 days away from home, how much of my old routine that I have forgotten.

And talking of being back in the routine, once breakfast was out of the way I sat down and started work on the next batch of Radio Anglais stuff. And happy that I’d dealt with the shopping issues yesterday, I could have a really good whack at it. Three or four hours of uninterrupted work and I’d written four programmes – a mere 2774 words. When you can find the rhythm, it’s easy to understand how it was that people like Enid Blyton and Earl Stanley Gardner could knock off 5,000 or 6,000 words in a day on a consistent basis if they could be totally uninterrupted (except for someone serving up mugs of hot coffee on a regular basis too).

By now though, the weather had cleared and the sun was shining. That was something that was quite uexpected, but welcome nevertheless. We even, just for a fleeting moment, had an overcharge of electricity and I wish that I had thought on and reconnected the 12-volt immersion heater.

Later on in the afternoon, I went round to Liz and Terry’s. This was to rehearse the radio programmes because Liz is going to be busy tomorrow, and we also had a lovely vegan lasagne followed by vegan ginger cake. You’ve no idea how well Liz and Terry look after me.

Back home, I did a few more things on the computer and, just as I was about to settle down for an early night the internet suddenly sprang back into life. I restarted the computer and settled down to something of a long night. I had plenty of work to do.

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Thursday 26th December 2013 – ALMOST TOO GOOD …

liz messenger vegan christmas cake les guis virlet puy de dome france
… to cut into, isn’t it?

And believe me, it tastes every bit as good as it looks – I promise you that. And the nicest thing of all about it is that I have no-one with whom to share it – it’s all mine!

So this morning I finally managed my lie-in. Even though I was awake quite early, it was 10:30 before I heaved myself out of my stinking pit, and quite right too. After breakfast I watched a DVD or two and then I had some work to do.

Now I know that I have said that I don’t work on Bank Holidays but there were one or two things that needed attention.

Firstly, I’ll very shortly be rewiring the electricity in the barn. And for that I need a new control panel on the southern wall. In order to make it work properly, I need to make a list of the items that are going to be wired into it. That’s not the sort of thing that one can do à l’improviste.
Secondly, my rock radio programme is getting a little out of hand. I’ve no idea what music I’ve been playing and, quite by accident, I discovered that I’d played the same track twice in three months and that’s not really on. Furthermore, I’m not on line all that often and I need access to band biographies and the like. I’ve already researched tons of stuff and so with all of this, it seems to be to be a good idea to create a database with all of the information on it so that it’s immediately to hand.

This evening I’ve had even more exciting things to do. I lit a fire and I cooked my Christmas dinner. Everything went according to plan and was cooked to perfection, even the sprouts (not overcooked) and the roast potatoes (done to perfection)

And it tasted magnificent too – but not as good as Liz Messenger’s cake.

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Sunday 10th June 2012 – FLAMING JUNE?

It’s more like blasted November right now.

It’s been flaming raining all flaming day. 17mm (not cm, Krys) has fallen so far and a quick referral shows that since I came back from Canada there has been only one rain-free day.

I woke up at 09:20 (and that’s early for a Sunday, isn’t it?) and heard the torrential downpour that was going on outside. That was enough to make me turn over and go back to sleep and there I stayed until a much-more-reasonable 11:30.

No point in getting up in this weather.

After breakfast I watched a film while I reviewed the latest edition of the magazine that I receive that gives me info that I need for the radio programmes.

A few likely topics in there as well as a few extra questions to add to the “20 Questions” that I keep in reserve for if ever we are caught short-handed for news.

After lunch I started to tidy up a little in here. Only a little – I can’t get the hang of this “tidying-up” lark. But I did make a useful discovery.

The wooden box that you may remember me building to keep the fruit and veg in makes a useful and quite comfortable seat and so I’ve moved that into the kitchen in the verandah where it ought to be, and put a load of stuff in it.

This evening I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the radio programmes. 6 weeks for each of the two radio stations. That should take us up to the end of July which is comforting, and keeps us out of mischief.

Liz made some really nice chick-pea and spinach curry as well as a really tasty cake.

I asked Terry if he could order some ink for me for my printyer seeing as how I have run out, but he did better than that. A few of us bought the identical printer a while ago, one of these Epson SX115 all-in-one machines that were on special offer at €49.

While they work just fine, they are rather sloooooow. So Liz, who has to print out loads of stuff for her teaching, has bought a new laser printer that does 17 pages per minute rather than the Epson’s 17 minutes per page (that really is unfair – there is nothing at all wrong with these Epsons in an ordinary domestic environment, especially at that price and at the price that the ink refills are available).

Conseuently I’ve ended up with a box of inks and a spare printer, for which I am extremely grateful.

And it’s still flaming raining.

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Sunday 27th November 2011 – I WAS A BIT PUT OUT TODAY.

But before I tell you about that, let me first tell you the good news.

Although it was late when I went to bed, I managed to sleep for 6 hours or so. And after breakfast, I finished off the scripts for the radio programmes that we will be recording this week for Radio Anglais

I had to rush though as Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing away at Combronde at 13:00 but just as I was stepping out of the door to go, Percy Penguin chose that moment to ring me.
“You fell on your head? It might knock some sense into you”.
It’s nice to have friends, isn’t it?

And so at Combronde, 5 minutes late and the place all deserted. There was no-one around at all. So what’s going on here?

col de ceyssat puy de dome franceAnyway, that was an hour and a half and 75 kilometres wasted. There was clearly no point in staying on here so I fuelled up and went off to Ceyssat for the 1st XI match instead.

That long drive took me round by the Puy de Dome – right past the foot of it, and it was remarkable to notice the change in the weather. From my humble abode to round about St Bonnet it was grey miserable and overcast.

But south of there we had glorious sunshine. The Puy de Dome (and you pass within about 200 metres of it) was especially nice. But once over the Col de Ceyssat I drove straight into a fog and that was that.

I met Bernard the club president. he said that the 3rd XI match was cancelled, and so I berated him for not sending me a text – after all, I told him last night that I would be going. It’s a couple of times now that they have done this on me and I’m becoming rather fed up.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot olby ceyssat puy de dome franceBut the actual match cheered me up considerably.

Olby-Ceyssay were a pretty poor side and FC Pionsat St Hilaire had no trouble whatever in demolishing them 4-0, hardly breaking sweat in doing so.

it’s a shame that they can’t play like that every week.

From there I went on round to Liz and Terry’s where we rehearsed our radio programmes – we’re recording next week.

Liz had baked potato pie and rice pudding for afters, and she even made up a doggy bag and a lump of fruitcake for me to take home. It’s that kind of thing that makes it worth-while having good friends, and helps me to forget all of the worries and disagreements.

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Friday 24th December 2010 – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

And hasn’t the year passed quickly? It hardly seems like a moment since I rushed over the finishing of the stairs up to my attic and then locked myself in.

heavy snowfall les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo this morning was another late start, due in the main by my being confused about the time. And the darkness of the room was due to the skylights being covered in snow. 24 hours late, yes indeed, but it got here in the end.

And once I was up and about I did a little more in my bedroom with putting up some more framework.

But I didn’t stick at it long and after lunch and a wash and shave it was picking my way gingerly through the snow and ice to Terry and Liz’s for Christmas Eve, which was very nice of them. Liz cooked a gorgeous Indian meal and then we had a listen to our radio programme.

And even though it’s me who says it, we sounded really good on the broadcast – exactly how I wanted it to be – all nice and informal and happy and partying.

At 22:30 I came home and it took me over 45 minutes – the roads were dreadful. But I was armed with a Christmas cake and a prezzy – it’s really nice having friends like Terry and Liz.

But if you are reading this before Christmas Day evening, you might want to listen to our radio programme as it’s being streamed at 23:00 Europe, 22:00 UK and 17:00 EST – go to
http://www.radioarverne.com
and click on the link “Arverne en Ligne”

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Saturday 27th February 2010 – I had a quiet day today.

Up early enough and then after breakfast I did a few rearrangements downstairs and then came up here to catch up on some correspondence.

Lunchtime saw me head into St Eloy and shopping. There was nothing exciting at LIDL and so apart from the usual necessities my hands stayed in my pocket. I went to see the European Cardboard Box Mountain otherwise known as Claude’s new apartment and made sure that he and Francoise were ok.

This afternoon I went to the mairie to see the mayor. I’m a firm believer in turning things to my advantage and what with the Parisian being up to no good and the roadmaking project for Claude’s barn I’ll get my parking spaces yet! No harm in turning the screw a little.

This evening Guus and Lieneke came round. They are going back to the Netherlands tomorrow and so I invited them to have some birthday cake. They bought me a little birthday present which was quite nice of them.

And that was that really. No football so I haven’t done anything else.

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Wednesday 24th February 2010 – Happy birthday to me!

Yes but at my age you don’t count the years you’ve had you count those that you have left. Liz and Terry kindly invited me around for tea and Liz made me a vegan chocolate cake. There were candles on it too and I went to blow them out but I was driven back by the heat.

Best present though was from Amazon. Many of you know about the Amazon waiting lists where you add your name and your offer of a price to a list of any out-of-stock item you want and then some retailer does his best to match the stock. Now back in 1976 Hawkwind did an album entitled “Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music” and Jackie Marshall liberated a copy from Nantwich Library for me to tape. It’s totally worn out now as it’s had plenty of airtime due primarily to “Reefer Madness” and “Steppenwolf” – the latter of which was my “theme tune” for a number of years and still is I suppose. Unfortunately Dave Brock didn’t like the album (and I really can’t think why) and so when it was released on CD back in 1986 he quickly suppressed it. It’s as rare as hens’ teeth and second-hand copies have changed hands for over a hundred quid. But yesterday morning a copy appeared in my mailbox for just £12:50. I’m ever so impressed.

The neighbour was at work again down the lane and so I’ve been reflecting about the situation. And what I’ve decided to do is to enlist Terry and Liz to help me clear some of the waste land around here one day early next week and put the Passat and the Escort onto it so that they are out of the way. And then enlist Bernard from the football club with his digger to dig out the patch I was always going to dig out, put some stones onto it and use that to park Caliburn and the trailers.

Sometimes you need something of an incentive to get you motivated.

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Sunday 14th February 2010 – We’ve still got tons of snow …

… even if nothing much has fallen within the last 24 hours. I only had to breathe on the solar panels and the light scattering of snow blew away. Hot stuff am I, what?

So after a … errr … leisurely breakfast I came back up here and swotted up on French building permits and so on. I can tell you everything that there is to know about it – including the fact that I can erect a statue of 11.99 metres height and 39.99 cubic metres volume in my garden without planning permission! Dunno about you but my imagination is working overtime. Just think of it – Turdi de Hatred, Caligula and Her Horse, Pol Pot’s Sibling, Andy Pandy and Aunt Ada Doom (and whatsisname that she saw in the woodshed) 11.99 metres high and right next to the beichstuhl! I could have hours of endless fun with all of that.

Works of art are also covered by that exemption and that gives me enormous scope. When you think of Tracey Eminem’s unmade bed being exhibited at the Hate Gallery I’m sure that my verandah and its contents would be covered by this. And when you think that the disorder that I can create even in an empty room, well just imagine it – “no, this object 11.99 metres high and 39.99 cubic metres volume is not a new house – it’s next year’s hot favourite for the Turnip Prize!” In any case, anything that I ever build is certainly a work of art and people come from miles around to gaze in bewilderment at my efforts.

This afternoon I went down to Liz and Terry’s to discuss this programme. Julie should have come with me (she’s our first guest) but she’s snowed (or rather iced) in. This is one of the perils that you have to risk when you buy a house by a bridge alongside a river – the only way out is upwards and with the gorges around here being so steep, if they don’t grit the roads then you are stuck.

So I went on my own instead – but not that I minded, it just meant more vegan fruit cake for me! Down to Pionsat was … errr … interesting but the D227 between Pionsat and St Gervais was clear even over the Font Nanaud. From St Gervais to Liz and Terry’s was also exciting.

So having done what we could I came back. And that was even more exciting as it was trying to snow down there. But I encountered two snowplough-gritters so they are taking it seriously for Monday morning’s commuter traffic. It’s also forecast bright sunny weather too for tomorrow but as you know I have my suspicions about that kind of thing.

And Claude’s removal is postponed again. His son never came up and so nothing has been packed. They’ll be running out of time at this rate.

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