Well we’re finally back online , although I can’t for the life of me work out what it was I thought I was missing…except for the shopping obviously. As we haven’t two euros to rub together it hardly matters, although there are people who are still expecting Christmas presents - in that selfish way they have. Every year it’s the same.
Since being thrust back onto the interweb Matt has been making merry with the Birmingham City Web site and meteos agogo ( with their ever conflicting weather reports) , Etienne is back on Guitar Pro 5 and Louis is asking to watch Youtube and ‘Funny Starwars’. I can report that apart from Chad Vader the shop manager (or whatever he’s called) ‘Funny Starwars’ doesn’t actually exist. That basically sums up what the 21st century advance in global communication has brought to our house. Pathetique n’est ce pas.
The thing that has most rocked Matt’s boat about having the internet back is that he can now listen to English radio again and people talking about football and fresh legs rather than to my melange of musical melancholia.
No luck, so far, in getting the WIFI radio to work so no ‘Book at bedtime’ in the offing, although evenings of that and ‘I’m a Celebrity…’ before it would be too good to be true and no one deserves to have that much good fortune in these troubled days .

As the days all seem to have been full since our lives went offline I guess that stuff must have happened but I can’t immediately think of anything even remotely interesting.
Did I mention the Gibson Les Paul Goldtop competition that we were entering to try and win Etienne a guitar? I can’t remember if that was before or after ‘crisis point’ but anyway it so happens that the competition closed some time ago, whilst we were incommunicado and ‘Going for the gold’ is not now an option, which is a huge shame as I have the story board right here for the winning video – bizarrely! I am fully intending to go ahead with filming and to send it in all the same – although the only email address I can find is that of the service department in Nashville or wherever they have their HQ. I’m trying to think of something suitably arresting for the subject of the email to ensure that it gets a late viewing. The dress rehearsal took place on Sunday evening and didn’t go smoothly. Matt’s diamond skull mask presented the biggest problem in so far as it doesn’t have any eye holes so he couldn’t see what he was doing or react fast enough when the dog ran away with a vital prop – the letter written in blood. I found it the following morning lying dew sodden and illegible on the grass. One step forward: two steps back.
Actually that was the least of the problems, which included Louis ( the lighting technician to give him his proper title) storming off on atleast three occassions and we eventually had to call a stop to proceedings due to a smell of burning roast chicken from the oven… but you have to take advantage of the muse when it appears. I’m hoping to get everyone on board for the final filming tomorrow evening but have a feeling that it isn’t going to be that easy to rally the troops. Interest seems to have waned…..

Well if only a little of Alan’s lack of adventure last week had rubbed off on us at this end happy we would be.

On Saturday morning we woke up to discover that the internet connection had disconnected  ie.  Neuf had done one - as a result of the fact that I had, on the very same day about 7 days ago, simultaneously cancelled our subscription with them and signed up with Orange ( from whom we have heard absolutely nothing since)…not the wisest of moves to do both on the same day and another crap internet provider to boot- well there’s a surprise.

For this reason  - and the fact that we were supposed to have gone down last week and didn’t because of predicted snow - we decided to go to Lyon to see Nicki and Martin ( who have just bought their house near Orange) and to travel down with them to the new house the day after.

It’s easy to forget just how vast France is when in a car with less easy  travellers.  I refer, of course, to our two lovely younger children - who were actually incredibly well behaved for the first leg of the journey to Lyon ( where they found an XBox 360 and a giant trampoline) - but less so yesterday when we had to drive down south in monsoon conditions, listening all the while to Radio Trafic talking us throught the progress of an alert Orange in the south- which was luckily confined to pastures south of Avignon so narrowly missing us - although we did seem to experience the quite violent fallout.  We were blown about quite a bit  coming into Orange, aquaplaned twice on the autoroute and, having been to Sarrians to see the house and drop some stuff off,  ended up in a B+B Hotel on the outskirts of Orange at 5pm in the pitch black, to continued monsoon rain and gale force winds.  Just in time, as it happened, to watch the Grand Prix at 6pm, go to the Hotel Ibis next door for dinner, where an elderly couple of Germans were complaining that the menu hadn’t been translated into their mother tongue - illiciting nil sympathy, has some very nice lamb chops and ratatouille and then back for a James Bond film.  I couldn’t tell you which was it as I was reading a book, but Sophie Marceau was in it - obviously, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered showing it. 

I could vaguely recommend the hotel, the most evident plus point being that you can get a family room for four (which included 2 singles and a huge double bed - all of which had a good mattress- very importantly!) and a big shower…..although the water wouldn’t warm up.  The woman on the desk assured us that it would be working by the morning,  when we complained to another woman behind the desk, who assured us that it would be working later in the day.  Who cares,  we were off anyway…..although not before breakfast  a highly unrepresentative colour photo of which could be found in the brochure.  Still it’s always good to start the day on a humour high.

The good news of the day is that it has finally stopped raining and we are back in Lyon where the kids have been returned to their Nirvana wherein reside the trampoline and XBox and Matt to his with shower with hot water.  Tomorrow it’s back home to the Limousin and as Alfie mentioned nothing today about an Orange Box arriving I don’t expect that there’ll be a blog….quite possibly for some time!

As Halloween festivities abound this evening this is an early blog. Still no one has offered to take over the Friday slot - can you believe it. Niall, if you’re reading, I think you may well be the man for the job. I shall await an email….!

The pumpkin (courtesy of Judith and Ian) has been sculpted and adorned with some plastic Mr Potato head type accessories sent by my mum from Tescos – which spared the yearly disappointment which always results from my pathetic artistic endeavors, and a pumpkin pie is in the making.

Alfie and punky accountant are at Gouhaut again today. They came back at lunchtime and proudly announced that they had finished painting the first bedroom. Matt phoned after lunch, having arrived there to check out the work, to tell me that they had used about 15litres of Dulux Valentine on a room just over 3 x 3m with a sloping ceiling…..

Holiday tomorrow, which means nothing given that it’s Saturday – except that the shops if open at all will be shut by midday. Matt has also decided to ‘attrape la grippe’ – catch flu or something similar – handily coinciding as it will with his cooking night on Saturday. The lengths that man will go to are astounding.

No headway has been made in plot progression for the Gibson Les Paul video competition. The only constants so far are the Diamond Skull mask and the dog playing an agent of the devil. Not hugely engrossing as it stands but I’m sure after a couple of glasses of wine…..

Right, I have to go the ghouls have arrived.

Well, although not exactly a deluge, it did snow this morning which still counts. So 1 to us, 0 to the unbelievers….you know who you are…Kevin…..amongst others.

Alfie and punky accountant managed to rouse themselves this morning at 8am, despite the freezing weather, and went to work at Gouhaut on the promise that we’ll pay for them to stay somewhere with proper beds at the weekends. Punky, who was painting, really enjoyed himself. He’d never done anything like it before but enjoyed the time to think, apparently…which felt like a small triumph. It also meant that he didn’t have to feel bad about asking for fag money. Tonight we all win.

Etienne, Louis and I went off this morning to buy a birthday present for Mathilde, a school friend whose house they were going to in the afternoon. As it was advertised (by phone the day before) as a party, we all assumed that it was her birthday and ended up buying a ‘memorable’ piece of jewellery which Etienne thought she’d like. As it turned out it wasn’t her birthday at all - which probably explains why her mother looked so confused when we turned up with a gift wrapped box and Etienne’s electric guitar and amp (at the request of friends). That left the whole afternoon free to (instead of doing the admin. or whatever else I should have been doing) trying to download Halloween sound effects for the video we’re trying to do. Being creative it seems isn’t as easy as people make out, even with the internet and without the kids. My piece de la resistance today was making a mask of Damian Hirst’s Diamond skull (with added glitter effects) for Matt to wear in his role as ‘the devil’. Here, too, the dog puts his own slant on the role of Mephistopheles.

As predicted but three days ago Alfie’s return, with Alexandre – the punk accountant?!§! - has already reached it’s nadir. This doesn’t bode well given the prevailing weather conditions and the fact that they, and another friend who has been staying next door too since Friday, have no money.
Matt has tried to find jobs for them to do but we don’t have any spare cash either and it seems that Alfie is keeping the other two in food and fags and will be for the next 10 days, which should be interesting to watch.

I bought them food and beer for the week this morning ( so that I could make sure they were getting something with a vitamin in it) and in return asked Alfs if they would move the delivery of wood into the garage. Not a huge task for young three men in their prime, you’d have thought. Punky accountant didn’t even bother to make an appearance – presumably not wanting to get his clothes ripped.

Ten minutes after they’d finished Alf turns up to ask if he can borrow Matt’s van to go into Firbeix and buy fags as he has no petrol in his car. No was the obviously answer to that and he went off in a huff saying that he’ll be phoning then when he breaks down. I don’t think he can see anything wrong in asking to use our petrol to ferry his friends around on a fag run.

I took over half of our apple crumble last night and this morning found that not one of them had even had a spoonful. They will pay….

In other news – the school holidays have started! It already feels as if they’ve been off for atleast a week and that despite the fact that Etienne was out from 8.45am until 6.30pm on Saturday doing a football tournoi in Limoges and both he and Louis spent the afternoon at a friend’s house yesterday afternoon.
We have been trying to think of an idea for a video to submit for a competition so that Etienne can try and win a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop ( signed by non other than Slash himself) which he has been saving up to buy for the last year. It’s not as easy as it first sounded. Instead we seem to be spending much of the time playing ridiculous games to pass the time. Herewith a photo of Matt and Louis at the kitchen table has now been taken over for ping pong purposes.

Friday again already so the blog will be a short one as there are entertaining committments on the horizon and hopefully celebrations as Matt is currently having his meeting with the mairie at Oradour about their request to buy some land at Les Ollieres. It being Friday we also have people round to eat so I’ve got to get cooking.

Alfie turned up a couple of hours ago – replete with new lip piercing and straggly hair on his face which goes by the name of beard.
I’d promised the kids that I would send him to pick them up from school in his car but what with the facial goings on, his friend in 12 hole Dr Martens, Mohican and UK SUBS t shirt and a car the likes of which have rarely been seen this side of Mumbai I thought that I ought to go instead, at the risk of being ostracised rom the community.

Herewith 2 photos of the dashboard and ceiling!

We’ve been telling everyone we’ve met today that it’s going to snow next week and they have shook their heads and scoffed as if we’d gone completely mad. I can’t believe that we are the only people to have consulted the meteo for next week when the kids are on holiday. As our history teacher used to say attack is the best form of defense. Or was it be prepared?
Anyway we can only hope, despite the fact that I hate snow, that it does fall now so that we don’t look ridiculous. Talking of which find herewith a photo of Alfie and Alexandre playing football outside with the kids:

………today.
The internet contract has been terminated.
I went on line and signed up to Orange so now await a ‘Live box Pro’ to replace the ‘E- Neuf’ Box within the next few days.

The plan was to do the cross-over of servers whilst we were in Orange (the place), where we were supposed to be going on Monday for a few days. Having seen the weather forecast though it doesn’t seem such a great idea.
From being consistently between 6-8° warmer down there than in the Limousin it has now decided to snow next week and go down to around 4° for the entire time we were going to be there. Changing, significantly?, in two weeks when the kids go back to school. Apparently it’s going to be the same round here but atleast we have multimedia entertainment facilities on hand – and Archie and George, the kid’s friends, will be over from England which is always the highlight of their year….and what with Halloween and the promised parcel of tacky Halloween fare that my mum’s put in the post it seems churlish not to stay. We’ll see.
Also it has to be said that Alfie being here alone with his girlfriend and best friend is going to mean that if he’s not watched the central heating and fires in both houses will be on continuously, so that we’ll be coming home to no oil or wood.

We’ll have to keep an eye on the meteo as it is often wrong when asked to predict the weather more than a few hours in advance. Matt currently has weather websites on his favourites running into double figures, which he consults daily and believes the most optimistic, but at the moment the future’s not looking bright…..

Well it certainly is a funny old world (I refer any doubters to the photos of yester eve) and as with all things comedic it’s all in the ……………………………..timing.

I shan’t go into all of the things which have happened in the last couple of weeks. I’ve already listed and had to delete them as it reads like some Faustian pact. Today, however, something very extraordinary happened yet again.

We had gone into Limoges to look at the quality of windows etc for the new build which Dutch Donald wants doing (itself a weird coincidence – but we’ll gloss over that one), when Matt had a call on his mobile from the mairie in Oradour, who want to buy some of the land at Les Ollieres to do a drainage system for the village. It probably doesn’t sound that exciting but it means that if the drainage is put in there we won’t have to put in any septic tanks for the houses,amongst other things, thereby saving 10’s of thousands of euros. Obviously we went to lunch on the back of that piece of good fortune ( cassoulet of mussels, steak and chips, no room for cheese, raspberry bavarois, wine and coffee - 11,30€ and yes it was the restaurant at the Nexon turn off) and when we came home found that the planning permission we’d put in to the same mairie for a house on the land at Les Ollieres had been turned down. Immediately upon reading this it didn’t seem great news and was obviously fate’s way of righting the good fortune of our having a nice lunch…. until we read on and found that the reason is because the land has to be used to put several houses on rather than just one – which is what we wanted to do anyway but thought we’d go for the gradual approach in case the mairie got angsty about too many houses being built.

The only spanner in the timing works is the digger driver who was supposed to be digging out the lake there and was to have started the week before last - when the weather was great…..then it was going to be last week - when the weather was great. Since then we’ve heard nothing at all and the weather isn’t so great now anyway, in fact the word monsoon sprang to mind in the early hours of the morning. I suppose we could just sit back and see if something fortuitous happens but then you remember that luck only happens if you’ve got enough balls in the air and you’re not waiting for it to happen.
Back to Donald’s devis then and revised plans whilst the kids are at ping pong.

Well that’s Alan out of this week’s running but I’m up for beating ‘ Jupitus in a box ‘ and am putting loads of photos onto the blog tonight so that I won’t have to go into the minutiae of how we spent our weekend – which was uneventful at best, bordering on dull. Dull, like everything else in the world, being entirely subjective and a question of degree I have decided to let the photos tell their own tale.

Photo n° 1 is Danny the local farmer, ( whose destiny it is to find me slumped on the road with the dog in tow having had a heart attack) although his eyes are so bad that he’d probably mistake me for road kill and put me in the freezer for xmas.

Photo n° 2 – The spiky business of chestnut picking in Champsac on Saturday morning Every year the parents and children of the local school ( to which Etienne and Louis go) pick the chestnuts at a small orchard in the village and sell them to the chestnut factory in Dournazac down the road – the money paying for the children’s holidays and outings throughout the year. Week 3 next week!

Rest of Photos - The Cochonaille in Champagnac la Riviere about 2 mins down the road which took place yesterday. Roughly translated, if such a translation exists which it probably doesn’t, it was the fete of Porc (pig) and apples. Amongst the sea of unflattering poses at the bench are Craig, Moraig and Kevin who foolishly walked the rambling route from their house in Oradour. I think the faces tell their own tale of how delicious/welcome the sausage sandwiches were after all the effort. Not. On the table is a bottle of apple juice which was being pressed there at the time (see photo). Although delicious…etc etc…. it obviously wasn’t the cider we were after. Apparently all we have to do is keep it in a dark place and the alchemy would take place of itself. As it wasn’t going to happen with the hour, however, it was cold comfort ( see following photo)……..

Sadly I don’t have a photo of the last event which was of Alfie diving off the stage into the crowd at the UK Subs gig he went to on Saturday night up by his college near Alsace somewhere. He went and spoke to the band afterwards and told the lead singer that I used to be a fan. He didn’t tell him that I’d mistaken him for Jimmy Pursey only last week.
Apparently he says hi. All very civilised….then again he is 63! This publicity poster (which I saw at the pig and apple festival, outside the room in which a video of wild boar hunting was playing to a soundtrack of cheesy rom.com.music) is possibly what he now looks like…whatever his name is….

Friday night - so a short blog. If anyone feels a huge (or in fact any sized) desire to write something of a Friday evening and thinks that they can commit to more than a couple of weeks before getting writer’s block then please get in touch.

This morning was spent doing pricing/plans for Dutch Donald who wants his new build up asap. He was put in touch with Dig-It via an estate agent who has one of our houses on her books and who phoned to see if Matt would be interested in doing the foundations for a wooden house. He went to see the site and had a look at the plans, for a wooden framed/cladded house, to be built and completely finished by a team of Poles in 6-8 weeks….for 67 000€! Fantastic on paper….until you realise that those are plans for a three bedroomed house and it has to one of the worst designed houses ever committed to paper.

Talking of builders ( did anyone see the programme last night with the Samantha Janus lookalike dissing Jarek?) I for one think the Poles are great and am not out to do them down …but 3 bedrooms in 65m² of wooden house…and this in the Limousin where space isn’t exactly at a premium!

Anyway I’m sure I could go on but Have I got news for you is on in 10 mins and it’s chestnut picking again tomorrow from 9am – 12am before an afternoon of football to be followed by the piece de la resistance which is Harry Hill’s TV Burp comeback tomorrow night and Matt’s duck supper…..autumn has arrived ….in proper style.