... and not a fat-bottomed girl in sight

The Opel dealer in Montluçon is open from 8am to 6pm during the week - except Monday, when it is 2pm to 6pm. We duly went up on Monday afternoon to see if the parts for Clare's car had arrived. They had not.

Not wanting to make repeated trips to Montluçon (practically an hour each way with the current road works, and it's all contributing to the 9000 Kms which is my annual limit if I want to keep the low mileage discount on my insurance), we asked if they could courier the parts when they arrive - about 16 € including tax - to which he agreed. Before, however, setting it up, he had the presence of mind to check that morning's receipts physically and, sure enough, they were there. We went away happy, with the needed parts.

I tried to fit them on Monday evening, only to find that I needed a 12mm allen key. The largest I have is 10mm. I got up early on Tuesday morning, drove up to Montluçon and went into Brico-Depot (owned by Kingfisher, as is B&Q) who always have a good range of tools.

The only way I could buy a 12mm allen key in Brico-Depot was as part of a 95 piece Magnusson chrome vanadium tool kit (don't be fooled by the name - it is made in Taiwan, not Sweden) costing 65 €.

I was on my own in a toyshop without adult supervision. I could either try a number of smaller shops and get what I needed for about 5 € or buy the fancy kit. Let me repeat, I was on my own in a toyshop without adult supervision. It was clearly time to rationalise.

Successfully convincing myself

1. that the labour costs, had I asked the garage to do the job, would undoubtedly be greater than the cost of the tools to do it myself (I don't know how many more times I can get away with that one),
   
2. that a good tool kit is an investment for the future, and
   
3. that you can never have too many good tools,

I went ahead and bought it. Here it is.

When I got home, Clare needed to go out for a few hours, during which time I felt I should be able to complete the repair. I gave her the keys to the Mazda and waved a cheery farewell. What I didn't know then, but did find out very shortly afterwards, is that she had driven off with both sets of keys to the Astra as well as the only set of keys to the Mazda. I was, in a word, stuffed!

On Clare's return we started to do the repair which was, as I had hoped, disarmingly straightforward. Refitting the exhaust manifold heat shield was more of a challenge but eventually, everything went together. I checked the oil level and fed in another litre of Shell's finest. On starting the engine there was a lot of smoke which we, hopefully not too optimistically, put down to earlier leakage and current spillage. Keep in mind that a lot less oil would be sold if it were easy to pour from the container into the engine without spilling any. Subsequent use and checking suggests all is now well.

On Wednesday afternoon I had an email from Christophe confirming that he had received the mother board and that he would start to rebuild my PC on Thursday. I don't know how ling that will take him, but my PC's return can't come soon enough for me. This laptop is OK, but it is still slower than my PC, even after running Uniblue RegistryBooster 2, Uniblue System Tweaker and CCleaner, and it has a nasty habit of randomly relocating the pointer - that makes typing fun, as you never know when or to where the cursor is going to randomly relocate!

Being in the countryside, close to farm buildings, we occasionally see a rat. There was one that was spending a lot of time trying to deprive the birds of their peanuts, so we have modified the feeder placement in an attempt to rat-proof it (no need to squirrel-proof, as I have seen none of those in the immediate area, but squirrels are only bushy-tailed rats anyway!).

The tray underneath the nut holder stops pieces falling to the ground, thereby giving the rat no food supply there and thus, hopefully, no interest in trying to climb the pole to get to its bounty. The downside is that depriving the rat of food also means there is none for the ground-feeding birds, such as the dunnocks and sparrows. On the other hand, if the rat can eat more food than a large number of small birds then he will restrict their food supply anyway.

I have also, on one occasion, seen a single rat (single in number - I know nothing of its social or marital arrangements) scuttling across the bottom of the ramp.

However, as I was walking in the garden one evening during the week, something scampered across between the pond and the orchard, and disappeared into a hole. It didn't look like a rat. Apart from anything else, rats don't scamper, they scuttle, as previously revealed. I don't know for sure, as my eyesight isn't quite as clear as I would like it to be, but its actions, shape and colour suggested to me that it might well have been a stoat - possibly even the same one we saw in ermine about 18 months ago. I shall keep an eye out for it.

We have also seen some strange droppings - blue/black and full of cherry stones (that's where they all went!) - that we have yet to identify. The droppings are about 1cm wide. They were found in two locations, the first in open ground, the other under one of the currently non-productive pear trees. I'd be grateful for any input.


For reasons I cannot begin to understand, the cheap rate UK telephone number seems to be working again. For how long is anyone's guess and I have no idea how reliable it is but, when it works, it allows you to call us here from a land line in the UK for a flat 2p per minute. To remind you, the number is 0844 617 7844.

On Friday we went to see a part of the 19th stage of the Tour de France. Our destination was La Maison-rouge, 1500 meters after Lapeyrouse and 32.5Km from the day's finish at Montluçon. The caravane was due to pass through at about 3pm and the riders just under an hour and a half later.

Where we had stationed ourselves is a mining area, and a number of miners were grouped, at the side of the road, in their work clothes complete with helmets and lamps. It was most interesting to note how many in the caravane (about which more later) commented on them, and also to note the high regard in which they appear to be held.

In the same area, perched atop a small pile of bales of hay, were four young women bearing sashes proclaiming them to be Miss Montaigut 2007, Miss Youx 2007, Miss St Eloy-les-Mines 2007 and Miss Routiers 2007.

The caravane is a spectacle not to be missed. It is an almost continuous carnival procession of much decorated vehicles, from the back of many of which publicity trinkets are thrown to the crowd. Our haul for the afternoon consisted of two keyrings, two reflective armbands, a bottle of water and a small bag.

One of the later vehicles in the caravane was misting the bystanders with water - not a bad thing as, although there was not much sun, the temperature was edging towards the high twenties.

I have a lot of photographs of the caravane (which took well over half an hour to pass), but these two should be enough to give a flavour.

Once the caravane had passed, things went pretty quiet for a while, so we broke out the picnic basket and waited. The first indication that the riders were on their way was the arrival of a gendarme with a yellow flag, who stood about fifty meters from us. Shortly after his arrival a veritable fleet of police and gendarmerie motorcycles and cars passed and we noticed a helicopter in the sky to our east - the direction from which the cyclists would approach. Looking closer, we made out four helicopters at different altitudes, one of which was quite low. The number of helicopters would reach double figures before the whole thing had passed us.

The helicopters were fitted with TV cameras and provided the television coverage for the major European broadcasters. As the lead helicopter came closer, a loud cheer went up from the crowd and the first riders appeared.

Pictured here Jérémy Roy leading with Sylvain Chavanel just visible in the red kit behind him. Chavanel won the final sprint and the stage on arrival at Montluçon.

A little over four minutes after this first pair had passed, more helicopters appeared, signalling the arrival of the peloton, the pack that represents the bulk of the cyclists. This wikipedia link discusses the dynamic of the peloton and, in my view, makes fascinating reading.

The leaders of the peloton appeared in a tidy line-astern formation, the front wheel of each cycle appearing almost to be glued to the back wheel of its predecessor in the fashion of an ad-hoc convoy of HGVs on a motorway (to say nothing of the same convoy on a fuel price protest).

Following these leaders, the rest of the peloton, about 140 riders, passed over a relatively short period. The peloton was quite tightly formed with no noticeable gaps (I didn't notice any, anyway) and the teams were obviously clustered, as is suggested in the wikipedia article.

A few minutes later still came a final group of two or three riders who were, for whatever reason, off the pace of the peloton, these being followed by a fleet of support cars carrying spare bikes and various supplies.

Once all that lot had passed we made our way back to the car and eventually broke through the traffic and drove home.

Hobie is now down to a half tablet per day and will shortly be off them altogether. So far he seems to be holding up quite well, although there are signs that he is beginning to experience some difficulty and discomfort. We are half expecting to see some deterioration but are hoping not to. At least, if he does have another crisis, we shall be able to get him to the vet without having to chase around to scrounge transport, now that the Astra is back on the road.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine