Mr & Mrs GARD VISIT.

Tony and Nikki came over this week for a Xmas drink (or 12). They arrived Monday and as St Potan is closed we went to the Crueset Bar in Pluduno.

My brother turned out to be crap at pool, but then after claiming not have played darts for 20 years, bangs in a 140 second throw.

Good news everybody. Bananarama have reformed.

Not really. Nikki, Marie, and Natasha enjoy a drink.

Bar owners Annie and Nono (The most sarcastic man in Brittany)

Then on the Tuesday as Bruno's bar was open in the village we stopped for a few.

Unfortunatly somebody took the bow off of the bar Xmas tree.

Do you recognise this person?

If so call crimestoppers on 0888 444555.

GETTING READY FOR XMAS

Xmas is getting close and preps are underway for a French Noel Festival.

We are doing all the normal things like the tree, outside lights,buying booze, food,writing xmas cards and of course the age old tradition of abusing the dogs!

Bella plays ball but Kip seems hacked off with it.

Amazing what you can do with a dog biscuit as bribery.

Owing to the credit crunch, Rudolph has been replaced this year Kids. And he looks pretty hacked off with it!

Modelling xmas wear all day is tiring.

Kip still doesn't want to know, but Bella is a bit of a poser.

With the St Potan game called off due to a frozen pitch, Al & John went to Plancoet to watch their league game. They play in a league higher and the standard was far better.

Plancoet won 6-0, with all goals coming in the 2nd half.

THE GERMANS ARE BACK

The weekend of 6/7 December the nearby village of Pluduno held it's Xmas market. Being twinned with a German town in the Alsace all the stalls were full of germanic produce. For once we found a decent German wine which we bought for Xmas day.

Gluhwein was readily available on a freezing day. All in all, something different for a couple of hours.

DINNER WITH NATALIE AND MIKHAIL

Sunday night we were invited to dinner with our Russian friends, along with Liz who is visiting, and John.

First time we had ever had Borscht and it was fantastic. Followed by a Georgian stew, cheeses and a dessert.

As usual our hosts were generous with their hospitality and we all had a fantastic time.

All gathered around the table. Well, all bar the picture taker.

Liz has far too many cider's and starts to laugh. All the bottles infront of her were polished off by the afore named person.

Natalie warns Al that he better do something just as good when we hold a dinner party. Little does she know that Al has the book 1001 things to do with mince!

The effects of the cider has worn off and Liz is back to her normal self.

The tattoo's are covered by a pink straightjacket.

PREPERATIONS FOR XMAS

It's been a while since Al has had to prepare a Xmas turkey. So it seemed like a good idea to practice trussing the turkey on Kip.

As you can see, Al has not lost the knack, and Kip is trussed and bound oven ready!

WEEK OF SPORTING DISASTER.

After the first darts defeat on Thursday (10-9) and the first pool defeat allbeit in the cup (7-6), Al and John are called in for extra training in the afternoon.

This has nothing to do with the fact that the bar was open. It was a genuine extra training session!

Yeah right!!!

BIT OF A JOB ON!

So why wasn't the blog updated for a while?

Thats because the person who writes it has been working all week.

Our friend Andy said he needed a hand taping and plastering at a renovation project just outside Plancoet.

Now for those who think Al has no DIY skills, you are so wrong. I have no problem in plastering now after a crash course.

The 2 bed renovation has had a new

roof and floor.

Andy plasters whilst Al cuts tapes and mixes the muck.

It's all coming on very well. Then each night we both get plastered.

EASY MONEY!

Next week, tiling a floor and wall building.

IT'S GETTING A TAD CHILLY

So time to light the kitchen fire with all this wood we have. Luckily it's warmed up a bit the last few days, but we are expecting many nights when the fire is required.

BEST DART TEAM IN BRITTANY

A 14-5 away win at Bobital keeps the 100% record up.

Robert prepares to throw,

A long haired native takes a spanking from Andy

REMEMBRANCE DAY.

Tuesday was the 11th November and remembrance day. A good turn out from the village, some with medals, (wish we had worn ours now) with a walk from the mayor's office to the church where flowers were layed and a minutes silence observed.

Muster at the mayor's at 1130 to march off the guard of honour.

The kids from the local infant school sing "Ode to Joy" and then the last post is played by the bugler.

The guard of honour march off back to the Mayor's office.

The flowers laid at the remembrance stone. The inscription says "To the children of St Potan who died in the 1914-18 & 1939-45 war. Also Indochina and Algeria"

Then everyone back to the "salle de fetes" for a glass of vino, and for those who paid a meal of blanquette de veal.

We retired to Rene's Cafe...sorry..Bruno's for a quick drink.

TOP OF DARTS AND POOL

A 12-7 win at darts and a 6-4 win against the worst pool team we have ever played (One of those nights where nearly everything that could go wrong..did)

Still, St Potan sit proudly at the top of the league in both olympic disciplines...Sorry, pub sports.

DOGS ON THE BEACH.

Mikhail & Natalie phoned Friday morning and invited us to go with the dogs to the beach. Their chocolate labradoe "Jack" is a bit of a handful, and when he gets together with Kip and Bella, the play fighting and chasing never stops.

The lovely Pen le Guildo beach is desserted at this time of year,

The mad 3 just don't stop running.

Not too sure about the water tho'

PREPARING FOR NEXT YEAR

Early November and tons to do in the garden. Ground to prepare, apple trees to cut back and thats just for starters.

We decided to invest in a rotorvator after the back breaking digging of last spring.

What a difference. An hour and the whole patch was turned.

Marie controls the beast (just) whilst avoiding the carrots and parsnips.

Al prepares to test drive.

Early morning workout with Mr Rotorvator!

Hey presto. One hour later. It's going to be a great ganja crop next year.

Unless the Americans carpet bomb the garden!

A BRIGHT AUTUMN MORNING.

Kip's suspected hernia has gone down so we don't think he will need an operation now. This was his first time off the lead since the snip and he loved it. The field at the end of the lane now has the grass short enough for a good run.

RATHER FUNNY

Stolen from the mag7 blog. Made me chuckle.

POOL MATCH IN CORSEUL

Friday night pool was in this bar in Corseul. David the captain decide Al was not going to play this match as only 5 can play in the fixture and we have 8 players signed up. So he opted for squad rotation. Who does he think he is Jose bloody Mourinho .

Still, at least we won 6-4, with Patrice winning his first game of the season. We can't call him Hotspur anymore.

A Courseul player gets beaten whilst Captain Mainwairing (he was the spitting image) looks on.

David completes the victory whilst Captain Mainwairing chats to Leo Sayer (Patrice) at the bar.

DOGS ON THE MEND..NEARLY

Kip has now had his stitches out,so neutering is complete. No more problems you would think!

Not quite. Seems Kip might have a hernia. We have to wait a week to see if the swelling goes down. If noe..it's back to the vets again!

SEIG HAIL!!!

There have been quite a few hailstorms this Tuesday morning.. Autumn is definatly here. The heating is in and we are considering lighting a log fire in the kitchen tonight.

Kip and Bella found the hailstones quite tasty!

ST POTAN WIN A FOOTBALL GAME

No pictures as Al was linesman, but St Potan won 2-0 on Sunday, a first league victory of the season. The oposition were a bit miffed with their 8 offside goals being chalked out!!!

LONG LEADS

New 29ft long dog leads give them a bit of freedom.

Bella has had her stitches out and is back to normal.

Kip was neutered last week but they only found one ball had dropped. The vet had to search for the other one which was found under developed in his abdomen.

He has made a full recovery and has his stitches out on Thursday.

Any comment about dogs like their owners will be deleted!!!!!

GITE ROUND THE CORNER.

A short dog walk away is this gite. Always looks smart and tidy and a good place to stay on holiday. Thats if we are full of course.

A WIN AT POOL AS WELL

After last weeks draw, Friday we went to the Dinantais pub (in Dinan funnily enough) and won easily 7-3.

The team of 5 now has 3 English, Myself, John Roberts, & John Beasley, plus our French imports Isobel and Patrice.

Isobel again starred winning both games. She now has won all 4 singles games this season and is joint top of the individual. Not bad out of 2,190 (thats the final total ) registered players in the Brittany leagues.

Al won both to have a 3-1 win record.

Poor Patrice has been given the nickname Hotspur as he hasn't won a game all season!

All the league tables can be found on afebas.com

We are in Bretagne Department 2 Group G7.

There is some serious prize money in this as the whole of France has regional leagues to qualify for a national final.

THE MOTHER OF ALL COMEBACKS.

Last week the visiting darts team did not turn up for the first fixture of the season so we got a 19-0 victory. But Thursday was different as The Auberge pub in Matignon (a real local derby) turned up expecting to whip our sorry backsides, especially as they have 2 county players in the team. True to form we were dreadful as they raced into a 8-2 lead. They were hitting bullseyes for fun. Then one of those strange things happened as we won 7 on the trot to lead 9-8. We lost the next game, but fluked the decider to win 10-9. I don't think I have played in any sporting game with a turnaround like that.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Not a good week to be Kip. He is in for castration tomorrow. There will be no ball playing in the garden for a while. Or infact no ball playing of any sort ever again.

Al has darts on Tuesday and pool Friday, then on Sunday is the re-arranged football game against St Cast where he is linesman

NEW POOL SEASON BEGINS

What happened on finals day last week? Well, not a lot. Al pulled out because the dog was at the vets, John wasn't available, and David was at a wedding. So a weak team went to the finals and lost in round 1.

The winter pool league started last night. 10 teams in a group, 5 players in each team, and 10 games played per match. We are in Brittany region 2, but the competition is national. In the Brittany regions there are 1956 registered players. Might be a bit tought to win the individual.

We kicked off agains La Yatoumi bar from near Dinan and were 4-1 down at the halfway stage, then 5-3 down. Isobel won the next game for us, so that left Al to snatch the draw in the last frame.

NEW DOOR.

The new double glazed front door was fitted this week. What an improvement. No more creaking old door in windy weather.

The window opens too. Handy for selling iced lollies to children Mr Glitter

THE RAVE LAST WEEK.

My brother sent me 2 links with footage of last weeks rave at St Potan. It can be found under the "What's happened this past week" posting and in the comments section.

Just cut and paste the links to view.

I would like to point out that it is not Marie hugging the speaker in the second clip

A TALE OF TWO DOGS.

As mentioned earlier, Kip was very ill Friday and had to spend the night at the vets. He had a gut problem, was quite ill at both ends.

By Saturday night he was back to himself.

On Monday, Bella went to be neutered. She went in at 9am and came home at 5pm. She was a bit sleepy from the pain killers, but today apart from the bandage, ahe is 100% and as I write this is sat in the front room munching on a rawhide chew.

So to sum up..

Male has runny bum and a sore tum and is hospitalised for 24 hours.

Female has womb ripped out and is home within 8 hours almost back to normal.

Perhaps there is something in the "man flu" theory!!!

Kip can't make his mind up. Soft furry bone, or killer blue spikey hedgehog.

Bella lies flat out just a few hours after her operation. She has the cone collar to put on but she has shown no desire to play with the stitches.

LOST AGAIN.

4 games. 4 defeats. Consistant aren't we?

Latest defeat 3-0 to top of the table Evran.

The good news is that 4 of the better players will be back in 2 weeks after working abroad during the summer.

The piss poor stand at Evran has enough cover for 40 people, or 25 if you wanted to breathe!

A new rule bought in this season to give crap teams like St Potan a chance, is to force the league leaders wear pink each week (an idea taken from the yellow jersey from the Tour de France) The table toping team can then be mocked with "gay" chants to put them off.

It didn't work for us!