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!

WHAT'S HAPPENED THIS PAST WEEK?

Well not a lot to be honest! The weather has been mid seventies, a real late summer burst.

We have juiced over 50lb of apples and now can't give it away as there is a real glut this year.

The rave in the village last weekend had one death from a drugs overdose, plus about 80 arrests for possession. The police were mob handed and were nicking the locals for minor offences as well.

Kip was really ill on Friday lunchtime. He was so weak he couldn't stand, so we got him up to the vets where he spent a night in care. When we rang up Saturday they said we could collect him in the afternoon. He was as right as rain. Seems porky boy had eaten something off the floor and had a gut infection. We think he might have done it on purpose as he was due his neutering operation on Monday. What's a bit of tummy ache when your bollocks are at stake!

Bella will still go in to be done on Monday, so she will need a few days TLC when she gets home.

THIS WEEK GETS CRAZY!

OK. So we live in a tiny community of 750 people. All is quiet. Everyone knows everyone. Life is good.

You just will not believe this.

On Wednesday night, the local council were summoned to the Mayors office to be told by the police that permission had been given for a rave party to be held just 500 meters from the village. It had been planned for elsewhere, but had been moved to our village after complaints. 3000 plus ravers are expected over the weekend. It is running from Friday till Sunday.

Al got up at 7-30 am Saturday to the sound of thumping music.

At the time of writing, all is quiet, but the main event is tonight, with the rave going on till 10am

Although we are 1 1/2 km from the rave it is still loud.

Good thing was, about an hour ago, two ravers (although they looked like hippies) were having a fight in the road that goes by the house. Lots of French gesticulations and shouting. All over drugs I expect.

Jeez..you can never get any decent gear around here, and when the dealers turn up, they are fighting eachother.

Pictured are the police vans/Army/Ambulances/Customs that have turned up to cover the event.

250 Gendarme, Customs officers and the army are here patrolling. Talk about overkill.

FORMULE MIDI

Let me explain a formule midi. Most eateries in France do this lunchtime set menu. A choice of 2 starters, a main course, cheese, a dessert, coffee, and a 1/2 carafe of red wine or cider thrown in. All for about 10 euros, or 8 quid in Gordon Brown money. Always starting at midday, they run through till about 2pm. So me, Marie, and her dad,Eric, went to Matignon to Abats, a well used formule midi eaterie. Unfortunatly all tables inside were taken, so we were offered the terrace outside. We accepted as it was a warm day, and we were bloody starving.

The "terrace" turned out to be a table and chairs out in the backyard amongst the empty beer barrells, garden equipment and the owners dogs.

Still, no complaints about the food. Crab terrine, roast pork, and a red fruits flan were the pick of the day.

Eric enjoys the red.

Al poses by the empty gas cylinders, toilets and sceptic tank.

MATIGNON MURDER!

The market town of Matignon is just 3 miles away, and the peace and serenity has suddenly been shattered by a murder mystery.

The mayor of Matignon, his wife and their 12 dogs were all found dead in their house.

Seems the Mayor went mad and killed his wife with a knife, slaughtered the dogs, then cut his own wrists in the bath.

A real shocker in this quiet area. It's been on national news.

I would like to say at this point that at the time of the incident, Al was cooking a meal.

The knife has been DNA tested and the results are conclusive...Never slice a courgette lengthways!

ANOTHER LOSS

Al was due to run the line in the big local derby against St Cast on Sunday, but due to the events in Matignon, fixtures were re-arranged and the village ended up playing Dinan. Another defeat means St Potan are rock bottom after 3 games.