I had to go and lie down for an hour in a darkened room today.

Yes, I've been to order my windows for the bedroom and the bathroom. A whopping great €1100, for which they wanted a 50% deposit on the spot. I've never spent that much money in my life, and you should have seen the moths come flying out of my wallet when I unlocked it. These windows at Lapeyre are three times the price of Brico Depot windows but then again they are supposed to be 100 times better. I hope so.

Apart from that, there wasn't much of any excitement happening in Montlucon. I've bought another pile of stuff that I need to carry on working in the bedroom and I did my monthly shopping. But I had a huge GRRRRR at the Auchan. I have €8:50 in credit on my card there so I asked the girl to cash it up - but having checked me out she then forgot to do it and if I'm not careful I'm going to lose this money. I only have until the end of the month to claim it.

At Brico Depot someone from a florist's left a note on Caliburn for me to g round there to chat to them - one assumes about solar panels and the like. But there was no-one at home so I dunno what that was all about. Next stop was the swimming baths at Nerys-les-Hughes where I spent most of my hour in the water watching half a dozen kids aged about 9 or 10 having a load of fun on a huge foam-rubber raft-type of affair. It's a long time since I've seen kids have so much fun without any adults moaning at them.

I was told that tonight there was to be a football match at Pionsat - one of the matches that was postponed from December. But the place was in total darkness - apparently the game has been re-rearranged for tomorrow. But there were lights on at Marcillat. Their first team had a game and so I wandered off up there for a couple of hours. A Promotion League match this was. That's about one division higher that Pionsat's 1st XI but in all seriousness Pionsat's 3rd XI could have stuffed rhe both of them - at the same time. The standard was pretty dire.

But you can see that I'm slowly emerging from my winter hibernation - I'm getting ready for footy again.