Winter is definitely here now.

Freezing cold, damp grey and depressing with hardly a drop of sunshine.

I was up before the alarm and in Montlucon for the shops quite early. Disappointingly there was nothing that was exciting there and I spent almost nothing. Just a few Louis de Funes DVDs reduced in the Auchan.

But in the Auchan in the TV section you couldn't move for people watching the televisions. France was playing England in the rugby and had a pretty comfortable victory, much to the delight of everyone (including Yours Truly) in the shop.

I had to visit Monsieur Bricolage as well and they had two things that caught my eye - a two-storey wooden cabin - a display model - reduced to €5000 which is cheap,and also asmall wood stove with a kind-of top oven for €275 - and I was sorely tempted by that.

The swimming baths at Neris has been taken by surprise by the cold spell. They didn't have the heating on and so we all froze to death in the pool - all 10 of us in there. That's a far cry from last week.

At  the footy, Pionsat's 2nd XI played Aigueperse and won 2-1 in a hard-fought match. In the first half they were all over the opposition and should have had a hat-full but in the 2nd half they went to sleep and allowed the opposition back into the game. And they would have struggled if their opponents hadn't missed a penalty. 

We had a floodlight failure too for about 20 minutes, to add some spice to the entertainment.

What with all of the drizzle it was all quite a depressing day.