I'm not at home.

I'm in one of these cheap unit-hotels in Clermont Ferrand, having a weekend away from home.

In fact there's a good reason for this. Pionsat's 1st XI have a night match (and I can't believe that I've never been to a Pionsat night match away from home) way the other side of Clermont-Ferrand and the 2nd XI have an away match tomorrow early afternoon just outside the city. Seeing as it's almost 100kms home and ten back 80kms tomorrow it was hardly worth going home.

So this morning I went round all od the shops in Mozac, the big shopping centre outside Riom. It's nothing special compared to Montlucon, but at least all of the shops are right next to each other and not scattered across the town. There's a bankrupt-stock kind of shop there and I had some good luck in there. I found exactly the wire netting that I need to make my bean and pea frames, after all this time of looking, and I also found a set of three tyre levers. I only have small ones for things like wheelbarrows, nothing suitable for motorbikes and cars.

The NOZ though is much smaller but they did have a decent selection of DVDs and so I treated myself to 5 for these long winter nights. At €1:95 each it's cheaper than the cinema.

At the footy, Pionsat could only muster a scratch team - it's not easy travelling all this way here for a 20:00 kick-off if you've been working until 19:00 and Ceyrat were a much better side, but Pionsat rode their luck, including François saving a penalty, and the score ended up a lucky 2-2 draw.

Finding food was the next difficulty. I cant believe that even in Clermont Ferrand everything closes at 22:30. Eventually though I did find something and now I'm sitting here and eating it. Then I'm off to bed.