Tag Archives: 12 volt LED light bulbs

Wednesday 5th February 2014 – IT TOOK ME LONGER …

… than I was expecting to finish off this wiring today. But the positive side of all of this is that it’s all done properly now. And much of it is now correctly sheathed and tacked into place, and hidden behind insulation. Under normal circumstances it won’t need doing again.

But I’m surprised that I did anything at all today. In the night I was being chased around by a bull and a herd of cows and I dashed into a house for safety. But Brain of Britain forgot to close the door, didn’t he, and the bull came in behind me, trapping me in the house. I don’t get on too well with big animals and this was definitely one of “those” moments. But I don’t recall having this type of dream before. What was that all about?

But back to current (well, we are discussing electricity) issues, we now have a four-gang light switch properly installed on the first floor landing. There are the two light switches for each of the flights of stairs, a third that will be for a light on the landing, and a fourth for the light in the cupboard at the back of the stairs.

But we did have an accident today. The 12-volt LED light on the flight of stairs up to the first floor keeps on falling out of the blub holder (these light bulbs are heavier than you might think) and today it finally smashed. But only the outer cover, the internal works are fine. And it’s much lighter now of course and the beam is much more spread out. Yes, after all of this, it still works.

In the middle of all of this, Cécile rang up for a chat and was on the phone for 45 minutes. It’s nice to chat to friends of course, but they always ring up when I’m in the middle of doing something, never when I’m sitting down with a coffee.

This afternoon I’ve padded out the stud wall at the head of the stairs up here with insulation and cut and shaped three pieces of plasterboard. I fitted the light switch for the light at the head of the stairs and I was in the process of filling the joins when I lost the light. Working long after my knocking-off time.

Tomorrow I’ll finish the filling and then I can start to fit the ceiling out here.

Isn’t that progress?

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Tuesday 4th February 2014 -I’VE BEEN WIRING TODAY

I’m at the stage in the plasterboarding where I need to move the light switch at the top of the stairs. And, when I peeled off the old insulation that I put on the end wall as a temporary measure, I had a look at the wiring that I had done back in October 2009.

It’s much better than the first load of wiring that I did, but even so, it’s a shameful mess with no kind of colour co-ordination at all and I’ve no idea which wires go where.

I was half-expecting something like this and so not only do I have proper red and black wire for the 12-volt circuits and blue and brown for the 230-volt circuits, I also have some orange wire and some violet wire for the shunt wires between the L1 and L2 terminals on 2-way light switches. So after about an hour’s worth of staring at it to try to make sense of the wiring that I did back in 2009, I simply ripped the light circuits out and started again.

The 230-volt light circuit hasn’t been replaced. These 12-volt LED lights do all that I have asked them to do, and plenty more besides. But now in the attic and in the stairwell down to the first floor I have proper wiring, properly colour-coded, properly connected together (these little spring-clip connectors are magnificent – they beat everything else that I have ever used), properly routed and properly sheathed.

And to my great surprise, it all worked straight away with no trouble-shooting required. Such are the benefits of colour-coded wiring.

I was hoping to finish down to the bottom of the stairwell before I knocked off but that wasn’t possible. There was still 40 minutes before knocking off and there was still plenty oflight, but not enough for working on electricity in confined space in the gathering gloom.

I’ll finish that tomorrow morning so if you don’t hear from me tomorrow I’ll be a shrivelled black blob hanging from the ceiling in the stairwell.

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Friday 10th January 2014 – MAKE THE MOST …

downstairs groound floor living room les guis virlet puy de dome france… of this photo for you may never see the like of it again.

I spent the morning cleaning out an area of the floor and I’ve put two old pallets against the old chimney and stacked the bags of cement and plaster on there to keep them off the ground. So now I can start to move things around.

But right in the centre where you can see the steps, the big black mortar-mixing bucket and the empty space, that was where there was a huge mound of rubble, stones, old insulation, all kinds of rubbish and it’s that which I’ve been emptying this week.

There’s still a huge pile of junk to be moved and I was planning on moving it this afternoo except that I had a little interruption. Terry rang to ask me if I was still interested in going to Montlucon. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

We stopped off at the LIDL by the river where they had a couple more of those LED light bulbs and then we went to Brico Depot. Terry bought his huge rainwater-harvesting tank and I took advantage of the 3m40 length of the inside of his van to buy another 20 shuttering planks. Like I’ve said before, they make excellent shelves and I’m in shelf-making mode right now.

A few other bits and pieces too, but the highlight definitely has to be some more 12-volt LED bulbs. 4-watt this time – even brighter, and €5:99 this time – not for one but for two. so I bought 5 packets of those and they will light up the barn a treat, I reckon. All I need to do is to invent a light to house them, and I have a cunning plan …

So by the time I was back home and had a coffee, it wasn’t worth starting work again for the last half-hour or so. But I had half a day off on Thursday morning and half a day off Friday afternoon so what I reckon is that tomorrow I should put in a few hours work in the living room again and crack on there.

There’s a reason for that. The long-range weather forecast reckons that by the end of next week this Indian Summer will be over and we’ll be in the depths of winter again. If I have an empty room on the ground floor I can move my workroom down from the bedroom. And when that’s empty I can crack on in there. That will keep me out of mischief in the cold weather and if I can break the back of that and finish the wardrobes in there I’ll have space to put my clothes and spare bedding.

And then I can dismantle the two wardrobes in here, and won’t that give me much more space?

I won’t know myself at this rate, will I?

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Thursday 9th January 2014 – WOW!

And for several good reasons too.

Firstly, I was up early this morning and I was at LIDL in St Eloy just minutes after the place opened. Not quick enough for the recessed LED lights and fittings that I was hoping to fit in the living room, which is a shame, and there were only 6xGU5.3 12-volt LED light clusters left.

Needless to say, I cleared those right out and when I returned home I had a good look at them.

The 12-volt LED bulbs that I have here are 1.2-watt bulbs which is sufficient for what I want to do. But these new ones are 3-watt. I fitted two, one over the desk and one over the kitchen table nd, well, WOW! It’s like Blackpool illuminations here. I’m well-impressed with these!

I stopped off at Cécile’s to chack her mailbox but it was still empty. And so I had to go off to St Gervais to talk to the Postie. Of course, with no letter of authority, no receipt or anything there wasn’t much that I could do, but I did it all the same.

I started to work on the downstairs lighting too. For years the lights in the verandah have been confusing me – the 2-gang light switches have constantly failed to do what they are supposed to do. I was there for an hour trying all kinds of permutaions and still nothing was working, but a closer inspection of one of the switches – the feed switch – showed that the brass housing seemed to be cracked. I fitted a new switch to see if that made any difference and, sure enough, not only did we have light but proper 2-gang controlled light switching too just as we are supposed to.

I then turned my attention to the light in the ground floor. Fitting it and wiring it all up was no problem but I needed a neutral connection. It was then that I found that I’d done all of the wires in twin-and-earth so there wasn’t a simple neutral cable. I need to cut into a twin-and-earth and strip out all of the insulation.

But then I had another look at it all. For a start, I’ve wired the lights up with blue and brown cable – the same that I’m using for mains wire and I almost ended up cutting into a 230 volt cable. I’d made up my mind long ago that 12-volt would be red and black so this wiring is evidently older, before I sorted myself out.

And it’s rubbish too. When I started doing this, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and sorked it out by trial and error. It’s been a trial and there are dozens of errors, so I’ve decided that, seeing as how I’ll be starting work down here sometime soon, the wiring will be the first thing to be changed so there isn’t really any point in trying to do anything with it. Consequently I’ve abandoned that plan.

The next WOW! relates to my pile of rubble. In fact, it’s all gone and the floor is free. That’s not to say that there’s no rubble there of course. The big pile went by the end of the afternoon but there are still some bits and pieces.

So tomorrow I’ll be attacking the stuff that’s in there, reorganising all of it and making a work room there. That will mean that the bedroom will be free of clutter so that I can carry on in there.

And that really WILL be a big WOW!

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8th January 2014 – 18:07 …

… was when I finished outside this evening. It was quite dark – to dark to really see but there was just about enough light to see the weeds that I was pulling up.

Talking of light, I didn’t get around to fitting a light in the ground floor living area. However I did manage tp dispose of most of the rubble. It won’t take ling to finish it off.

I have a new tactic now. I have a plastic box with holes in it – like a giant sieve. I’m shovelling the rubble into that and letting the dust and small stones fall through into a large bucket. Then, I’m passing a magnet through whatever is left in the plastic box and when I’ve fished out all of the metal objects I tip that into some buckets and when the buckets are full I empty them onto the rubble heap.

I’ve taken tons of stuff out now and it’s looking completely different in there now; And no only that, I’ve filled about a dozen rubbish sacks and there’s still plenty to go.

I might not be doing it tomorrow though. Terry rand up and apparently he might be going to Brico Depot. I said that if he did, I’d cadge a lift. Fetch some more shelving as well as some other stuff.

Not only that, it’s a lighting sale at LIDL tomorrow and they have 12-volt LED light bulbs. I mustn’t miss that at any price, and Cécile wants me to check her mail box again.

-4

Saturday 16th November 2013 – I FORGOT TO MENTION YESTERDAY …

… that I saw my first “D” registered car when I was on my way to Rosemary’s. If you don’t know, the French changed their system of registration numbering in April 2009 (and Caliburn carries one of the earliest new numbers) starting with AA and going through to AZ, before changing over to BA, and so on. Anyway, there was a “DA” registered Ford Stranger Danger parked up in Montaigut yesterday.

But it comes to something when I’m having to recap on yesterday’s blog in order to make something interesting to write about because, frankly, badger all happened today.

I was up comparatively early to the welcome sight of gorgeous bright sunlight and I reckoned that we might be in for a corker today. But round about 10:30 it clouded right over and that was that.

I started work on the radio programmes for next month and then went off to St Eloy for the shopping. They had some 12-volt LED lights on offer at LIDL, more expensive than the normal ones but they were 2.5 watt instead of the 1.2 watt lights that I use. Anyway, I bought two of them to see how they shape up.

Back here, after a little siesta I finished the radio programmes and went down for the evening’s footy but the stadium was all in darkness. And I’m not surprised because the pich was more like a swimming baths than a football pitch. The stadium at Marcillat, which I can see from one of the hills around here, was also in darkness. It looks as if they have been rained off too, and so I came home instead and lit the fire, because it’s taters in here.

I hope that here’s some footy tomorrow – I can’t do with being deprived like this.

-7

Friday 26th July 2013 – WE HAD A COUPLE …

… of rainstorms today

Not much of a surprise though because it’s been threatening for a day or so.

The first one woke me up, again before the alarm went off, but then that’s no surprise seeing as how I was away with the fairies for a while yesterday afternoon.

So after breakfast I sorted out a few papers that I needed for the notaire and off I went.

It takes an hour and five minutes to walk there, as I now know for I timed it.

Yes, off I went on foot. I seem to have much more exercise when I’m here in Brussels than when I’m at home in France. When I’m out I do a lot of walking.

Bit of a shame that the walkman went flat after just 400 metres but then you can’t have everything.

The notaire didn’t come up with anything that was unexpected – well, yes she did, but what I mean is that nothing in Belgium is unexpected, if you see what I mean – it’s all par for the course.

So I left the building, straight into another rainstorm, and walked into town.

poor police parking brussels belgium july juillet 2013And you’ll see what I mean about nothing being unexpected when you see the fine example of Belgian police parking in the city.

Belgian drivers are the worst in the world, and so it’s no surprise to see that the coppers have no room to be complacent.

With driving like this from the police farce, no wonder that they can’t recognise poor driving whenever they see it and so the standards go down and down.

colonne de congres bruxelles belgium july juillet 2013I walked into town past the famous Colonne de Congrès.

This column, extremely controversial in its day, was designed by Joseph Poelaert and erected in the 1850s.

It is meant to commemorate the people who “ont fixé les destinées nouvelles du pays, après la fondation de son indépendance” – “gave the new country its new direction and future after independence”.

47 metres high, there is a spiral staircase of 193 steps inside and in the olden days it was possible to climb to the top.

Unfortunately, that’s not possible these days. Like much of Belgian infrastructure, it’s in poor condition. And it was badly-damaged by Hurricane Cyril on 18th January 2007.

soldat inconnu unknown soldier colonne de congres bruxelles belgium july juillet 2013At the foot of the Colonne is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

One unidentified Belgian soldier was taken from each of the battlefields on which the Belgian Army fought in World War I and a blinded Belgian veteran made the choice of which one was to be interred here.

He was laid to rest here on 11th November 1922 and an eternal flame was lit.

After a mega-ramble I ended up at Elak, one of my favourite shops in Brussels. It’s an electronics shop and I buy my 12-volt LED warning lights and 12-volt piazzo buzzers from there.

I’m running a little low on the aforementioned and so I need to build up my stocks. No red lights in stock, and the blue ones are flaming extortionate, so I stocked up on a few green and yellow, and a couple of buzzers.

I’ve also found (well, remembered) a shop, Pêle-Mêle, that buys second-hand books, CDs, computer equipment and that sort of stuff and so I can move on a pile of Marianne’s stuff without too much effort and that will make even more room here.

I caught the bus back here, and once more crashed out for a few hours, but this isn’t doing any good. I’m going to have to start focusing myself so much better on what I need to be doing.

In other news, I was listening to one of the new CDs that I had bought the other day just before leaving. Warren Zevon’s superb Stand In The Fire.

A magnificent album, it really is, and it features, apart from “Excitable Boy”, “Werewolves of London” and “Send Lawyers, Guns and Money” (which will be my theme song for Canada-2013 of course) – to name just a selection of good music, a magnificent mickey-take of “Sweet Home Alabama”, entitled “Play It All Night Long”.

When I was in North Carolina in 2005 I remembered these Classic Rock radio stations that played nothing but “Hotel California”, “Free Bird”, “Bohemian Rhapsody” and, of course, “Sweet Home Alabama” non-stop. I wish that I had had a copy of “Play It All Night” back then.

Anyway I edited the relevant page of the journey to include the lyrics of the chorus. They were really appropriate for the journey through North Carolina.
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-4

Thursday 27th June 2013 – I WAS BACK …

… in Belgium, Brussels in fact, at a big office not too far from the NATO headquarters and the airport and there were a few of us watching the aeroplanes take off. At the end of the runway was a big tower block somewhat similar to the Chrysler building and the aircraft had to take some kind of bizarre avoiding manoeuvre to miss it. If that wasnt enough, there was an air display taking place at the same time just off the airport and the aircraft were having to negotiate all of that as well.
And at one certain moment a large aeroplane took aff, towing behing it a large baggage trailer, the type that you often see being pulled behind a large European motor coach.

Yes, I’ve been at the cheese again, haven’t I? Another one of these exciting dreams that looks so logical when you are right up inside it but looks totally peculiar when you wake up and see it at a distance.

light circuit shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnyway enough of this rubbish.

Back once more at Pooh Corner you will notice yet another addition to the wiring system in the shower room.

Not only do we have a (working) 230-volt power circuit and a (working) 12-volt power circuit but we now also have a lighting circuit.

In those bulb holders just there I’ll be fitting some 12-volt LED bulbs – regular readers of this rubbish will recall me buying a pile a while back.

And if I had been able to have spent another few hours on it I would have had all of the lights on the first floor working as well, but it wasn’t to be.

Mind you, it’s my own fault because if you haven’t already guessed, I spent the greater part of the day looking for tools and equipment and stuff, and I’m really going to have to do something about all of this.

It’s doing my head in good and proper.

-5

Monday 3rd September 2012 – I DIDN’T START …

… the pointing today, and I wouldn’t be doing any tomorrow save for Rosemary coming round for a lesson (talk about the blind leading the blind!) because I was rather side-tracked this afternoon.

And so I was this morning.

I made a good start though thanks to my really early night last night (in bed well before midnight) and I had a good crack at the web site.

With not being on long enough last night to charge the computer though, the battery went quickly flat and when I switched on the inverter to charge up the machine, the internet came on and my friend Marianne from Belgium was on line.

So we ended up chatting for an hour or so seeing as we haven’t seen each other on line for months.

But this afternoon, doing the pointing means of course lowering the scaffolding and as I was about to do that, I suddenly remembered that the wind turbine that I put on the side of the house in the early spring is only wired in temporarily.

If I move the scaffolding, that will be that and it won’t be long before the old manky wire that I used to connect up the wind turbine to the charging circuit in the emergency, all open and exposed to the atmosphere, rots away.

Consequently I set to to run some decent 2.5mm wire through some flexible conduit, and to install a junction box under the eaves for the second wind turbine that will one day be installed on the other side of the house.

And while I was up the ladder under the eaves it occurred to me that while I was there I could fit a light there as planned, that works off the dusk/dawn sensor and which will automatically light up the front door and down the side of the house to the door to the lean-to during the hours of darkness.

And as I was running that wire through the conduit, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to put a light under the eaves at the other end of the front of the house to light up the door to the verandah.

And so I ran yet more wire through another conduit.

Net result – the wire is ready to wire up the wind turbine, but I’ll wait until Rosemary is here before I do that. I’m going to have to be something of an acrobat and on a ladder that is hanging on a roof, I’d rather there was someone here to call the ambulance.

One of the lights, that over the front door and the lean-to, is now installed and when I came back from PIonsat tonight (it’s the Anglo-French club’s meeting) it was doing exactly what it was supposed to.

And doing it quite efficiently too.

Not that 1 watt of LED power is going to light up much, but I could certainly move around without a torch and that is what is the aim.

So an early start tomorrow to steam-clean the verandah seeing as how I’ll be having visitors. I might even clean some more in here too – you never know. I bet I still won’t find my mobile phone though.

I haven’t a clue where that might be.

-2

Thursday 13th January 2011 – Oh look at that!

liz messenger vegan christmas cake les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, doesn’t this look gorgeous?

It’s a home-made vegan Christmas cake specially made for me by Liz, whose culinary talents know no bounds and whose husband, Terry, is the luckiest man on earth. Liz made this for me for Christmas and now that I’ve finished everything else that was hanging around here, I can make a start on it.

So before I did anything else, I had to photograph it for posterity, and then I cut myself a slice.

And believe me – it really is as nice as it looks and I am ever so grateful to Liz for making it for me. It’s really nice to have good friends. This cake should keep me going until my birthday if I am lucky (said he, dropping a huge hint).

But back to the story.

With the weather being as it is right now, I’ve not been burning so much wood. But I’ve still been spending half an hour each morning in the woodshed, dragging out suitable wood and stacking it outside under the sheeting ready to burn. It’s keeping quite dry out there and the wind is helping to condition it for burning. And I’ve also been able to start to move things around a little so that there’s more space in there to move around. If I remember, I’ll post a pic of the place because I do remember taking one when I piled everything in there and there wasn’t room to swing a cat.

bedroom ceiling insulation tongue and grooving les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd up in the bedroom I’ve made a start on the ceiling.

You can see what I’m trying to do – put strips of tongue-and-grooving over the polystyrene insulation in the ceiling (which is actually the floor of my attic of course).

It’s slow work as each piece has to be cut separately as the beams are twisted and so the gap is never the same size. And then I have to wedge some more polystyrene in between the mounting rails and then nail the T&G over the top.

I’ve cut a hole in one of the pieces for the light fitting. There will be four lights, two by the window and two by the fitted wardrobe. Recessed MR16 12-volt fittings to take the LIDL LED bulbs that I can get.

What makes a difference of course is having music while I work. And I’m currently on the “W” and that can only mean “The Who” – followed tomorrow by “Wishbone Ash”. First album up was probably The Who’s second-best-ever album – Who’s Next. Every single one of the tracks on it is on my current playlist and rightly so – it’a an album full of classic Who music. And after a few other albums we came to what is probably the best rock album that has ever been recorded and which has never been off the top of my personal list since 1973, and that is of course Quadrophenia . That particular album is on a completely different plane than anything else that has ever been recorded and if you have never ever heard it then you really don’t know what you are missing. And at £3:99 for a copy of 1 hour 40 minutes worth of thumoing rock muisic, you can’t say that you can’t afford it.

Of course, there’s only one way to lsisten to Who’s Next and Quadrophenia, and that is why I have bought a house down the end of a dirt track miles from anywhere. And even old solidly-built stone houses can really rock with the volume turned full up.

That cheered me up as well, and I have four or five classic Wishbone Ash albums to listen to soon.

0

Thursday 1st July 2010 – I mentioned yesterday …

roofing sheets barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… that one side of the barn roof is finished. And so, here’s a pic that I took this morning not long after I woke up.

It’s quite impressive this roofing stuff isn’t it?

I’ve been quite busy today, although it might not seem much like it. I started off with a little gardening and then went into Pionsat for 11:00 to meet Max the secretary of Pionsat’s football club who had to sign a document or two for me.

Then it was back to gardening again and everything that is going to be planted this year is now planted and that is that.

That took me until 13:10 when I went chaud-pied into Montlucon. First stop was LIDL as they were selling some more 12-volt LEDs and at €3.99 too – I bought a pile of them. And then to Brico Depot for the guttering, the nails and stuff. No downpipes and no joints (it’s a rather familiar lament isn’t it?) but tons of other stuff, including a pile of drawers (not THAT kind of drawers, Rhys!). Yes, here I am planning to build myself a fitted wardrobe and a fitted kitchen and there they were with some end-of-range drawer kit – deep 40mm ones at €3.50 (you can’t even buy the sliders for that) and deep 60mm ones at €5.00. I now have 8 of each which is impressive.

Following that was my test d’effort. They put me on a running walkway thing for 7 minutes and attached a load of electrodes to me. I ran about 2.5km in that time (and in that heat too – it’s been glorious today) and the verdict is “very good condition for his age”. I sound like a horse or an old Ford Cortina.

I’d missed the post by then and so I had to drive all the way to Clermont Ferrand to deliver my file to the Referees’ Association, taking in a visit to the Auchan on the way. And I can’t find my satnav now – another thing I’ve mislaid.

But the highlight of the day had to be in the doctor’s this afternoon. He was helping me fill in the medical form –
“Sex?” he asked
“Put down ‘yes’ for that” I replied.
“Errrr … I think they wan’t you to put down ‘M’ or ‘F’ there” said the doctor.
“Okay – put down ‘M’ then” I said. “It’s been years since I’ve had an ‘F'”.

-2

Saturday 6th March 2010 – Well, we’re back.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire beauregard vendon puy de dome franceWe had a football match tonight – the first since early February, and only the second since mid- December. Pionsat’s 3rd XI played Beauregard Vendon and were one man short, yet they scored five goals – and still finished on the losing side.

But back in December you remember that Gregory Richen turned out for the 3rd XI as he was unavailable for his habitual 1st XI game and scored 2 of their goals – well that seems to have started a fashion for Christophe Larue who also plays for the 1st XI in attack is unavailable tomorrow so he turned out for the 3rd XI this evening and scored all five goals.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire beaurgard vendon les guis virlet puy de dome france All of this in thoroughly freezing conditions that are threatening snow. As if we haven’t had enough!

Also back is the Pentax – unrepaired and still struggling along. I’ll be happy though when someone round here pays me a pile of cash they owe me and I can think about a replacement.

I went shopping around Montlucon today and did the usual rounds. Some 12 volt LED bulbs at €3 each at Noz and a max-min thermometer at €4.99 from Vima were the highlights. Piles of gardening stuff including my seed potatoes (earlies and normals) and two blazing rows at Brico Depot – firstly when the girl in the building material section tried to sell me the wrong (and more expensive) plasterboard despite being told, and secondly when they refused to open the bulk purchases till so I had to struggle with an enormously-loaded trolley up a shopping aisle. Someone in the car park helped me get the wood on Caliburn’s roof rack to which I replied “it’s a good thing that the customers are more helpful than the staff!”

And then a freezing cold ( and I mean COLD) hour in the swimming baths only to find that the private shower was out of order. That put the tin hat on the day.

But I’m clearly moving in the wrong circles, much to my regret. As you know, at Noz I browse through the CDs and DVDs that they have on sale (I bought two twin-packs of Bela Lugosi films for 69 cents each pack today) and saw a CD entitled “Handel’s Organ Works”. Well, so does mine but no-one ever wrote a song about it!

-14

Wednesday 10th February 2010 – I’m cracking on …

upright stud wall stair cupboard plasterboard insulation les guis virlet puy de dome france… with my cupboard at the back of the stairs. If you look closely you can see that as well as plasterboard all round, it has a ceiling and a light. The ceiling is of course tongue-and-grooving for several reasons namely
1) it hides the polystyrene insulation stuffed between the joists
2) it’s easy to fix when you are on your own and there’s no-one to hold up the plasterboard while you screw or nail it
3) I have plenty of it lying around and I’m rather short on plasterboard.

The light is a recessed fitting (it needs a 40mm hole) with an MR16 fitting – in other words a 12-volt capless halogen fitting. But as keen readers of these pages will know, LIDL sells 12-volt LED lights with MR16 fittings. And at 1.2 watts per bulb and they don’t half chuck out the light I shall be using them. It’s not wired in to my circuit as yet and it won’t be for a while but at least it will be in position once Ive varnished the t&g.

So that’s tomorrow’s job and it will be followed by me tidying up a little (yes, Terry) and then starting on plasterboarding the false wall that I’ve built. But I shan’t be starting that right at the wall. If you look at the horizontal, you’ll see that it has a let cut into it. That’s where I’ll be putting the framework for the fitted wardrobe. That part of the wall will be done in hardboard. I’m going to have a fitted wardrobe right across the back wall in the bedroom.

In other news, I’ve received something of a communication that has caused my eyes to pop out and I’ve had to re-read it half a dozen times. There’s definitely something weird going on. It seems that one member of the Executive Committee (probably the only one as it appears that over this last few weeks all of the others have resigned due to not being “given” the posts that they wanted in the forthcoming reshuffle or something like that) has offered to host the OUSA website.

Now won’t that be exciting?

I’ve had personal experience of this web hosting, as followers of my blog will recall in graphic detail. It’s probably useful to recall them –
1) regular and relentless changing of server hosting causing all of my stored e-mails and my address books to disappear into cyberspace every year.
2) arbitrary deletion of files by the “I have never been in favour of censorship” manager of the hosting company because she doesn’t like the content
3) The webhosting manager proudly announcing “you have any information that the others won’t publish? Send it to us and we’ll publish it – we’re not afraid” and then caving in at the first attack.
4) arbitrary suspension of the website simply “to attract my attention”.
5) sending out bills for renewal and then deleting the mail during a server change before it’s had time to be opened and read – and then deleting the website without notice because the bill hasnt been paid.

The of course there was the incident back in the Spring of 2006 when the “I do object to unfounded allegations of stalking” above webhosting manager posted the personal details of a website holder (thankfully not mine) into a public forum to which 200,000 people had access.

I could go on. And on. And on “not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn’t” – ed.

But that’s not the best bit. Back in November this particular webhost suddenly announced that it was closing its doors. And in a subsequent phone call I was told “I no longer have the technical expertise to deal with the problems that arise so I’m closing down and passing all of my work on to someone who is more technically-capable“

So how come this particular technically-challenged ex-webhost is offering to host the OUSA website? It sounds like a recipe for total disaster if you ask me.

OUSA should feel right at home.

Unless of course I am reading this report totally wrongly.

Or unless someone is telling me a huge pack of porky-pies.

But then nothing surprises me any more. I recall the particular incident when X’s details were posted in a public forum and he was simultaneously accused of all kinds of things (simultaneously of course, his “rival” for an elected position was being wined and dined and “offered accomodation” by the Returning Officer in the election but that is of course by the way). I asked the person concerned in leaking this information why she was doing it.
“It’s called ‘negative campaigning‘” she replied. “We’ll do anything to stop him being elected“. (Yes, I have all of my hard drives from 1999 here now).

And so he duly wasn’t elected and OUSA chose in his place a convicted pedophile to lead the organisation. That was one campaign that backfired a little, didnt it? Or maybe that might have been the aim. Anything is possible in OUSA.

But then again we fast-forward to 2009. Due to one thing and another, X is sumoned before a disciplinary hearing. And guess who volunteers to chair it? Absolutely! Never mind “prior knowledge” – never mind “parti pris” the world’s favourite webhost gets the job.

And I wonder if you can guess what the disciplinary committee decides?

Dead right. Candidate X “shall not be eligible to stand for any elected post within OUSA…” . I bet you never would have guessed it, would you?

And in other other news it’s snowing like hell outside. I’m prepared for another seige.

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Friday 5th February 2010 – Well, we’ve done it now!

This afternoon we signed the compromis for these houses in Montaigut. Mind you, it’s not all plain sailing as you might imagine with anything involving me. Firstly the houses are situated in a historic area (in fact,just round the corner is the blacksmith’s where Joan of Arc had her spurs made) and so the town has the right to match any offer made on any property in that area. Mind you the town is flat broke so that’s unlikely to happen but I bet they’ll soon find the money if they get to hear that there might be a possibility that I might be moving in there.

Secondly the properties have already been sold elsewhere. However the guy can’t get a loan (and looking at them, it’s no surprise) and so he has renounced his offer, but nevertheless he needs to give his formal agreement.

Nothing is ever straightforward, is it?

Completion is set to be the end of April so the major plan currently is
1) finish Terry and Liz’s kitchen on rainy days
2) point the outside wall of their house on dry days
3) change my barn roof
4) go to Brussels and have a blitz on my apartment in Jette and put it on the market.
5) come back and start on these houses

So that’s the plan for the next three months anyway. You can see what I mean about being busy.

les guis virlet puy de dome franceTalking of being busy though, I’ve finished insulating this cupboard space, put the horizontals in and now I’ve started to plasterboard it. It won’t take at all long to finish now and when I’ve done that I can put some shelves in there to store anything that needs to be kept clean and tidy.

And whule we are on the subject, Terry and I have been discussing my lighting. Terry is refusing to get involved in my electricity ( well, he is an electrician and he does have his professional pride) and he is quite impressed with these 12-volt LEDs that I’m using (and they had a few more on sale in LIDL today). So much so that he agrees with me that a mains (230-volt) lighting circuit is pretty redundant. So what am I now going to do with all these light bulbs that I’ve been collecting? But I’m not all that bothered. It’s saved me a lot of work and it is rather unnecessary.

And who was Joan of Arc? Why of course, she was the wife of Noah.

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Thursday 7th January 2010 – I have been taken to task …

… about my use of the term “cattleyouths” the other day. I have been reminded that there is no such thing and I ought to be referring to “chronologically-challenged cattlepersons”. Ahhh well!

For the second day running I was awake at 06:30 and I’ve no idea why. It must be my guilty conscience. Mind you, it was absolutely taters and it took me all of my effort to heave myself out of my stinking pit when the alarm went off.

This morning I occupied myself with some tasks that I had been meaning to do for a while. As you might remember, a few years ago I experimented with 12-volt MR16 LEDs but with not much success. A few months ago LIDL had a range on sale and I bought a dozen or so to try them out. This has been much more successful and I’ve lit up the house at 1.2 watts a throw. So today I took out the 7-watt flourescents that were in the verandah where I cook and in the lean-to and I’ve installed 2xLEDs in the verandah and just one in the lean-to. I reckon that this little lot will save me about 2 amp-hours per day, which is not to be sneezed at.

The lighting effect is staggering! The verandah is lit up like broad daylight and the lean-to is just as bright as before. So I resurrected my 12-volt daylight sensor from a few years ago and I’ve fitted a LED outside that automatically comes on at dusk – to stop my visitors tripping over trailers and the like, Terry. I’ve fitted a master-switch that overrides it so it’s only on when I want it on.

After that I repaired the chest of drawers that I bought from the Virlet brocante. It wasn’t broken until I tried to fit far too many clothes into it – but now I’ve reinforced the drawers with some wooden struts.

stud wall bedroom shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon I’ve fitted another vertical in the first-floor partition between the bedroom and the bit where the bathroom will be. Just three more to do now and that will be finished. It seems that I’ve forgotten about the kitchen for a while and I’m doing the 1st floor instead. Still, why not?

But it’s perishing cold and showing no signs of warming up. Next week the weather promises more of the same. There are vague hints of sunny weather too but I’ll believe it when I see it.

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