Tag Archives: carrots

Monday 13th February 2017 – IT GOES FROM ONE EXTREME …

… to another, doesn’t it?

Saturday night, I had one of the best nights’ sleeps that I have had for ages. Last night was one of the worst. Still awake at 03:00 and a long way from sleep. All of this was very sad.

But go to sleep I did, and I remember nothing of any travels, except the usual 06:00 awakening, the 06:30 awakening and then my 07:00 alarm going off. And they had forgotten to bring the breakfast around this morning so it was very short commons.

Back down here, I went back to sleep and that was where I stayed until 09:30. And having sorted out an issue that I was having with the laptop and some kind of bug that it had picked up, I got down to work. I did some tidying up, a pile of paperwork was sorted, some of which was thrown out and the rest neatly filed away in the binder that I had remembered to bring with me.

For a change, I didn’t have lunch either. I wasn’t feeling hungry. I just ate some fruit as well. And seeing as the cleaner was in here today, I wanted to vacuum the laptops here to clean out the keyboards. He wouldn’t let me use it but did it himself, including the screen which now has four scratches and I’m really disappointed about that.

A little later I went for a walk in the sunshine down to Caliburn. I took a few of the black plastic boxes down there, started him up and ran him for 15 minutes while I sorted out another pile of stuff down there that needs to be dealt with here.

And I found two bank cards for which I had had been searching. That has got me back up and running now, as I have a few things that need to be dealt with.

Another crashing-out was called for afterwards, and then I made tea. Potatoes, carrots, green beans, gravy and the last of my vegan pies. And just for a change it was all cooked to perfection. I still had one of those fresh fruit packs left over from the weekend so that did me for pudding. I’ll be starting on the ice cream and pineapples tomorrow.

So now we’ll have another early night. Hopefully I can do better than last night as I have paperwork to deal with and issues to resolve.

I hope that it works for me.

Friday 10th February 2017 – I CAME BACK TO BELGIUM …

… for the good of my health, but it’s not working out quite like that. It’s not doing my pulse rate and heartbeat much good, but that won’t stop me going out for a walk to take the air around the town on another occasion round about University chucking-out time, that’s for sure.

In fact, we got off to a good start – I stepped out of the front door and almost bowled a young schoolgirl straight into the centre of the road. She gave me such a beautiful smile that it cheered me right up for the rest of the day. I had a nice smile from the pharmacist too (not my usual one) as I picked up my next supply of medication, and then I hit the streets.

Last night, in order to get off to sleep early, I watched a film on the laptop. But that didn’t work, just for a change. Mind you, it wasn’t a Bulldog Drummond film so that might explain it. And then we had the usual awakening in the middle of the night and a couple of rude awakenings as people started to stir around here.

During the night, I’d been on my travels. I was having to prepare a thesis to be read out in front of an examining board and I wasn’t all that enthused about the subject that I had to present. On the other hand my friend June has to prepare her thesis on “travel” and she was saying to our mutual friend Krys that it was a shame that I wan’t presenting it because it was a subject that I clearly enjoyed. There was a cabbage that featured somewhere in this story too but I’ve no idea where and why now.

There were only three of us at breakfast but others had clearly been before us as we’d run out of orange juice and other stuff too. And then I came back down here to go back to sleep for a while. When I awoke, I went for a shower, a change of clothes and this led to a shave, and even … shock! horroh! … a haircut.

And I’m glad that I prettied myself up because they came to change the bed linen. So I’m all nice and clean everywhere tonight.While they were doing that, I went out for my baguette.

After lunch, I had another snooze but it was only for about another hour or so. And then – I made an executive decision. I don’t have enough trousers here and this is causing issues. In fact, in the shower I washed one of my pairs. But then I decided that maybe I ought to do something about this, and so I hit the streets as I said just now.

C and A had nothing, and so I went to the Sports shop where I bought my new shoes at the end of Autumn. Two pairs of decent trousers of the kind and of the material that I like, and reduced on special offer to €11:50 each. That’s more than I pay in Montlucon but it can’t be helped.

On the way back, I kept on tripping over college girls. Yes, I’ll come out again at this time of afternoon.

Tonight’s tea was vegan pie, beans, carrots, boiled potatoes and gravy. Totally delicious. A chat on the internet with Liz too.

And so we’ll try to have an early night again tonight. I hope that I’ll feel even better tomorrow. But there are no girls out there to cheer me up.

Monday 16th January 2017 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… tea that was!

First of all, I sliced up a large carrot and potato and put them on to boil. And while they were doing, I sliced up an onion and some garlic and fried them in vegan margarine with some cumin and turmeric.

Once they were fried to perfection, I added a tin of mushrooms and a small tin of macedoine vegetables, and then tipped in the potato and carrot. Once they were simmering away, I cooked a pan of rice in turmeric.

There’s enough curry for four days, so three helpings went in the fridge and I had the fourth with the rice. And just for a change, I had it on a plate instead of eating out of my saucepan. Completely delicious. And there’s more to come over the next three days, when the spices have had more of an opportunity to percolate into the food.

A job well done, my curry!

I slept right through until the alarm went off, with only one distraction and no nocturnal rambling either. Alone again at breakfast and I might well be alone in the building too, because I’ve not heard a thing from anyone else for a good few hours.

That gave me plenty of opportunity to crack on with some other stuff today. I did some stuff on the 3D program that I use, using the design function and I actually managed to create something. Or, rather, modify an existing prop. It wasn’t difficult but it’s a step forward all the same.

As well as that, I’ve been doing some more research with my Labrador project and the Finnish espeditions. Interestingly, they make reference to a Priest, the Reverend Paul Hettasch, who was a Moravian priest from Germany who ran one of the Moravian missions on the coast, at Makkovik. The author of the report, Vaino Tanner, talks at length about all of the weather reports that Hettasch was keeping – how precise, complete and thorough they were. And a further search about Hettasch on the internet revealed that according to the Canadian Police, Hettasch was a Nazi sympathiser who sent all of his weather notes back to Germany and these formed the basis of the weather predictions that aided the German bombers of the Luftwaffe in their attacks over the UK in the early days of World War II.

It’s amazing what you can uncover these days in all of these research projects.

But while I was looking over the Labrador censuses during the inter-war period I came across some interesting notes taken by the census-recorder at Davis Inlet while he was asking about the Innu settlement at Voisey’s Bay in 1935. His notes were extremely brief, with just the most basic details recorded, and he explained that the “… information was furnished by a Davis Inlet Indian and it was impossible to get further details. Their life is a nomadic one and it would be futile to go look for them.”

But it was difficult this afternoon. I kept on dozing off here and there, and when I was awake, it was difficult to concentrate. I need to do what I can to recover my fighting spirit and get back to work properly.

I can’t go on like this!

And you may well have noticed – I’ve not set a single foot outside the building today.

Wednesday 11th January 2017 – WHAT A BAD NIGHT!

Just as I said, I was in bed early last night, and was soon asleep. But then I awoke at about 00:45 when a noise on the radio awoke me, so I switched off the laptop and went back to sleep.

And then it all happened.

All I can say is that I must have had a nightmare, because I had one of those dreams that was extremely disturbing and which made me sit bolt upright. and it wasn’t just the fact of the dream either but the person who was the central character and all of the people who surrounded her. It was such a graphic, disturbing dream that I couldn’t go back to sleep and ended up typing it up on the laptop to make sure that I didn’t forget it.

But I must have gone back to sleep because the alarm awoke me at 07:00, and for some reason we had a most astonishing cacophony from the church bells and I’m not quite sure why. But never mind anyone else in the building, it probably would have awoken the dead too.

At breakfast I was on my own, and then I came back down here to carry on with my research. I started to read the report of that Finnish expedition to Labrador. And it’s come up with a couple of interesting facts.

  1. There’s a lengthy discussion of the Churchill Falls and the Bowdoin Canyon into which the Falls descends. A huge pile of statistics that will be of great interest when I start to write about my trip out in the Wilderness of Labrador to visit the Falls
  2. Even more interestingly, you need to remember that this is the period 1937-1939, long before the discovery of the Norse remains at L’Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland. And yet there’s a map in the preface of this expedition’s report where they discuss the Norse settlement of Newfoundland, and as far as the small scale of the map can isolate, the expedition places Vinland in round about the same area that Helge Ingstad discovered the Norse remains (although Ingstad hesitates to identify them as “Vinland” and as you already know, I don’t think that it corresponds at all with the description given in the Norse Sagas). It’s a little-known fact that L’Anse aux Meadows was identified in 1914 as the location of “Vinland” by an insurance agent and amateur historian called William A Munn in his book “Wineland voyages;: Location of Helluland, Markland, and Vinland”, but Munn isn’t listed as a source by the Expedition, and so I’m now more intrigued than ever before about the source of this Expedition’s information about the location

Just before lunch I went out to the supermarket on the corner for a baguette and came back with a black plastic box as well – another one in the waste bin and I now have a dozen of them ready for packing, whenever that might be.
And I also had a major crash-out this afternoon too, but that’s hardly a surprise.

Tea was delicious – potatoes, carrots, broccoli, gravy and a vegan Linda McCartney pie. That was the best meal that I’ve had for quite a while. And my djervushka from the Ukraine was there too. I have to make the most of my time with her because she’s leaving on Friday, having found a studio for herself. I wonder if she needs a flatmate?

And there are more new people here too – but I’ve not had the pleasure of their company as yet.

Tonight I’m looking forward to my bed. As well as having a shower and a shave, I have a clean bedroom and fresh bedding. I’m all set up for a good night’s sleep but whether or not I’ll have one is another thing.

Who – or what – is going to interrupt me tonight then?

Sunday 25th December 2016 – SMAKELIJK!

Having worked to death the Crewe Bus Station toilets “Merry Christmas to all our readers” thing continuously over the past few years, we’ll talk about something else this year.

roast potatoes boiled carrots chicory leeks brussels sprouts onions seitan gravy christmas dinner leuven belgium december decembre 2016Like my Christmas dinner for example. Roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, carrots, chicory, leeks, seitan slices, onions, gravy and, of course, brussels sprouts. No Christmas meal is complete without them of course – properly cooked and not at all into a mush like most people cook them.

And it was absolutely delicious too, even if I had forgotten to add the garlic.

There was supposed to be Christmas pudding and soya custard for afters, but Alison had bought me a vegan chocolate Santa, and so that went down instead, washed down by a can of that alcohol-free raspberry beer.

Last night, we had the party at 05:00 but with my headphones on, I managed to avoid the worst of it. And it only lasted about half an hour anyway before boyfriend was escorted to the door.

And I was on my travels too. In some kind of Dragnet circumstance with two people, nominally police officers, but chauffeurs at where I worked. We had to go somewhere and we were told that we were to avoid a certain street which had now been converted into a dead end. So we set off, with me driving in an early 1950s Ford-type of sedan coloured a duck-egg blue and pale yellow. And sure enough, I missed the turning and ended up just where I’d been told where not to go. With two of us at the front and one at the rear, we picked up the car (which was now shaped like a canoe) and man-handled it through a tone-lined pond onto the main road. There, I pulled a bunch of weeds out of a garden there and was immediately confronted by the owner of the property who hadn’t wanted me to do that.

christmas lights grote markt leuven belgium december decembre 2016And so while you admire the rest of last night’s photographs, I can tell you that I was alone an breakfast, where there was nothing special arranged for the tenants.

And then down here, I unwrapped my Christmas presents.

Alison’s chocolate Santa I’ve already mentioned. But me, I bought myself a new laptop.

christmas lights grote markt leuven belgium december decembre 2016Actually, I bought it last year but what with one thing and another, I hadn’t opened it.

It’s another Acer, but a larger one with a numeric keypad and DVD player, and twice as much RAM as before.

You know that this one is not very good – it’s the slowest machine that I’ve ever used. It’s very lightweight and very economical, but the lack of speed was really getting on my nerves.

christmas lights grote markt leuven belgium december decembre 2016Transferring the files over is taking ages though. Not because it’s taking so much time (although it is) but I’m taking the opportunity to tidy up all of the directories while I’m about it.

It might be finished by tomorrow – who knows – and then I’ll have to start to clean up the storage issues that I have. I can save tons of space if I organise myself properly.

christmas lights grote markt leuven belgium december decembre 2016While I was making my butties at lunchtime (that’s a nice loaf that I have bought) I made the acquaintance of one of my housemates.

She’s a woman from Montreal, the Henri Bourassa area of the city, and so we had quite a lengthy chat (in French) about this and that. It was nice o remind myself of the city, seeing as how I’n not sure if i’ll ever be making it back there.

christmas lights grote markt leuven belgium december decembre 2016This afternoon I carried on with the new laptop and had a nice chat with Liz and her family on the laptop. Strawberry Moose joined in the discussion too, telling Dylan and Robyn how much he was looking forward to meeting up later next year.

And then, I went off to make my delicious tea.

Before I go off to bed for an early night, let me just tell you a little about something that I discovered last night.

Leuven is a really beautiful medieval Flemish city as you have probably seen, but 103 years ago, it was even more beautiful.

All of that changed in August 1914 when the Germans arrived, and in accordance with their policy of “Frightfulness” they set fire to the city centre, even burning the contents of the library that contained many of the oldest books in Europe.

And then in May 1940, they burnt it down again.

Many people, including, unfortunately, some of my acquaintances, criticise the French and the Belgian civilians for what they consider to be a “lack of resolution” in confronting the German Army

Leaving aside the fact that at least they were here, unlike the British Army that ran away across the Channel at Dunkirk, and the lack of resolution shown in the German occupied British territories such as the Channel Islands, where the civilian population sat it out with a German occupying force for 10 months after the War had passed them by, the British civilians never had to confront the issues that the French and Belgian citizens had to confront.

We’ve seen in the past the gravestones of civilians who died during both wars – gravestones marked “shot” or “executed” or “decapitated”. No British or American civilian ever had to confront that kind of treatment.

memorial plaque grote markt leuven belgium december decembre 2016Here in the Grote Markt in Leuven is this plaque with a list of names carved thereupon. 16 names, all civilians who were deliberately killed by the Germans in August 1914 as they were setting fire to the buildings of the Square.

This is the kind of thing that you find all over Belgium and France. Never mind being casual, haphazard victims of a bombing campaign or artillery duel, these civilians were simply purposefully murdered while going about their normal day-to-day duties and was a risk that every citizen in Occupied Europe had to run.

There was no escape.

Anyway, on that note, I’m off to do my washing up and then I’m off to bed. Will I have a good night tonight?

Tuesday 20th December 2016 – I MADE SURE …

… that I dropped off early to sleep last night.

What I did was to do something that I hadn’t done for quite a while, and that was that I got into bed and started to watch a film on the laptop. Sure enough, after only about 10 minutes or so, I was off.

But if I ever lay my hands on whoever it was who left the building at 02:40 this morning, slamming the door behind them, they they will know about it. Because I didn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

And it was just as well because the girl in the room next door was up and about at 06:00 and she wasn’t exactly quiet either. But then you can’t pick your housemates, can you?

Anyway, I was in at breakfast at 07:00 and out by 07:30 and back down here at work.

Meanwhile, I forgot to tell you about a couple of things that happened to me at the hospital yesterday.

parking uz gasthuisberg leuven belgium december decembre 2016For the benefit of those who don’t speak French, the sign on the back of the Fiat van says “Please don’t park within 3 metres …” of the rear doors, to allow the rear doors to open to admit a wheelchair.

And so the car behind is parked within 1 metre of it – right outside the entrance to a hospital.

I went up to the driver and asked him if a sign has to be written in both official languages (French and Flemish) to be legal, but as you might expect, my comment went clear over his head.

As Alfred Hitchcock once said to Kenneth Williams “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”, and reminds me of the spoof Open University course on “Understanding Irony”, which actually received several applicants.

But it’s a sad reflection of the selfish attitude of many Belgians, isn’t it?

But the second thing was even more unnerving.

I walked up to the reception desk and the woman looked at me and said “ahh, Mr Hall …” Yes, I’m even being recognised by the clerical staff in the hospital now. This is uncomfortable, isn’t it?

ginger beer dandelion and burdock vegan mince pies custard pies bombay mix, linda mccartney vegan pies bisto gravy browning english shop kortenberg bertem belgium december decembre 2016Another thing that I have forgotten to do is to post the photo of the stuff that I bought on Sunday at the English shop.

Working clockwise around, we have Linda McCartney vegan pies, a vegan Christmas pudding, Bisto vegan gravy browning, a bottle of ginger beer, a bottle of dandelion and burdock, a bag of Bombay mix, some custard powder and, pride of place, two boxes of vegan mince pies.

Now I’m all set up for Christmas.

Later this morning I went down to Caliburn to sort out some stuff to bring up here and then went down to the Carrefour. I came back with a baguette and some tomatoes, some seitan slices (for Christmas dinner), some potatoes, some carrots and some leeks as well as a couple of pots of fresh spices.

That was because, for tea, I had boiled potatoes with fresh mint, carrots with fresh rosemary, leeks and Linda McCartney vegan pie covered in thick Bisto gravy. It made such a change from my usual fare and it was absolutely delicious. It all worked out fine too, much better than my pizza did. I shall be doing more of this, as well as looking at the possibility of baked potatoes in the microwave here.

High time that I was organised.

This afternoon I crashed out for a while and also did some work on my web pages.

Another thing that I did was to walk into the (unlocked) bathroom just as my nubile next-door neighbour was wrapping herself in a towel after her shower. Serves her right for not closing the door!

So now we’ll have another go at an early night. And I’ll hope for better luck too.

Wednesday 24th April 2014 – I’VE SPENT MOST OF THE …

… day in the garden today. And a long day it was too as I was awake and out of bed before the alarm clock went off – such are the benefits of an early night.

So after the customary few hours on the web site I went outside, and the first job was to sow some Witloof chicory seeds. Well – perhaps it wasn’t. First job was to hoe the raised bed in which they will be planted, put some potash in there and then hoe a few other raised beds while I was at it, and THEN sow the witloof chicory.

After that, I repaired a couple of bean frames, fixed them to a raised bed, and then sowed a pile of peas. We’ll see what happens to them.

After lunch I really got stuck in.

I sowed another row of parsnips and carrots, and put some beetroot and spinach seeds in to soak. I then went through the seed list and the little plastic greenhouse to see what there was, and now I’ve added some more

  • broccoli
  • aubergines
  • tomatoes
  • cayenne peppers
  • gherkins
  • peppers
  • cucumbers

Finally I gave everything a really good watering, but I needn’t have bothered as we have just had a torrential rainstorm.

Tomorrow i’ll sow the spinach and beetroot, and then I have other things to do.

Tuesday 8th April 2014 – WHAT A WAY TO START THE DAY

Downstairs nice and early for a change, and … no gas. It must have run out just as I finished cooking last night and I didn’t notice.

Good job I’d bought that cylinder the other week. First job this morning was to couple that up so that I could have a coffee.

After the website, second job was to empty the beichstuhl. Such delightful jobs I have here. And just to prove that it never rains but it pours, the shredder packed up. And why a shredder? The answer is that you need something to absorb liquids in a composting toilet and the best thing ever designed for that is old telephone directory pages. Works like a charm when it’s shredded and I wonder what I’m going to do now.

les guis virlet puy de dome franceNext thing was to check the state of affairs with the plants that I sowed the other week. I told you yesterday that a courgette plant was raising its pretty little head. So here’s a photo of it and its brother too, because we now have two courgette plants springing to life.

Still nothing doing in the carrots, parsnips and radish bed, but before lunch I sowed another row each, together with the beetroot seeds that I had soaking overnight

Talking of soaking overnight, I put pile of pea seeds in damp paper in a plastic bag. They’ll be okay in there for a while to help them germinate.


plastic greenhouse shelf unit seed traysles guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch I carried on sowing and theres another pile of seeds now in the little plastic greenhouse helf thingy that I bought the other day.

It does occur to me that you haven’t seen it yet and so here it is in all its glory. You can see the bushes that I bought a couple of weeks ago, and all of the seeds that I’ve sown. In the plastic bag are the peas.

So what did I sow today?

  • Gherkins
  • Tomatoes
  • Sweet corn – but I’m not going to be optimistic about that. I found a packet with an expiry date of 2009 so if I was going to throw them away, I might as well throw them in the soil and see what happens

Thee was also quite a mixture of seeds floating around in the bottom of the box in which I keep the seed packets. Seeing as there’s an empty bed that won’t be used for a while, they all went in there and we’ll see.


herb bins les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter all of that I started tidying up outside, seeing as there was still some time to go. You can now see the herb bins in their pristine glory before they are all overwhelmed again.

It doesn’t look much like I’ve done any tidying up, but there’s a lot to do as you might expect. I can see the difference, but I doubt if anyone else could.

I’ve also cleaned the old “Westwood” ride-on mower. An ex-friend of mine found this for me and I never ever had it running because there are some bits missing. It’s sat here and not mooved wince 2002. Anyway, some time next week, it’s going. Someone is coming to pick it up. And you won’t believe the story behind this – you’ll just have to wait.

But whatever did happen to Paul? He was the best friend I ever had and he would do anything for me any time without question, something for which I was eternally grateful (and it goes without saying that I returned the compliment). But then he had his accident and he was put on medication, and that changed him considerably.

Finally, they changed his medication for another and I just couldn’t cope at all with the new personality. We were in Birmingham once, trying to make out which way to turn when a car (not unsurprisingly) blew its horn. He was straight out of the car going to thump the other driver and it was at that moment that I realised that I couldn’t keep this up.

I have enough problems dealing with my own issues without thinking about dealing with anyone else’s.

What a shame.

Monday 7th April 2014 – I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

strawberry plants raised bed les guis virlet puy de dome franceWell, I suppose that I ought to really. It should be something that I’m used to by now. But do you remember me saying that I replanted 4 strawberry plants the other day? I had a look today and there are now only 3, with a hole in the soil where the 4th one was, as you can see in this photo.

I’ve no idea what happened there. I suppose some local bestiole has taken a fancy to it.

But you can see the soil just there – clay with a barrow-load of sand worked in. That should lighten it considerably.


garlic shallots raised beds potager les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the garlic and shallots though, I don’t know if you can really see them here in this photo but they have mostly done the business.

One or two garlic bulbs seem to have failed but I have some of last year’s crop to plant in there to replace them. And one or two of the shallots needed reseating, but otherwise they are fine. The onions in another bed are pushing up too.

Nothing stirring with the carrots, parsnips and radishes yet. I’m not surprised about the parsnips, but the carrots might have done something by now and I’m bewildered by the radishes. They should be almost ready.

I have a courgette plant about to rear its ugly head out of its pot too. And where there’s one, the others shouldn’t be far behind.

So today after website work I went out and the first thing that I did was to empty out all of the herb beds. I have a row of flower boxes and I use them as herb beds and they were all overgrown.

If anyone wants some mint and thyme cuttings, let me know as I have tons of the stuff here. It really did run wild while I was away last year. Anyway, everything is now rosy in the herb beds and I even had fresh rosemary from my own garden in my onion and mushroom gravy tonight.

For the rest of the day I’ve been sowing seeds in pots. And here’s a list of what’s gone in –

  • Aneth
  • Coriander
  • leeks
  • cucumbers
  • lettuce
  • aubergines
  • basil
  • chives
  • cayenne peppers
  • mixed peppers
  • broccoli

They are all in pots in the little greenhouse thingy that I bought the other week.

I also have some beetroot seeds soaking ready to plant tomorrow, and I’ll also look at the rest of the brassica to see what I have an what I need.

All that needs doing then is to make some more pea and bean frames and then start some of those off, and to sow some more carrots and parsnips.

Mind you, that’s not all that I’ve done. I went to St Eloy at lunchtime and spent a whole shed-load of money, in fact the only time that I’ve ever spent more money than this was in buying Caliburn and buying my various houses and apartments. Yes, there will be a new arrival here shortly, more of which anon.

And I forgot two pieces of news from yesterday. Firstly, the mystery of Matthieu’s appearance on the football pitch Saturday night is now solved. He had no intention whatever of playing, so it seems, but someone couldn’t make it at the last minute so he went out rather than let the teamplay short-handed. If that’s not courage and devotion to duty after all he’s suffered with his injury, I don’t know what is.

And Nane rang me up for a very long chat, in the middle of which she announced that a mutual acquaintance of ours had died on Saturday. It’s never nice to hear of a death, especially of someone that you know, but this friend and I did have some issues between us that have been the subject of a considerable rant from me in the past. Nevertheless I wish her bon voyage to wherever it is that she wishes to go.

Monday 31st March 2014 – I WASN’T SO GOOD …

… at getting up today. It took a great deal of effort to haul myself out of bed, but once I was out, I wasn’t so bad.

After the customary couple of hours on the web site, I went outside. This furniture removal is now postponed until tomorrow so I had a look at a couple of petrol-engined appliances that had been hanging around here for a couple of months.

Of course, they didn’t work and so I wen into Pionsat for some clean fuel. I also nipped to Cecile’s as apparently there was a bird stuck in the window.I was too late for the bird unfortunately and I can’t take it out as it’s fallen behind some shutterings that we spent a day or so fitting, and I didn’t have the tools with me.

Back here, giving everything a clean and draining out the fuel tanks and carburettors and the like, I finally got everything to work and I even managed to mow a bit of grass.

The new plastic greenhouse thingy is erected and I’ve put the pots with the courgette seeds in it, those that I potted last week, and also the shrubs that I bought. And while I may not have carrots and parsnips and radish, or even courgetttes, the garlic is going well, and the onions and shallots are close behind.

I fell asleep again at lunchtime but when I finally did make it outside, I did another raised bed. I must push on with those.

But I also had a visitor. Someone at the footy had seen me – or, rather, Caliburn, and he made an effort to track me down as on his farm he has a wind turbine that hasn’t been functionning for a few years and he wondered if I could get it to work for him.

So that’s another half-day out when we have some wind. This vehicle advertising really pays.

Wednesday 26th March 2014 – IT’S AMAZING …

… how much you can accomplish when you have a prompt start and no interruptions (and also, you don’t fall asleep at lunchtime).

This morning though, it was hard to leave my warm and comfortable bed because it was anything but here in my little room. And I had been busy during the night. I’d been up on the Yorkshire Moors watching two Reliant Scilitars (they were really 1970s Jensen Interceptors but never mind) come into this parking area to turn round. One of them had no numberplate and my friend said something along the lines of “just typical – they spend all of their money on buying a fancy car and so have nothing left over to buy the number plates”.

We were then in a garage – a motor trade workshop I mean – and an old friend of mine was running it and he was repairing cars like these Reliants. There had been a problem though and the sliding door to the premises had come of its runners and he, helped by some school friends of mine (whom I’m certain he never met) was trying to fix it. They could fix the bottom runner in its track but every time they lifted it up to fit the top runner in its track, the door fell inwards on top of them all.

But anyway, a couple of hours on the website and then promptly outside. And I worked hard all day today too, and with just the usual lunch break.

raised bed carrot parsnip radish les guis virlet puy de dome franceHere’s another one of the raised beds completed, with a row of carrots and a row of parsnips. The parsnips are some that I bought in Canada in 2012 and designed, like most Canadian plants, for short growing seasons. They might do well here.

As for the carrots, I had 4 viable varieties, another that expired last year, and a 6th that expired in 2012. But anyway, I mixed a few seeds of each lot in with a handful of moist sand, and sowed them all.


The sand serves three purposes, namely –
1) it gives bulk to the mix of seeds and so makes sowing easier and quicker
2) I can see where I’ve sowed
3) with the soil being clay, there are lots of air pockets and so the seeds are sometimes trapped in them and don’t have enoug water to germinate. The damp sand clings to the seeds and helps them to germinate regardless of the heavy clay soil.

There are also a few radish seeds mixed in with each row. The radish germinate in about 10 days so I can see from their leaves where the rows of seeds are.

But if that wasn’t enough, I cracked straight on and by knocking off time I’d finished a second raised bed. The courgettes will be going in there.

So two raised beds in a day! That’s good news and means that I won’t be disappointed if I take a day off some time.

deer les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut I had company today while I was working in the garden. There were two deer in the field down the hill.

It’s *that* time of year again, isn’t it? So I imagine that it was Strawberry Moose that they had come to see, not me.

But they were nice anyway. Much nicer than the usual company.


I’m trying a new tactic this year. With my soil being wet clayey claggy mess, every time I pull up a weed, I pull up half the soil with it. I’m fed up of seeing my soil disappear and so I’ve resurrected a little old water butt that I’ve had for years, bought in the UK.

I’ve put about 20 litres of water in it and I’m throwing the weeds into it. and at the end of the night I bash the weeds around a little with a spade.

The aim is to soak all of the soil off the weeds and when the raised beds need watering, I’ll draw the water off here, which will be nice and wet and muddy, and I’ll pour it onto the bed, which will wet them of course but also add back the soil. And if any of the weeds rot and decay, the wet decayed plant matter will aslo be added back.

Whatever remains of this rotted mixture will end up in the compost.

Thursday 18th July 2013 – MYSTERY SOLVED

It wasn’t the old abandoned house that fell down the other night. I managed to have a wander around there to see, and although I walked past it twice without seeing it, because it was so covered in ivy and weeds and so on, it’s still there, or, rather, what’s left of it is,

But I know what it was that made that noise.

I managed to make my way down to the compost bin today (high time I emptied the composting toilet – it certainly needed it) and I’ll tell you what – a cordless Ryobi Plus One hedge trimmer makes a magnificent strimmer for dealing with tall grass and weeds and the like – it’s a long time since I’ve been as impressed as this.

But back to the plot

There are piles of dead wood and twigs and branches covering the bottom end of my garden and there, in the next field where Lieneke had a huge old tree of some description, well she doesn’t have it now.

There’s about two metres of stump and then there’s absolute carnage. I’m not surprised that it heaved me out of bed.

shower room false wall plasterboard les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the shower room, well, it’s all finished as far as I can go until I buy the tiles.

And it was finished at lunchtime too (mind you, it was 14:45 when I stopped).

The good news is that the sink is not 50cms at all but just 43cms. That means that I can have a 45cm worktop instead of a 52cm one and that will give me much more room.

I have to admit that, in all honesty, my shower room is not going to be the place to be for anyone suffering from claustrophobia.

But there will be plenty of shelving and even a very small 20cm deep linen cupboard.

But seeing as I had finished by 14:45, how come I didn’t knock off until 19:45 then?

The answer to all of that is that, as I explained just now, I fought my way down to the compost bin, and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either as you can imagine.

And once I had finished attacking the vegetation, I emptied, cleaned and recharged the composting toilet. And it needed it too, as I have said.

After that, changing the habits of a lifetime, I attacked the the room which will be the bedroom and which I’ve been using as a workroom.

A pile of wood went straight out of the window for a start, and then I started to sweep up and tidy up. 3 large bin bags of rubbish and a bin full of sawdust for the toilet, and it’s not finished yet.

But it’s amazing the space that you can make if you put your mind to it.

I’m going to have a serious go tomorrow and see if I can’t make enough space to lie flat all of the sheets of plasterboard instead of having them propped up against a wall bowing away to themselves alarmingly.

They ought to be lain flat but I’ve never really had the space to do it.

Tons of tools recovered, as well as tons of nails and screws, and I bet that there will be others recovered tomorrow. But I’m not going to do too much – I have a pile of correspondence to deal with and some of that is urgent.

I felt like cooking tonight too, and ended up with a gorgeous meal – potatoes, carrots, cauliflower in a cheese sauce and a veggie burger. Absolutely marvellous.

Went down a treat with the ice cream sorbet that I bought for myself as a treat for finishing the shower room.

And we’ve had a storm tonight. First rain since July the … errr … 2nd? And we needed it too as the water situation was getting desperate.

I’m glad that I cleaned out the filters the other day.

Thursday 3rd January 2013 – WHAT A LOUSY …

… day

Grey, wet, miserable, depressing

But that’s enough about me – the weather was even worse.

So with almost no solar energy today I didn’t do all that much. When I opened my eye and saw the weather, I closed it again and went back under the duvet.

And if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary to visit the beichstuhl I’d probably be there now. 

After breakfast and working on the website for a while I started on the floor in the shower room. But I wasn’t there as long as I might have been, and for a very simple reason too.

I will swear blind that I bought 5 packets of tongue-and-grooved flooring planks, but I’ve only been able to manage to find four – there’s one missing somewhere. And the result of that is that I ran out of floor with two planks to go.

GRRRRR!

So that means a trip to Montlucon and Brico Depot on Saturday, doesn’t it? I’m never going to finish this blasted flooring seeing as how all of the fates are conspiring against me.

To pass the rest of the time I started to sort out the firewood in the lean-to in order to make more space.

I could have cut it up as well but I have to do that outside and with it pouring down with rain it wasn’t much of a good plan. But there’s progress all the same.

This evening I had another meal the same as last night and it worked just as well, if not better.

Having a rip-roaring blaze at the beginning is definitely the key to cooking with the wood stove. It heats the oven up quicker and that cooks the potatoes better.

Basically, 2 hours for the spuds, 60 minutes for the sprouts and 90 minutes for the rest of the veg. The veggie-burger takes about 20 minutes or so.

I had a few phone calls too. Cécile called me twice and spoke to me for hours. She’s giving a dinner party tomorrow night and wants to know if I can help her tomorrow afternoon to prepare.

Seeing as I don’t have the wood to finish the floor, that seems like a good plan.

Marianne also rang up for a long chat and to tell me about her adventures at Riom hunting down old historical documents. One of these days when I’m not busy, whenever that might be, I’ll have to go with her.

As for me, this afternoon I telephoned the hospital at Montlucon to enquire about Bill.

The receptionist wasn’t all that forthcoming. After much verbal fencing, she expressed an interest in knowing who I was, and so I explained that I was neither family nor close friend but just an everyday run-of-the-mill friend of no particular significance.

She then said that she couldn’t give me any more information, but would I care to leave my phone number so that she can pass it on the Bill’s daughter – his next of kin

I don’t like the sound of that one little bit

Wednesday 2nd January 2013 – IT WAS BACK …

… to work today.

First time since I’m not sure when.

However, first task was to start on the web page for my visit to Lévis (that’s pronounced “Layvee”, not “Levi’s”) which is across the St Lawrence from the city of Québec. That was a brief excursion on a ferry across the St Lawrence in the middle of the afternoon during my walk around Québec.

It’s usually a bad sign for me to encounter a ferry and I’m never in a good humour, because every time I see a ferry, it always makes me cross.

Once that was out of the way I had a marathon wood-chopping session. I’ve used up a pile of wood over the last couple of weeks and so it needed to be replaced.

That took quite a while and created a nice pile of sawdust for the composting toilet.

It’s also made a nice little space in the lean-to and I’m hoping that I can crack on with that idea. I’d love to have enough space in there for my little workshop by the end of winter

Finally, I carried on with the floor in the shower room, and I’ve worked out why there’s a problem with the floor levels. It seems that with the wisdom that only Brico Depot can conjure up, the grooves are off-centre.

Now that wouldn’t particularly matter if the off-centre was consistent on each plank but in fact, while a pack might be consistent, the batch isn’t.

And that’s just plain ridiculous because there’s a planed side and a rough side, so you can’t even turn the planks over in order to even out the centres.

For tea this evening I tried a little experiment.

As well as starting off the baked potatoes in the oven, I chopped up a few sprouts and carrots, put them in a pyrex dish with some water and put them in the oven too.

Add a veggie burger and onions and garlic in a baking tray and use some of the veg water to make a gravy and I had a magnificent evening meal. Just like a king, in fact.

A wise move indeed, buying this little stove as I have said so many times before.

And setting up a little kitchen in a corner here, that’s working too.

Tuesday 25th December 2012 – THE FIRST NOEL…

… the Angels did say was at about blasted 07:45 this flaming morning.

That’s because despite it being a Bank Holiday and accordingly a Day of Rest, where nothing ever moves before perishing midday, Brain of Britain here forgot to switch off his sodding alarm clock, didn’t he?

Still, the early start gave me plenty of time to relax and open my presents.

Lots of DVDs, CDs, books and computer stuff. All a man could desire – except for Kate Bush and Jenny Agutter of course, but you can’t have everything.

And once breakfast was out of the way I sat down for the start of my marathon DVD session.

Lunch was the typical Christmas Day lunch – nibbling on bits and pieces, and then having had a suitable repose, I prepared the veg for the evening meal.

Boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, carrots, endives and sprouts – all cooked in the steamer.

Cécile came round in the late afternoon, just in time for Carry on Don’t Lose Your Head.

Not my favourite Carry-On film but one that she would understand, with lots of visual humour. High time, given the state of globalisation in the world today, that I started spreading around the spirit of Carry On humour.

So a few more films, a Christmas meal (the aforementioned plus seitan slices in onion gravy, Christmas pudding and vegan cream followed by coffee and Christmas cake), and a good chat, she went home and I went to bed.