Tag Archives: change bedding

Saturday 7th November 2015 – IT’S ALL HAPPENING …

… at the swimming baths at Commentry.

Firstly, I forgot my cozzy and had to go back to Caliburn to find it. Secondly, the big pool was freezing. 29°, it said on the temperature, but I reckon that that must have been Fahrenheit, not Centigrade. Thirdly, there was a group of kids aged about 7-8-9 playing on a couple of foam-rubber rafts down one lane of the big pool. They were having an enormous amount of fun, trying to row, totally out of synch and quite often in opposite directions. As a result, every now and again there was a squeal and half of the kids fell off. They clambered back on again and a short while later we had another squeal followed by a splash. And so it went on. They were having a great time and it was quite amusing watching them.

But the fourth thing was the most interesting. There I was sitting on the jacuzzi steps and some young girl swimming past under water grabbed hold of my foot. I thought that my luck was in, but it turns out that she was aiming for her boyfriend sitting next to me.

Ahhh well 🙁

But you can see what the weather was like today. Totally glorious. And there I was, having disconnected the 12-volt immersion heater (I don’t want it to fire up until I’m there to see what happens). In fact, I went off to Montlucon where I spent a King’s ransom. And it wasn’t as if I had bought anything special, except for 2 inner tubes for the power barrow and a new heavy-duty wheel for the yellow wheelbarrow. It was cheaper than buying an inner tube and tyre and I must get myself organised.

But at least I’m stocked up with tins, macaroni, rice and the like ready for when the winter bites. As long as I have plenty to eat, plenty to read and a few good films to watch, I could be snowed in here for amonth and I couldn’t care less

I didn’t meet anyone whom I knew around the shops either, which makes a change. I’m not sure what happened there.

Pionsat had a really good match tonight against Mozac. They won 3-1 and we had four of the best goals that I’ve seen for ages. Peach of the night was Pionsat’s second, which started off with, would you believe, a one-on-one between a Mozac attacker and Matthieu in the Pionsat goal. The ball bounced off Matthieu’s leg and, just for once, went upfield out of danger. It was played forward to Cedric who rode a few good tackles and, surrounded by two or three Mozac defenders, laid it off to Frédéric. He sold a beautiful dummy to his marker and stepped inside, giving him half a yard of space and he coolly spicked his spot in the corner of the net.

For once, Pionsat had the rub of the green, the benefit of a few unclear decisions, and they played like they ought to have played for the last three or four years. I’ve complained about their “powder-puff” approach to the game in the past but tonight they put in quite a few crunching tackles to make their presence felt. If only they had done this in the past, their position would be totally different.

I was on my travels last night again. Once more, as just a couple of nights ago, I was trying to catch an aeroplane out of Canada but I was running really late. During my stay there, I’d used three cars but I only had one to hand back and I was desperately trying to trace the others, and time was running out. It transpired that one of the cars was “in the bodyshop” and wasn’t quite ready. And so, I thought, there goes my return flight home. I dunno why I seem to have this on my mind at the moment.

But tonight, it’s Saturday and there’s a long lie-in, I hope. I’m all clean with clean clothes and clean undies and so what I’m going to do right now is to change my bedding. A nice clean me with clean bedding and a long lie-in and I shall be in my elephant.

Sunday 28th June 2015 – I’VE FINALLY MANAGED …

… to have a day off work today. And not only that, I had a decent lie-in too.

Mind you, I had to go to visit the beichstuhl and I did think about going off for a coffee but when I checked the time, it was only 05:45 so there was little chance of that happening. I went back to bed and slept until 10:00. And quite right too!

After breakfast, I reviewed the stuff that I had written for Radio Anglais and found, much to my surprise (or maybe not, as the case might be) that I had a totally new slant today on some of the stuff that i had written. Consequently, I had to amend some of it and edit out a pile of it from the notes so that I can review it for another time. I mean, it has to be correct.

I also built up a database of venues so that there’s a list of websites from which I can extract events to broadcast, and simple contact boxes from where I can copy-paste the information en bloc into the notes rather than having to type it out individually every time.

After lunch, I sorted out all of the washing that needed doing, including the bedding. Seeing as it was 38°C in the solar shower, I had a beautiful soak and I’m finally going to have clean bedding. I’d bought some new linen sheets and quilt cover last time I was at the Auchan and I went to use those, but much to my surprise, there were no pillow cases in the set.

Even more surprisingly, I’d had some pillow cases the same colour when I lived in Winsford 35 years ago and I had hardly ever used them. And even more more surprisingly, I managed to lay my hands on them. Isn’t it good having a well laid-out wardrobe and everything stowed away nicely?

I went round to Cécile’s to check on her house and make sure that everything was OK. That gave me an opportunity to borrow her washing machine to do a load of stuff while I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our radio show.

Liz cooked a gorgeous vegetable pie for tea and the dessert was out of this world – something like a Black Forest Gateau in a wine glass. I’ve never had a dessert as nice as this.

I picked up the washing on the way home and now I’m going to have an early nice – a nice clean me in nice clean bedding. How I’m looking forward to this!

But something interesting has happened on the Social Networking account that I use. I once had a friend – a friendship that ended quite acrimoniously over a posting that he made about me on another site – and he had a daughter who used to confide in me quite a lot about the problems that she was having at home at the time but whom I haven’t seen since then.

All of a sudden, my Social Networking site has put her on my “list of potential friends” whom I should contact. So what’s happening here? How come it is that this site has made some kind of connection between the two of us? Of the couple of billion people who have an account on there, this would be an astonishing coincidence if it’s been a haphazard connection.

Clearly there’s something going on here. I wish that I knew just what it was.

Saturday 10th January 2015 – I’M A FIRM BELIEVER …

… that if a thing is destined to happen, it will happen. Regardless of however much input one puts (or doesn’t put) into the whole procedure. It seems to happen time and time again and the only secret of this is, as Jacqueline De Bellefort said in Death on The Nile – “You have to follow your star wherever it leads, even to death itself”.
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And with this in mind, I went off to Commentry this afternoon.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t.

I had made a stunning breakthrough with this 3D program that I’ve been playing with. I had totally given up on the modern version of it ages ago and had gone back to an ancient version, and there I was last night trying to make a 4th Generation character work properly when, all of a sudden, it all clicked into place and I was so engrossed in what I was doing that it was 06:00 this morning before I realised it, and I hadn’t had any tea either.

Consequently, it was 11:20 when I crawled out of my stinking pit and seeing the bright sunlight and clear sky I resolved to go to Commentry and the swimming baths. Pausing only to add a little more filler to the wall where there was a hole or two, at 13:30 I was off on the road.

The pool was a little (just a little) warmer than last time, practically empty and the shower was just as delicious, even though the private showers were closed for maintenance. And seeing that I was only half a mile from Bricomarché, I went off in search of some sunken hinges – I’ll need these for the trapdoor that I’ll be making in a week or so.

While I was there, not only did I find siome hinges that will do the job, I solved the problem of the handrail for the stairs. Some huge screwed eyes, with 16mm holes, and a 2-metre length of some very nice 14mm hemp rope – that will make a lovely handrail.

But here’s the exciting bit, that relates to what I was talking about earlier. I was thinking again about these wooden ends for the plasterboarding. Cutting up pine boards was my original idea but at Montlucon the other week the stuff on offer was rubbish. At Bricomarché the stuff is so much better, the staff is so much more friendly and they have cutting facilities too.

So while I was wandering around turning things over in my mind, I came across the tool sale, and there on offer at just €44:00, was a cheap 600-watt table saw. It was the last one in stock too.

It’s not the ideal thing, but it’s the nearest that I can find and i’ll need to build a table for it if I’m going to cut doors down doors and things like this, but for what I want to do at the moment it’s ideal. I can soon trim down half a dozen floorboards with this.

I went to the new NOZ at Commentry too. I didn’t buy anything exciting but nevertheless it was a good opportunity to have a look round.

Back here, nice and clean for once, I crashed out for an hour or two. And I’m not surprised either. And I’m off to bed in a minute with nice, clean bedding too. And as it’s Sunday tomorrow, I ccan have a nice lie-in.

But I’m glad I followed my star all the way to Bricomarché at Commentry today.

Saturday 13th December 2014 – WOOO HOOO HOOO!

Yes indeed. after many many years of Yours Truly’s canvassing and campaigning, the “Amaranthe”, the local health food co-operative in Montlucon has now started to sell vegan cheese.

And it’s “Cheezly” too, which is even better news.

It is at “a price” however, but that’s only to be expected. It’s a big deal that it’s now available in the vicinity and that should ease the minds of my friends, who each time that they travel to the UK they are buried underneath a pile of mails from Yours Truly soliciting orders for vegan cheese.

As you might have guessed from all of this, I’ve been to Montlucon shopping today, buying all of the special items that I need for Christmas as well as doing some normal shopping.

I spent a fortune there, and I should have spent even more but I forgot half of the stuff that I meant to buy. I did fuel up Caliburn though – at €1:12 per litre which is astonishing. I also took the oportunity to give Caliburn another good wash. You’ll remember that I washed him a couple of weeks ago, but then almost immediately I ended up right up that field in the deep mud towing that old abandoned Transit out of that shed.

I’ve bought myself a couple of presents too, but I’ll have to wait until Christmas until I can see what they are. And at Brico depot, I bought, inter alia, the catches that I need to complete the power board in the barn.

Finally, I went to the swimming baths just down the road from Brico Depot and had a good swim around in the water for an hour, followed by a warm shower – nothing like as good as the shower at the swimming baths at Commentry but a shower nevertheless.

Tonight, I’m going to change the bedding and put my nice and clean body into some nice clean sheets. it’s Sunday so if I’m lucky I might have a really good lie in. I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.

Saturday 8th November 2014 – I HAVE HAD …

… the best shower that I have ever had today. And I really mean it too.

Feeling rather filthy after all of my exertions, I resolved to go to the swiming baths today, especially as it was a nice warm day for the time of year. So after spending the morning writing more stuff for Radio Anglais, I headed off to Commentry for the shopping.

Having done that, I set off towards Neris-les-Bains for the swimming but, being rather early, I went for a detour to see if I could find the swimming baths that have recently opened in Commentry. Sure enough, there they were, all nice and modern. And not only that, they were open.

It was more expensive than the swimming at Neris but the saving in fuel was more than enough to cover the distance. The pool is small and the water is freezing, but I had a good work-out in there. There’s also a small pool where the water is quite warm and there are pressure jets that are as good as any of the hydro-massages that I had at that health spa in March.

And then we had the shower.

There are two enclosed showers and so I used one of them, so that I could have a really good soak. The water temperature is able to be changed and so I had it on full, and almost scalded myself. Once I’d found the best setting I had a good 15 minutes in there and it was wonderful.

To cap it all off, there’s even a coffee machine there, something that they don’t have in Neris.

Yes, I can see myself going back to the baths at Commentry.

This evening FC Pionsat St Hilaire beat St Angel 6-2 in something of a canter. And as there were no officials present from the home side, I ended up having to walk the line.

Notice the phrase – walking the line. Not running it as I’m rather past that, but I did my best and didn’t cause any controversy.

Tonight, seeing that I’m nice and clean, I’m going to change the bedding and have really clean sheets and quilt covers for tonight. I’m looking forward to this.

Saturday 19th July 2014 – WHAT A NICE AFTERNOON.

Not particularly sunny, but lovely and hot, so just for a change I went swimming at Neris-les-Bains. Not too crowded but the water was lovely and warm even with the sides of the pool open and I spent a very pleasant hour or so in there. And that gave me an opportunity to give the cement burns on my legs (which are still troubling me) a really good soaking.

Last night it was still too hot to sleep and it was 04:00 again when I went to bed. But about 01:00 we had a sudden hurricane that sprang up out of nowhere and a huge stream of wind blew right through the house.

I was up and about again at 08:00 all the same and after breakfast had a few hours on the laptop as well as a little session with that computer program. I’m determined to crack it, even though I’ve been tempted to delete the newer version that I’ve uploaded and go back to the previous one.

I did my shopping at Commentry – first time for ages, and while neither LIDL nor Intermarche came up with anything special, I bought all that I needed from Bricomarche to complete the guttering on Monday.

Back home from the swimmng baths I crashed out for an hour or so.

Tonight now that I’m nice and clean, I’m going to change the bedding and have a really good sleep in a nice clean bed for just a change. Tomorrow is Sunday and it’s a day off.

Monday 16th July 2012 – BLIMMIN’ ‘ECK!

Yes, and for many reasons too. Probably the most important was that it didn’t rain today and we had bright blue skies, with just a few clouds passing by – the first time since I can’t remember when.

It didn’t take long for the batteries to be fully-charged, and then the excess solar charge was diverted into the dump load.

home made 12 volt immersion heater solar energy dump load overcharge les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd with the data panel that I installed on the overcharge controller, I could see how it was doing.

28 amps – or 382 watts – currently going into the home-made 12 volt immersion heater. Already, 23.4 amp-hours have gone in and by the time that I took the statistics before going to bed, we’d have a grand total of 122.2 surplus amp-hours – over 1.5KwH.

By the time I was starting to slow down – at 18:00 – the water in the dump load was up to 58°C and still rising. And so cue a load of washing. That’s all hanging out on the line now.

I even changed the bed linen, having to peel the pillow cases off the pillows and the quilt cover off the quilt.

It won’t only be clean bedding tonight – it will be a clean me too, for the temperature in the solar shower reached 33°C and a couple of litres out of the 12-volt immersion heater pushed that up to a respectable temperature and so I had a nice warm shower – and how I enjoyed that!

Pure bliss!

That’s made me feel like a new man – although where I might find one around here is anyone’s guess.

But that’s not all.

The benefits of going to bed early saw me up and about and breakfasting at 07:40 and that was really astonishing. That meant that I had a good 4 hours on the website and I was still all done by midday.

So I mixed a load of mortar and made a start on rebuilding the stone wall on the lean-to. That kept me busy for a few hours.

Rob came round to borrow my 100mm hole-cutter so we had a chat for 15 minutes, and then I had another task to attend to.

Hardly any water seems to be entering the water butts so I also stripped down the home-made water filters. And as I suspected, bunged up to the eyeballs, they were. and cleaned out the water filters. No wonder there wasn’t much water reaching the water butts.

Anyway, they are all ready for the next torrential rainstorm.

And me? I’m ready to snuggle up into my nice clean bed. I’ve been looking forward to this for ages

Saturday 14th August 2010 – A good few weeks ago ….

… I went to a talk about the history and one of the items that was discussed was the local railway network. With this area being situated on a coal seam and the existence of coal mines all over the place there was at one time a railway network around here that was much more comprehensive than you would think at first.

And most people immediately think of railways as being standard-gauge – 4’8.5″ with substantial earthworks and the like, and there is a great deal of evidence for that, especially for our famous railway down the hill here that was opened to traffic in 1932 and did’t even last 25 years.

I drive regularly (or I used to when I used to go to Brussels) along a certain road that runs into Montmarault from the Montaigut direction and I’ve been convinced that I’ve seen traces that correspond to what the Ordnance Survey would call “dismantled railway” along the side of the road, although there is nothing on any map that I have ever seen that would confirm anything.

But at this talk one of the items discussed was the railway line that ran from Marcillat en Combraille to Commentry. Now Commentry was a major ironworking centre and Marcillat has the remains of a few huge limekilns and so a line bringing the lime from the fields to the blast furnaces seems like a likely proposition. But the only line here as far as I am aware is the old standard gauge line that used to pass down here and which doesn’t go directly to Commentry.

But further enquiry revealed the existence of the “lignes economiques” – a whole series of narrow-gauge lines that ran on light railway principles with the minimum of earthworks, and the border area between the Allier and the Puy-de-Dome was littered with these lines. Anyone who has seen the the Father Brown film will recall what a “ligne economique” looks like.

The relics that I have seen not too far from Montmarault are in fact part of this light railway system but my attention for the moment has been seized by a narrow-gauge line that used to run from Marcillat to Commentry – and points beyond, as I have discovered. I’ve tracked down a list of the names of stations along the route but a casual look on an Internet satellite viewing program hasn’t come up with anything. That’s a shame – long-time readers will remember that we tracked down a bridge of James Brunlees by spotting it on a satellite viewer.

culvert underneath D2144 RN144 durdat larequille allier franceOne place however has crossed my mind as I have crossed it on many occasions. The railway passed through the village of Durdat Larequille somewhere and not too far from there is what looks like a hollow fold in the ground with what might be a bridge over it. And so on my way back from Neris les Bains I stopped for a look.

I’m right about it being an overbridge but if it’s for a narrow-gauge locomotive and train then it would have to be flaming narrow. I couldn’t stand upright in that tunnel under there

culvert underneath D2144 RN144 durdat larequille allier franceThere’s no evidence to suggest that the bridge has been infilled to any extent, suggesting that at one time it might have been of larger size, and I can’t see what might have been a track bed of a railway running to and fro underneath it.

I’m reluctantly coming to the conclusion that this may well not be a railway bridge after all, and that’s a disappointment – I had high hopes for this.

Yes – I was in Neris today. The weather is becoming colder and colder and there was no chance of a solar shower and so after shopping in Commentry (which was boring, I have to say) I went off there. 29°C in the water and only 20°C in the baths itself – but that’s because some person had for reasons best known to him-or herself decided to open up the side of the pool. It used to be an open-air pool complete with poolside cafe but it’s now covered with a balloon-type of marquee. And who on earth would want to open it up today in this weather?

But now I’m nice and clean so I’m going to change the bedding and have a good night’s sleep. And I need it too. I didn’t have the alarms on this morning and when the phone rang I crawled over to it and answered “ok Terry – see you in a bit” only to hear a French voice on the other end. Yes, I was totally out of it this morning. I’ll have to do better tomorrow.

Saturday 19th June 2010 – Now is the winter of our discount tents.

now is the winter of our discount tents camping exhibition montlucon allier franceWell, it was something like that that Shakespeare (or Bacon) wrote in “Richard II” – and quite right too.

If you click on the pic to enlarge it you’ll see exactly what the weather was like today – miserable, grey and overcast. And in a desperate attempt to drum up business the local sports shop in Montlucon was having a tent demonstration. I suppose the idea is that you go and have a look and choose the one that has let in the least water.

The end of season sales are going to be exciting stuff – all these shops having bought all of this summer and camping gear and no-one will have bought anything. There will be tons of stuff on offer.

I also went to the tyre fitters to have Caliburn’s new tyres fitted. And seeing that I’ve spent so much money in there this last week he let me off the puncture repair from the other day which was nice of him. But I’m not too impressed with the scrapyard at Durdat.
“Have you got any 15-inch wheels for a Ford Transit?”
“No we haven’t” replied the manager
“Not even on that one there?” I said, indicating a late-1980s Transit that was partly dismantled down in the corner but still had its 4 wheels on.
“No. Sorry”.
You can’t even give money away to people these days. It’s too much trouble for someone to go down the yard with a trolley jack and a wheel brace. Of course in the good old days before Health and Safety you could go down the yard yourself with a trolley jack and a wheel brace but Central Government has put paid to that.

It’s quite ironic really – they talk about saving natural resources and energy and so do all that they can to encourage recycling, and then another Government department comes along and does its best to stop you recycling anything. Car scrapyards has been one of the earliest forms of recycling and is sooo environmentally-friendly yet they are doing away with it so that you have to buy new stuff thatnks to the arm-twisting that the Auto Lobby applies to politicians. I spend a lot of time in scrapyards – many things that I use in my Renewable Energy projects are from old cars – 12-volt clocks, cables, fuse boxes and the like and I don’t really know what I want until I go down a yard and have a nosey around.

But I digress.

I had no plans to but anything in Brico Depot and so the bill of over €160 took me by surprise. But it’s all useful stuff, including the huge drum of wood-treatment for the new barn roof timbers, 4 sacks of cement in case we need it for the roof and three sacks of chalk for me to do the end wall.

I drove off from LIDL with my two cartons of orange juice on the bonnet of Caliburn and when I got to the swimming baths at Neris les Bains there was one still on. How about that?

And I’m nice and clean now for a change, and talking of change I’ll be changing the bedding too so that I can make the most of it. Tomorrow I was supposed to help Katie at the brocante but she’s called it off – apparently they’ve announced a torrential downpour all day. But so that I wouldn’t be lonely, Bill rang me up. His car has broken down and if it’s not a simple repair he will need me to tow him back from St Eloy les Mines tomorrow.