Category Archives: Post Office

Friday 20th May 2011 – Today was a better day.

At least I was up at a reasonable time, for a change and had the usual couple of hours on the web pages. And although I didn’t advance far down the Canso Peninsula I managed to cover about 750 years and three continents, such is the controversy surrounding the alleged voyage of Sir Henry Sinclair to Chedabucto Bay sometime in the late 14th Century.

I carried on with Caliburn and he is now all reassembled and roadworthy, with a nice, clean and tidy cab and almost all the electrics working. You’ve no idea how much junk I took out, and how much I threw away either, but I didn’t find the SatNav, which is a pain. Mind you, a couple of quid, 5 Canadian cents and about 2 Euros made it worthwhile from that point of view. I would rather have the SatNav though.

We went for a run into Pionsat to draw some cash and to go to the Post Office to post Mike’s birthday present but blast it – it’s POETS Day isn’t it? And I missed the post.

Back here I didn’t manage to empty out the back of Caliburn as we had a torrential downpour – 14.5mm of rain fell and that’s a lot. Fed up with this blasted non-working water system, I dismantled it in the pouring rain and cleaned it all out. Now some kind of water is getting through but still nothing like enough and I’ll have to redesign it. I know a way to make it work.

But this weekend I’m really busy and so it won’t be until Monday that I can carry on.

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Thursday 5th May 2011 – Considering that it’s only …

… the 5th of May today and there’s about 6 or 7 weeks to the apex of the year, I am proud to announce that nevertheless I’ve set a new record today for solar energy. In the house, bank one received 173 amp-hours and bank two received 166 amp-hours. That’s over 4 KwH of solar power and whichever way you look at it, that’s impressive for just 780 watts of generating capacity.

And so you can tell the kind of day that we had. Beautiful blue skies and not a cloud anywhere. The kind of day that you would expect the solar water heater to give me enough heat to have a shower, a shave and a coffee as well. But it isn’t to be because I’ve made some kind of error in my calculations. Looking for a place to install it in a hurry while I demolished the beichstuhl, I fastened upon a nice spot out of the way and in full sun, but shaded by the fence so that I can shower there in peace. But what I didn’t take into my calculations is that while in the spring the sun has no problem heating the water, we are having issues with leaf shading from the trees and the water is struggling to heat up to a respectable temperature.

There is a way round this. The heat eschanger is really hot – 50°C is no big deal at all – and so I could run the water in the solar heater through the heat exchanger so that the water would heat up through there, and I even have a suitable pump to do it. But I can’t get electricity down there to power the pump and Terry can’t find the hole saw that he has for cutting through the stone walls so that I can run a cable through. I’ll have to think of a plan B. Such as tipping some hot water out of the electric immersion heater into the solar tank.

Today was a paperwork day. I worked on the website first and then caught up with some paperwork that needed doing. I had a delivery from FEDEX and the contents of that required my attention too. I ended up having to go into Pionsat to the Post and to the Bank, and I’ve had to spend a shed-load of money today – errrr about €7,000 in fact. But it’s all going to be worth it in the long run.

Back from the town, it wasn’t worth starting in the barn and so I planted the tomato and aubergine plants that I bought 10 days ago, and thoroughly watered the garden. And despite having had 7mm of rain two days ago it was as dry as a bone and I used about 175 litres out of the dirty water butt that takes the rainfall off the barn roof. And if there had been more water there I would have used that too. It’s hard to believe just how dry the soil is.

Anyway tomorrow I’ll move the caravan body from the barn and burn it if I can, and then move the Ford Cortina 2000E estate and the Ford Escort van. I’ll be glad to have them in a secure place.

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Wednesday 30th March 2011 – You can see …

… my apartment in Brussels on the internet if you like. But you’ll have to hurry. Someone has made me an offer already, and negotiations are proceeding.

That was quite a pleasant surprise at lunchtime, and it quite disrupted my flow of thought. What with crashing out yesterday late afternoon when I should have been catching up on my correspondence, I had to sped the morning doing just that. Until I was rudely interrupted, that was.

So while waiting for the Post Office to open I dug over another raised bed, and returning from my trip into Pionsat I planted my shallots and garlic. Well, not all of the garlic because I seem to have far too much. But I do know someone who can make use of it. But once that was out of the way I did some more digging over and I now have some sprouts, some carrots and some coriander in.

Tomorrow I shall have to make a start on making up some seed trays because there are a few things that need planting even though it’s too early to put them outside.

And then back up here and I crashed out again – it’s getting to me, all of this work.

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