Category Archives: Credit Agricole

Thursday 17th December 2015 – ANYONE WOULD THINK …

… that it was me doing the tiling today, not Terry. Half an hour after lunch I was well out of it – two trips to Terry’s van and back with some stuff for here had finished me off. And back here, I was crashed out on the sofa at 18:00 and in bed by 19:15.

I’ve clearly seen better days – that’s for sure.

But a lot of this could be put down to the efforts that I had made during my nocturnal ramblings. I’d started off with something like a huge contemporary discussion about the qualities of different Roman emperors – and I can’t remember now with whom I was having this discussion. But from there I drove back (it’s good, this time-travel lark) to Stoke on Trent. None of the usual Clayhead characters out in an appearance unfortunately, but I do remember at a roundabout (it might have been one of the newish ones at Longton) I was confused by the exits, took the wrong one, and ended up on the road to Tunstall (a fictitious road of course but one that has featured on my travels before). It then occurred to me that there was one of these old-time sweet shops (just like there is in Longton) somewhere on this road and so I kept my eyes open for it. I ended up walking through this decrepit shopping centre-type of place to try to find it, to the accompaniment of jeers from several people lounging around – and what was that all about?
But back home I ended up chaperoning a young Shirley Temple-type of girl (as if I’d ever be asked to chaperone anyone of the female sex?) who was taking part in a singing competition that was to last all of the weekend. I asked her what would happen if she had to wait right at the end of the competition before it was her turn to sing, to which she replied that there were tons of things that we could do while we were waiting – have a party, go to the zoo, read stories.

No wonder I was exhausted!

So after my blood sample and a painful breakfast, we went off to Pionsat and the bank. I need to build up the fighting fund with all of this going on. Shopping at Intermarche was next, and there we met Clare, Julie and Anne who were off to Clermont-Ferrand for a fun day out. I fuelled up Terry’s van, seeing as how I had some money for once, bought my stuff for lunch and then shot off to the house for the tiling

When we arrived, the batteries were fully-charged already and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus charge was slowly rising. That tells you everything that you need to know about the weather that we have been having just recently.

We had a visitor too! In the jungle that is Lieneke’s field opposite my front door we had a sanglier – a wild boar. We couldn’t actually see it but we could hear it grunting away and see all of the shrubs and bushes moving around as it prowled its way around. Magnificent beasts, these sangliers – I remember being up on my scaffolding when I was pointing the eastern wall and watching those two herds approaching each other and the eventual confrontation.

And while Terry carried on with the tiling, I did some desultory tidying-up. But my heart wasn’t in it and I couldn’t even cut straight today. In some respects I was glad when Terry decided to call it a day.

We’re a long way from finishing (I like the “we” bit, don’t you?) but the most difficult bits have been done. And I know that I promised you all a photo but Terry closed up the house while I was outside washing off the tools, so you’ll have to wait until next time.

And now back here, I’m in bed having an early night but I dozed off for an hour, woke up, and now I can’t go back to sleep again.

This looks as if it’s going to become a regular feature. I wish it didn’t, though, and I could have a decent 8-hours sleep.

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Friday 14th November 2014 – 24mm OF RAIN …

… from about 10:00 until 21:00, and it’s still raining even as we speak. Summer has well and truly gone, and winter is just around the corner. As far as solar energy goes, you know that I have 4 banks of solar panels here with a total of 1260 watts, and I’ve received less than 2 amps of solar energy in total. And all of that came before 10:00.

I’ve been out today too, and I’ve come home with a new toy. Seems to be the story of my life just recently – I’ve never spent so much money.

And here it is – an old Kubota mini-digger.

The story behind this is that I was looking for a new heavy-duty trailer as you know, ever since the bottom fell out of the Sankey trailer. I’d heard about a big heavy-duty Indespension plant trailer for sale, and so I had gone to see it. And sitting upon it was this old digger.

The trailer is exactly what I want, without any doubt at all, but when the vendor mentioned the price for them both, which is what I would have paid forthe trailer had I gone to the UK and bought a new one, there wasn’t any question about it.

The digger works well enough for its age and it’ll do what I want.

Of course, I already have half a digger – you may remember that Terry and I bought one a few years ago between us. But that was quite modern and quite expensive and we don’t use it that much. There’s a lot of money tied up in that, and so the idea is that we sell that, split the money between us, and my share will more than cover what I paid for this.

So I brought it home and had a play outside, in the driving rain, and I was soaked to bits. I’ve spent the rest of the day curled up under the quilt to dry off and keep warm. I don’t want to catch anything.

But here’s a thing. I had to pay €2050 plus VAT for something today, and that meant a trip to the bank. And how long would it take you to work out what the VAT is on that? VAT is of course 20% here and so €2050 x10% is €205, and another €2050 x10% is another €205 and so the total VAT is €410. The bill thereforecomes to €2460. It took the bank clerk 15 minutes, and the help of a colleague, calculator and a computer to work it out.

That’s a bank clerk in the local branch of mybank. No wonder the banks are in such a mess if this is an example of the skilled and intelligent staff that they are employing.

I despair.

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Friday 11th April 2014 – LOAD OF BANKERS

I had to go to the bank twice today. And what really annoyed me was that I had a really good start to the day too.

I slept soundly for a change, and there was something about a menage a trois going on through the night. Mind you, I had been watching Percy so that might explain some of it.

But for once, up before the alarm and I’d even spilt my breakfast, remae it, made a coffee and brought everything up here, before the alarm went off.

So I was at the door of the bank as it opened, and “sorry, the informatique isn’t working”. And it’s market day in Pionsat too. So I GRRRRd and grumbled at them and, being reassured that it would be up and running by the end of the morning, I was persuaded to come back later.

While I was working on the web site, the boulanger came past and I gave her some of my surplus mint and thyme (still plenty left, folks).

At 14:00 I went down to the bank again. And guess what? Quite right. The informatique is STILL not working. And so I made a fuss, and the manager saw me, and he did everything by hand. And it’s important that he did as I need to regroup my cash as I have a major expense to make tomorrow, more of which anon.

They also found my missing bank card too, which cheered me up quite a bit.

I spent the afternoon clearing yet more wood and I can now actually see the ground where I want to put this new raised bed. This is progress, not just for the raised bed but for the woodpile too. That’s looking extremely healthy now.

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Monday 22nd July 2013- I’M OFF

But then again you knew that already.

This morning I was up bright and early (just for a change) and did all of the domestic chores around the place before shooting off to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record the Radio Anglais sessions for Radio Tartasse.

As usual we had total and utter chaos – they had a printer and after much searching we found the USB cable, but as for the power lead, no hope for that. I ended up reading the text off the computer (I had taken that along in anticipation – one has to be prepared at Radio Tartasse).

Liz and I went on to record the information programmes, which passed off almost without incident, and then we set off back to Liz’s house for lunch.

I called at the bank to pick up the new bank cards but, as you might indeed expect as it’s Monday, the bank is closed.

At Liz’s we had yesterday’s leftovers for lunch and then went down to Gerzat to record the Radio Arverne version of “Radio Anglais”. That passed off without much incident too.

However, in a dramatic change of plan, we went there in Liz’s car. After all, the hottest day of the year and it has air-conditioning. What more can any man desire?

Back here though, not so good.

I melted in Calibuen on the way back and there was no hope of me going on to Brussels. I crashed out for a couple of hours, loaded up Caliburn with the dirty washing and a pile of empty cardboard boxes.

Just after 21:00, with the weather still absolutely roasting, I was on my way.

See you soon.

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Tuesday 20th March 2012 – I WAS BUSY TODAY

First thing, after breakfast, was to check all of this paperwork that I’ve been doing, and then take a few pieces down to the mairie to sign or countersign.

Back here then, I then had to photocopy everything, or scan it for reference.

Bill rang me up too – he was having computer issues and needed help sorting that out and so I told him that when I had done my errands I would go round to help.

Off to Pionsat, and first stop was the bank, to pay an outstanding bill. And talking of bills, there was Bill in front of me. He managed to make the woman at the cash desk crash her computer and so we all had an agonising wait while she tried to fix it.

So having sorted that problem, it was off to the Post Office. They have a guaranteed 2-day delivery service, which is what I need, but of course none of the special envelopes that you need to do it. She can order one, but it won’t get here until the morning.

At my insistence, she rang the St Gervais office. They had one in and the parcel lorry was there and so St Gervais sent it down in the lorry.

The postal clerk put my papers into it, and handed it to the parcels driver to send it on its way. At least I hope that she did – it’s what she told me that she would do and she better had as well, for I am working to a strict time limit here.

Down to the boulangerie. There was no delivery this morning and so I needed to buy the bread.

But woe is me – the boulangerie closes for lunch between … errr … 13:00 and 15:00. This meant a trip to the Intermarché for some bread, so I picked up a loaf and wandered over to the till.

A woman with a full-to-overloaded trolley saw me coming and … quickly put her purchases onto the conveyor belt. Aren’t some people nice?

At Bill’s I managed to fix his computer for him and then we had a good chat for ages – all about old cars, buses and the like. It always helps to pass the time of day.

But it was cold today and so I lit the fire up here this evening. So much so that I lit the fire for the first time in 10 days. And taking advantage, I cooked baked potatoes and baked beans for tea.

Tomorrow I’ll do some gardening, I reckon. That is, unless the weather is really bad.

It’s clear skies and stars outside just now but this is the Auvergne and things can change in the blinking of an eye.

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Friday 6th January 2012 – IT’S BEEN …

… an exciting day today

Having been pondering over the battery situation here – to whit, the house batteries are losing charge when there’s no current and I had ample proof of that yesterday as I attached a little voltmeter to the battery bank and watched it go down and down – I decided to have a butchers at the battery bank.

I reckoned that there might be one battery that was overheating but I was wrong – there were in fact two of them all swollen up. No wonder the batteries were gently emptying themselves.

So I pulled those two out and I’m now down to just 8 batteries.

I’ve been suspecting that these 90 amp-hour batteries are just too small to handle a surge of about 50 amps on a regular basis and this seems to be confirming things. There’s four now that I’ve had to change, and it’s always been the one in the centre of the bank.

You may recall that I went to Paris to the supplier just before Christmas and they had some 200-amp-hour batteries on special offer and so I bought 8 of those. That will be a battery bank and a half.

Ideally I need even-bigger ones but an issue presents it self with that in that these 200-amp-hour batteries weigh 58kgs. While I can pick them up and walk with them, I can’t go far very quickly. Imagine twice the weight.

You might be wondering why I didn’t go the whole hog and fit them today. Believe me, it was my intention. But the battery cables that I have – 225mm – aren’t long enough. I’ve had to order some 375mm cables and they won’t be here until Thursday next week.

This afternoon, tired of manipulating inverters, timers and the like around, I made myself a plug-in electric board.

We start off with a two-pin American plug with 6mm cable wired into it. This goes to a 300-watt inverter screwed to the board. From there it’s into an electric meter and from there into one of the hour meters I bought in the UK.

Finally it ends up in a 13-amp UK socket.

All I need to do now when I’m carrying out some work somewhere around out of range of the main inverters is to take my little board with me and plug it into the 12-volt circuit.

After that I went to the bank to pay in a cheque, reorder my bread and then go for coffee and a chat with Marianne to catch up on the gossip.

It’s her birthday tomorrow, and that set me thinking about all the other people I know whose birthday it is in January. Krys, Marianne, Marianne from Brussels, Mandy. Those names spring straight away to mind and I bet there are loads more as well (so apologies if I have forgotten you).

It really is astonishing.

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Friday 21st October 2011 – TODAY WAS ….

… a quiet day or at least it should have been. But Terry and Rob came round to fix Lieneke’s barn and no-one can sleep through the kind of racket that those two are capable of producing.

But what about last night,hey? Temperature plummeted to -1.9°C. A minus temperature – winter is flaming well here, right enough. I’m even contemplating lighting a fire shortly if we don’t have an improvement

However, never mind that for a moment – three hours and more on the computer and my visit to Trois Rivieres is well-advanced.

Trois-Rivieres is on the north bank of the St Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec. It’s the oldest industrial site in North America and the newsprint capital of the world. In fact all of my visits to the area have been overwhelmed by the smell of wet paper from the pulp mills so I’ve always kept well clear.

This year though I found myself in the town and my opinions of the place rapidly changed. The town seeps history from almost every pore and I’ve completely changed my opinion about the place.

This afternoon though I had to wait for Terry to move his van before I could get out to the post office and post that parcel. And I fell through the floor when I found out the price. I bet that it’s cheaper to fly to Canada and deliver it by hand. It makes excess baggage charges look a bargain

To the bank after that to sort out a few financial details, and then to Bill’s to fix his computer again.

This evening it’s POETS day of course and so I finished early – spending half an hour or so sorting some papers that date back to 2004. And there’s so many of them that it’s going to take a while.

Tomorrow it’s shopping and as I have so much to do it’s going to be a St Eloy les Mines quick half hour-type of shopping. And the washing is building up here and so I might visit the local launderette and sort it out.

>But I’m not really looking forward to tomorrow. I’ve finished all of my stock of Canadian vegan cheese slices and that is a catastrophe.

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Thursday 25th August 2011 – Well, what a day!

And I had so much to do as well and I’ve ended up not doing very much.

Working unti 04:30 was one thing but another thing was being dragged out of the bed almost at the crack of dawn (well, 9:50, anyway) by the phone. Of all people, it wss the bank. Could I go down there?

That was eerie but what followed was certainly different. It appears that there has been some confusion at the bank, a sum of money hadn’t been paid, and a girl due to fly out to Canada on Saturday didn’t have any of the paperwork necessary. And so until about 12:45 I was engaged in negotiations down in Pionsat and then out at St Maurice pres Pionsat, which despite its name is nowhere near Pionsat.

Back at the ranch, I then had to make a few telephone calls to Canada, and thanks to Katherine for giving me some help as to who to call. All in all, I was involved in this for hours.

Having said that, though, I was flattered that the bank had called me in to help. It’s definitely a sign of progress.

And what else? I now have some web pages in French for my business web site, thanks to Marianne who made a few corrections to my text, I’ve almost finished this battery box idea thing, I’ve a proof of no-claims bonus for my Canadian car insurance, I’ve my train tickets, I’ve booked a motel in Montreal for the first night, I’ve rented some storage space in Montreal – ooooh, lots of things.

What with the late finish, the early start and all of the excitement I’m whacked so I’m off to bed. To listen to the wind in the trees as a strong wind has started up. It’s a beautiful breeze blowing through here.

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Wednesday 13th July 2011 – I’m having a change of plan …

… for tomorrow – and it’s just as well. I woke up this morning, once more before the alarms went off, but there was no way that I was going to get up. I could hear the rain thrashing down on my roof and it wasn’t a day for working outside. That’s another day lost of course but it can’t be helped. I went back to bed for an hour.

When I finally crawled out of the stinking pit I began to tidy up in here looking for the data head – but even though I even went as far as to move the bed settee, no luck. I wonder where that has gone. Just typical.

After lunch I went to the bank to pay some cash in and then to the funeral parlour to enquire after Damien. His funeral is at 15:00 on Friday and hence the change of plan – I’ll have to miss the Friday in Brussels and go once the funeral is ended. I can’t not go to see Damien off. I’ll just hope that I’ll have time to go to the bank before I pick up Marianne. I can book my flight tickets another time.

Back here I carried on doing a little tidying but at about 17:00 the rain stopped. That was the cue to go outside.

The framework on the barn is now finished and I have one of the solar panels in place. It’s not quite fastened up but it’s certainly there. And that took me until 20:30 and I bet you can’t remember when was the last time I’d worked so late. I know I can’t.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to get one of the panels off the roof of the Luton Transit and put it on the end of the barn. That will be two banks of two (one on the barn wall, one on the Transit roof) and while I’m away I can see how well the performances relate.

I’m hoping to have at least half as much again off the ones on the end of the barn.

-1

Tuesday 28th June 2011 – And just for a change …

I was up before the alarm clock at 08:30 – dunno what happened there. But it meant that I was in plenty of time to go down to the bank and pay for the bits for my broken anemometer before going to Marcillat en Combraille to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse.

The guy from the Danish company that sells the bits sent me a nice e-mail with all of the information that I needed to know – the IBAN account, the SWIFT number and all of that and so I duly printed it out and took it to the bank. The bank official took one look at it and said “what’s the company called?”. It seems that the information wasn’t as complete as I had thought.

And so after Radio Tartasse it was down across the Puy-de-Dome to Gerzat to record for Radio Arverne – but the major issue here was that the garage at St Gervais d’Auvergne had sold out of diesel. An enforced trip to Les Ancizes solved that issue but that took a good 20 minutes out of our itinerary leaving us with just enough time to grab a butty and a coffee at Chatel-Guyon.

While we were in the Radio offices we could see the storm break over the Combrailles and impressive was not the word. Magnificent is much better and it did really make us wonder what it was that we might be coming home to.

The Carrefour at Riom came up trupms again – not only did I do my shopping but they were selling off electric 12-volt coolboxes at €24:00 – not very big but big enough to fit in Caliburn’s footwell for when I’m on my travels and it’ll hold a good few items and (hopefully) keep them cool. But not only that it was having a sale of SatNavs and I now have a little Western European Mio Moov M305 – for all of €59:00, to replace the other one that mysteriously disappeared. It has speed camera warning installed but not only that, I can sign for a 3-year update of the speed cameras for €49:95 and maps of North America are available for €49:95 as well – meaning that I can sell the Magellan that I bought in Canada last year and get some of my money back.

On the way back home the devastation caused by the storm was impressive to say the least. We stopped between Manzat and Chateuneuf to take a pic of what looked like snow but it was in fact hailstones.

I measured them and they were about 20mm in diameter – and that was quite impressive too.

Back here, the temperature reached the high 30s but the storm had brought with it a total of 24mm of rain – and it’s still raining. It’s a mess here but then again the plants won’t be complaining. They will be loving it all.

But talking of coolboxes, I’ve been thinking again – which I know is dangerous. I’m using almost no electricity from the solar panels on the barn, except for the washing machine once a fortnight. And it’s a shame to waste it all. In addition, in a couple of weeks or so I’ll be moving them to their final position and adding the 4th panel that has been conspicuous by its absence.

It’s a shame to waste all of this electricity and so I have a cunning plan. From mystats I notice that in the year to 2009, which was the last complete year that I was relying on the panels over there, I generated 9000 amp-hours of electricity over there with 3 panels. So with 4 panels that should give me about 12,000 amp-hours in total. That’s in the region of 150 KwH. Now in that year about 40% of the days saw the batteries fully-charged, which meant that there was a good deal of electricity wasted. Add to this that with the solar panels in a much better position I ought to be getting much more electricity than I did back in 2009. Half as much again is not too much to hope for – I had 22,000 amp hours from each of the banks on the roof on the house – about 285 KwH.

Anyway, to cut a long story short “Hooray” – ed, I’ve been seeing some fridge-freezers – proper mains ones – that have a start-up motor of about 75 watts and (so they reckon) use about 135KwH on a normal daily basis – and so I’m wondering whether or not to splash out a bit of cash into a decent sine-wave inverter and small fridge-freezer, run it off the power in the barn and leave it in there.

That will be something to think about. But of course the most important thing to think about is where I’ll put it. You can’t even get a cat into the barn at the moment let alone swing it around.

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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.

-1

Tuesday 21st September 2010 – I’ve been really busy today ….

… and I couldn’t really afford to spend the time as I have so much to do.

This morning we had to go to this radio station in Marcillat en Combraille to discuss the arrangements for the programme they want us to do. And what we discussed was almost exactly the same and no different from the last time we were there. Mind you, the guy we talked to was as interested in the Ligne Economique as I am and he told me that he has ridden on it to Durdat Larequille. And seeing as the line closed in 1932 and he has ridden on it, then he probably has a good excuse for forgetting things.

He was minded by a woman who may well have been his wife, and while she was much more purposeful about things and helped to keep her husband on track, she had hearing issues. So as you might expect, this meeting was a bundle of laughs. But nevertheless we did fit in a good chat about solar panels, the Anglo-French group and Terry’s little business.

Then it was off to the Mairie to give them copies of the photos from Saturday.They are “internet” quality so if they want them at proper press quality (350dpi and all that) they can tell me which ones.

Then off to Marianne’s where I stayed for ages talking about Pionsat-Patrimoine, the Anglo-French group, the newspaper, the Foreign library and all that kind of thing. Things are moving around here, although you wouldn’t believe it.

The next people to have the pleasure of my company were the people at the bank. I warned them that I would be going to Canada shortly and so not to be surprised at my “extraordinary expenditure” and not to cancel my bank card – not like 2002. I suppose I ought to do that for a couple of other cards too.

I also bumped into Damien from the football club while I was in Pionsat.

Rob and Nicolette were out so I couldn’t give them their photographs (they were out later too) and so after lunch I wrote a few important letters (it’s great having a printer that works!) and carried on with my researches. And I might just be onto something. A company called Tiger Rentals might let me have a Toyota Yaris for just about $1500 CAN – about €1100. It’s said that this figure includes the collision damage waiver and all taxes, allows unlimited mileage and permits travel to the USA and the rest of Canada. Now this sounds too good to be true so I’ve sent them a mail for confirmation.

Watch this space.

Of course I need to pay for the accommodation on top but a Yaris does just about 50mpg whereas a motorhome will do just about 18 to the gallon if you are very lucky before you even think about the extra rental charges and whatever charges you might have to pay for camping.

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality