Category Archives: Les Guis

Saturday 29th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. Long before the alarm went off, actually. Not like me, this. But at 08:45 I was on my way to Montlucon for part I of my mega-shop.

Nothing of interest in Carrefour or Vima, and only some new vegan burgers in Amaranthe. But Noz came up trumps again. A copy of an old Donovan album at 1:90 was something, but a triple-pack of Nice CDs at 3:90 was even more exciting – especially as the whole lot was reduced by 50%.

At Auchan I bumped into Rob and Julie and their kids. This was a complete surprise – older readers of my organ at its previous location will recall that it’s usually at Brico Depot that I bump into them. And poor Julie has been quite ill for a few months, although she’s recovering slowly now. That’s nice – I like them and their daughter Ashleigh is quite a big fan of His Nibs.

Brico Depot was exciting. I had two constraints – firstly money and secondly (and more importantly) space inside Caliburn. Interior space was important as I had forgotten to take my ladder with me so I can only reach a very short distance onto the roof-rack to tie stuff on. That stymied me a bit.

But we have the two windows (one of which needs some planing down to fit the hole), some more paint, loads of polystyrene and plenty of wood battens, as well as quite a bit of other stuff. That’ll keep me out of mischief for a week or so and I can go and get another load of stuff next weekend. It’s all very well buying it all in one go but firstly you have to transport it and secondly you have to store it.

I did also pick up a 70x70cm shower base. This was crucial as I’m building the bathroom around the shower and the dimensions need to be worked out fairly soon in my plans. It was the last one in the shop as well so I was quite proud. But as you might expect, as I was walking around the shop it slid off my trolley and smashed into a hundred pieces. Ahh well.

I also went to the “Conforama”. It’s a big furniture shop and it regularly sends out its publicity. Even though it’s only just across the road from the Auchan, in all the years that I’ve lived here I’ve never ever been there, but today I had good reason for going.

They are having a sale on these “click clack” sofas that transform themselves into double beds with a space underneath for storing your bedding. Now, I had one of those in Brussels and I was quite impressed with it for what it was. And so I’ve decided that I want another one to put up in my attic to sit and to sleep on.

The raised bed that I built here works fine but after nearly two years it’s fairly uncomfortable and so I’ve decided to push the boat out and get a really good quality one with a decent mattress. There’s 15% off until the 14th September and delivery is within 3 weeks so if I order it in 2 weeks time it should be ready for when my room is finished. It’s going to be expensive but a good bed is worth its weight in gold.

One problem though is that they don’t do a blue cover – one that will go with my room when I’ve painted it. The assistant who minced over to talk to me talked to me with a lithp, so I was on safe ground talking to him about colour co-ordination and soft furnishings. I suppose I should have profited from the situation to discuss curtains with him.

Talking of beds, tomorrow is Sunday, but no lie-in. A prospective customer wants to come round and talk to me about solar panels. Well, I’ll get out of bed early if there’s a possibility of amounts of folding stuff changing hands in my direction.

And it’s Virlet brocante in the afternoon. Always a good one, that.

-5

Friday 28th August – I’VE BEEN PAINTING TODAY.

All of the beams have had the final coat of the LIDL brown stuff, and I’ve started to paint the wall of the room. In fact, if I had had more white paint I would have done a lot more than this but I ran out.

Not to worry, though. I had plenty of other things to do, such as tidying up the back of Caliburn as he’s going to be rather full tomorrow.

It all looks rather Tudor-ish right now with the wattle-and-daub effect, and I bet you are all wondering what on earth I’m doing with white paint, seeing as how I hate white so much. In fact, it’s the leftover from when I painted my little room, which is also white.

But it was the cheapest paint in the shop and it’s acrylic so it makes a nice plasticky layer over the brick stone and cement and keeps the dust bound to the wall, which is why I use it. Nothing worse that having dust everywhere when you can do something to prevent it.

But as it’s being covered by a layer of insulation and then a layer of insulation-backed plasterboard and then that fibreglass wallpaper which will be painted a decent colour, then the white is neither here nor there.

I also have music in the attic now. Many years ago I made a contraption out of an old orange box, an old car radio-cassette and a speaker. It did me well down here for years until moved up a gear with the mp3 hifi. Anyway, I resurrected it together with a pile of old cassette tapes and it’s installed in the attic. Music while I work! But the quality is lamentable when compared with modern-day hi-fi and I don’t know how we could have listened to music like that back in those days.

But I was listening to a couple of old albums by Rush – a fine old Canadian band – Moving Pictures and A Farewell To Kings. Geddy Lee is one of the nest bassist-vocalists I’ve ever heard and the lyrics, written by the drummer (now that’s astonishing in itself) Neil Peart, are amazing.

How about
When they turn the pages of history when these days have passed long ago
Will they read of us with sadness for the seeds that we let grow
We turned our gaze from the castles in the distance
Eyes cast down on the path of least resistance

Cities full of hatred fear and lies
Withered hearts and cruel, tormented eyes
Scheming demons dressed in kingly guise
Beating down the multitude and scoffing at the wise
or
They say there are strangers who threaten us, immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness too dangerous in our theatres and bookstore shelves.
Those who know what’s best for us must rise and save us from ourselves.

Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand

What’s astonishing is that although these lyrics conform pretty well to life in today’s USA and the UK they were actually written over 30 years ago. But then again, I’ve talked about this before.

-3

Thursday 27th August 2009 – WORK ON THE ATTIC …

… has started in earnest this morning. And in fact if I had been able to find my heavy bolster chisel when I started to look for it instead of having to search for two (yes, two) hours to find it, I would have started this morning.

I’ve whacked a huge hole in the wall that took me through into the chimney, and I’ve passed in a piece of enamel piping 125mm in diameter. This is the outlet for the woodstove that I will be putting up here for the winter to keep me warm memo – buy a woodstove.

I then mixed a huge bucket full of cement and cemented up the hole around the pipe and filled in the cracks that were in the wall. when I finished that, it was 18:00 to the second, so I knocked off. Not like last night where I was so carried away by enthusiasm that I was still working at 19:15 when I noticed the time.

You can always tell when I’m absorbed in an interesting job by how late it is when I knock off.

This morning I went chaud-pied to St Eloy to get the LED lights. And, major disappointment, they only had 7 GU10s, 7 MR16s and 6 E14s.

Needless to say, after I had left they didn’t have any at all.

They also had a few cans of the wood treatment that I like (albeit increased in price to 8.99 instead of 7.99) and they are two tins lighter of that stuff now too. It’s very good stuff, this LIDL wood treatment.

I went to Pionsat afterwards to pick up my new bank card and to empty the chemical toilet when I get the time, get the new improved beichstuhl up and running.

While I was emptying the toilet, a woman came in to use the facilities. She made about half a pace in, grabbed her nose, said “God, it stinks in here” and piddled off, giving me a huge grimace. And that took me completely by surprise – I had thought my chemical toilet was known the whole world over by now.

And back home, while looking for the bolster chisel I measured up everything that I’m going to need to do my room. It’s going to stretch my budget considerably but then again, comfort has its price but it is its own reward.

And talking of cracks, an ugly crack appeared on the wall of the OUSA office the other day. But Als Ryan had it papered over before Turdi de Hatred could read it.

-5

Wednesday 26th August 2009 – I NOW HAVE A NEW FRONT DOOR!

Well, to tell the truth I have had a couple before. The original one fell to pieces when we tried to open it after 20 years of being closed, and so I replaced it with another door, which I nailed shut and that was that.

But since I moved into the lean-to-that-will-be-the-kitchen, it’s been pretty inconvenient not having a proper front door. everyone and everything has to traipse through my little room and when start bringing construction material and the like into the house it will be impossible.

So now I have a front door that opens and closes and is even fitted with a bolt to keep it closed when I go out.

It’s quite good and works quite well, but it’s not very substantial (a bit of 10mm chipboard that I had lying around). A good puff will probably bring it down but let’s not get talking about elitism or sexual preference.

You can see the windows at the top of the door frame. When I put in the suspended floor I’ll take the windows out and simply move the door up the frame in order to give me the required height.

But having seen how bright it gets in that corner when the door was opened, I’ll be going for a door with glass in it.

As well as a front door I also have power and light up in the attic. This is real progress as there wasn’t any up there previously even though there used to be mains electric here in the dim and distant past.

And talking of mains electricity I’m off to LIDL early tomorrow morning. They are having a sale of LED light bulbs – both mains and 12-volt. The mains ones include GU10 fittings and I have plenty of sockets for those so I’m going for a shed-load. And all for 4 Euros 47 each too!

-5

Tuesday 25th August 2009 – IT’S DONE NOTHING …

… but rain here all day. 11 mms in fact, so I was able to put my new improved rainwater harvester to the test.

Don’t worry about the multicoloured pipework – when I have everything exactly where I want it I can change that. But you can see that the rainwater falls down the downpipe and initially into the part that’s angled to the right, that’s a kind of sump. Anything that is heavier than water, like dirt or concrete, will drop down into there, with the bend in the pipe to stop the dirty water splashing up.

When the lower part is filled, the rainwater will go down the part that’s angled to the left and into the rainwater collector. All the dirt, stones and so on will still fall down the part to the right and collect in there.

The water in the collector certainly seems to be clean, and when I undid the screw cap at the bottom, a pile of dirty water fell out. So it’s working.

Also working is my electrical panel. In the living room I ripped out all of about 100 years-worth of redundant wiring and connected up some decent stuff. All properly connected and fused.

When it went dark at about 16:00 (it’s been just like winter with this rain) I coupled up all of the batteries and the solar panels – 780 watts-worth of panels and 920 amp hours-worth of batteries. Tomorrow morning I’ll run some wires up to the attic.

But talking of dark, I had just 13.2 amp-hours of solar energy registered from the 3 solar panels on the barn. You have to go back to 26th April to find a day as depressing as that. But the 3 solar panels on the roof of the house showed a total of 28.2 amp-hours, so that’s encouraging. Now all 6 on the house are connected, that’s even more encouraging.

In other news, Pascal came round to borrow a tyre pressure gauge to check the pressure on the caravan tyres. Later, he came round again. He’d pumped up the tyres and taken the caravan for a spin to make sure nothing was going to drop off (that was a sensible idea) but he couldn’t reverse it up the track to Claude’s.

I went round to do it for him but his car just didn’t have the whack to push it up the hill in reverse and it kept on overheating. We pushed the caravan up by hand – 5 of us.

Later, Pascal’s lad came round to tell me that Pascal had decided not to take the caravan. He’ll get a friend of Claude to deliver it next time he’s coming down. So wiser councils have at last prevailed.

That’s a much more sensible idea and if it all goes pear-shaped it will be someone else’s responsibility and not his.

-6

Monday 24th August 2009 – WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS?

I’ve made a start on eating my cucumbers and I put my hand inside the cloche (well, a few lengths of old concrete shuttering made into a deep frame and covered by a caravan window). This is what I discovered.

Maybe it’s a melon, I dunno. There’s all kinds of things in the cloche. However it’s quite exciting to see it.

This morning the weather had clouded over and cooled down. With this threatened storm I fixed the guttering on the lean-to so that it’s all complete on there. I was going to do the house. I have 3 long ladders here but in a masterpiece of logistics I’ve managed to have half a section of each of the ladders attached to something semi-permanent, meaning I have 3 half-ladders ( and not a single whole one) available for climbing up the side of the house.

I dunno how I manage it.

When the “storm” arrived (ha-ha-ha) it was as I expected – no more than a handfull of raindrops. Not even anything resembling a shower ( and having served on the Open University Students’ Association’s Executive Committee in many capacities for as long as I did, I can recognise a shower all right). Not even 1cm of rain to fill my water butts (although even as I type, I can hear raindrops outside).

This afternoon I carried on with my control panel. Terry suggests I put all the wires into trunking and he’s quite right. In fact I’ve already planned for that.

But two things that I did do was firstly to run the permanent wires down to the back of the control panel and attach them to the bolts behind the panel so they won’t ever be disturbed (even though if they stay around me for long enough they’ll be disturbed all right) and secondly I put some plastic junction box thingies over the ends of the bolts that protrude through the control panel so that they will be protected against short circuits if ever I drop a spanner across the ends.

I’ve put fuses (1×100 amp for the inverter that is still in Pompey being repaired, 2×30-amp for the lighting circuits and 4×70-amp for the two power circuits ans two auxillary circuits) in the fuse box, wired up an American socket (I use American plugs and sockets for my 12-volt circuits as they are designed for heavy duty high-amperage cable) and started to wire the power cable in.

I use 6mm cable for the power circuits and 2.5mm cable for the lighting. No risk of voltage drop with me.

Tomorrow I’ll finish up the basic wiring and then connect the 4 batteries and the solar panels up to the system that I’ve been building. Then I can run a power circuit and a lighting circuit as well as a 230-volt circuit up to the attic and I can get started up there.

And not before time too.

-5

Sunday 23rd August 2009 – IT DOESN’T LOOK …

… as if I’ve done very much today.

There are two circuit breakers now on the control panel. They are at the bottom right and are for the two solar arrays.

On the bottom of the board to the left of centre is the fuse box out of a late 1990s Vauxhall Astra. They are one of the reasons why I visit scrapyards in the UK so often. They have one heavy cable in and 8 maxi fuses (up to 100 amp) and 8 wires out – just the job for the 12-volt circuits I’ll be having in the house.

There’s also some of the wiring installed, and you can also see the insulation and 6 of the batteries already in what will be the battery box.

Mind you, don’t forget that it’s Sunday today so I don’t set the alarm – sleep till I wake up and so on. So at 06:55, a time that doesn’t normally exist on a Sunday morning except when I haven’t been to bed yet, I was wide away and at 07:30 I was up and about.

Another glorious sunny day was promised so I did a load of washing in the little tabletop washer that I bought for 10 Euros last year at the Virlet brocante. And I’ve had my moneysworth out of that. And while the washing was on the go I steamcleaned the verandah and I can actually get to the chemical toilet without falling over something and breaking my neck … "shame" – ed.

Following that it was lunch and then the obligatory visit to Claude’s to fix the trailerboard that Pascal can’t get working after he’s fixed it once.

This afternoon was the battery box followed by a big blazing fire in the grate in the living room to
1) aerate and dry out the house
2) get rid of a week’s accumulation of rubbish
3) cook my baked potatoes for tea.
And there’s definitely something about my own spuds. Shop-bought ones will bake easily in a hot open fire yet those I grow myself won’t cook. It shows you how rotten shop-bought spuds are, and how fresh mine are.

And we’re told that we’ll be having a storm tomorrow afternoon. I can try out my sump idea to see if it helps keep the rainwater clean. But if it’s anything like last week’s storm we’ll have 10 drops of rain and that will be that.

And today’s solar energy in the house? A mere 129.0 amp-hours.

-7

Saturday 22nd August 2009 – THIS IS ABSOLUTELY ASTONISHING!

The solar panels on the roof of the Luton Transit that feed the power to the barn (and originally to here with some very dodgy wiring) have been there since August 2007 and the most solar energy that they have ever received is 90.8 amp-hours, back on 22 April 2009.

Bearing in mind that fact that was some 2 months before the optimal date for capturing solar energy, you would expect that figure to be broken some time in midsummer but as yet it’s not quite managed it.

By contrast, the 3 panels on the roof of the house that are currently wired in capture a theoretical 21 watts more and although they are not angled optimally into the sun, they are situated in a much better location for catching the sun, so I had high hopes for these panels. But not 120.6 amp-hours worth.

That’s a pretty astonishing figure from just 390 watts, and with another 390 watts to come from the second bank of panels, you can understand why I’m optimistic about this set-up if I can generate these kinds of figures. This would represent just under 3KwH of electricity (1 KwH is about 88 amp-hours or so) being generated today on both banks of panels.

This morning I was awake long before the alarm went off and spent the morning tidying up, sowing some lettuce seed into a container in the verandah and rescuing some oregano and mint (with not having the time to do any gardening just now the whole place is going to pot!).

Lunchtime saw me in St Eloy shopping (or trying to shop if there was anything to buy – the place is rapidly going downhill) and when the DiY shop opened I went to get my polystyrene sheets for the battery box.
“We don’t carry that” said the owner. “You need to go to the builders’ merchants”
“Ok” I replied, heading for the door
“But it’s a waste of time going now. They are closed!”
This blasted country gets me down at times. The concept of customer service is getting to be as bad as the UK’s. Builders’ merchants closed on Saturdays when everyone has the weekend to do DiY, hotels that close for the summer holidays when they should be open for summer holidaymakers, restaurants “closed for lunch” (I’ve seen that!). No perishing idea.

If someone were to open a decent DiY in St Eloy they would clean up. And if Screwfix or Toolstation got their acts together and started to operate here they too would hit the jackpot.

So I piddled off the 40km to Commentry and the Bricomarche. Not only were they open (and that’s a surprise) and not only did they have my polystyrene (and what a price too! I needed oxygen after that!), they also had the missing bits for the guttering as well as the bits that I need to make a sump in my rainwater collection plan.

So …gulp … 68 Euros the lighter, I returned home, fitted the sump into the rainwater collection circuit (I’ll post a pic of it one of these days) and fitted the polystyrene into the battery box.

I put the other 6 batteries in there and I’ll remove away from the front door the 4 I’m currently using, and put them in the box. But that’s for tomorrow.

And while I was sitting drinking a coffee, an old beat-up little white Citroen pulled up at the back of the house. A couple had a look at the back of the house, had a good chat and then drove away. I wonder what that’s all about.

I suppose I’ll soon find out. But it’s been all go today, hasn’t it?

-4

Friday 21st August 2009 – YOU CAN SEE IN THIS PHOTO …

… why it is that I need to move the batteries. They are blocking up the front door. And if I’m going to start some kind of serious work inside, I need the front door off so that I can bring messy stuff in that way rather than in through my little room.

Today, I put a row of breeze blocks down on the concrete base that I laid yesterday. I can’t build it right up as just right now I don’t know how high the suspended floor is going to be. But tomorrow I’ll be putting a layer of 40mm polystyrene on the base and around the sides, and dropping 10 batteries (thats 920 amp-hours in total) in there.

I’ve also started building the control panel as you can see. There are three charge controllers on there right now. From right to left, we have the charge controller for the 2nd bank of solar panels (the one for the first bank is currently nailed to the front door and will be moved onto the control panel in early course), then in the centre is the charge controller for the wind turbine, and on the left is the charge controller for the overload.

In case you don’t know, when the batteries are fully-charged the charge controllers shut down the charging circuit. And that’s a waste of energy. So what I’m doing is having an overload controller that will divert the surplus current into a “dump load” – in this case a 12 volt water heater element. So that way I’ll have plenty of hot water.

There’s also a bus bar or two on there. These are for connecting loads of heavy duty wires and cables together. Bus bars range from sophisticated professional jobs down to flattened copper pipe and self-tapping screws, but for many years now I’ve been developing the “ring terminal onto long bolt with butterfly nut” and it works just fine, so there’s no reason to change.

There will be a few other things on there too, like a mains inverter, a couple of clocks, some circuit breakers, a fuse box and all that kind of thing. Here is one I made earlier, but that has undergone considerable … er … modification since then.

And what do you think about the wallpaper in the house? The house as you know is built of stone and they plastered over it on the inside, and then put up some wallpaper of … er … stone. Why didn’t they just knock the plaster off?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Claude’s son came round this afternoon. he’d been rummaging around in one of his dad’s many sheds and came across a trailer board.

Well, a sort-of trailer board. The lenses on the lights were smashed and all the cable was missing but I cleaned it up, cleaned all the contacts and rewired it, and now there is in theory a working trailer board. I say “in theory” because there are no bulbs either but I have a 12-volt piazzo tester and when I connected it up to the contacts for the bulbs it did what it was supposed to do at the time it was supposed to do it.

So all Pascal needs to do now is to buy some lenses (they are “standard trailer – small” and some bulbs, attach it properly to the rear of the caravan, and there you are.

I checked and adjusted the brakes on the caravan too and during the course of the evening I learnt that
1) The caravan is over 40 years old
2) Pascal has never towed a trailer (or indeed anything, for that matter) before.
All I can say is “good luck” to him, taking that over the “Cote de Maille” between Puy-en-Velay and Montelimar at night.

-2

Thursday 20th August 2009 – AFTER WORKING ALL DAY ALMOST NON-STOP ….

… I’ve finished the first part of the base of the battery box, as you can see.

The floor in the house is dreadful, full of cracks that let in the damp (a piece of wood that I laid on the floor across a crack rotted to nothing in 6 months) so I started years ago to dig it up.

Earlier followers of my organ will recall me pulling up a chicken that had been cast into the original concrete floor (such pagan rites were apparently practised here in comparatively recent times) but I abandoned the demolition of the floor for another idea.

The ceiling is pretty high and there is a large step uo into the kitchen, so I’m going to put in a suspended floor and seal in the old concrete with bitumen. This will give me enough headroom to put the batteries under the floor in the entrance hall where they will keep nice and warm, and the gases can vent out via a pipe laid to the outside passing underneath the false floor.< So the first job this morning was to rearrange everything in the living room so that I had the space to work. And as the fridge is just 50cms wide and the door to the verandah is 54cms past the obstructions, I made an extended worktop in the verandah and I now have the fridge right next to where I'm cooking.

Then I had to dig down a little further, lay a layer of sand to cover up any sharp bits that might puncture the damp-proof course, build a framework, line it with a plastic sheet as a damp-proof course, lay more sand to protect the integrity of the damp-proof course, heap a pile of rubble inside the framework and then cover with a layer of concrete.

That took me until 19:00 and then I had to go to Claude and Francoise’s. Claude has given his old caravan to his son but the electrics aren’t working and he has to tow it to near Marseilles (it’s not moved under its own steam for 20 years and the tyres are totally perished – just like the rest of the caravan).

After what seemed like hours , and me tearing my trousers on a nail that was being used to hold up the jockey wheel, I noticed that someone had wired the trailer plug up wrongly. I fixed that and after another few hours I managed to get an indicator light working.

The whole electrical circuit on this caravan is shot to pieces and the light units have all short-circuited. Pascal is going to buy some more stuff tomorrow and wants to know if I can rewire the caravan on Friday evening.

Ahhh well.

After all these exertions I’m off to have an early night. I’m totally worn out right now.

-4

Wednesday 19th August 2009 – WELL, HERE WE ARE ….

… one roof, all duly finished.

Well, not quite.

You can see that the guttering isn’t attached correctly, but that’s due to the lack of bits at Brico Depot the other day. When they get those in, I can fix the guttering correctly.

I haven’t fixed the facing tiles for the rear side of the roof either. The scaffolding didn’t quite reach that far and I didn’t fancy a full-stretch leaning over the side. I’ll hack down the brambles in due course and put a ladder up to do them.

I’ve dismantled the scaffolding and done some of the tidying up but it got to 17:30, the water in the solar shower bucket was at 39.4 degrees, and there was some alcohol-free beer in the fridge. So I called it a day. I reckoned I deserved it.

And right on cue, we had a thunderstorm – one of these summer storms that we have quite regularly. In 10 minutes or so, 2mm of rain fell. I couldn’t resist going outside to watch the water cascading down all the guttering and off down the hill.

By my reckoning, 2mm of rain over a footprint of 49 square metres is just about 98.0 litres (thanks, Krys). Now before I had my guttering, all of that would have fallen to the ground at the foundations and soaked into the walls. No wonder this place is flaming damp. But wait another year or two when I have my rainwater tanks installed.

But talking of cubic metres, I am reminded of the two Irishmen talking on a building site.
“What’s a cubic foot, Mick?”
“Dunno, Paddy. But claim for it anyway!”

-2

Tuesday 18th August 2009 – I STILL HAVEN’T …

… finished this flaming roof, even though I’ve made quite a bit of progress.

The morning was fine and I added the extra rows of slates and then did some cementing up and then cemented in the top row of tiles as far as I had fitted them. No need for ferro-cement though as I managed to get a very good and close fit of the top row of tiles.

I also finished off the drainpipe for the house roof as you can see.

The afternoon was a completely different story.

39.9 degrees and a record 88.8 amp-hours of solar energy will tell you the reason why I didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked.

With the sun beating down directly onto the roof I could only do about 20 minutes at a time before I had to go and cool off in the shade. It wasn’t until the sun went off the roof at about 18:30 that I could have a good hour or so on it.

But this weather is absolutely superb if you don’t have any manual work to do. It’s just like the summers we used to have when we were kids. Apart from the little bit of cloud yesterday we’ve had no rain for 9 days and the temperature hasn’t been below 30 degrees for 10 days. In fact, even as I write, it’s 27 degrees IN MY ROOM here.

On Friday there’s a 30% chance of rainfall and then it’s back to the sun again. Will it ever end? I hope not!

-3

Monday 17th August 2009 – I’VE MADE MUCH MORE PROGRESS TODAY …

… as you can see. There are now 12 rows of slates on the roof.

There is in fact 2m95 of roof, and each row of slates covers 17.5 cms, so 12 rows means that I’ve covered 2m10. 85cms to go means 5 rows, plus the topping-out row still to do.

You might be wondering why I’m not building up the back edge as I go along. The fact is that there is nothing particular underneath the back of the lean-to whereas my living accommodation is to the front. So I want to get that done as quickly as possible and can cut the slates to shape for the back edge once I’ve got my living bit covered.

After that I need to do the edging tiles, make some ferro-cement for the ridgepiece, and then fit the guttering as best as I can – depending upon whenever the bits come into stock at Brico Depot.

The postie came round this morning (bringing with her a big parcel that I’ve been waiting for for about 2 months and told me to get a move on as we are going to have a storm in the afternoon. It did in fact cloud right over at midday but the “storm” was about 6 raindrops. A storm in a teacup you might think.

At solar midday (about 14:10 round here) I happened to be in the house looking at the solar controller for the three panels that are currently connected up. And lo and behold! 19.4 amps! The highest I’ve ever had on any set-up. And 80.8 amp-hours in total (before the batteries topped out). In fact the solar charge in the house for the last few days has read 80.8, 64.5, 73.8, 83.3, 78.9, 68.0, 66.0. This is all pretty impressive.

And what else was pretty impressive was that at the Anglo-French group tonight there were more French-speakers than English-speakers. Only the second time that that has ever happened as far as I am aware.

-3

Sunday 16th August 2009 – IT DOESN’T LOOK …

… as if I’ve done very much today. And you are probably right too.

In fact there are a couple of good reasons why.

Firstly, the heat on the roof and the glare from the sun meant that I could only stay on there for short periods.

Secondly, I … errr …. didn’t wake up until 12.33 this afternoon.

And that was with an early night too. I’m trying to think of when it was that I last crashed out like that and I can’t honestly remember. But, whatever. It put paid to three hours of work on the roof this morning.

All in all, what with one thing and another, this weekend hasn’t been too successful in the whole scheme of things of getting my living accommodation sorted out. I suppose I shall just have to work a bit harder in the week to catch up.

And there’s a hint that the weather might change too. Seven days we’ve been in brilliant sunshine with not a drop of rain, but later in the afternoon the wind got up and a cloud (does anyone remember clouds?) came drifting over.

I’m in two minds about the rain though. I want to get the roof finished before it rains if I can, but I’ve run out of rainwater in my water butts and they could do with getting filled.

Mind you, it’s given me an opportunity to clean them out and they didn’t half need it.

With this surfeit of electricity that I’m having right now, I’ve got the hi-fi working again too, and Marillion has just come round. I really enjoy listening to Marillion but for some unknown reason, whether it’s Fish or Steve Hogarth singing, it always leaves me in a deep depression. I suppose I’ll be struggling with that for a week or so now.

-5

Saturday 15th August 2009 – I SAW THIS MOST MAGNIFICENT CLOUD …

… on my way to Liz and Terry’s this evening. A finer example of an “anvil” cumulonimbus cloud you cannot hope to see.

It’s hovering just about over Clermont Ferrand so I reckon that the good citizens of that fair city are having a right pasting this evening, for “anvil” clouds are associated with heavy thunderstorms.

So what was I doing at Liz and Terry’s this evening? You may well ask.

In fact it all starts this morning at about 11.45. There I was casually nailing my fascia boards to the ends of the chevrons when suddenly Terry put in a dramatic appearance.

“There’s a damsel ( or was it a damson?) in distress at the Brico Depot in Montlucon” he announced

Of course, someone’s antlers pricked up at that. All his life he’s been in training for just this moment and despite one or two false starts
“Help help I’ve been tied to this tree and ravaged by the entire crew of the HMS Victory” cried a damsel in distress, tied to a tree in the forest.
“Well, it’s just not your lucky day, is it?” Strawberry Moose
, unbuckling his tunic.
he was well in form.

He leapt into Caliburn, his trusty steed (in the old days when I used to be a superhero all on my own and the job didn’t pay as well as it does now, some of the vehicles I owned were rather less than reputable and were more like rusty steeds, but certainly not Caliburn) and as his driver, I leapt in beside him and we chaud-pieded it to Montlucon.

This digital revolution and mobile communications has brought about some significant benefits and so on – but also a major disadvantage that as far as I know, everyone else has overlooked. In order to be a superhero you need to have your underpants on outside your trousers, and telephone boxes are the traditional places for superheroes to change their clothing.

But try finding a telephone box these days now that everyone has a mobile phone! Strawberry and I had to search for ages until we found a suitable telephone box to change in, and that’s in the Auvergne where mobile phone coverage is patchy at best. How is Superperson managing in the USA where telephone boxes are all but redundant?

Superheroes will have to find new venues in which to change.

Public toilets are likely to receive plenty of support, and I have indeed made use of just such a venue on a previous occasion. But these days you have to fight your way into a public toilet past the drug abusers, the cottagers, the cross-dressers (“Mabel, if you don’t let me wear your tights I’ll smash your ****ing face in!”) and the like.

Mind you, I did have a brother who almost always used to come out of a public toilet with his underpants on outside his trousers, but that was more to do with his status as being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic rather than any superhero status he might (or might not) wish to claim.

So Strawberry Moose
, Caliburn and I duly arrived at Brico Depot and found Terry standing guard over a trolley with a pile of windows too large to go in the back of his car.
“Where’s Liz?” I asked
“Ohh, she’s going to take advantage of you while you’re here” he replied.
Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s a long time since anyone has ever said anything like that to me, and my surprise was quite clearly written all over my face.
“She wants to make use of Caliburn now you are all here by getting some more windows”
“Ahhhh” I replied, this time with disappointment all over my face.

Liz asked me if I could deliver the windows this evening.
“Might that involve some of your vegan chocolate cake?” I enquired.
“I’ll see what I can do” she replied.

And hence my visit to Liz and Terry’s this evening. And not only was there vegan chocolate cake, there was some vegetable curry with rice, and some vegan chocolate cake to bring home.

We have a system round here of chantiers communaux – where if anyone has a work project that needs many hands, we all do a blitz on their premises to get the job done. And whenever there’s a chantiers communaux at Liz and Terrys, you are usually trampled to death in the stampede, so well-known is Liz’s vegan chocolate cake.

And in other news, it was the hottest day of the year so far – almost 42 degrees – and I’ve fixed the fascia boards, tacked on the guttering (I can’t fix it on until the scaffolding is moved) and put on the first row of tiles.

-3

EPIC HALL

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