Category Archives: Les Guis

Friday 14th August 2009 – WE HAD A GOOD DAY TODAY.

Firstly we dismantled the scaffolding that was in the roof space.
Secondly we fitted the rafters.
Thirdly we took one of the rafters out and replaced it with another new one that we xylophened and painted
Fourthly we cemented the rafters in position
Fifthly we fitted some of the hardboard on the roof
Sixthly we went to Montlucon to get some more hardboard, the guttering (and why have they run out of guttering joints AGAIN? Tons of everything else but no blasted joints for the second time) and a few other bits and pieces
Seventhly we fitted the rest of the hardboard
Eighthly we fitted the damp-proof membrane (white this time as we’ve run out of black)

Terry piddled off after that (who can blame him? He’s worked hard) and I measured up, cut, xlophened and put the first coat of paint on the fascia boards.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the fascia boards, loosely attaching the guttering (in the absence of joints) and then starting the tiling. And in between all that I need to go to St Eloy for shopping.

And talking of Terry, I want you all to know how well I treat my workforce. Hottest day of the year so far (38.6 degrees and almost 84 amp-hours from the solar panels on the roof of the house). And so I treated him to a bottle of ice-cold coke. Yes, none of your 22 cents on a bottle of water – a whole 1 Euro 50 cents I spent today.

My generosity knows no bounds.

-5

Thursday 13th August 2009 IT OCCURS TO ME …

… that I haven’t posted a pic of the interior of the attic. so here’s one to put the record straight. It’s as well that I post one now as this afternoon I started work up there.

You remember that I mentioned the other day that I had to face the walls under the eaves at the front, to keep the bugs and the weather out. At the rear though it’s not possible to do it like that so I’ve been facing the walls under the eaves from the inside. And they needed it too – you can actually see daylight in a couple of places.

So what I’ve been doing is ramming stones up underneath the insulation on top of the house walls to block up any holes and then infilling with mortar. Some rain and some animals might get under then eaves at the back but at least they won’t get into the house.

This morning I attached the downpipe for the guttering to the side of the house. I tried the new Hitachi battery-powered SDS drill and it went into the wall like a hot knife into butter. This is going to be some purchase.

And you might be wondering why that was all I did this morning. But most of the morning was spent turning the inside of Caliburn upside down looking for the downpipe fasteners.

Tomorrow, Terry’s coming round and we are going to take down most of the scaffolding and fit the plywood sheets onto the roof here. And that will be Terry finished round here (until we start on the barn roof, but I haven’t mentioned that to him). All that will then remain will be to fit the membrane, the slates, the fascia panels and the guttering, and we’ll be done!

Then I can get cracking on the inside of the house. I want to be settled in before October.

-2

Tuesday 11th August 2009 – I’VE BEEN PAINTING FOR MOST OF THE DAY.

With all of the slates off the roof, it seemed like the right thing to do. All of the beams and rafters that are still up there have had two coats of xylophene and one coat of LIDL wood treatment.

And they needed the xylophene too. One or two of them have some pretty big bug holes and galleries so they have been well-soaked in the stuff. They aren’t too badly damaged so it’s not worth replacing them. The xylophrene should do the job.

But it was pretty awkward painting them as they are too long to paint in one go, too short to do in two goes, there’s a central beam right where I want to put my chest when I’m lying full-length and a scaffolding just above my head. So I’ve been in some awkward positions and I’ve got aches in some places I didn’t even realise I had.

Three rafters are pretty bad though – the two outer ones and one of the inners. But I have about 20 here so I cut three to size and gave them two coats of xylophene and two coats of LIDL wood treatment.

All in all I used about 8 litres of xylophrene (good job Brico Depot had some 35-litre drums the other day) and 5 litres of the LIDL stuff. I always buy a few tins of it when I see it on offer and I’m glad I had a stock. I’m now down to just three so I’m hoping they’ll have some more pretty soon.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the new beams and cementing them in place ready to fit the plywood over the top. Then the damp-proof membrane and then the slates. No insulation and no laths either.

In other news, my potential customer came round. I thought that I could talk, but I’m an amateur by comparison. Still, we have to be nice to our potential customers (something that a certain UK company might wish to take on board) and I’ll go round to inspect his premises once my roof is done.

And in other other news, I see that Aung San Sun Kyi is to continue in detention, much to the chagrin of the entire western world. Now I’m not going to get involved in the rights and wrongs of her case (although followers of my organ from many years back will recall my involvement with the myserious and exotic War War Soe who came dramatically into my life for a while in Belgium and who tried to get me to help her escape Burmese justice) but one thing that I have noticed is that not one single western source has mentioned exactly WHY it is that Aung San Sun Kyi is so detested by the Burmese Authorities.

And so I hasten to put the matter straight for the record, so that in the words of the late, great FE Smith,even if you are none-the-wiser, you will certainly be better-informed.

The fact is that Aung San’s father was a former Burmese general prior to World War II. He mysteriously disappeared and later fetched up in, of all places, Japan, where the Japanese feted him and honoured him, lavished loads of money on him and so on. He then went back to Burma.

In 1941 when the Japanese colonial expansion got into top gear there was a revolution in Burma. And who should be leading this revolution, but Aung San’s father. He invited the Japanese into Burma to help with the “liberation” and of course it is no surprise that they duly obliged.

I’m not going into the horrors of the Japanese “liberation” (see “occupation” or “colonialisation”) of Burma as they are fully-recorded in all kinds of other places, but most people lay them fairly and squarely at the feet of Aung San’s father.

it’s no surprise therefore that the establishment of Burma is deeply suspicious of Aung San’s motives and cannot understand why it should be that she is calling herself as a “true democrat”. To give you some idea, just imagine what westerners would say if a child of Adolf Hitler were to stand for election as a Communist in Germany.

LIke I say, I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of what is happening in Burma right now, but it’s important that both sides have an equal opportunity to have their views aired, something that is sadly lacking in the west these days.

And on the same day that a 90 year old German is convicted of war crimes dating from World War II and jailed for life, the hypocrisy of the western world in criticising Burma for dealing with its own World War II legacy in its own fashion is quite simply staggering.

-5

Monday 10th August 2009 I WAS HAVING A …

… quiet leisurely breakfast this morning when a car pulled up outside. “A bit too early for the postie” I thought so I wandered off to see who it was. And lo and behold! It was Terry.

“Come on, let’s have this roof off” he exclaimed, so before I could even begin to tell him about my change of plan we were ripping the slates off. Ahhh well!

I uncovered an ants’ nest (I wondered where all these ants had been marching to – now I know) but Terry won the prize, uncovering a mice nest, complete with mice. These were summarily evicted too. We uprooted a couple of rotten chevrons (most of them are fine and they will be staying put) and then we put up the scaffolding.

After lunch we xylophened the wood on the end of the main roof and then painted it with the LIDL wood preservative. Tons of the stuff went on.
“This won’t ever rot again” I suggested.
“It’ll rot sooner or later” said Terry.
“Well, as long as it doesn’t do it before I’m dead” I said
“No problem there” said Terry, brandishing a hammer.

>We edged off the wood with tiles just as I had done on the other side and then piddled off to Simon’s to see about his electricity. He had his kids there, a lad of 12 and a girl of 8. And Strawberry Moose made another friend as you can expect.

And at the Anglo-French group, Nathalie made a welcome return. It was nice to see her after all of this while. And next week, as the venue at St Eloy is closed, Amandine wants to invite us round to her house at Moureuille.

I forgot to mention too that Terry brought me round my new toy. A bargain pack of Hitachi battery-powered drill, torch and – wait for it – battery-powered SDS drill. I’ve been after one of those for years and Screwfix had them on special offer. So I’ve treated myself. I can think of a million uses for one of those.

And talking of Screwfix, Terry’s had to nip to the UK to pick up his latest purchases so I’m on my own for a couple of days again. But don’t worry – he’s left me plenty to do.

-9

Sunday 9th August 2009 – I MENTIONED THE OTHER DAY …

… about Strawberry Moose playing hide-and-seek with his sister Katherine and other students from Hatfield University. Well, I’ve been sent some photos to prove it.

Here you can see His Nibs cunningly hiding behind a tree. Unfortunately, his antlers somehow give the game away but at least he had a good time, being surrounded by young ladies of the female sex.

I’ve also been sent some “other” photos detailing his “other” antics while on his solo round-Britain tour, but the world is not yet ready for them.

Sunday today so I didn’t set the alarm. Nevertheless I was up at 09:30 and had a leisurely breakfast. I carried on with the pointing later – it takes me about 10 minutes to mix a bucket-full of cement and about an hour or so to apply it, and twice I was caught out by rainstorms just as I had a bucketload. I can’t leave it so I ended up working in the rain.

The second storm meant business so I abandoned the task once the bucket was emptied, came in and dried myself off, followed by a coffee. But the pointing isn’t going to be finished at this rate – not even close – so I’ve pretty-much decided on a change of plan.

-8

Saturday 8th August 2009 – DOESN’T CALIBURN LOOK SMART?

The postie came by this morning and she dropped off a letter. This was the definitive insurance certificate for Caliburn.

This had Caliburn’s new registration details on it and so I put his new numberplates on him. We’re all legal now.

This means I’ll have to pay more attention to speed limits and the like as I’ll no longer be able to drift past them with “sorry, I’m a foreigner”. But such is life I suppose.

Taking this time out meant that I only put two loads of cement into the wall this morning and that seemed to disappear without trace. I can see me thinking again about my timetable and having a dramatic change of plan.

This afternoon in St Eloy I spent about 33 Euros, but that was due in part to LIDL having brought back into stock their trail mix and crushed nuts and the like, things that I put in my home-made muesli. It’s been out of stock for ages and so I stocked up today just in case this is only a temporary supply.

But the bad news is that the special offer rows are reducing and reducing – looks like the weekly promotions are running out of steam.

And the Carrefour is even worse. Their stock is getting less and less and judging by the length of the queues at the only two checkouts open, the staff is starting to disappear now. I wonder how long this arrangement will continue?

There was a brocante in St Eloy too, and you know how much of a fan I am of French brocantes. But this one had just 10 stalls, some of which were professional overpriced nonsense and the rest were just junk.

Nothing of interest for me so I came home and did some tidying up for my visitor due at 18:00 and who rang me up to say that he would be coming on Tuesday instead. That was that as far as I was concerned and so I came in, had a coffee and looked at the football results.

Crewe Alexandra lost at home to Dagenham and Redbridge, but then I suppose that it’s always difficult when you have to play against two teams at once. But I can see how this season is going to develop and it makes me wish that I’d carried on with the pointing.

Ahhh well.

-5

Friday 7th August 2009 – NEVER ONE TO MISS OUT ….

… on a photo opportunity, Strawberry Moose tagged himself along to Gilles’ barbecue this evening.

Of course he made plenty of friends, mostly of young ladies of the female sex, and was even taking part in the “jumping off the wall” game – to match the games of “hide and seek” that he played with students of Hatfield University the other week.

As for my part, I don’t “do” social stuff but I force myself to go out – otherwise I’d never ever do anything.

Terry and Liz are good company as are Bill and Gilles. Rebecca’s mum is quite nice to talk to too, but after a while I long for the peace and quiet of my own four walls such as they are.

And talking of walls, I started the pointing today. Followers of my ravings from previous incarnations will know that my cementing is total carp, and so I didn’t expect much from my efforts at pointing. But even though my technique improved dramatically, my target of Monday afternoon for this is hopelessly optimistic.

There are holes in the existing cementing big enough to put your hand in and god knows what kind of livestock is lurking in there. One hole swallowed up an entire bucket of cement so after that I resorted to filling the big holes with gravel and then cementing them in, to bind everything together. I was interrupted by a rainstorm too at 17:30.

It’s just as well that I’m pointing the wall as it is in desperate straights but finished by Monday? Not a chance.

-5

Thursday 6th August 2009 – ALL THE SCAFFOLDING …

…has now gone from the front of the house Well, in the sense of it being erected, that is.

That’s good news in the sense that I can now put the roof back on the verandah and close the verandah door. It all helps keep me warm and dry

And warm it was, too. 37 degrees outside, the warmest of the year so far, even though it didn’t feel quite as hot as yesterday.

I’ve painted as much of the outside of the house as I can do right now. The rest will have to wait until I’ve tidied up whatever is lying about in the way. So don’t hold your breath. Regular readers of my mighty organ will know that tidying up is not my forte. In fact, it isn’t even my 39. But at least I can reach everything from ground level except for the little bit over the kitchen where I’ll have to invent something to help me reach.

And thinking on, I have to record that painting the outside is the first (I think) thing that I have done to the house for aesthetic rather than practical purposes.

In other news, I had a good tea tonight. Lentils and onions and spices, with garlic, beans and potatoes out of my garden. And nice they all were too, especially the garlic! Nice and strong, no wonder I’m not troubled by vampires.

Tomorrow I’m starting the pointing of the side of the house (the side you can’t see in the photo). That should be interesting as I’ve never done pointing before. But all the mortar there has dried out and is disintegrating and this is likely to be the only shot I’ll get at fixing it.

I’ve set myself until Monday to do it and then I can discuss with Terry Monday night about doing the lean-to roof over the kitchen and fitting the wind turbine.

-7

Wednesday 5th August 2009 – TODAY, I CHANGED THE HABITS OF A LIFETIME

My usual working hours here are from 09:30 to 1400 and 15:00 to 18:00 or 18:30. So here I was today, 21:00 when I climbed down off the scaffolding.

But then again I was in full flight painting the front of the house and I totally lost track of time. Mind you, it was so hot at 14:00 when I stopped for lunch that I ate inside the house and stayed here until 16:00 when it cooled down. 35.5 degrees in the shade, and off the scale (more than 40 degrees) in the direct sunlight.

As well as having done more than half the painting, I fitted the fascia board and the guttering. Many people don’t agree with fascia boards when doing roofing (especially round here) on the grounds that they just collect the water, rot away and then drop off.

But that’s exactly the point. If it wasn’t for the fascia board then the exposed ends of the rafters would collect the water, rot away and drop off and if anyone thinks that in 10 years time I’m taking all the roof off to replace the rafters then they have another think coming.

We didn’t buy enough guttering – there’s about a metre short. And I also need two joining pieces. I won’t have time to go back to Montlucon to look for them on Saturday so I’ll have to see what St Eloy can offer.

And in other news, having gone to the bank yesterday to give them a copy of Caliburn’s log book, I had a letter from the bank today reminding me that Caliburn’s temporary certificate has expired and if I don’t give them a copy of Caliburn’s log book by 15th August they’ll cancel the insurance.

-5

Tuesday 4th August 2009 – A PHOTO FROM A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE TONIGHT

and if you look closely you will notice that the facade of the house has been painted down to the level of the decking on the scaffolding.

That was this afternoon’s task – the morning was taken up in cementing underneath the rest of the eaves. It wasn’t easy without a bricklayer’s trowel, that it until I tried out a piece of recycled plastic slate. What a good finish you can get with a few offcuts of those!

Lunchtime involved a visit to the bank at Pionsat. The temporary insurance certificate for Caliburn has run out
and they haven’t sent me a new one yet.
“Well, you haven’t sent us the log book” was their story
“You didn’t ask for it” I replied. “You just asked for proof of Caliburn’s new registration number and I dropped off the certificate three weeks ago”
“Yes, but we still need the log book”
So GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to the Credit Agricole! I wish they’d make up their blasted minds!

And it was so hot today that the 15 litres of water in my mini-heat-exchanger was scorching. So I took advantage of that and had another shower. Two in a week! I’ll wash myself away at that rate.

I also connected up the fridge. I’ve decided just to run it during the daylight hours in sunny conditions. I have to do something with the excess solar charge seeing as how the batteries in the house now top out after just 30 minutes and isn’t this a change from a short while ago? I’ve filled it full of these ice-packs so that it should retain the cold for a while and I’ll have nice cool orange juice for breakfast.

After the shower I xylophened the two planks that I’m going to be using for the fascia boards on the house, and put the first coat of wood preservative on. I’ll do the second as soon as I wake up and then put the second coat on the house under the eaves while the planks are drying. When they are dry I’ll fit them and then fit the guttering. After that, the scaffolding will come down another level.

And in other news, I had a phone call from a guy I met in the Auchan. He wants to come round and talk Solar Energy so we’ve arranged for Saturday at 18:00. Good job it looks like we’ve been working around here. I’d hate him to think that this total disorder is habitual.

Perish the thought, hey?

-4

Monday 3rd August 2009 – AT FIRST GLANCE …

… this photo doesn’t look much different than some of the others that have been on this site just recently.

But if you look carefully you’ll notice a couple of changes. Firstly we now have 6 solar panels on the roof. All 780 watts-worth of power, and seeing as I have been living quite comfortably with just 150 watts for two years then you will see what a dramatic leap forwards this represents.

And when the wind turbine is installed this will be even more dramatic. I might even wire the fridge up again!

Secondly, all the tiling has been finished around the chimney. With Terry and I performing contortions over and around the chimney we managed to get everything on and sealed up.

Furthermore you’ll notice that the scaffolding appears to have shrunk. In fact I’ve dismantled the very top layer as there’s now no need to go onto the roof. My plan for tomorrow is to finish cementing under the eaves and while that is drying, point the stone wall round the far side.

When the cementing under the eaves has dried I’ll be painting the rendering under the eaves, fitting the fascia panel and guttering. And then continuing to paint the rendering downwards as I dismantle the scaffolding. It’ll be nice to get the scaffolding out of my verandah so I can close the door again.

-5

Sunday 2nd August 2009 – LOOK WHAT I’M HAVING FOR TEA!

Yes, new potatoes! And grown with my own fair hands too.

In fact there’s a story behind these potatoes. Readers of my blog in its previous incarnation will recall the sad passing-away of my good friend Liz.

On my way to her funeral I stopped off at a Pound Shop (Anyone who knew Liz would know that she would have appreciated that!) and one of the things that they had on offer was a pack of 12 well-advanced seed potatoes for a quid. So they duly found their way into my garden, and then into my oven.

And right delicious they were too. I’ve been having lettuce from my garden for a few days but today I’m starting on the spuds. Tomorrow it will also be the peas, beans and carrots, with courgettes planned for later in the week.

This morning I had a telehone call that disturbed me from my reverie. It was Francois who wanted to come and inspect the work. And at 10:00 too! On a Sunday! So I hauled myself out of my pit, breakfasted, and showed him round. He pointed out a few faults (he’s a professional roofing carpenter) and I had to agree with him.

Mind you, this is the first roof I’ve ever done and Terry has only ever done one before so it’s only to be expected. Francois also reminded me of the chantier at his house on Thursday – emptying the library before his house goes up for sale. But it’s doubtful that I’ll be there. I’ve far too much on right now.

Once he’d gone I slated the side of the rafters where I painted yesterday. That should keep the weather out nicely. And after lunch I started to cement under the eaves. My cementing is awful and I bet I dropped more on the floor that I stuck to the walls but after a bit of practice it started to hod together – which is a major advance for me. I’ll finish it off tomorrow night.

Once it’s dried off properly I can start to paint the front of the house and won’t that be progress?

-6

Saturday 1st August 2009 – Saturday is a sort-of day of rest …

… so I didn’t set the alarm clock this morning.

And when I woke up my mobile phone had gone flat and so I didn’t have a clue about the time, so seeing as I was wide awake I reckoned it was getting on for 10:00 so I hauled myself out of the stinking pit to find that it was 08:15!

After breakfast I went up onto the scaffolding at the side of the house and gave it all a really good soaking in xylophene and then walloped some of the brown staining all over it – nice and thick. That won’t rot away any time soon.

By now it was 11:30 and as there’s not much to eat round here I wandered off into St Eloy and the LIDL and Carrefour. I didn’t meet Bill today (just for a change) and once stocked up (to a value of 20 Euros) I dropped by on George but he was going out so I came home.

In the afternoon I cleaned up my room (you’ve no idea how much rubbish was in here that had gathered over the last 4 weeks) and the verandah so I have places to eat ond cook again. All of this was done to music as I coupled up the hi-fi seeing as the power situation is resolving itself more permanently. Even now at 02:00 I have Lindisfarne going on in the background.

And I noticed on Facebook that Terry was praying for rain. And he got his wish almost as soon as he posted for we had a tropical storm. In 3 hours or so about 17mm of rain fell on here. That’s some going. I’m glad we got the roof on in here beforehand.

-2

Friday 31st July 2009 – POWER CORRUPTS

And 390 watts of solar power will corrupt me absolutely.

Terry and I put the framework up on the roof and then fitted three of the solar panels. They are all wired up and while the three on the roof of the Luton Transit were recording 1 amp in the early evening, these three were chucking out 10 times that. In fact, in the period between 17:30 and 20:30 I’d received about 20 amp-hours-worth. Mind you the panels are situated right on the sunniest corner of the roof – the part of the roof where the sunshine lingers longest.

And just imagine what it’s going to be like when the other 3 are up there with these.

We had a rethink about the design of the framework. Solar panels are most effective when offered perpendicularly to the sun at the shortest day of the year. Here in central France that’s about 68 degrees. But being restricted by the roof windows, the panels are having to overhang the apex of the roof as you can see. And setting them at 68 degrees would have this huge sail-effect over the roof catching the stormy north winds head-on. It’s for that reason that I’ve set them parallel to the roof slope – to make sure that they don’t catch the wind so much.

You can see how we fitted them – saddle clamps onto standard B-size galvanised tube with tube clamp fittings onto U-profile aluminium channel with holes drilled in to let the water pass. We didn’t have enough saddle clamps (followers of my blog from its previous location will recall the story about that!) so we made our own.

You can also see the two roof windows and the space-age insulation that I’ve been using. It’s all pretty impressive stuff.

In other news, you may recall Dinsdale nailing someone’s head to a coffee table for having “transgressed the unwritten law”
“well what did you do?”
“he didn’t tell me. But he gave me his word, and that’s good enough for me with old Dinsy”

Back in 1970 we laughed at that, thinking that it was just another example of Monty Python’s outrageous comedy. We never ever thought that it would come true. But in the UK in 2009 this kind of thing has become fact and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

To summarise, a person in the UK has been detained under house arrest on charges that have not been communicated to him. A court order has instructed the Home Secretary to publish the information that relates to his detention, and rather than publish the information the Home Secretary has dropped the charges – and then applied for a different detention order. This will of course be the subject of a further appeal to the High Court, which will pass a similar order, leading to the charges being dropped, and a different detention order being applied for.

And so the cycle will continue while a totally bewildered detainee, who doesn’t know the charges and evidence against him and so can’t defend himself, will remain in detention ad infinitum while the UK Government take the mickey out of the High Court. If it was a civilian doing this kind of thing there would be a “contempt of court” writ in the mail the same night, and back in the old days when a Government tried on this kind of behaviour with a case as serious as “The Moors Murders” with Hindley and Brady, it was threatened with an “Abuse of Process” writ, but in the UK today there is a government that thinks that it is above all legal challenge.

You obviously can’t make up a story like this, but just in case you think that I am pulling your leg, you can read all about it here. But I just don’t know how the British public have become so paranoid that they are prepared to put up with all of the carp that the Government is feeding them. When the IRA was blowing mainland Britain to bits there was none of this nonsense. But of course the IRA is all white-skinned Catholics financed by the USA and in the UK today someone’s skin colour plays a major part in the way in which they are being treated by the Government and the British citizens.

Shame on you all!

-4

Thursday 30th July 2009 – THE HOUSE ROOF IS ALMOST FINISHED …

… as you can see in the pic. The only part that remains to be done is the bit to the side of the chimney and seeing as we have to get up to there to treat the woodwork (we are very generous) and put slates down the sides, that bit can wait til we have the scaffolding around there.

The aluminium troughs you see on the roof are the mountings for the framework for the solar panels and we should be fitting them tomorrow if all goes well. 800 watts near enough if all goes well and with that I shall be certainly ready for action. And if Terry is feeling up to it we may even have a go at putting the wind turbine up too.

By the way, do you like the ridge tiles? They are the ordinary plastic slates scored down the middle with the groove filled with contact adhesive. They were screwed onto the front of the roof with the stainless steel screws and silicone-backed washers and left for a few minutes to catch the sun. Once the sun had caught them they were easy to bend over the apex and screw onto the back of the house. Those silicone-backed washers were quite a find, I can tell you.

After Terry had gone I noticed that the water I had in the black plastic container covered with an old caravan window had reached 35 degrees. Cue the 12-volt shower (not the OUSA Executive Committee – the xylophrene for disposing of nasty little pests will take care of them) and I had a gorgeous scrub of my dirty bits. Following that I crashed out for an hour (it’s wearing me out all this work) and then tidied up my room so I now can sit comfortably in it.

In other news, Gilles came round this morning and had a guided tour of the works. He’s just finished renovating his cottage at La Cellette and he’s organising a barbecue for a week on Friday for all of us. I like Gilles and he did help me out when a solar panel needed fixing after a gale that we had in the winter so I shall be delighted to go.

This is an isolated rural area here with houses few and far between yet I’ve engaged in much more socialising and made many more friends than I ever did when I lived in Brussels.

-5

EPIC HALL

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