Category Archives: Les Guis

Sunday 15th March 2015 – WHAT A NICE MORNING!

I woke up this morning at 07:00, but sod that for a game of soldiers. I turned over and went back to sleep and that was that until 10:00. That’s much more like it on a Sunday.

And while I was deep in the arms of Morpheus I was on my travels again. Just across the Combrailles in fact to the house of a woman who lives near here, where I’d been invited for a party. The guests here were all women and they were so busy doing things that they totally ignored me, making me wonder why i’d been invited in the first place.

A nice leisurely breakfast and a film on the DVD player, and then I had a good wash and shave and hung out the damp washing, seeing as how it was such a nice morning. Cold though – it had been -2°C here during the night.

Pionsat’s 2nd XI was playing at Le Quartier today and lost 1-0. Most unfair, seeing as how they had the lion’s share of the play, missed a penalty, hit the bar and had about a dozen good chances. What made it worse was that they had just 9 players. With a full team out here today, they would have won this match at a canter.

But there’s something clearly not right at the club, the way that they keep on losing players and never seem to be able to sign any repacements. I smell a rat – there’s definitely something going on that I don’t know about and no-one seems to want to discuss it. Someone is clearly upsetting everyone else there and that can’t ever be right.

Back here, I had a leisurely evening too. I deserve it after working on a Saturday morning yesterday. A good day of rest will do me good, and it’s back to work tomorrow.

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Saturday 14th March 2015 – WHAT? ME?

Working on the house on a Saturday morning?

Yes, make a note of this because it doesn’t happen every week, or every year come to that. But running behind, and having lost half a day on Thursday, I need to catch up otherwise i’m going to be here for ever.

But it wasn’t an early start by any means.

I woke up this morning to a crash on the roof as if the chimney had blown off. But what had happened was that a pile of snow had slid off the roof light onto the tiles. Yes, we had a pile of snow during the night and it was cold in here.

So that was enough for me. Never mind the alarm, I turned over and went back to sleep where I remained until 10:00.

After breakfast, I went downstairs and finished off the second coat of paint on the wall in the bedroom. And as I say it myself, it doesn’t look too bad at all, although a third coat would help matters greatly.

Cecile came round in the late afternoon and stayed for a good two hours while she sorted out a few things. And now I’m back up here with the fire on to keep warm. No footy tonight so I’m staying in.

Tomorrow, Pionsat’s 2nd XI are playing just down the road at le Quartier. I’ll have a run out around there.

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Friday 13th March 2015 – I HAD A …

… delivery this morning. Terry came round.

I have a patch of uneven ground underneath the window of the ground floor outside. I intend to build a stone wall to a level and then infill with all of the brick ends and rubble that is hangong around here and then pave it over to make a little terrace.

The crazy paving is much cheaper if you buy it by the pallet rather than by the square metre, and Terry wanted half a load for a job he’s doing. It made sense to me to buy the other half and keep it here for a year or so until I need it.

Consequently I didn’t start on the painting of the bedroom until about 11:30, but by 14:20 I’d finished it all. It’s not very good though as it’s thin and patchy. It’s not spreading too well.

After my lunch break (and a little siesta) I went back out and put the second coat on the paintwork that I had done yesterday. As it looks as if I’m going to have to put three coats on, I thinnned it out with another 2 litres of white paint and it now looks like a lovely custard colour.

I went down to Pionsat for the shopping this evening, and on the way back I had to call at Rob and Nicolette’s. It seems that, for some reason best known to herself, the boulangère left my bread there instead of at my house.

Not sure what’s happening there.

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Thursday 12th March 2015 – I MADE THE BEST EVER …

… fire that I have ever made at Cecile’s today. It burned beutifully and did everything that it was supposed to do. I only wish that it had burned like that during the bitter winter of 2013.

Mind you, it wasn’t easy.

I lit the fire as soon as I went round there, and promptly filled the house with a thick oily smoke. Nothing was coming out of the chimney at all.

I had to let the fire burn itself out (by which time Cecile and her mother had arrived) and then I dismantled the chimney pipes. And no-one was more surprised than me when, after much ramming, prodding and poking, an enormous dead bird fell out. It really was a monster bird and he was well-wedged in the chimney. I’ve no idea how come he came to be stuck there.

Reassembling the chimney pipes was much more complicated, and we ended up moving the stove so that the pipes lined up better. And it was during this manoeuvre that I was drowned in a load of soot (wo much for my gorgeous heated shower in the verandah this lunchtime).

It turns out that with the dead bird blocking the chimney, the soot had falled into the trap and this was blocked solid. Chiseling it all out, I noticed that was a small vent in the trap, presumably to provide an updraught for lifting the smoke up. Unblocking and cleaning the chimney pipes solved many of the problems, but I reckon that it was cleaning out the vent in the trap that gave it the finishing touch.

Yes, the best fire that I have ever seen out there at La Batisse.

So what was I up to this morning then?

I’ve started to put the paint on the wall this morning. Everywhere that I papered on Tuesday now has the first coat of paint.

It’s lighter than the paint colour on the landing. That’s because I found another 5-litre tub of white paint, so I mixed three litres of that into the yellow. It looks much better now and I can’t wait to see it with the second coat on.

I had enough time to go round and mask off the rest of the bedroom. That’s a task well-done and so I can crack on with the rest of the first coat tomorrow

And then I had my lovely shower.

I also found time to do a machine-load of washing at Cecile’s, for which I’m grateful.

And it is nice to see Cecile and her mum again after all of this time.

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Wednesday 11th March 2015 – I’VE FINISHED …

… wallpapering the bedroom.

In fact, it didn’t take all that long. I was late going out to work but I made up for that by going for a late lunch. And in that four hours, I had put 6 drops of paper on the wall. One of them was complicated in that it had to be cut specially to go aroud the window, and abother one needed a couple of pattress holes cut in iit.

I crashed out at lunchtime – and I don’t mean a simple doze but a real crash and I was out for about an hour and a half. But again, I caught up by working late.

I put the final drops on after lunch – one full drop needed a couple of pattress holes cut in it, and the second drop needed cutting down in the width. But I’d left a bit on the second wall so that I could start the third wall in a corner, and the cut-off width went in there quite nicely with a littl trimming down.

To finish off, I masked off around where I’d wallpapered on Tuesday, so that I can make a good start on painting that tomorrow. And I’ll see how I get on with that before I have to go and warm up Cecile’s house?

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Tuesday 10th March 2015 – I’VE MADE A START …

… on the wallpapering today.

This morning, I spent a great deal of time tidying up in the bedroom, sweeping up all of the sawdust and plaster dust and moving a pile of stuff around. I’ve filled four bin liners of rubbish and there’s probably one or two more as well to go. Unfortunately the place doesn’t look much emptier, it just looks different and I’m still worrying where I’m going to put everything. The aim was to make a pathway all around the three walls that need wallpapering, so that I can move the scaffolding around.

And I’m glad that I’ve decided to put a new layer of flooring in, because some of the existing flooring is looking very creaky indeed.

Once that had been done, I made a start on the wallpapering. I’m using this fibreglass wallpaper that covers all known imperfections (except mine of course) and I’ve put 5 drops onto the wall, meaning that one wall of the three is finished completely. Tomorrow I can finish off and then on Thursday, depending upon how I’m fixed for time, I can put the first coat of paint on.

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Monday 9th March 2015 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the wardrobe.

Well, I haven’t actually. It still needs varnishing, the hardware finishing off and a couple of the doors sanding down so that they can close properly. However, all of the woodwork is finished at long last.

The upper fascia panel isn’t particularly pretty, but with all irregular heights and having to carve around the ceiling beams, I’m not sure how else I could have done it. I suppose that I could have fitted a false ceiling as I’m planning to do with the ground floor, but I hadn’t thought of that when I started on the bedroom.

This has now taken me on to cleaning up and tidying ready to start the wallpapering. And I hate tidying up as you all kno. I can’t remember which Harry Potter film it was where Dumbledore had the magic wand that cleaned up that house where the timid teacher was living, but I would give all that I own and more to to have one of those.

But as I expected anyway, there isn’t enough room on the ground floor to put everything that I’ll be taking downstairs. This is going to become quite complicated before I go much further.

I was late starting because, as you know, I had to go with Terry to the quarry to fetch some sand. It was a nice morning out anyway because the sun was shining. However it clouded over in the afternoon and I think that the summer might have gone.

And for tea? Cooking in the verandah again I made one of my huge aubergine and kidney bean whatsist – enough to keep me going for four days. The next three days, I can warm up the food in here.

And tomorrow? I’ll be finishing off the tidying up and then hopefully starting on the wallpapering.

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Sunday 8th March 2015 – WHAT A DAY!

I should have gone to Clermont Ferrand this afternoon for the football. Instead, I stayed in.

In fact, I’ve been in all day and the only time that I’ve set foot outside the door was to take the stats. Such was my day.

I had a nice lie-in though. I was awake at 08:30 but badger that for a game of soldiers. I turned over and went back to sleep. I did the same at 09:20 too and it was in fact 10:15 when I finally heaved myself out of my stinking pit. And that was for reasons totally unconnected with being awake too, as any male of round about my age will tell you.

So after breakfast I spent a couple of hours working on my website. And since then I’ve done absolutely zilch. It’s been a nice relaxing day.

For tea tonight, I had the usual pizza. And it was the first time since I don’t know when that I used the oven in the verandah. As you know I’ve been cooking on the woodstove or else on the camping gas container.

And tomorrow morning I have to go and help Terry with a load of sand.

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Saturday 7th March 2015 – THE EXPERIMENT …

… of leaving the fridge running through the night worked just fine. The voltage in the batteries dropped to a minimum of 12.47 volts, which is quite acceptable and so it will have another run-out tonight.

As I said yesterday, leaving it running for 24 hours per day is something that I do from about mid-May to mid-October. I’ve never had it running 24 hours so early in the year.

It was nice to have freezing cold orange juice, soya milk and soya yoghurt for breakfast. That was well-worth waiting for. And after breakfast I cracked on with the scripts for Radio Anglais. I’ve ended up doing 5 weeks for our recording session at the end of the month because, believe it or not, my services as a long-term live-in carer for the sick might once more be in demand, if an e-mail that I’ve received recently is anything to go by.

I also found time to tidy up in here and on the ground floor a little, and to empty and clean out the beichstuhl. Such exciting jobs that I have to do these days.

Cecile rang up too. Apparently she’s coming back on Thursday for a couple of days, so on Thursday I’ll be spending the afternoon away from here warming up her house for her.

And the football season has restarted after the winter break. Pionsat’s 2nd XI were playing Charensat and ran out 4-1 winners. And that despite playing with just 10 men. Yann, who has been out injured for about three years and has just made two or three 10-minute cameo appearances during that time, played a full match. Clearly not yet match-fit, still nevertheless it was good to see him play the full 90 minutes.

There was a new player too. Almost as old as I am and … errr … somewhat larger than I am. I was told that he had played for the club years ago but had come out of retirement to have another run-round. And despite his lack of match-fitness, it was quite evident from some of his touches that he had played at a much higher level than the Puy-de-Dome league Division 4. He’ll be an asset to the club when he finds his feet again.

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Friday 6th March 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… as much done today as I was hoping for – but then again, isn’t this the story of this blasted wardrobe?

Mind you, I have an excuse for at least part of it. Round about 14:30 I noticed that the temperature in the verandah was 26°C. Not only that, the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the excess solar energy had gone up to more than 70°C but there was no room in the tank to put some cold water to cool it down, so I needed to take some out.

This can only mean one thing. And yes, the shower that I had was gorgeous.

Standing in the verandah pouring water all over me out of a jug might not seem like very much to you, but it’s the first shower of the year here so it’s significant in that respect and, of course, it’s all my own work.

And it’s the earliest shower of the year since I’ve been here (that was 2007 when I came to live here) and it’s a sure sign that the warm weather is here. In the height of summer I can have showers every day, and how I look forward to that.

In fact, today we had 207 amp-hours of surplus solar energy. That gives you some idea of how good the weather has been. What I’ve done therefore is to plug the fridge into the permanent circuit so that it runs through the night. Normally the fridge runs on the overcharge circuit so that it only runs when the batteries are fully charged (except in summer when I run it 24 hours per day) but I need to put a little bit of strain on the batteries. This is the earliest that I’ve had the fridge going through the night.

Returning to our moutons, first job in the bedroom this morning was to trim off all of the doors on the upper row. I’d marked them off yesterday so it didn’t take all that long, but I ended up doing the bottom of one of the doors as well because the rest of it ended up looking so good.

I’ve started on the upper fascia panel too – making it out of the cut-off ends of floorboards mounted vertically, so I had to go a-scavenging around the bedroom for the offcuts. The chop saw is excellent though for the cutting.

However, here’s a design fault or two with the machine. A built-in measure would help enormously, as well as an end-stop which you can set in order to cut constanr lengths. I had to invent something for this.

I’m not very happy with this though. Each piece has to be shaped individually once it’s been cut, and some of these shapes around the exposed beams are quite complicated. For one section, I had to cut three different pieces before I was satisfied.

But that’s half-done now and it might take another half-day to finish. And I’ll be glad when it’s done too. I can then crack on with the rest of the bedroom

I finished off tonight by going down to Pionsat and the Intermarche for the shopping. THis means that I have Saturday free. And I’m pleased that I don’t have to go to Montlucon tomorrow for bits and pieces.

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Thursday 5th March 2015 – I DIDN’T QUITE MANAGE …

… to complete as much as I intended to do on the wardrobe today. I had the usual issues of working hard but making not much progress.

It took all morning to hang the two doors that I had made yesterday. Mind you, I spent some of the time having a good search around looking to see if I had any hinges lying around anywhere. I eventually found three in the barn. I must have bought those for some long-forgotten project, but they weren’t much good as they were left-hand hinges and too big in any case.

However I did find half a hinge in the house and this made a pair (or at least it will do when I find the other half) with a hinge that I had already, so I could at least do that. It also means that I don’t have to go on a shopping expedition to Montlucon on Saturday.

After lunch, I made the final door and for a change, I had a play with the cheap chop-saw that I bought agesa couple of years ago in the sales at Cheze in St Eloy-les-Mines. This did an excellent job, although it needs two cuts to cut the width of a floorboard (which is annoying) but never mind. I’ll be doing the floorboards with this.

While I was on my travels around, I tried to see if I could find the Ryobi portable router that I bought in the USA in 2012 but I’ve no idea where that might be. Not a trace.

The final door needed trimming down but once I’d done that it was quite a good fit and it’s all come out quite well.

all of the doors need trimming off of course, so I measured everything up ready to cut them down tomorrow. That ook me nicely up to 18:30 when I called it a day

During the night I was on my travels again, back in Crewe. We were living back in Davenport Avenue and there was quite a crowd of us there. We all had cars and the place was totally cluttered up with vehicles. Anyway, I went on the bus up Gresty Road and South Street and the bus turned right into Nantwich Road, towards the station. I realised that I should have alighted at the corner so I urgently rang the bell. The driver went to stop but of course there’s nowhere along there to stop (the bus was clearly driving on the right-hand side of the road) so the driver said that he would swing round into Pedley Street and come back round into Nantwich Road to drop me off. I told him not to bother as I was going to Pedley Street anyway, so I alighted then and there and went to a house where I cooked my pizza and chips. I somehow managed to burn my chips although my pizza wasn’t anything like nearly cooked. So I abandoned my tea that and went outside where I bumped into my friend Mandy, and we had quite a chat about the good old days.

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Wednesday 4th March 2015 – I WAS ON MY TRAVELS …

… during the night. At the wheel of a holiday coach going somewhere with a load of passengers. And to my surprise, there was a family (mum, dad and girl) from around here on board coming with me. Small world, isn’t it? I wonder why they were there.

And when I woke up it was dark. Not that it was early, but it was snowing like crazy. And throughout the day we had a mixture of sunlight followed by heavy snow flurries and back to sunshine again. And this was how it kept up. The temperature plummeted too and by teatime we were at freezing point. So much for the beautiful Spring weather of yesterday.

I spent most of the working day in the bedroom, as you might expect. And by the time lunchtime came round, I’d done the bracing for the two doors that I had cut yesterday, cut the lets in the doors and the framework for the hinges, hung the doors, fitted the handles and then the magnetic catches.

That took me nicely up to lunchtime so I cleared off for my buttied and coffee, and some more work on the website

Back at work this afternoon, I cut town the rest of the planking that I had made yesterday so that I had a strip for the doors on the other side of the wardrobe. I cut the two doors out of that and then cut them to size, and then cut the lets in the framework for hinges for the the right-hand door.

Thats as far as I reached today, as this was about 18:40 when I reached this point so I called it a day.

Up here, the temperature had fallen to 14.8°C – not all that cold but I may as well light a fire to cook my tea rather than use the gas.

So tomorrow, I’ll be hanging the two doors that I have cut and then cutting the final door. If I can do that, then I can apply the first coat of varnish on the inside before I knock off. THat will mean that it will dry through the night and won’t pick up any dust.

And won’t that be progress?

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Tuesday 3rd March 2015 – I HAD A GOOD DAY …

… at work today, for a change. Although, as usual, you wouldn’t really notice.

I was up early enough and after breakfast had a good crack on at the laptop. As well as the Radio Anglais programmes, I’ve restarted work on my website again. I’ve done almost nothing on it during the winter but now Spring is here and it’s time to come out of hibernation and get a wiggle on

In the bedroom I spent some of the morning finishing off the second door on the upper part of the wardrobe, cutting out the lets for the hinges and fitting them, and then fitting the door handle and the magnetic catch. Once I’d done all of that, I could hang the door.

And then take the door off, file down part of the edges so that it would fit better and then rehang it.

Off to Caliburn next, to fetch another pack of floorboarding and bring that upstairs. Then I could make up a board out of seven planks, ready to cut down to make doors 3,4,5 and 6.

After lunch, I cut two strips 770mm wide out of the board that I had made. 770mm is the height of the upper doors (give or take a millimetre or two) and these two strips will form the four doors that I mentioned just now.

One of the strips I cut down to make two doors of exactly the right width for doors 3 and 4, and then fitted the reinforcing battens. I had to cut down some wood for the battens, and the table saw that I bought in Commentry a couple of months ago did the job expertly. In fact, I was running the electricity and power tools today (the circular saw, the belt sander and the table saw) until 18:40 today without significantly draining the batteries and I’m well pleased with that.

So now the two doors are ready to be hung tomorrow morning, and then I can crack on with cutting down doors 5 and 6. When they are done, there will be just door 7 to fit, and then the upper fascia panels and then I can varnish the wardrobe.

Tonight, I didn’t light a fire. 17.8°C in the attic it was, which was impressive for this time of year. I cooked tea on the single burner camping stove that I use for making coffee and as well as working perfectly (a good plan making these huge curries and packing them into individual portions – they don’t take much heating) it warmed up the place by 1°C.

On the subject of electricity, I noticed that at one stage we were having 42 amp-hours of surplus electricity. It didn’t last long but it pumped uop the heat in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load.

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Monday 2nd March 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… as much done as I wanted to today – but then I had quite an interruption round about lunchtime.

I struggled to get out of bed this morning, but nevertheless I cracked on with my stuff about Algeria and managed to finish that, at least, even though I was late going down to work.

I managed to fit all of the framework for the upper doors, although one piece had to be recut after it split while I was malleting it into position. All of that took much longer than I anticipated, due mainly to my having to cut a couple more fascia pieces as the ones that I had set aside were not strong enough.

Once that had been done, I went out to fetch a pile of floorboards from Caliburn and then made the first of the upper doors.

But this was when I noticed the smell of burning.

We had a brief patch of sun today and I ended up with 45 amp-hours of power going down the cables to the home-made 12-volt immersion heater. It seems that the connector on the positive cable wasn’t up to that and the connection was arcing out. I ended up having to cut it off, fit a new connector, cut off the insulation and then solder it using the new gas soldering gun that Terry bought me for Christmas.

My soldering is total rubbish as you know, but it has to be better than my crimping, so it seems. and it was then that I noticed that the thread appears to be stripped in the heater element. I had to remove the screw and do my best with a nut and bolt, but that’s not looking so good and I’m going to have to deal with this.

All in all, I ended up having lunch at about 16:30.

Back at work I carried on until 19:00. All of the hinges are in place but the door needs trimming down. That’s not the kind of thing that you can do when you are tired and so I’ll be dealing with that first thing tomorrow.

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Sunday 1st March 2015 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… gone to Chamalières this afternoon for the footy as FC Pionsat St Hilaire were replaying a postponed match from before the Winter Break. However, what with one thing or another, I couldn’t summon up the energy to hit the road.

I had a nice lie-in though – 11:00 it was when I left my comfortable bed. And after breakfast I finished off the rock music notes for Radio Anglais and then started on the additional notes for the Radio Arverne broadcasts. This wasn’t as easy as it might have been, because April is one of these 5-week months where I have to write something random to fill in the extra week.

I try to write something about French culture and history for those broadcasts, but my two little booklets couldn’t produce a single useful item that happened in that week in the past and I ended up having to use the internet to search out something. As it happens, that week in April is the anniversary of the date of an attempted coup d’etat against the French government in 1961, and while maybe the French don’t like to talk too much about it, it’s quite an interesting historical event for foreigners, for the coup d’etat hinged upon several other events in French history about which we foreigners know very little.

I’ve not progressed very far though because I’ve been more interested in reading rather than writing, but I’m hoping that I can find half an hour or so tomorrow morning to do some more.

I was on my travels in the night too. I’d actually bought another apartment in Brussels – one that was really nice and comfortable and with a beautiful west-facing balcony where I could sit in the sunset. One of the prime reasons for doing this was to keep in touch with the girl who was working at my solicitors as I had a little crush on her.

In fact, there was a group of us travelling somewhere and we had to meet up at a car park on the edge of town. I resolved to walk to the car park as I knew that she was taking her car and I intended to blag a ride with her. I turned down a couple of offers from other people and sure enough, she turned up but in another car driven by a friend. They agreed to give me a lift, but the girl sat in the back (which spoiled all my plans) and I sat in the front next to the driver.

On arriving at our destination, we all left the car but across the square was a Citroen Traction Avant painted bright yellow. Of course, I had to go off and photograph it (it had turned into a Solex moped by this time) and I lost touch with this girl with whom I had been hoping to spend the day.

Such is life when you travel on your nocturnal voyages.

But was really was significant about today was that this was the first morning of the year when I recall hearing the birds chattering away early in the morning. Spring must be just around the corner.

EPIC HALL

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