Category Archives: Les Guis

Monday 15th December 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

solar energy control panel les guis virlet puy de dome france… the control panel in the barn. At least – it’s never ever going to be finished, as I know from bitter experience, but I’m happy with what I’ve done to date. Just one or two things missing – a timer and a charge controller for the wind turbine (although that’s not something that I’m planning on in the near future) and an electricity meter for the mains electricity, but I’ll have to wait until I go to the UK in order to find one of those as they are big, heavy things and cost a fortune to post.

Mind you, even the simplest thinhgs today were complicated. The hook and eye that I bought from Brico depot were the usual Brico Depot rubbish and I had to put the hook into the vice and compress it in order to stop it flying out of the eye. That was the top panel. The bottom panel is held up by a hasp and staple and the front panel is held up by a length of threaded rod through to the rear, and fastened by a wing nut.

Now I need to make the clock work, and to find the instruction book to find out how to configure the new data recorder.

I also made a start on tidying up, and found the Ryobi Plus One flourescent light that I had mislaid, and I’ve finally after much binding in the marsh managed to undo the giant hole cutter from the long spindle – that which jammed up when I was drilling that hole yhrough the wall 18 months ago.

I had a late night last night – about 03:45 and it was difficult to crawl out of bed at 08:00. I went to Marcillat and Radio Tartasse to record another series of rock programmes and then Liz and I did another month of the usual programmes.

And herein lies a problem. We had time to go for a coffee afterwards, but if you remember last time we were there when we heard that the hotel was closing down – well, it’s now closed. And there’s not another cafe open in the town. It seems that that which I had foretold last year, when Pionsat’s mayor announced his grand plans for that town, has truly come to pass and Marcillat is starting to wither on the vine.

This is sad.

Back here, I passed the rest of the morning working on another rock programme – trying to get myself well in advance, and being inerrupted by the postie who brought me the lights that I had ordered for the trailer. And then, after my butty, I went out and attacked the control panel.

Tonight I made myself another giant aubergine and kidney bean casserole thingy, with enough to keep me going for four days. I enjoy doing this as cooking for the next three days is simply a matter of warming things up. Much as I like cooking, I don’t want to spend too much time over it.

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Sunday 14th December 2014 – GRRRR!!!!

Guess who forgot to turn off the alarm this morning?

And serve me right too.

Mind you, a quick visit to the beichstuhl and then back to bed and back right into my travels at exactly the point where I had left off. That’s twice this week.

I’d been talking to David Cameron about his plans to leave the EU. I was driving a lorry with tonnes of EU papers for filing. He argued that none of that would be needed – it’s just a waste of space – and so I invited him to go into the lorry and throw out any papers that he considered unnecessary. he said that he was more than willing to do so but that he didn’t have the time – and spent an hour or so saying it.

I then ended up in a coastal town in the USA back in the 1880s. This town was on a promontory of a wide river estuary and on the other side of the river was untamed Indian country. However, a huge railway tunnel had been built under the estuary, and my response was that it was a superb avenue into the town for a marauding band of Indians. First through it though was a wagon train, pulled byn would you believe, reindeer, and they had a difficult time in passing through the tunnel as their antlers were too wide. We then spent a lengthy time discussing how to defend the tunnel against Indians. And do you remember that woman and her daughter who appeared the other night? They were back again too.

So after all of the excitement, I was up and about by 10:15 and had a very leisurely morning doing not very much at all.

This afternoon, FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI were playing Haut Combraille. Somewhat short-staffed, Pionsat ended up playing Michael in goal. he was formerly the 2nd XI’s goalkeeper but broke his shoulder four years ago and has been forbidden to play in goal. Still, he bravely volunteered and showed everyone just what the club has been missing since those days.

This was a top-of-the-table clash and rightly so – Haut Combraille were the best team that I have seen in Division 4. They relied very much on speed against an ageing Pionsat defence and I really did have to run, rather than walk, the line this afternoon. So much for my cleanliness after my shower of Saturday.

Yes – running! I was linesman again!

Pionsat won 4-3 and quite rightly so. Anthony finally broke his duck with a brave and strong run through the right wing, and Florian, the young lad about whom I spoke the other week, scored another goal – again running on to a loose ball in defence like I’ve been telling him to do. Julien and Gregory scored the other two.

So a good weekend, finished off by my having to search out for some events to broadcast on Radio Tartasse tomorrow as, once more, they’ve forgotten to send us any.

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Saturday 13th December 2014 – WOOO HOOO HOOO!

Yes indeed. after many many years of Yours Truly’s canvassing and campaigning, the “Amaranthe”, the local health food co-operative in Montlucon has now started to sell vegan cheese.

And it’s “Cheezly” too, which is even better news.

It is at “a price” however, but that’s only to be expected. It’s a big deal that it’s now available in the vicinity and that should ease the minds of my friends, who each time that they travel to the UK they are buried underneath a pile of mails from Yours Truly soliciting orders for vegan cheese.

As you might have guessed from all of this, I’ve been to Montlucon shopping today, buying all of the special items that I need for Christmas as well as doing some normal shopping.

I spent a fortune there, and I should have spent even more but I forgot half of the stuff that I meant to buy. I did fuel up Caliburn though – at €1:12 per litre which is astonishing. I also took the oportunity to give Caliburn another good wash. You’ll remember that I washed him a couple of weeks ago, but then almost immediately I ended up right up that field in the deep mud towing that old abandoned Transit out of that shed.

I’ve bought myself a couple of presents too, but I’ll have to wait until Christmas until I can see what they are. And at Brico depot, I bought, inter alia, the catches that I need to complete the power board in the barn.

Finally, I went to the swimming baths just down the road from Brico Depot and had a good swim around in the water for an hour, followed by a warm shower – nothing like as good as the shower at the swimming baths at Commentry but a shower nevertheless.

Tonight, I’m going to change the bedding and put my nice and clean body into some nice clean sheets. it’s Sunday so if I’m lucky I might have a really good lie in. I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.

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Friday 12th December 2014 – AT 20:30 THIS EVENING …

… I was still outside working. And that’s something of a record, especially for winter when I usually knock off at 18:00.

The reason for this is that I’d finished my work on the front panel of the control board for the barn by 17:00 and as things can only be disconnected and disconnected when there’s no solar energy being received, I decided to attack it then and there.

It wasn’t easy either, helped by my losing everything that I needed, not finding what I was looking for, dropping everything else on the floor, finding that the holes in some of the terminals are the wrong size, finding that some of the cables that I cut aren’t long enough. And that was just for a start. There was much more as well.

Eventually, everything was installed and fitted, and most things seem to work. One or two things, however, aren’t doing what they should do, and I’ll have to have a closer look at them on Monday afternoon. But it’s been worth it all, and it’s really nice to have 12.8 volts in the barn late at night – this is an unusual experience.

Mind you, i’ll probably wake up tomorrow and find that the barn has burnt down.

Talking of waking up, I actually, much to my surprise, had a decent night’s sleep for a change especially as I had gone for an early night too. I slept right through until the alarm sounded at 07:30.

And I’d been on my travels too during the night. I was in a town near Lindau in Bavaria, and I’d met up with one of the women whom I’d met in Greece last year. She had found some rooms for us in a hotel in the town nearby, at €48:00, and although the hotel wasn’t too bad, she took me to see some hotels that she had rejected – at €18:00 per night – and these looked so much better than the one that we had reserved. I felt extremely disappointed about that, that was for sure.

While I was in my hotel room, I was trying to chat on the internet to a friend of mine but each time I switched on the chat program, it defaulted to one particular person, and that wasn’t the person with whom I wanted to chat. And I couldn’t remember how to switch back to the general chat so that I could see if the person with whom I wanted to speak was on line.

From there, I was wondering around and met a young woman with a child aged about 6 or 7. This woman had black curly hair, I remember, and she was planning on wearing a black dress and shoes to a dinner to which she had been invited. I suggested white tights too, and the little girl was all so enthusiastic.

All of this was so exciting that when the alarm went off, I turned it off and went straight back to sleep, and found myself exactly where I had been when the alarm had gone off. That’s not something that happens often.

But I really do wish that my life during the day is exciting as what goes on in my head during the night when I’m on my travels.

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Thursday 11th December 2014 – I FINALLY BIT THE BULLET TODAY.

When the alarm went off this morning at 07:30, not only was I up and about already but I had even had my breakfast and drunk my coffee. Having had an early-ish night last night I was wide awake by 05:00 and by 06:30 I gave up on the idea and made my breakfast.

I was outside by 10:00 and the first job was the check the tyres on Caliburn. The right-hand rear tyre looked distinctly low.

solar energy power prtable control board kubota B1220 tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt wasn’t, as it happened. It must have been an optical illusion. But nevertheless it gave me the opportunity to try out the portable power board that I built the other day.

Here it is wired up to the flying lead on the Kubota tractor and the air compressor ran quite nicely off that. All the four tyres are now at the correct pressure and I’ve even charged the tank on the air compressor.

As I said before, the idea of fitting the flying lead on the Kubota was an impressive decision.

After all of that, I fitted the inline fuse for the overcharge circuit on the power board in the barn – the fuse that I had forgotten and wbout which I spoke yesterday.

I also fitted an LED striplight in the barn so that it illuminates the power board – whenever the power board might be finished.

After lunch (and after a little snooze too) I fetched up a pile of wood for the fire for the next few days and then carried on with the front panel for the power board. Almost everything is now in place and I’ve even done some of the wiring on it.

However, I did manage to shear off a screw on one of the connectors on one of the data loggers so I had to work out how to dismantle that, remove the broken screw and then find another screw to replace it. And that didn’t take only 5 minutes either.

In other news, I had a friend from the North-East of England who mysteriously disappeared out of touch about three years or so ago, and I had no news at all. Anyway, all of a sudden, he’s reappeared, and that’s cheered me up.

I’m resisting the temptation to ask him where he’s been – if he wants me to know, he will tell me. Usually with my friends and associates, it’s one of three reasons –
1) – they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil (clearly not the case here)
2) – they’ve been removed to a place of safety in accordance with the provisions of the Mental Health Acts
3) – they’ve been sent down and detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure – the more usual fate of my friends, although what pleasure Her Majesty could possibly have from detaining any of my friends is very hard to understand.

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Wednesday 10th December 2014 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… this afternoon. An estate agent wanted to visit Cecile’s house in order to take some photos and as I have the keys, I had to let him in. And it was cold, wet and miserable too outside. I didn’t feel in the least like going out but I do need to become involved in civilisation a little more.

I had an early-ish night last night and so once again I was wide awake long before the alarm went off. And after breakfast O had a lot of work to do. Now that i’ve started on the mince pies, I eed to attend to other Christmas matters, such as ordering everyone’s Christmas presents. Christmas is sneaking up on me and I don’t want to be caught unawares like I usually am. I’ll have to go into Montlucon on Saturday too as there are more things that I need.

Back from Cecile’s and after lunch, I carried on with the front panel of the control board for the barn’s solar panel installation. The European and British 230-volt sockets are now installed and wired, and the two 12-volt sockets, one for the main circuit and the other on the overcharge circuit, are in place.

I’ve identified something that I’ve missed too. The overcharge circuit needs a fuse and I’ve forgotten to fit it. Still, it’s not a big problem and there is plenty of room for it.

I’ve also made a start dismantling the old control board. I had a dual cigarette lighter socket thing there, and that also had a digital DC output that could be switched to a variety of DC voltages and comes with assorted “ends” for charging low voltage DC appliances. That’s that I want for the new control panel – with a USB adaptor in one of the sockets and using the other socket for things that can’t be fitted with one of my 12-volt plugs – and so that’s the first thing to come off that old control panel.

And it won’t be the last either.

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Tuesday 9th December 2014 – BRRRRR!

Minus 2.4°C outside just no when I went outside to take the stats. And it’s getting colder too. Winter is definitely here and no mistake.

This morning though, when the alarm rang, I’d been awake for over an hour and had been polishing off a bottle of fruit juice. That’s what happens when you have an early night. And I’d been on my travels too. I’d been playing football for Cefin Druids but running up and down the wing off the pitch, just to take the throw-ins. But someone else started to take them so I thought “sod this” and went onto the field.

Afer breakfast I fitted the rest of the important cables to the second part of the second layer of the power board in the barn, and fitting it into place.

After that, I started on the front panel. First job was to find the battery isolating switch that I was looking for on Friday. I didn’t find it, but I did find all of the others so now I have one in place. I also found something else that I had lost ages ago – part of the centre of one of the batches of hole saws. No idea how long that I’ve been looking for that but it does just go to show that you always find stuff you have lost whenever you are really looking for something else.

As for the front panel itself, all of the holes have been cut for the gauges and meters as well as for the battery isolator and the light switch. What I’ll do tomorrow is to do the cutouts for the British mains socket, the Euro mains socket, the 12-volt standard socket, the 12-volt overcharge socket and the cigarette lighter socket. When they are wired in, I can install the front panel.

Tonight, I cooked a mega curry of lentils, potatoes and mushrooms. Enough for another three meals and they should keep for a week or so in these new storage jars that I’m using.

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Monday 8th December 2014 – WE WERE RADIOING TODAY

Just in Gerzat for Radio Arverne though.

I was round at Liz’s at midday, having stopped off at the Intermarche at Pionsat in order to buy some stuff for our little party. For lunch, there was the rest of yesterday’s nut roast which of course is even better on the following day when the spices have had more time to soak in. Then we set off for Gerzat.

We first recorded the four traditional programmes. That means that we are now up to mid-February and we don’t have to go back there until the end of January. After that, we did our hour-long Christmas Special, and I shan’t tell you much about it – you’ll have to hear it for yourselves. All that I will say is that we didn’t use half of the material that I had prepared.

After the radio we went to the Carrefour at Menetrol for a coffee and then we did some shopping. Amongst the other things that I bought, I bought a big basket full of assorted nuts – that’s me getting all organised for Christmas isn’t it? Can’t do without my nuts.

I fuelled up too – diesel at Menetrol is €1:14 per litre and it’s been ages since I’ve seen it at that price – probably 7 or 8 years. Hard to thing that I’ve been paying €1:34 and more earlier this year.

On the wat back we encountered – not a wild boar this time, but heavy snow. it was chucking it down all around Les Ancizes but it miraculously stopped by the time I reached Terry and Liz’s. And I didn’t hang around there for I wasn’t sure if the snow would catch me up. I came home instead and made a pizza. I had no intention of going out again.

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Sunday 7th December 2014 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST …

… and so when I woke up at 07:30 this morning, I simply turned over and went back to sleep. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

09:30 is a much more realistic time to be up and about on a Sunday, although of cours that is nothing like what used to be usual in the not-so-distant past when on a Sunday I would be lucky to see the morning.

After breakfast, I did some work on the radio programmes and there’s now another month’s worth of rock music programmes. The live concert was rather more straightforward this time as it wall came from the same source and so mixing it was quite straightforward. However, each of the tracks was about 4 minutes long and there were 14 of them, specially designed for the truncated attention span of the MTV generation, so it took ages to merge them, edit out the gaps and overlap the applause.

This evening I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the radio shows for Radio Arverne. As well as the usual month’s worth of programmes, we’ve also been rehearsing the Christmas Special. Normally, our radio programmes aee part of an hour-long magazine programme but the magazine doesn’t run on Christmas week (too many absentees) and so we are taking it over.

And talking of taking over, I had my first mince pies at Liz and Terry’s, and I was given a pile to bring home. Home-made too – Christmas is definitely just around the corner.

But I’ll tell you one thing – sitting up here in my attic with the woodstove simmering away on a low heat and with a mug of coffee, made from water that has boiled up in a kettle on top of the stove – there can’t be too many things in life better than that.

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Saturday 6th December 2014 – I’VE BEEN OUTSIDE …

… just once today. And that was about an hour ago to take the statistics. And much to my surprise, I’ve had just half an amp of electricity today – and that was in the barn. It just shows you the importance of inclining the solar panels at the correct angle. Even though there are 6 solar panels on the roof of the house and just two on the barn, the roof panels are inclined at 48° (the pitch of the roof) whereas the ones on the barn are inclined at 71°, which is exactly what they ought to be (degrees north of the Tropic of Capricorn).

I had a late night last night, just for a change these days, and although I woke up when the alarm went off, one look out of the window convinced me that I was wasting my time. It was snowing just then, and had been for a while, and so I went back to bed.

When I finally did raise myself from the Undead, at 09:20, the snow had changed to light rain, and we had 5mm throughout the day. After breakfast I attacked the next month’s rock music radio programmes and they are now complete. It took me ages though because I’ve had to manufacture another concert as well as a speech, and everything was at different speeds and volumes so all of this needed arranging.

I’m beginning to understand how it was that when the radio station did the engineering, they made such a mess of it. I know the results that I am trying to achieve and it isn’t at all easy. The engineers don’t have a clue so they must have found it impossible.

I’ve also been spending some money again. This plant trailer that I bought with the mini-digger is a decent bit of kit, that’s for sure, but as I said the other day, I don’t know who has been playing with the electrics. The rear lights are add-ons – these really cheap and nasty 3-function lights that cost coppers each. And they don’t work either so there’s an even cheaper and nastier trailer board attached.

I hate trailer boards, especially on good-quality equipment, and so having a good browse around on the internet I’ve found a pair of rear lights – 5-function rear lights – that are such a good fit that they might even be the original equipment.

As well as that, I’ve bought a pair of these tiny LED real numberplate lights and a pair of side marker lights, the type that are on stalks so that they can be fitted on the mudguards to mark the extreme width of the trailer.

Apart from that, I’ve not done much else. It’s not been the weather for it.

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Friday 5th December 2014 – IT WASN’T QUITE AS EARLY …

… as last night. Still, being in bed by 23:30 is still something relatively unknown around here, as regular readers of this rubbish will realise.

And as you might expect, I was wide awake by 06:00 and if this carries on, I shall be emulating Rosemary in that I shall be making myself a coffee early in the morning and then going back to bed. And I forgot to say that Percy Penguin – she who doesn’t feature on these pages half as much as she deserves – put in an appearnce during the night, as I was on my travels in Cheshire.

First job after breakfast was to empty the compost bucket that I have up here. And then second job was to empty the beichstuhl – such are the delights of my living habits around here.

Once all of those were out of the way I carried on with the power board. This involved making up a flying lead so that I can connect all kinds of things to it – including the portable power board, if ever the need arises.

Once I had done that, I had to make some cables to connect the dump load. This le to a good half an hour looking for the negative 25mm cable.

And hereby hangs a tale. This cable only comes in blue and red, and I use only red and black for the 12-volt circuits. So you can see an immediate problem. However, I have learnt, by serendipity, that the red cable, if left out in the sunlight, fades to a nice dull yellow. I therefore have a couple,of lengths hanging upoutside quietly fading, but it took me ages to find the length that had already changed colour.

Eventually I found it, and so I could make up a red cable and a yellow cable for thr dump load. As you know, my sldering is rubbish but I have a crimping tool for fastening the big aliminium terminals that I use, and then I finish off with half a dozen turns with the vice.

Cecile rang up too for a chat,and she was on the phone for a good hour. Terry rang up too for a chat. It is nice to be popular.

After lunch, I made up a couple of cables for the big Studer inverter. But I’m not at all sure about this. I bought it years ago off eBay and it’s never been installed, although when I gave it a whirl a few years ago, I found that the capacitor was faulty and I had to send it away to be repaired.

The cables were not much problem, but fitting the inverter certainly was. You have no idea how heavy it is, and it’s hel on by screws through bolt holes, rather that cutaways, so you need at least four hands. After much binding in the marsh, I fitted a shelf onto the power board in the barn and put the inverter on that so that it was in the correct place – and then I could screw it up.

I remain unconvinced about its effectiveness and I might end up taking it off again.

I spent the rest of the evening looking for the keyswich that I put on one side on Sunday. This is actually a keyswitched battery isolator and I need that in my circuit so that I can disconnect the batteries without disrupting the system. I had it in my hand on Monday and put it safe where I knew that it wouldn’t be lost.

And I have another three somewhere too – and could I ‘eck as like find one of those either. But this is the story of my life, isn’t it? I spend more time looking for stuff than I do actually using it or fitting it.

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Thursday 4th December 2014 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… that I was in bed before 23:00?

It wasn’t last night, to be sure, but it wasn’t long after 23:00. Certainly at 23:00 I was downstairs taking the stats, the last thing that I do before going to bed.

However I was awake at about 06:00, despite having an exciting night where I was in Montreal. I’d been to see someone about mounting a wind turbine on my land in New Brunswick but he told me that it was a waste of time. In fact he had had the same idea as me and bought some land on the Canada side of the Mars Hill wind farm in the USA, but has decided to sell it on as the projected extension of the farm wasn’t ever going to happen. We then had a long drive around Montreal with me taking the wrong turnings all the time, and him jumping out of the car each time that I did so, and waiting for me on the corner when I realised my error and turned back.

Once I was awake, I couldn’t go back to sleep and was tossing and turning until the alarm went off.

After breakfast, I went round to Liz and Terry’s. Liz was at work but Terry had a medical appointment at Riom and needed someone to go with him.

That was a pleasant morning, not the least of reasons being that I met a couple of people there who go to watch the football at Pionsat. I have’t seen then for w while, and it turned out that the guy has been quite ill. He’s had an operation in the hospital and was going back for a check-up.

On our way home, we had a major surprise. Just outside Les Ancizes we noticed something big and black moving at quite a substantial rate of knots across the field in the distance. As it drew closer (and what a good artist it was) we realised that it was a sanglier – a wild boar – and one of the biggest that I had ever seen. He roared across the field and right across the road in front of us – a really impressive sight. Magnificent beasts, these wild boar. No wonder I love living right out here.

I stopped off at the Intermarche at Pionsat to do my shopping. These shopping trips are getting earlier and earlier in the week but there’s no point going out shopping when I don’t need to.

And isn’t this attitude a change?

Back here I don’t know what happened but at one moment I was sitting eating my lunch (it was 15:00) and the next thing I remember, it was 18:06. I had crashed out completely and I’ve no idea why, especially after my early night last night.

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Wednesday 3rd December 2014 – I WAS RIGHT …

… yesterday when I talked about this snow.

snow 2014 indespension plant trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis morning there was about half an inch on the deck of the new Indespension trailer and other similar surfaces. There was also a layer on the leaves on the plants and so on, but it hadn’t stuck to the ground.

And as the day wore on, the snow gradually disappeared, washed away by the thin drizzle that fell throughout the day.

I’ve been working on the power board in the barn. I’ve found two melamine-covered chipboard planks that were part of an old cheap chest of drawers. They are 25cm wide and so, together, were about right for the 55cms that I need to cover the power board below where the charge controllers are. I’ve mounted them on 37mm laths so that they stand off the back part of the power board and the cables can pass behind.

I’ve invented a kind-of hinge set out of a couple of L-shaped joinery brackets, so that these smaller boards will drop down so that I can work on the cables behind if necessary, and the upper board is installed.

solar power renewable energy control board les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the lower board, that has the laths and the hinges, and I’ve also drilled 3x8mm holes in it. I then cut some 80mm lengths of 8mm threaded rod and passed them through the holes.

I’ve fitted some plastic pattresses front and back on each of the threaded rods. And if anyone wonders why it is that I have fitted the terminal connections within pattresses, then drop a spanner down the back of the power board with no pattresses and 660 amp-hours of batteries wired in, and see what happens.

solar power renewable energy control board les guis virlet puy de dome franceI bolted the rods firmly in place so that there is 25mm of threaded rod out of the back and about 35mm out of the front. Attached to the rear of the threaded rods will be connections for all of the electrical equipment that will be permanently in place, and in the front will be the more temporary types of electrical equipment.

Two of the lengths of threaded rod have been connected together with a negative battery cable, as I’ve found in the past that I need about twice as many negative connections than positive connections.

And why is this?

That’s because there’s a fuse box off a Vauxhall Astra wired into the positive circuit. I like these because they are easy to take off scrap cars, and have one thick lead in, four of the giant fuses, and four wires out. I have four 12-volt electrical circuits – an upstairs lights and upstairs power, and a downstairs light and downstairs power. These circuits feed off the fuse box of course, but each one needs to have the negative circuit connected to the power board individually.

So that’s as far as I have reached today. Tomorrow I’m out, and so I’ll crack on with the power board on Friday.

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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 – REMEMBER THE OTHER DAY …

… when i said that I reckoned that winter was just around the corner?

1st snow winter 2014 les guis virlet puy de dome franceWell, I wasn’t wrong. At about midday today it started to snow – the 1st snow of winter 2014/15.

It might not look like much, but it snowed steadily throughout the afternoon and when I knocked off at 18:00 there was a think layer that was doing its best to stick. And had it been light, I would have taken a better photo of it.

I wonder what it’s going to be like tomorrow morning.

portable power board les guis virlet puy de dome franceI finished off the portable power board this morning. Well, it’s almost finished because it needs a backing on it to keep the cables and the backs of the sockets covered up.

There’s the inverter on there of course, a 600 watt one, together with an electric meter and a timer. Then we have three types of socket – a pair of 12-volt sockets, a single European 230 volt socket, and a pair of UK 230 volt sockets.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I use British plugs and sockets on my 230 volt system because the plugs are fused, and that’s a useful thing to have.

This afternoon, I started on the new power board in the barn down at the southern end.

The bad news is that I dropped my Ryobi Plus One handlamp and broke it. That’s a tragedy because it’s the best light that I’ve ever had and I shall miss it very much.

The good news is that the power board is up and in position. The Xantrex charge controller that works the bank of solar panels is installed, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been. I forgot how rigid the ware was and it took me ages to bend it into position and thread it through the series of holes through which it needs to pass.

Threading the wires through for the wind turbine was easier, and that’s in place together with the meter that reads the voltage and the amount of charge.

There was an hour left and so I settled down to connect up the new batteries to the system.

And here’s a thing.

Which company sells batteries that take a certain size of bolt that is supplied, so you can look at it and know which size of battery cable to order – and then sells you a meter that works off a shunt connected to the negative lead between the battery and the grounding circuit – and which takes a larger bolt?

Of course, you can’t buy battery leads with different-sized terminals on each end, so tomorrow I’m going to have to cut one lead in half and solder larger terminals onto the cut end. And my soldering is rubbish too.

I have to say that I’m not at all impressed with this company

With the snow, I lit the fire again tonight and made a mega-aubergine-and-kidney-bean whatsit. There’s enough in there for four days as usual and tonight’s helping tasted really nice. Somehow, cooking in the oven tastes so much better.

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Monday 1st December 2014 – THAT HANGING CLOUD …

… that arrived at Chamalieres yesterday followed me home last night. When I went out late last night to check the stats, there it was hanging all over my little mountain.

It was still here this morning and it’s been here all day. In the barn I had the grand total of 0.350 amp-hours of solar energy, and here in the house it was about 1.5 amp-hours.

All day it’s been drizzle and tonight at 21:00 the temperature had dropped to 1°C – the lowest temperature so far. That means that tonight it will probably drop below freezing outside. Anyway, I had the fire lit in here and cooked the last portion of my last week’s curry. As an aside, those small sealed storage jars that I bought at IKEA are doing the business. Filling them up with hot food is creating a powerful vacuum and the food seems to be keeping much longer, as well as tasting better.

At lunchtime too, I had a go at making my own hummus seeing as I’ve run out of vegan cheese and I’m not too keen on this vegan pate. 12 spoonfuls of chick peas all mashed up, three spoonfuls of sesame seed paste, a pile of fresh garlic, some olive oil and some cumin powder and there I was. And it wasn’t all that bad either.

indespension plant trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for work today, this morning I braved the weather to go out and do some work on this new trailer. The lights on the trailer don’t work at all, and I’ll be resolving that issue in due course. It came with a huge trailer board but the light lenses weren’t so good on that, so I had a hunt around and found and old trailer board that still had some bits of light attached to it. I did a bit of mix-and-match with that and now the big trailer board is working properly.

I also cut a bungee strap in half, threaded the two halves through the holes in the traile board, knotting them at the cut ends, and now the trailer board can be hooked properly onto the trailer pro tem, until I can fix the lights on the trailer.

There was a number plate, off the old LDV that I used to have, on the old trailer board, and so now that’s attached to the trailer. The law here in France is that large trailers have to be licensed separately and carry their own number plates. In the UK, that’s not the case. Trailers carry the registration number of the vehicle that is towing them. With this trailer being an old British trailer, it doesn’t have its own number, so I stuck the LDV number plate on it.

That way, the trailer has its own identification and as the LDV is still on the British computer (it was scrapped in Belgium) any information about the trailer will eventually find its way back to me so until I can sort out some paperwork for it, that will have to do.

And then, apart from that, I’ve been up in the upstairs of the barn sorting out the wood and panels to make the power board in the barn – I want to start on that. I also found a decent but of wood for the portable power board, so I’ve been working on that. That should be finished tomorrow morning and then I can start on the power board in the barn.

High time I made use of these new batteries that I bought the other day.

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