Category Archives: Les Guis

Wednesday 29th January 2014 – I’VE STARTED …

… to put the second piece of plasterboard onto the wall today, but it’s probably going to have to come off again, which is a pain. I was doing it in the dark and, unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if it’s on correctly.

Ahhh well.

But given that, you might be wondering what on earth I’ve been doing all day. The answer to that is that the day wasn’t all that I had hoped it to be.

This new mobile ‘phone isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Here 8 was, complaining about the 3-day battery life on the ancient Nokia. On the brand-new Samsung, it’s … errrr … 38 hours. I thought that it didn’t sound right when I first let it run down and so I timed it after that, and here we are.

The alarm function isn’t up to much either. The cock-crow is too strident and so I’ve been turning it off instead of letting it snooze me slowly awake. That might explain why my morning didn’t occur until … errr … 09:20 – almost two hours late.

But then I filled in the sheet of plasterboard I fitted yesterday – all of the screwholes and the edges and the like. After that, I had to cut the two shelves that I’ll be fitting. There’s a lot of work to cut them too and that took a while. Luckily with the reasonable weather that we had, I didn’t feel inhibited about using the mains circular saw to do some of that.

Anyway, the shelves are cut and now varnished, and they can be screwed in place tomorrow.

The insulation and counter-battening comes up about 8mm short of the upright beams that I fitted in 2009. I was trying to find some 10mm insulation to make up the gap but no luck there, so I’ve been today adding another layer of this space-blanket insulation. That will go hard-up to the plasterboard on the outside wall of the stairwell. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … no money spent on insulation is ever wasted.

The final job was to insulate the false ceiling at the top of the stairs. I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago and I wonder how much heat from out of my little attic room has been wasted out of there.

And then, I started to cut and shape the second piece of plasterboard.

So you see that I’ve not been idle at all today, even though there might not be a lot to show for it yet.

-2

Tuesday 28th January 2014 – I’VE PUT THE FIRST …

… piece of plaster board on the wall today. This is progress indeed.

Mind you,it took me long enough.

I had to go to the bank this morning braving the flurries of snow – they wanted some information off me – and then round to Bill’s house. It’s been a year since Bill left us and his estate needs to be finalised. Consequently it was the final call for people to buy anything that remains, before the house clearance people come.

Marianne’s son Pascal wanted a few things and there was some tidying up still to be done, so I helped Marianne do that and then gave Pascal a hand, and then took his stuff to a garage that he’s using to store stuff until he moves to his new apartment.

That took all of the morning but I wasn’t finished yet. When I was strapping something onto the roof I noticed that one of the brackets holding the solar panel to the underneath of the roofrack had sheared off. That needed fixing before I went too far and so there I was making a new bracket.

After lunch I fitted the two counter-battens and replaced one of the rails that I’ll be using to support a shelf. It seems that Brain of Britain has measured up for a 27mm rail but fitted a 40mm rail instead? No wonder it didn’t look level.

So having done that, I had to free all of the plasterboard from the stuff that had accumulated on top of it over the last year or so. And then, I could start on the plasterboarding.

And for tea tonight, I made a lentil and mushroom curry. There’s enough forthree more days which is just as well, because it was delicious.

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Monday 27th January 2014 – IT WAS THE WEATHER …

… that decided the programme for me today. I woke up in pitch darkness and quickly worked out that the reason for that was that it had snowed during the night and the roof windows were covered over.

But what a wake-up – this new telephone has an alarm that sounds like all of the cockerels in the whole wide world crowing at once. Ear-splitting isn’t the word to describe this.

So once the preliminaries were out of the way, I attacked the wall. And now, it’s all finished except for two counter-battens and I’ll fix them the next opportunity that I get.

It won’t be tomorrow though. I have to go out in the morning.

-2

Sunday 26th January 2014 – YOU WON’T RECOGNISE …

… my little attic today. Despite it being Sunday and a day of rest, I’ve done some tidying up and now the place looks like someone is actually living here.

Mind you, it was a bad-tempered me that rose up from my stinking pit this morning. It seems that I forgot to switch off the alarm this morning, and then if that wasn’t bad enough, an alarm went off on this new phone at 09:00

But anyway, be that as it may, the kitchen area is now scrubbed and cleaned and I’ve done a pile of dusting – mainly due to the fact that there was a pile of dust to move – wood fires create a lot of dust.

The only time I stepped out of doors was to fetch water for the coffee (twice) and to collect the stats (once). Not surprising seeing as how it has been pouring down with rain for much of the day. I had absolutely no intention of going anywhere else.

So tomorrow is back to work. If the weather is good I’ll be going the battery box. but if it’s bad I’ll be carrying on with insulating the walls. That’s always been the plan – having one fair-weather job and one foul-weather job on the go at the same time. That way, there’s always something to do no matter what the weather.

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Saturday 25th January 2014 – OUCH!

Yes, “ouch!” indeed. I’ve just sat down and added up everything that I’ve spent today.

Yes, I’ve been to Montlucon today to do my shopping and I seem to have been considerably sidetracked. Mind you, I’m not quite sure what took me to go there because I was, once again, quite late in leaving my stinking pit. Despite having the woodstove going flat-out last night, itwas cold in here this morning.

And dark too. Not the weather for leaping brightly out of bed.I thought at first that we had had some heavy snow bit in fact we were having another one of the local Auvergnat weather phenomena – a hanging cloud drifting up the valley – and it stayed parked up on the top of the mountain all day, apparently.

Anyway, I grabbed a mug of coffee and hit the road. First stop was LIDL where I dropped a jar of tomato sauce all over the floor. Start as you mean to go on, Eric.

Surprisingly, I didn’t spend very much at LIDL, and neither did I at Amaranthe, the Health Food Shop – not the least of the reasons being that they didn’t have any of the buckwheat tablets that I like. So no breakfast for me.

It all started to go wrong at the Carrefour. I haven’t changed the gas in the kitchen for 18 months – it’s amazing what cooking on the woodstove can do – but nevertheless I’m sure it must be nearly empty by now. There was an empty propane cylinder around here so I took it with me to swap for a full one to have ready, and that set me back a massive €30:25.

When I was running the bottled gas heater, I was getting through a bottle every two weeks – that’s about €2:20 or so per day. Bearing in mind that my wood here costs me nothing, the €279 that I spent to buy this woodstove means that it’s paid for itself in just 125 days or thereabouts (and that’s not including the gas-cooking either). That’s about a year’s worth of heating and this is the third winter that I’ve been using it. You can see that it’s been a splendid investment.

Noz was another place where I spent a pile of money. Nothing of any significance, but it’s always a useful place to go for DVDs, cheap tins of food and the like. It’s always worth stocking up at Noz. And stepping out of Caliburn, I bumped right into one of Marianne’s friends, François Legay.

However it was at Vima where I really took a battering.

My old hair cutter is on its last legs and about to shuffle off this mortal coil. And there in the sales was another one, exactly the same.

Not only that, I’ve had my eye on a rechargeable LED worklight for quite some time. They charge up off the mains or off 12 volt DC, are quite large and powerful, and sit on the floor and chuck out an enormous amount of light. They were quite expensive but in the sales they were reduced by 50% and they had two left – didn’t that give me ideas?

But what was the final nail in my coffin was the mobile phone. The ‘phone that I bought in a hurry 5 years ago was the cheapest I coud find – a Nokia but a bi-band so no use in North America. I replaced that a couple of years ago with an ancient Nokia tri-band that I bought in an internet auction. The price was correct but the battery wasn’t at all and even with a new battery it’s not lasting for more that 3 days at most. And of course, it’s no use for surfing the internet at all (not that I want to but my phone plan gives me a free allowance of data and as I always run out of the time period rather than run out of credit, it’s a shame to waste it).

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "thank you" – ed … there in the sale was a Samsung Galaxy 3, the little brother to my Canada phone which is absolutely superb. Does everything that I need and even includes a 4GB micro-SD card so that I can use it as a music player. And the camera has a greater resolution than the digital camera that I took with me to North America in 2002 and in 2005. Quadri-band too, with bluetooth, and open to all networks.

And the cost? Just €75:00. I don’t suppose that I can complain too much.

Coming out of Vima, I bumped slap bank into Laurent Dumas, the President of the Canton of Pionsat (you saw him on this blog a few weeks ago). Just the man I want to see, as it happens. There are proposals to change the arrangement of cantons in the Puy de Dome. It’s something very controversial and so we want to do a radio programme on it. As it happens, M Dumas is very much parti-pris whereas Mme Daffix-Ray (who you also saw on here), the Vice-President (they cater for all sorts here) of the Departement, is very much parti-pris in the other camp. My idea is to ask them both to let me have a statement of why they have chosen their sides, so that we can present a balanced radio programme.

I didn’t spend very much in Brico Depot either. I had written out a list of stuff that I needed and then, totlly true to form, I had forgotten to bring it with me so no tongue-and-grooving for the ceiling. But they did have that “space-blanket” insulation on special offer so I bought a roll seeing as how I don’t know whether I have enough here to finish what I’m doing.

The French have a saying “jamais deux sans trois” and so while I didn’t spend too much money there, I did bump into someone from Pionsat – Marianne’s son Pascal. I can’t move anywhere these days without my movements being observed.

Anyone who thinks that I intended to go for a swim on the way home had another think coming. I came straight home and locked myself in. Winter seems to be back now.

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Friday 24th January 2014 – NOW ABOUT THIS CONCRETING.

It didn’t get done today, and for a very good reason too in that this morning the temperature had plummeted and it was snowing.

Not heavily, and it was that wet snow that is more like rain, but whatever it was, it’s not at all the weather for concreting.

And I was late getting up as well – when I should have been getting up I was actually at an airport trying to catch a flight to Agadir. Struggling away with a huge suitcase through the check-in and the person with whom I was travelling – she had gone off into the departure lounge and had taken the tickets with her. I remember thinking that if they asked me for mine as I was going through the gate I wouldn’t half have some problems.

I was rather disappointed that I overslept like this. I had had an early night but it was interrupted by an attack of cramp again but it didn’t keep me awake that long.

So what did I do today then?

I do have a contingency plan for bad weather and this was what I put in to operation today.

When I fitted out the attic at the end of 2009 I didn’t do anything about the head of the stairs. There’s just the upright pillars and the horizontal beam that I fitted and the bits in the stud wall were filled with offcuts of polystyrene.

What I’ve been doing today is to put the battens on the outside wall. That’s all done now and I’ve started to add the insulation and the counter-battens. The insulation that I’m using is that modern expensive space-blanket stuff. That works best in a vacuum and the easiest way to do that is with battens and counter-battens.

When that’s done, I can start adding the plasterboard, fitting the definitive stair treads and risers and then do the ceiling.

I’m definitely in work mode these days.

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Thursday 23rd January 2014 – I FINALLY MANAGED …

… to pick up Cécile’s letter this morning, after all these weeks.

And so seeing as how I was going to have a morning out, I decided to make the most of it, especially as it was once again p155ing down.

First stop was the Mairie. I need a form to say that I’m still alive (and judging by the smell around here, you would be excused for wondering) and the best person to do that is the Mayor of the village. They have a nice big and official-looking stamp that gives a really impressive look to any kind of document.

Then off to Cécile’s. I need to put an accompanying letter with this form and so I typed one out last night and saved it onto a memory stick. Also, Cécile sent me an authorisation to collect her mail, and so both of these needed printing. I have three printers here – one stopped working when it fell off the desk, the second only prints in blue and only when it feels like it, and the third one, that I rescued from Marianne’s, that ran out of ink on me.

So round to Cécile’s and her printer and – guess what?

Quite right. Hers ran out of ink too but there’s an override button on it and so we ended up with documants in light grey ink.

Nevertheless, the authorisation was accepted at the Post Office and I collected the letter. And then off to Pionsat and the Post Office there. That’s a real Post Office and so I posted my letter and form, and also a packet for Malou. When I was stuck in Brussels with no ‘phone charger for the old Nokia, she very kindly sent me one. And she’s a big fan of Edith Piaf and Marianne had a German version of the film La Vie En Rose. Malou speaks German fluently, and so that’s now on its way to Luxembourg.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, that was the morning gone. And so I’ve spent all of the afternoon firstly, picking up the bits of wood from the construction project to use as firelighters, and then sweeping up the sawdust for the composting toilet. It’s impressive that I can actually do that.

Secondly, I started to load up the new shelves. The little cheap lightweight shelf unit that I put in the downstairs room as a temporary measure, that’s now completely empty. There’s a pile of stuff gone out of the barn onto the new shelves, and a pile of stuff out of the verandah has followed it. And, much to my surprise, the shelves aren’t even half-full. There’s tons of room for more stuff.

This evening, seeing as I was in a contemplative frame of mind, I watched The Wild Bunch. Peckinpah rather prolongs the violence unnecessarily, I reckon, but apart from that, it is one of the most magnificent films that has ever been made and the performances of William Holden and Ernest Borgnine have no parallel in anything that I have seen elsewhere. It’s a film that is in my Top 5 Films of All Time and quite rightly so.

So what’s the plan for tomorrow then?

When I dug out the flooring to put in a large battery box, I made the box the size to suit the Hawker batteries that I use. However, one or two of them are starting to creak a little and I can no longer obtain the replacements, and so I bought a while ago some massive 200 amp-hour batteries.

The battery box isn’t big enough to take them and so I’m going to be making a start on digging out some more flooring and enlarging the box.

And why 200 amp-hour batteries? Why not go for anything bigger? The answer to that is a simple question of logistics. I can just about manage to pick up a 200 amp-hour battery on my own. Anything bigger and it will be beyond the realms of possibility, and I have long-since given up the idea of doing anything that I’m not able to do on my own.

-5

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 – HERE YOU ARE THEN

shelving lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceHere’s the shelving unit in the downstairs part of the lean-to, allnicely fitted and made to measure.

It didn’t take long to finish it either, about 3 hours or so. But I was interrupted by a heavy rainstorm so I had to take in the washing, and a phone call from Marianne too.

That did however give me some time to start emptying the verandah a little and move the stuff onto the shelves. There’s a long way to go, but at least I’ve made a decent start and it won’t be long before I can organise myself so much better

Tonight I cooked a mega-aubergine and kidney bean whatsit – and on the woodstove too. I’m definitely improving there.

-2

Tuesday 21st January 2014 – IF I’M NOT INTERRUPTED …

… tomorrow, I might actually finish these shelves.

I didn’t do anything this morning though because I wasn’t here. I had to go to St Eloy to see Marianne’s son Pascal. He’s giving up his little apartment there soon and moving to Montlucon to be nearer work. He’s not much good with a screwdriver and there are a few tasks that need to be done to put the apartment back how it should be. I said that I’d go for a look around and see what needs doing.

I took advantage of my visit to go to LIDL. Their special offer this week is D-i-Y stuff and I needed some screws so I stocked up with them.

After that I went to Cécile’s and the Post Office at Gouttières to negotiate a little about collecting this letter. After a lengthy period there with the guy who runs it, we agreed that Cécile needs to telephone him, and so I duly passed on the message.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, all of the washing (or, at least, all that I remembered to bring back from Cécile’s) is now hung up outside, so nice was the day, and then I attacked the shelving.

All 6 uproghts are now cut and shaped and because the floor is uneven and so they are all different lebgth, I’ve but a bracing bar across the three at the back to hold it all in position.

5 of the uprights are now screwed into position and the horizontal fitted to two pairs. I was trying to work out how to fit the 6th – it’s a little cramped in there and I need the room to pass the shelves through into position.

But having a stop and a think has made me think of a way to do it and so tomorrow I can press on.

Tonight I just lit a small fire and had a tea of pasta, veg, tomato sauce and veggie-burger. And it was the nicest meal that i’ve ever cooked on my little stove. I must be improving.

-3

Monday 20th January 2014 – I FEEL DREADFUL.

Yes, I’m sure that I’m getting worse. It must have been quite an exertion for me yesterday as by the time I returned home I was in no condition to sleep and I remember at one stage looking at the clock and it was way past 04:00.

But sleep I must have done as I didn’t hear the alarms and woke bolt upright at 09:05 and it was just as well as I had to be in Marcillat for 09:30 to record the rock programmes.

And I made it too but the crew wasn’t there. In a delightful summing-up of rural France, the excuse given (when they did turn up) was “well, there was a queue in the boulangerie“.

I went to Cécile’s on the way to Liz’s afterwards and sure enough, there was the form she was expecting, finally arrived, but collecting the letter isn’t going to be anything like straightforward.

We did the Radio Arverne programmes at Gerzat, but towards the end I was dissolved in fits of coughing (and poor Bernard who has to edit it all out) and I don’t know how I made it to the end.

But that’s about finished me off now and I won’t be doing anything else. Liz gave me some honey and a lemon and I made a hot drink, but it was rather like the time that I sent Nerina to the Health Spa for a weekend.
When my mate came round, he asked me if the mudpack had improved Nerina’s appearance any.
“It sure did” I replied “but it wore off after three days”.

-4

Sunday 19th January 2014 – IT’S SUNDAY!

And the thing that I like about Sundays is that it’s the day when I can do whatever I like (or even nothing at all if I so desire) and don’t allow myself to feel guilty about it or about doing anything more important.

Consequently, lying in my nice clean bed and refusing to leave it until … errr … 11:00 does not worry me in the slightest.

I did have one or two things that needed doing though. Liz had reminded me that we are in the studio for Radio Anglais tomorrow and so I had to finish off my notes about speed cameras and to prepare all of the hardware etc that we need. I also had to prepare some new data sheets for the statistics that I keep here, And what with all of that, it didn’t leave me very much time for anything else.

After that, it was round to Liz and Terry’s for rehearsals and I stopped off at Cécile’s on the way to check her mailbox for post, make sure that her house was okay and to take advantage of her washing machine. In the depths of winter I usually have to pay a launderette for my washing, so if I’mpaying someone I may as well pay Cécile.

On the way back, I was stuck behind some kind of car that thought that it was amusing to drive at 60 KPH on the road between St Gervais and Pionsat. I know that in places it’s quite a tortuous, sinuous road, but in other places you can put your foot as far down as you like with no difficulty at all. And so I did.

In the gridiron tonight, the Broncos were looking very effective as they swept aside a rather dad-looking Patriots side. Nothing spectacular or special, which probably means that they might be second-best in the Superbowl, but then again their fans will argue that they didn’t need to do too much this evening.

We shall see.

-4

Saturday 18th January 2014 – BARKING!

Yes, indeed I am. I went for a swim today at Neris.

And about time too. Last time I went for a swim was in Montlucon just before Christmas and I reckon I must have been picked upon radar a dozen times since. And while the water was tepid, the swimming baths itself was cold, cold, cold and if I wasn’t in the water I was freezing.

Mind you, the shower in the disabled toilets was piping hot and so I had a really good scrub for a change and now with new undies and new bedding tonight, I’ll be in my elephant. I feel really clean just for a change.

This was all in consequence of going to Commentry for shopping. It’s ages since I’ve been there and there were one or two things that I needed and of course, I’m only 10 minutes away from the baths at Neris.

This morning though, when I finally managed to struggle out of my stinking pit, I wrote some notes for the radio programme. Some on Value-Added Tax and I started on Speed Cameras.

I’ll have to finish that tomorrow morning though – we are rehearsing tomorrow evening. It’s that time again.

0

Friday 17th January 2014 – DURING THE NIGHT …

… I was in Berlin, on the Underground with the much-maligned Percy Penguin (who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves) and we became separated as a train that she stepped onto pulled away before I could stepon it (Strangely enough, such a situation did actually occur when I was in London once with Liz Ayers).

I made a gesture to PP to get off at the next station and wait for me, and I would follow on the next train.

However we were waiting for hours and hours. It turned out that there had been an accident and the line was blocked, and then they hauled into our station a smashed and damaged Underground train)

We couldn’t continue on the Underground and so we had to take an overground train and then a bus, which dropped us a few hundred yards short of our destination. And the station was so big and confusing from above ground, and there were so many people milling around, and we had taken so long to get there that I was certain that I would never ever find PP again.

As I’ve said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … if only my real life waseven half as exciting as my dreams.

Today, in the glorious sunshine that gave me a world-record January total of 107 excess amps of solar charge, I remeasured all of the uprights (and how I wish that I had noticed that I had my measuring stick on a piece of wood when I measured Upright 3 – GRRRR!) and all 6 are cut, as are the lets into the floor beams above.

This afternoon I cut the joints in the first two and also cut all of the horizontals.

I’ve also fitted a batten across the uprights that support the stairs, screwed about 20 screws into it and I’ve started to hang up the tools there. I’m really in danger of being organised before I’m much older.

I had an interesting ‘phone call too.
Caller – “This is France Telecom Orange, your service provider. We would like to tell you about the massive reductions in telephone charges that occur as of today”
… (lengthy discussions on phone charges) …
Caller – “Now we just need to take your address details to check them with our records”
… (no problem with that – it’s in the telephone directory anyway) …
Caller – “Now if we can check your bank account details”
Our Hero – “Madame – what tree do you think that I fell out of?”
Caller – *click*
I suppose that there are some people who fall for calls like this.

-3

Thursday 16th January 2014 – DREARY, GREY, WET AND DEPRESSING.

But that’s enough about me – let’s talk about the weather instead.

So first task this morning was to clean the stairwells and the ground floor underneath the stairs. That’ll teach me to drop a box of wood and sawdust, won’t it? But now even the stairs look impressive.

tidy ground floor les guis virlet puy de dome franceI thought that I would take a photo of the ground floor before I begin to clutter it up. You can see over there all of the wood that will be tne new shelves, the kitchen worktops and the new window. It’s all there.

Than I brought in the little shelf unit that is hawked aroud the place. That’s now in the corner next to the table, and I spent the morning putting all of the screws, nails and all kinds of things on there. This means of course that the shelving unit behind the stairs on the first floor – the one that I built 18 months or so ago, is now almost empty. I can, if I so desire, start to move stuff down there from up here if I so desire.

At lunchtime I went round to Cécile’s again. It seems that her mail redirection has expired because there was a pile of stuff in her box, but not the letter that she was expecting.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I did another pile of sorting out and collected up some more stuff that really belongs in there, and finally, just as it was going dark, I brought in three demi-chevrons. I’ve measured up in the downstairs lean-to and tomorrow I’m going to be starting on what I’ve been tidying up downstairs for – I’m going to use the space to work in – and start to build the set of shelves for the downstairs lean-to.

-4

Wednesday 15th January 2014 – I TURNED DOWN …

… a trip to Brico Depot this morning. You can see that I’m not feeling myself at all right now, which is just as well etc. etc.

Anyway last night I was playing bass with The Groundhogs on a revitalisation tour. Of course TS McPhee didn’t make it, and if that was me on bass, that only left the drummer as an original member.

A little later on, I was sent to work in Stockport and that cheered mr up because I could leave a whole pile of difficult post tobe dealt with by my successor, but on the other hand I was worried as I was bound to meet up with Nerina again.

Like I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … I only with that my real life was half as exciting as my dreams

Meanwhile, back in the land of the living, by lunchtime absolutely everything that has no business being in the living room was elsewhere, and I had moved the old table to righht underneath the window.

This afternoon, I moved most of the tools downstairs and dismantled the temporary work bench. I also built a quick toilet room out of a piece of OSB and a piece of furniture out of an old caravan that I scrapped in 2007. There’s even light in there – of a sort.

I had Marianne on the phone too, but it’s soooo difficult trying to talk when I’m in this condition.

For tea I made a mega-lentil and mushroom curry – all cooked on the woodstove. It wasn’t half impressive

And there’s some left for tomorrow and Friday too.

-4