Category Archives: Les Guis

Tuesday 26th November 2013 – I’VE RESTARTED WORK TODAY

First time since last Thursday too. But there were a few housekeeping jobs that needed to be performed first, including emptying the composting toilet – a gruesome job.

Once that was out of the way the next stop was Pionsat where I needed to post an important letter. And then off to the sawmill at St Gervais for my wood. 21 laths and 12 demi-chevrons of 4.5 metres. The laths are for putting the insulation on the walls outside here – a job that I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and the demi-chevrons are for making the shelves that I want. I have 9 or 10 shuttering planks that I bought in Brico Depot the last time that I was there. They will get me going for the actual shelves but I really need a huge pile more. I won’t be getting them this week as I have a “minder” job to do on Saturday which means only local shopping again.

Back home, I made a start on building my woodshed. For that, I’m using the old chevrons off the house and barn roof. I put them aside specifically for work like this, but some of them are in worse condition than I imagined. Not that that is too much of a worry because what won’t be any good for building will be plenty good enough for burning and you can never have too much firewood, especially if you have somewhere to store it.

Anyway, I’ve selected all of the wood that I need and I’ve almost assembled one side. I’ll finish that tomorrow and then make the seond side, after which I’ll need to dig the holes to plant them into the ground and concrete them in place.

If I can do all of that, this will really be progress with a capital P.

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Monday 25th November 2013 – I WASN’T BACK AT WORK TODAY EITHER.

Well, not that kind of work anyway. We had a radio programme or two to record for Radio Tartasse and so this morning I reviewed my notes, copied the music onto the data stick and did a few other little bits of computer housekeeping.

And quite right too because today we had the first decent day’s sunshine for quite a while. At one stage I was receiving 30 amps as well as about 30 watts of wind.

At Radio Tartasse we recorded a months worth of rock programmes and a month’s worth of information, and then Liz and I went for a coffee seeing as how we were both frezing cold.

Back here later, I eschewed the idea of going backoutside to work for just the hour or so that was left, and so I chose the music for the rock programmes for the month of January. I need to keep ahead as much as I can. But as an aside, I think that the January live concert will be the best that we’ve ever had.

Tomorrow, if the weather is nice, I’ll be nipping to the sawmill at St Gervais. I need to buy some wood.

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Sunday 24th November 2013 – THIS DAY OFF …

… is still continuing, even if the snow is now starting rapidly to melt.

And guess what? Yes, you are right – I haven’t done a tap of work today. Perhaps maybe a little 10 minutes of tidying up – that’s about all. Apart from that, I’ve read a couple of books and watched a couple of films and that’s my lot.

That’s not a problem. I’ve always said that everyone should have one day each week where thay can do whatever they like and not feel guilty about doing it. And had the weather been any better (because we have been shrouded in a hanging cloud since Friday night and there’s been no solar energy for two days) I would have been doing so much more of nothing too. For example, I had to knock off the gridiron at half-time so I don’t know how the Raiders ended up against the Titans or any of the other results either, but you can’t have it all ways.

Tomorrow I’m radioing and so an early night is going to do me the world of good just for a change.

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Saturday 23rd November 2013 – AND AS I SAID YESTERDAY …

… I had no plans to go out today. And so, in fact, I didn’t. Farthest I went was to Caliburn to fetch the frozen chips for tea. Chips and baked beans, with real vinegar! Yum yum!

First task was of course to shovel the snow off the solar panels. Not that I needed to bother because I won’t be going far with just 0.6 amp-hours of electricity, but it still has to be done.

But after breakfast I performed a task that I have been meaning to do for ages, namely to sort out all of the CDs into alphabetical order. That took me much longer than I expected, and I was surprised to see that it’s the “B” that has the most discs. Anyway now they are all done and labelled and I can see what I’ve got – or haven’t got, as the case may be.

Apart from that I’ve had a good tidying session up here. I’ve cleaned up the wood in here and swept the fireplace, and also cleaned up behind the TV unit, which hasn’t been touched in an age. I’ve also brought a huge pile of wood up here, and I’ve rescued the wooden box in which I used to keep the fruit and veg. Thats had a good clean-up and been put to use.

It’s looking a little more like it up here now but there’s still plenty to do to improve my quality of life. Still, every day and in every way it’s getting better and better.

And the snow is melting tonight.

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Friday 22nd November 2013 – WELL, WE HAD THE SNOW…

… and more than enough of it too. In fact, I don’t think that it stopped all day.

First job was of course to clear off the solar panels just in case the sun decided to show itself (which it didn’t, of course) and then after breakfast I had a play with the printer that I inherited from Marianne. I finally managed to get it to work but of course it ran out of ink almost immediately – par for the course I reckon.

I went round early to Liz’s seeing as the weather was bad, and I was helped on my way by the Parisian who brushed the snow off a few branches to let me pass. He was smiling and we had a little chat too – dunno what’s come over him, being sociable. I hope that he keeps it up – it’s so much nicer around here when everyone gets on with everyone else.

We had a quick lunch at Liz’s and then it was off to Gerzat to record the December Radio Anglais programmes, as the snow was falling quicker and quicker and the roads were becoming worse and worse.

On the way back, we made an executive decision and went to the Carrefour at Riom to do our shopping. We drive right past it and it would save both of us an unnecessary trip out on Saturday – not advisable if the weather gets any worse.

On the way back, the roads were more and more difficult and so I forewent my usual evening coffee. I dropped off Liz and her shopping, and made my way home – via the Intermarché at Pionsat because I remembered a couple more things that I had forgotten.

I made it home safely, which is more than two other vehicles did – slid sideways into ditches. And one of them was a 4×4 and that doesn’t surprise me because people who own them think that they can do anything and drive just as fast as they did before. That’s nonsense because these modern 4x4s are not built like an old “Series” leaf-sprung Land-Rover and when people hear stories of 4x4s being friven flat-out in all kinds of adverse weather conditions, they don’t realise that “flat-out” in an old “Series” leaf-sprung Land-Rover was 40mph.

So now I’m back here, battened into the attic with the fire going full-blast. I have everything that I need so i’m not moving until Monday afternoon.

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Thursday 21st November 2013 – FIRST TASK THIS MORNING …

… was to shovel a pile of snow off the solar panels. I was right about it being more persistent last night.

Second task was to move Caliburn. As you know, here I’m down the bottom of a slight hollow at the end of a dirt track and traction is not what it might be. If we have much more of this snow then I won’t be able to go anywhere, and I do have places to go and people to see.

That having been done, I can concentrate on breakfast, even if it was a mere 12.5°C up here in my garret. It was much colder outside, of course, and so I didn’t really fancy the idea too much, but the work doesn’t get done by itself.

So I attacked the lean-to again and cut up another pile of wood. Then, with dexterious use of a brush and shovel I cleaned quite a large extra of space. I then set to to tidy up all of the new wood – shelving, IKEA furniture and the like, and that left quite a nice little hole for the shelving unit. But herein lies a problem, to wit the shelves that I was planning on using were 4cms too high.

Not to be too put off by all of this, I emptied the little shelf unit in the wash room and put that in the lean-to and started to fill that up. I want to put all of the gardening stuff in there and so I went on my travels around the various parts of the barn, and I find that I have filled the shelf unit and there’s nothing like all of it in there.

Clearly this is going to call for some more reorganisation. What I shall probably end up doing is what I should have done first rather than last, and that is to build a custon set of shelving like I have done just about everywhere else that I’ve been working.

It really is a crazy notion to do it half-and-half like this. I can see me making another trip to the sawmill next week, assuming that the snow is going to stop.

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Wednesday 20th November 2013 – THE SNOW DIDN’T LAST LONG …

… this morning. It was mostly all gone by 10:00 and we were back in the dreary marshland again. It’s like to good old days, with mud up to my ears.

This morning I carried on in the barn and finally reached the far wall. That’s an achievement – there’s stuff there that I haven’t seen for probably 15 years, and when I get around to it, there will be a lot of stuff going down to the dechetterie.

After lunch, it was the turn of Rosemary to ring up for a chat. She has a courtesy car at the moment as hers is in at the garage, and she couldn’t work out how to put it into reverse. Having sorted that out, we had a good 20 minute natter on the phone.

A then had a couple of hours in the lean-to. I found a shelf unit when I was tidying in the barn, and it will just go nicely in the lean-to by the door, but I need to make some space of course. The best way to do that is to chop a pile of wood and while that didn’t seem to make any room at all in the lean-to, it certainly filled up the woodshed. I suppose that i’ll have to keep on chopping. But if I can get the shelf unit into there I can put all of the gardening stuff there so it’s out of the way where it should be.

This evening I made another aubergine and kidney been casserole without the kidney beans because i forgot them, and it’s snowing again outside. And the snow looks much more determined than it did yesterday evening, that’s for sure.

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Tuesday 19th November 2013 – YEEUUUCCCHHH

It’s been one of “those” days again. When the alarm went off, it was dark outside, which it shouldn’t be at 07:30 in the morning. And as it wasn’t getting any lighter, I finally crawled out of my stinking pit to see what was going on and, sure enough, we had another hanging cloud. This one was right over the house, the barn and everywhere and you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face outside.

What a start to the day.

Consequently I was in no hurry to start work this morning which was just as well for at 10:00 I had a phone call from Marianne. One or two things with which she has been dealing seem to have gone tits-up in rather a spectacular fashion and so I told her I’d pop round for a coffee and a chat. That solved my problem about working anyway.

After a lengthy chat and a couple of coffees I came back here and started on the barn again. I’ve had a real go at that and a couple more bin-bags of rubbish, as well as a hibernating dormouse, were put outside ready to go to the tip. And as the day advanced, I ended up clearing quite a reasonable amount of floor space and that is good news for when I need to empty Caliburn. I might even have space to put the stuff now. And if the weather keeps on being thoroughly miserable, I might do even more good. You never know.

And the chances of that happening are very good, as it happens. For when I stuck my head outside just now, it was snowing. First snow of the winter.

Ahhh well …

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Monday 18th November 2013 – IT’S MONDAY AGAIN …

… and so it was “back to work”. But not straight away as I had a few important things to do first.

It seems that my bank is at it again. The credit card expired at the end of September as you know, and I finally received the replacement. That meant that I had to contact everyone to update the card details. But I’ve now received another one, with a new number, a new expiry date and a new security cide. I’ve now had to ring everyone again to update everything that I updated just a week or 10 days ago.

I finally did manage to go outside today to work, braving the rain that has restarted. I’ve spent all of the time outside clearing the nettles and weeds that have sprung up in front of the barn where I had my very first potager. It’s astonishing how quickly and how thickly it’s overgrown. It wasn’t looking too bad at all in the early Spring and I never expected it to become as bad as it did over a period of just 8 months.

You can see how good the soil is, though. I suppose that that is some consolation.

Anyway, I’ve made some progress, but not enough. There’s tons to do and I need it to be gone so that I can build my woodshed there. Once I’ve done that, I can crack on with other things that are holding me back.

After it went dark, I spent half an hour in the barn carrying on with my project of tidying up, not that I’m making much progess. But I’ve been thinking, which is of course a very dangerous occupation. It’s about high time that I sorted out the electrical system in the barn. I’m moving the batteries and the control panel down to where “bank two” is – at the southern end of the barn next to the walls to which the solar panels are fastened.

And so I ought to make a start on building the control panel and fitting the wiring. Maybe I’ll sit down tomorrow and draw up a few plans.

And pizza tonight followed by left-over apple crumble and custard from yesterday. What a way to end the day.

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Sunday 17th November 2013 – NO FOOTY … GRRRRRR!

And I checked before setting out, too. I rang up Fabien who has now taken over the running of FC Pionsat St Hilaire from Bernard, so I am given to understand, and he said at first that today’s 2nd XI match at Charensat was on. But shortly afterwards, he rang back to say that following a mid-morning pitch inspection, the game was off.

Seeing as it was Sunday, I wasn’t feeling too much like a 13:00 start anyway, especially as I didn’t crawl out of bed until abou 10:30. So that was the cue for a leisurely morning.

The afternoon gave me several possibilities – I could see if there were any clubs in the vicinity (Le Quartier, the Goatslayers, St Maurice etc) were playing, or whether Terjat or St Marcel’s matches were on, or else I could stay in and do the rock programmes for Radio Anglais. Common sense and logic suggested that I did the radio programmes and so for once, I took my own best advice (not like me, I know) and dashed out January’s rock music. So that’s out of the way.

This evening I was summoned to appear chez Liz and Terry so that Liz and I could do the rehearsals for our recordings on Friday, and I could have a quick glance at the Fiat Punto that has ground to a shuddering halt (might possibly be that a big end cap has come off, although it’s significant that it started to go wrong after a local garage changed the water punp – has someone dropped a bolt or a spanner down a waterway?)

Liz also sprung a surprise on me – could I help her translate some technical information about the work that is done in a casting foundry. That 18 months I spent in an in-depth study of the evidence of the Tay Bridge disaster, during which about 100 pages was spent in discussing foundry practice and principles, stood me in good stead here, that’s for sure. And I’m not really complaining because Liz also sprung on me an apple crumble and vegan custard together with a doggy bag to take home, as well as another supply of vegan cheese from the UK.

On the way there though, I noticed rather ominously that the sides of the Puy-de-Dome, the Mont Dore and the Puy de Sancy are well-covered in snow. Winter is drawing inexorably closer with every day.

I’m also having a little change of procedure about the bateries in the barn right now. As you know, the charge controller has packed up in there (the second in as many years) so I’m by-passing the charge controller with a flying lead with crocodile clips on each end. Anyway, the battery that I’m using is fully-charged and I don’t want to overcharge it by leaving it coupled up all day, but before all of these charge control issues there were three batteries that were, well, not too bad, and they gradually lost their charge in the absence of a charge conroller.

What I’m doing then is to charge up for just half an hour the battery that’s there, and then swap over the charge to the three precious ones. If we have a good week or so of decent weather it might actually put some charge in them. Who knows? But it’s worth a try.

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Saturday 16th November 2013 – I FORGOT TO MENTION YESTERDAY …

… that I saw my first “D” registered car when I was on my way to Rosemary’s. If you don’t know, the French changed their system of registration numbering in April 2009 (and Caliburn carries one of the earliest new numbers) starting with AA and going through to AZ, before changing over to BA, and so on. Anyway, there was a “DA” registered Ford Stranger Danger parked up in Montaigut yesterday.

But it comes to something when I’m having to recap on yesterday’s blog in order to make something interesting to write about because, frankly, badger all happened today.

I was up comparatively early to the welcome sight of gorgeous bright sunlight and I reckoned that we might be in for a corker today. But round about 10:30 it clouded right over and that was that.

I started work on the radio programmes for next month and then went off to St Eloy for the shopping. They had some 12-volt LED lights on offer at LIDL, more expensive than the normal ones but they were 2.5 watt instead of the 1.2 watt lights that I use. Anyway, I bought two of them to see how they shape up.

Back here, after a little siesta I finished the radio programmes and went down for the evening’s footy but the stadium was all in darkness. And I’m not surprised because the pich was more like a swimming baths than a football pitch. The stadium at Marcillat, which I can see from one of the hills around here, was also in darkness. It looks as if they have been rained off too, and so I came home instead and lit the fire, because it’s taters in here.

I hope that here’s some footy tomorrow – I can’t do with being deprived like this.

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Friday 15th November 2013 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT THAT YESTERDAY …

… was bad with its 8.5mm of rain, you should have seen today with its 20mm. I’ve not seen anything like this for ages – it was thoroughly awful.

Waking up and hearing all of that crashing down on the roof was not very good for the morale and so I was in no hurry to get out of bed. And after breakfast, I stayed up here and read a book for a while as well as doing a little reorganising.

I finally plucked up the energy and the courage to go downstairs to the bedroom, where I made a really good start on sorting out the contents of the boxes there, putting everything in he correct box where it ought to be. A couple more days of this and things will be looking quite different in there.

However, it didn’t last long, as the phone rang. It was Rosemary inviting me round for a coffee and seeing as how, judging by the weather, nothing at all was going to happen here, I duly accepted the offer.

I only intended to stay for a short while but it was well after 21:00 that I hit the road for home. It’s amazing how quickly time passes when you are in good company, putting the world to rights.

On the way back, I stopped for some chips at the chippy in St Eloy and had some interesting “interaction” with ths staff and customers there. They are all totally crazy in that place.

So there you are, dear reader. That’s the sum total of my day. And if you can think of a day when I have done less work than this, even on a day ofrf, don’t hesitate to remind me.

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Thursday 14th November 2013 – THIS BLASTED RAIN …

… is getting on my nerves. It’s rained non-stop for all of the day and that has put the dampers on everything.

It didn’t help that I had a bad night’s sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night with a severe attack of cramp in both legs and that took ages to pass. A short while afterwards it was the raging toothache that kept me awake for hours. I wasn’t therefore in the best of moods.

After breakfast I did some more tidying up in here – there wasn’t much point in going outside until the rain eased off – and another couple of loads of things have been moved downstairs. However I did manage to get into the barn to continue to sort things out in there, and I’m having a puzzled moment or two, because i’ve mislaid one of my tool boxes – not the big red Snap-on toolbox but a smaller red one in which I keep the duplicate tools. I can’t think where that might be for now – I hope that I haven’t left it at Cécile’s.

I’ve also moved a few more things out of Caliburn, such as the suitcases, the clean washing and the food. That means that there’s some room inside there now. But I had a light bulb go on suddenly in my head. I liberated an old soft suitcase from Marianne’s ages ago and I couldn’t think of why I did so, and so yesterday I put it in the dustbin (not like me, I know, but …). Now I remember, though. I’ve acquired (also from Marianne’s) an old quilt and some cushions and I’m going to keep them in Caliburn whenever I’m on my travels, seeing as these days I can’t keep awake as long as I used to be able to. I already keep a towel, my swimming cozzy and some shower stuff in the van. To keep all of that together and not rolling about all over the place, a suitcase may well come in handy.

I didn’t get into the garden though – there wasn’t much point with all of the rain, and while you can’t see much improvement in the barn, I know that I can because I remember what it used to look like.

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Wednesday 13th November 2013 – IT WAS EVEN HARDER THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed. Probably going to bed at03:45 might have something to do with that though. Crawling out of bed at 08:00 was definitely an issue.

After breakfast, I went as promised and attacked the barn – the bit where I keep the Ebro. I had almost everything out of the front of the barn and I’ve thrown away two huge sacks of rubbbish. Furthermore, I can actually move around in there now without stepping on things, and isn’t that progress?

It wasn’t without its rewards either. I found an Euro on the floor in there, so spend!Spend! Spend!

The boulandgère came round today too, having forgotten me yesterday. It was Sophie, the woman who lived for a while in the USSR and we always have a little chat whenever she comes round.

After lunch (and a little siesta) I went and attacked the pathways, and now I’ve made it all the way down to the compost bin, which was my ultimate destination. Now, you can walk all the way down there without losing yourself in the vegetation and it’s a great improvement. It didn’t take as long as I was thinking that it might either, and so I’ve started on weeding the first raised bed. I want to have all of those done before the end of the year.

I’ve had a fire in here tonight too and so I cooked tea up here in the oven. It’s nice to recover some of my old familiar habits. I’ve missed being away from here.

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Tuesday 12th November 2013 – GOD, IT WAS HARD …

… getting out of bed this morning. It took me a good half-hour to finally show a leg; And although the sky had clouded over during the night, it was still pretty cold.

Anyway after breakfast, it was time to restart work for the first time for ages, and it was the turn of the lean-to outside to receive my attention – but not before I’d hooked up the crocodile-clip wire across the terminals of the charge controller in the barn so that the battery there will receive some charge.

By lunchtime I’d finished cleaning out the front part of the lean-to and making it look something-like in there, and I’d also collected some wood that was lying around, ready for the fire if I light one tonight.

However, a major issue at lunchtime was that the boulangère didn’t call with the bread, and wasn’t answering her ‘phone either. That meant a quick nip into Pionsat for a load of bread before I could have a butty, and then much to my surprise I crashd out for an hour afterwards.

Once I’d gathered up my wits (doesn’t take long – I don’t have many) I went outside and started to attack the garden. I’ve fought my way down to where the old cars are, and then I made a start on weeding the pathway down to the bottom of the garden and I was well on my way with that when the light disappeared. 18:00 hours or so, and so I did a few little jobs and then came up here to watch a film.

Of course, I can’t sleep now so I dunno what will happen next, but tomorrow’s plan is to clear some space in the barn by the battery box, and then to continue the weeding of the pathways.

We shall see.

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