Category Archives: Les Guis

Tuesday 5th June 2012 – I’VE MADE FURTHER STRIDES …

… in the garden today.

after another late start and breakfast I carried on with my notes from my recent trip to Canada and the USA and they are now all up-to-date.

Following that I had a huge pile of stuff to pack and prepare for shipping – and it was then that I realised that the UK is closed today.

Bearing in mind the catalogue of disasters that occurred while I was away, after lunch I started the repair programme.

A few batteries needed recharging and replacing and it didn’t take long to do all of that

The new fuse is now fitted to the overcharge circuit that powers the home-made 12-volt electric immersion heater and so I have hot water again at last.

But the largest strip fuse that I have seems to be 50-amp and that’s nothing like enough, but it’s all that I have for now. It will have to do.

I’ll have to pay a discreet visit to the local car breaker’s, or else buy some … “Buy? Are you feeling alright?” – ed … when i’m next in the UK. The type that I want actually range from 40 amps to 250 amps so I shouldn’t have too many problems getting what I want.

Not so good news in the barn though. As you fix one problem, another problem rears its ugly head. It seems that one of the charge controllers, the oldest one, has ceased to function.

10 years old so I can’t complain too much but it is rather annoying.

It’s something internal that has gone wrong with it. I can tell this because the voltmeter is registering the voltage on the battery so that side is fine, and the hourmeter wired to the input side is working too, so that bit is okay. it’s all of the bits in the middle where we have a problem.

What I’ve done for now is to connect the two terminals together with an old jump lead – not ideal but at least current is reaching the batteries and so they will charge up.

But there’s no cut-off when they are fully-charged so I will just have to keep my eye on them, and disconnect them if I have to go out on a sunny day.

That left me an hour in the garden and I weeded one of the beds. It’s stil not all done but at least I can see what’s in there. Tons of brussels sprouts by the looks of things.

>Meanwhile in other news, since I graduated from University, the whys and wherefores of OUSA – the Open University Students Association, have been sadly lacking from these pages.

I’ve been doing my best to put it all behind me but it won’t go away.

The latest is that what should have been a private mail from an elected officer to a member of the Association but which was “inadvertantly” (as if that ever happens) published to a public forum.

The memo reads – Hi all. My name is Hazel (http://www.facebook.com/hazel.pegg) and my Alter Ego is VP Comms. For various reasons my official ID needs to be an admin of your FB page. please don’t force me to go the heavy route?

What kind of threat is that to make to a member of an organisation of which the writer is an elected member?

My own opinion is that it is thoroughly shameful. It reminds me of the Kray Twins or the legendary “Dinsdale” sketch – “he nailed my head to a coffee table. He didn’t want to do it – I had to insist”.

But whatever you might think – it just goes to show that nothing has changed in OUSA.

-1

Monday 4th June 2012 – I MADE A START …

… on work today.

Only a start though.

After (a rather-late) breakfast, I worked on all of the photos of the holiday and wimp that I am, there are only 1200 of them. Not a patch on the 2500 or so of my epic 2010 voyage around the Trans-Labrador Highway, but considerably more than the 78 of my first visit to Canada.

All the photos have now been thumbnailed and had the copyright text added and they are now on-line. I’ll post a link to them in due course and you will be able to see them for yourself.

That took me to a rather late-ish lunch and then afterwards I prepared a little game for the Anglo-French Group.

I took all of my photos of the Québecois language and asked them to see what they could make of them.

No-one came even close to guessing what this was all about so if you have an idea – without cheating and looking it up – make a suggestion in the “comments” bit below.

That left me an hour and a half and so I went out to tackle the weeds. There’s only so much you can do in that kind of time and I didn’t do much, but at least I can walk between the front door and the downhill lean-to now, and the area around the solar shower is free.

And if we have some sun any time soon, I might even be able to use that.

But the disappointment is the hard-standing that we laid down for parking a couple of years ago.

Every day I made it a task to pull up a dozen weeds and I’ve kept it pretty weed-free. But 6 weeks away when everywhere is going mad has just about done for it. Not only is it swamped in weeds, their roots are so deep that they are pulling up the gravel and hardstanding when I try to remove them.

It seems that the only solution is whatever is the local equivalent of Agent Orange.

This is depressing as I have tried ever since I came here to avoid the use of chemical weedkiller but as I am on my own and I’m not as young as I was, I don’t see what alternative there is.

If you can think of anything non-chemical, answers on a plain brown envelope to …

-1

Sunday 3rd June 2012 – WHATEVER I SAID …

… that I did yesterday, that was a darn sight more than I did today, because today I’ve not been anywhere at all.

What didn’t help matters was that for much of the morning we were having a tropical rainstorm – 15mm of rain fell in 4 or 5 hours and I didn’t much feel like going anywhere in that.

Another surprise was that the coffee that I had for breakfast this morning while I was writing up yesterday’s blog entry is the first that I have had since being on the railway station at Lyon on Thursday lunchtime.

70 hours without a coffee has to be some kind of record for me. I don’t ever recall that happening before.

Tomorrow is back to work. And my first task is to hack my way out of the house and create some kind of pathway through the jungle so that I can walk about.

It’s astonishing how much things have grown here while I was away. I don’t think that I have ever seen anything like it.

-2

Saturday 2nd June 2012 – I FORGOT TO BLOG …

… before I went to bed last night, so I’ll make up for it right now while I have my Sunday breakfast coffee.

But then again, it wasn’t as if you missed anything important because I hadn’t done all that much to blog about.

We did of course have the usual sleep issues – the issues from which I always suffer whenever I’ve been away on a long journey, but nevertheless I did manage to tear myself out of my stinking pit and of the house and go into St Eloy-les-Mines for some food.

And it was just as well that I did that too because there wasn’t anything in the house worth eating.

After that, it was back on the sofa and that was that.

Tuesday 24th April 2012 – Miserable, wet, grey and depressing…

… but that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about the weather.

And that’s also miserable, wet, grey and depressing.

But the exciting thing is that I’m sitting at a desk looking out of my hotel window and I can see the planes taking off from the runway at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. And in 8 hours time I’ll be there too.

The train journey was exciting and I’ll do this again.

The one from Riom to Lyon was a multiple-unit thing that rattled and clanked its way along.

No coffee unfortunately but at least the seats were comfortable and there was plenty of room.

At Lyon you leave the train, go downstairs where there’s a waiting area and a coffee machine. When your train is called you go back upstairs and there you are. Simple as that.

The TGV was a double-decker thing and athough we had a 20-minute wait for a late connection we went like stink as expected.

The lateness didn’t matter one single iota. I walked straight out of the airport onto the hotel shuttle (once every half-hour) that was already outside.

So if we had been on time I would have had to wait outside the airport for 20 minutes.

Downside of the TGV is that coffee on the double-deckers is a long walk away and luggage space is VERY MUCH at a premium. Upside is that my train was going to Lille Europe and there was a TGV coming from Brussels on the opposite platform.

Doesn’t that open up exciting possibilities for my British and Belgian friends? Both of them!

Anyway, here I am. And there I’ll be in a bit. And, as I said to Bill as he dropped me off at Riom railway station,
“Thank you Bill for bringing me here”.
“You’ll be an inspector, have no fear”

-2

Monday 23rd April 2012 – I’m blogging early tonight

And for two reasons too. Firstly, seeing as how this is my last night here for a while, I’m going to have an early one. And secondly, I had tea early. And that was because I was round at Bill’s for a while setting him up as he is going to be doing the communication for the Anglo-Français Group while I’m not here, and by the time I was back from Bill’s it wasn’t worth coming up here to relax for half an hour.

Tea was nice as well – I used up all of the leftovers. So it was two large spuds, an onion, some garlic, some mixed veg and some mushrooms. And while the spuds were boiling, the rest was frying and then it was all fried together and covered with mixed gravy and spices. and I’ll eat that again.

While I’m away, Liz says that she will keep an eye on the garden once or twice in exchange for the thinnings, and so I thought that I had better do a map of the garden so that she will know where everything is, now that it’s all finished.

There’s just one empty bed and that’s for the leeks that are hopefully growing in a seed tray. Mind you, the leeks that I planted in the open soil have taken, and they are coming up now.

In fact some of the stuff is doing really well while the rest is taking its time, although I seem to remember that this is what always happens.

Anyway, I sowed some more carrots, parsnips, sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach and beetroot, and that will be my lot. When I come back, I’ll just have to see what didn’t take and plant some of that. And the chicory in the new potato bed and that will be it apart from weeding.

I raked and hoed the two cloches today and in the small one I planted (in their pots) all of the shrubs and bushes, so that they will be ready for when I come back.

Apart from that I’ve been doing stuff off my list today. As well as the water heater the dump load will be powering 250 watts of light – 5×50 watt bulbs. This is useful because I have the potential to charge up about 700 watts on the dump load circuit and there’s already a 500-watt water heater element there. So the lights will help to complete the load. and 5 bulbs means that if one blows, then it won’t be too much of a problem. Light bulbs and water heater elements are good because the will take a graduated load – it’s not all “on and off” like, say, an electrical appliance might be and so which would not be satisfactory for this.

I’m nothing like ready really – I can’t find the spare camera battery or the charger that I take on voyages with me, and lots of other stuff. But it’s too late now. I have my tickets, passport, money, camera, dictaphone and Moose, and when I’ve recorded my rock music programme tomorrow I shall go with what I’ve got and that will be that.

-3

Sunday 22nd April 2012 – It was another day today …

… when I hardly went out at all. However, after the traditional Sunday lie-in (until all of 09:40) and breakfast I started packing. And that’s it – all done. All I need to do now is to round up the rest of the electrical equipment I shall be taking, and I wish that I knew where the spare camera battery is.

All of the tickets are printed off too, and they are safely installed in their wallet in the pocket of the suitcase. And Strawberry Moose has tried out the suitcase and he’s quite comfortable in there too.

I’ve cut my hair as well and so I’m ready to go. All I need to do tomorrow is the 9 things that are on this list that I have prepared. Tuesday morning I’m recording radio programmes and then making sandwiches, locking up the place and I’ll be off.

In other exciting news, I’ve been searching for years for a copy of the Inspector Hornleigh films from the late 1930s. These films, starring Gordon Harker and Alastair Sim, are real and proper classics. And just by chance tonight I’ve tracked them down – not only free to view but free to download – at The Internet Archive.

There are thousands of films there and I’m really disappointed that I didn’t discover this site earlier. As it is, I’ve downloaded half a dozen or so films and I’ll download some more as I get the chance. It will be nice when I’m out in the wilderness somewhere at the side of the road to relax with a classic black-and-white film and a can of spruce beer.

And what has made my day about this is that I noticed the internet speed. Two or three years ago I was struggling with 18 kbs. I’m downloading these films at an average of about 250 kbs. Not as fast as you might be having but it’s comparative luxury for me.

-2

Saturday 21st April 2012 – I’ve been slowly …

… organising myself today. And I mean “slowly” as well. But who knows? I might even manage to do it too.

First piece of good news came in the post. If you remember, I bought myself a really good mobile phone in Canada in September. But when I came to use it in February, it wouidn’t power up, no matter what I did to it. Anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … I noticed last Saturday that one of the guys at the football had exactly the same phone. So I accordingly took mine down on Sunday and we tried his battery in my phone – and it worked fine.

So thinking “battery”, I ordered a new charger off the internet. Anyway, the charger arrived this morning so I plugged it into the phone and sure enough, it powered itself up.

Putting some credit on the UK phone that Percy Penguim gave me in December – the one with the UK SIM card in it – that’s not proving to be so easy. I can top it up from overseas using a credit card, sure enough, but when it comes to “please enter the numbers of your postcode” it all goes off the rails. “You have made a mistake” says the recorded message. But ohhh no I haven’t. Well, Perhaps I have. But it’s not the mistake that they are thinking of – the mistake I made was using a SIM card from O2 – a poxy introspective xenophobic British company that totally fails to consider the possibility that someone with a foreign postcode might want to use its service.

No wonder Britain has come off the rails, when it can’t cope with “overseas”.

But astonishing news on the travel front. I had planned to go to the airport from Montlucon, meaning a change at Bourges, another at Vierzon, then trying to cross Paris on the Metro and then taking another train from another station in Paris. And how I hate that journey too. But for just €20 more, I can take a train from Riom to Lyon, and then the TGV direct from Lyon to the airport. No struggling across Paris, no lugging heavy suitcases about up and down stairs, no fighting with Paris commuters. And the TGV is soooooo much more comfortable as well. Even better – my return flight lands at 06:12 in the morning and there’s a return train journey following exactly the same route, at 08:52. That gives me time to find my baggage, find the station, have a coffee and breakfast and I’ll be home by 14:00 all nicely relaxed.

At my destination in Montreal though, there was a slight hitch. The hotel that I’ve been using has been under repair and refurbishment for years and so prices have been ridiculously low. And it’s also in the part of the city where I need to be, for all kinds of good reasons too. But when I went to book it just now, it’s clear that the extensive renovations are now finished as the prices have gone through the roof.

Anyway, there’s one of these chain hotels not too far from the airport, and they have a special offer on right now. Furthermore, three of my most favourite shops are only just round the corner, within walking distance in fact if I fancy walking. So that’s that sorted out too.

At the football, there are no matches at Pionsat this weekend and so I saw Marcillat play Ygrande. A totally astonishing 3-3 draw – astonishing because Ygrande scored one of their goals and from the kickoff Marcillat roared straight up the pitch and scored themselves. And blow me down if 10 minutes later we had exactly the same thing again – a carbon copy. BUt the highlight of the match was the referee. I’ve never ever seen a game so well-refereed as this one tonight. So much so that I went over to the ref after the match and told him so. Credit where credit is due.

Tomorrow I’m cutting my hair, and then I’m packing. Strawberry Moose is already packing his bags and is quite looking forward to the journey.

And so am I

-2

Friday 20th April 2012 – We’ve been recording today.

Liz needs to make an urgent departure for the UK and I’m off on me ‘ols, so today was the only day left for recording our radio programmes. It was just as well that I spent that week a couple of weeks ago churning out a pile of stuff to keep in reserve because it’s currently being used.

And how!

We recorded 9 radio programmes today which is something of a record. 3 for Radio Tartasse and 6 for Radio Arverne – that all covers a period of 6 weeks and so takes us through to mid-June when we should all be back again, unless my aeroplane crashes, one of my ferries hits an iceberg or I run away with a couple of nubile bimbos.

And you’ve no idea just how tiring it is doing all of this. So much so that I crashed out for 10 minutes or so at Liz’s when we returned. But very kindly, Liz let me have a shower there, which has saved me a journey to Neris and the swimming baths and means that I can spend all day here tidying up. No point in going to the shops when I don’t really need anything before I go. For my Sunday pizza I’ll make one on a bread base with some mushrooms out of a tin, a chili, some olives and tomato. What can be simpler?

Back here, I watched a cattle – chronologically-disadvantaged-person film (well, hardly, seeing as how the action in the film is taking place in 1951) about which I have spoken before at great length. It’s Riders of the Whistling Pines starring Gene Autry and what makes the film particularly noteworthy is that it concerns the widespread use of DDT and heroes and villains. The heroes are the ones who want to spray the forest with DDT and the villains wre the environmentalists who prophesy that the waters will be poisoned and all of the fish, cattle, and everything else that comes into contact with it will die a horrible death. And it’s all accopanied with scenes of the goodies flying their aeroplanes and the huge clouds of DDT that are emitted therefrom.

Yes, imagine that today!

And what with one thing and another I was searching around the internet for a group called “Eyes of Blue” – a Welsh rock band featuring inter alia “Taff” Williams and Phil Ryan (later of Man) and “Pugwash” Weathers, later of Gentle Giant. And astonishingly, their two albums, Crossroads/in Fields of Ardath are available on Amazon. And so that set me off and I discovered some even more obscure albums from other Welsh bands of the late 60s and early 70s likewise available. And so I’ve been spending my money again. And more than maybe I ought to as well, but these albums are quite rare and extremely sought-after and so copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say … "you said that the other day" – ed.

Having these albums in my letter box waiting for me might encourage me to come back home after my trip.

-4

Thursday 19th April 2012 – This has been another day …

… where I’ve hardly set foot out of the house.

I was sitting up here quietly minding my own business, like I do (sometimes) when I had a visitor. It concerns a bill which, according to the company concerned, has been outstanding since 2008. And I remember it well.

In fact, it was the 30th October 2008 when this guy came round before (now you see the advantages of keeping a blog) with a bill, and which I disputed at the time. and correspondence with the company concerned led to a revised bill being sent to me, which was paid (according to the cheque stubs) in January 2009. And now this guy wants paying again – for the October 2008 amount!

Original bill – yes I have that. Copies of correspondence – yes I have that too. Cheque stubs – yes I have them. Bank statement for January 2009 showng the cheque clearance – … errrrr ….

So here’s me on one hand trying to tidy up before I go, and on the other hand I have a huge mountain of papers all over the place and it looks as if a bomb has gone off in here – it really is embarrassing. I’ve found tons of stuff that I had forgotten – absolutely tons. And there’s a pile of really useful stuff that has come to light too. But can I find this bank statement? And would you believe – it is the only one that is missing as well, and that is astonishing in itself.

This is going to be a long job.

Added to that, there’s a change of schedule to our recording plans, and we are in the studio tomorrow. Isn’t it a good job that I did all of the writing up the other week? But recording involves printing out over 40 sheets of paper and that takes an age. Add to that the letters that I need to write before I go away, and the stuff that I need to download for my journey on Wednesday, and it ended up being never-ending.

19:29 when I noticed what time it was. No wonder I’m getting all stressed out. I hate really do hate flying and I’m always thoroughly stressed out by the time I’m on board the plane. This year though, I seem to be starting a few days early.

What’s not helping either is that where my ‘plane will be landing, there will be a balmy 20°C and nice sunshine. 500 miles away, where my first port of call is to be, it will be -4°C and 20mm of snow.

I’m thinking that I’ve done more intelligent things than this as well.

-2

Wednesday 18th April 2012- I’ve finished the heavy work in the garden.

That’s all that it’s getting this year anyway. It can whistle for the rest.

If you compare this pic with the photo from a couple of days ago you’ll be able to notice the new frame that I made this afternoon. The soil that is in it has been dug over, hoed, raked and then hoed again, and it’s now covered up with a couple of offcuts of corrugated sheeting, for nothing is going to be planted in it until I come back and I don’t want it running to weeds while I’m away.

I’ve also sown a huge pile of beans in one of the beds, a few more rows of peas in another, and in one of the beds for root vegetables I’ve sown another row of beetroot and a couple of rows of carrots.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be sowing some more brassica, some parsnips and some spinach, weeding both the cloches and that will be the garden finished until I come back. And when I come back, there will just be weeding to do and (hopefully) not much else. I’m glad I managed to do it all anyway but I can’t wait to crack on with other stuff. I want to finish the lean-to this summer.

This morning I have been working on my website again and I’ve finally finished what I want to do – namely cross the St Lawrence from the Charlevoix to the Gaspé from my voyage in early September 2011. Tomorrow I can bring up-to-date the radio pages and then start on the footy pages. No more footy for me this season which is a shame.

Another thing that is a shame is that one of the ferries that I was planning on taking on my journey in a few days’ time, L’Heritage from Trois Pistoles to Les Escoumins across the St Lawrence River, has had its annual opening put back. I’ve been on it before and it was a bit of a rust-bucket then, but this winter it failed its four-yearly inspection and so it’s had to go for a refit at a cost of … gulp … $1,368,000 or whatever the equivalent is in local currency, and the start of the ferry season has been put back from April 21 to May 15, something which is going to inconvenience me rather considerably.

There’s another ferry that does something like the same route but that doesn’t cater for cars. The advert says something like “don’t forget your bike”. I can imagine one polar bear looking at another polar bear as I go cycling past, and saying “oohhh look – meals on wheels”.

I’ve also started backing up all of the files on my computer – moving copies onto a portable hard drive. You never know what is likely to happen when I’m on an adventure. If the ferry sinks and takes my computer with it, I shall be sunk – I’ll tell you that.

And not only am I likely to be sailing over a route where a passenger ferry was sunk by a U-boat in World War II, I’ll be passing over the site of the wreck of an ocean liner that went down with the loss of over 1000 lives, within sight of land, in peacetime 2 years after the Titanic disaster.

So as you can see, anything is possible.

-2

Tuesday 17th April 2012 – Well, I was right…

… about the need to protect my new plants from the frost last night. When I was down in the verandah at 04:00 (don’t ask) it was -2.2°C outside, and it dropped as low as -3.3°C. definitely a good plan to cover them up.

No such issues tonight though, even if it is flaming well taters outside. It’s also p155ing down with rain. And so the covers are on again, but for entirely different reasons.

This morning I spent on the computer doing some more of my web pages. But this was interrupted by the arrival of the postie, who brought me my new memory cards (I’m being organised this time, would you believe?) and also by the boulangère, with whom I need to discuss my bread arrangements.

After lunch I popped into Pionsat to go to the bank and also to the Post Office where I posted a lettler to my UK bank. There really is so much to organise. But at least, good news is that my flights are confirmed. And I’m not going on a bucket shop charter either. A national flagship carrier flies to the same destination for just €50 more, so copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say . All I need now are the car hire and the train. The ferries can take care of themselves as I encounter them. But one ferry issue is that one of the boats that I would be taking is away for a refit and so instead of starting the ferry crossing on 20th April, it’s now going to restart on 15th May – two weeks too late for me. I shall have to see about that.

Out in the garden I made a start on the final raised bed but at about 18:15 I was chased inside by a tropical monsoon. Just as well in a way because the framework for that bed needs replacing too and I didn’t fancy doing it at that time of night. But hopefully I’ll finish that tomorrow and then I’ll cover it up to keep the weeds out. I’ll do a final lap around the garden hoeing and planting more seeds, and that will be that until I come.

Now I’m off to bed and an early night. I’m whacked.

And to let Liz and Krys know that I’m thinking about both of you.

-1

Monday – 16th April 2012 – Ouch!!!

Yes, I have an ache in my back. It’s all this work in the garden that I did this afternoon. There are two beds that weren’t dug over at all last year and this afternoon I tackled one of them with the aim of sowing some spinach and parsnips in there.

But it didn’t work out as it was supposed to do. The actual wooden frame of the bed was one of the first that I made when I did the earlier vegetable garden back in 2008. And made of 10mm timber instead of 25mm timber which I use now, it simply disintegrated when I dug around it.

It’s quite difficult having to replace a frame that is already well-settled into the ground but it had to be done. It took a while too, but at least now it’s in place and doing what it ought to be doing, as you can see in the centre-foreground.

I only ended up giving it one dig-over, but it’s thoroughly hoed and raked and hoed again. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll give it another digging over, a hoeing and a raking, and then do the planting. Then I can see what it’s like.

As for the other bed, that will be for the leeks. But it’s not likely to be used for a while as I have only just sown the seed (in a tray in the verandah) and so it’s not so important if it’s not done before I leave. It will be nice to do it, though.

I had to cover everything up this evening. Last night the temperature dropped to 0.9°C here outside and it’s threatening to be even colder tonight, as the sun made a slight appearance late this afternoon. That means a likelihood of frost and I don’t want everything to die off.

This morning though, I had to spend much of it lying down in a darkened room. I needed to sort out my Belgian credit card ready for my trip, and this involved ringing a call centre there. And to my surprise and astonishment, I received a very helpful reply and (for once) some decent service. Totally astonishing. I also did that work that was outstanding – this morning the inspiration arrived from somewhere and I took full advantage before it went again. But my list of things to pack is looking larger and larger, and I can’t find half of the stuff that I want, like my earphones and my spare camera battery to name just two things. I can see this voyage turning into something of a debâcle if I’m not careful.

Sunday 15th April 2012 – Here’s a good photo.

Or, at least, it would have been in the goalkeeper of the Chimps had been wearing a more visible kit and the weather had been so much better. It’s not every day that I’ve been able to catch a keeper in full flight.

The difference is that I’ve recently upgraded the memory cards that I use. I still have the cheap rubbish but I’ve spent some money buying two 4gb cards of the quickest writing speed available and while the difference between 1/250 of a second and 1/40 of a second might not be very much, it is enough when it really counts.

But it was a miserable day at the football. Cold, wet, grey and windy. But that’s enough about me. The weather was the same. Everyone was soaked to the skin, even the three spectators in the stand. The result was nothing to cheer about either. All in all, a bad weekend for the club.

In fact, this will be the last time that I see them this season. Matches next weekend are cancelled due to the General Election, and the following Tuesday evening I’m on my way. I hope that they can manage without me.

Now you might remember this thing. I’ve told you about it, but I haven’t shown you a pic of it. It’s the external speaker thing for the notebook, the one with the built-in battery. It also has a slot for a micro-SD card as I might have said, and in a flash of inspiration I remembered a mis-order that we had made a few years ago at the 7-Day Shop and ended up with a couple of 1gb micro-SD cards.

Much to my surprise I managed to find them amongst all of the rubbish here (and finding the missing blank 4gb full-size card as well) and so I recorded a pile of music onto them. Did you know that you can fit about 35 albums onto a 1gb memory card if you record at 56kbs, by the way? Anyway, the machine reads the cards and plays the music, impressively too, I have to say. No menu, just one ofter the other, and it won’t recharge while it’s playing. Minor problems, seeing as it cost just €9:99 from LIDL. This will be coming with me on the ‘plane.

In other news, I lit the fire up here tonight, with the temperature a very damp and wet 13.6°C. I was debating about doing it, and then I remembered that it was Sunday night – pizza night – and I could cook the pizza and the garlic bread in the oven up here. And so I did. And with the wood having been up here for three months drying out, it burned a treat as well.

But it’s like flaming winter again here. 12.5mm of rain today. Whatever next?

Saturday 14th April 2012 – I’ve been busy today as well.

I managed to wake up with the alarm today, for a change. And an early breakfast too, for once. After that, I spent a lot of time working on a project that I’m doing for Dave at Hexham. Only problem with this though is that I’m struggling for creative inspiration at the moment. Margaret Thatcher once famously said “anyone can do a good day’s work when they feel like it. The key to success is to be able to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it” and I don’t disagree with those comments at all. I really need to summon up the inspiration from somewhere.

I’ve also started to make a list of things that I need to do before I go away. It’s going to be a flaming long list, that’s for sure. And it will certainly stop me feeling listless.

In St Eloy I bumped into Clare and Keith doing their shopping, even though I wasn’t there long and had a rather minimalist €23 shopping bill. Nothing special was on offer. Never mind.

Tonight, I was at the football watching Pionsat play the Chimps. And I’m not going to be talking about the match on here because I have a feeling that I shall be talking about it elsewhere.

But I did go to see the Maison Ducros in Pionsat, the building that I photographed the other day and about which there has been so much controversy just recently.

As you can see, there won’t be any more controversy about it now, is there? It’s a tragedy and it was all so unnecessary.

For an hour or so, I did manage to see some of the classic film Ben-Hur starring the famous Charlton Athletic, he of the cold dead hand. But never mind any of that, guess who was the stunt co-ordinator and second unit director? Yes, none other than our old friend who has featured in these pages on several occasions, the legendary Yakima Canutt. He gets about a bit, doesn’t he?

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EPIC HALL

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