Category Archives: Les Guis

Wednesday 16th June 2010 – I went out to take the stats this evening …

… just in time to see this cloud drifting in through the trees from the north-east.

That gives you some idea of the weather today. We had a slight improvement – just 19mm of rain. But the sun never broke through and it was grey and miserable all day.

I’ve detached the body from the caravan chassis but I can’t move it off onto the floor until I move the chassis out from the barn. And to do that I need to take a wheel off the other trailer and I wasn’t going to do that in this weather which is a shame because I could have finished it today.

But it really was miserable and in the end I gave up any pretence of working and came up here and did nothing at all. You really ought to have been here to see the weather.

In other news, I see tbat the United Nations is opposing the repatriation of Iraqis due to the “levels of violence and human rights violations”. . So if that really is the case, can someone tell me why it is that the Anglo-American’s invaded Iraq and deposed Sod’em Hussein? I thought that it was to get rid of an oppressive tyrant and go for a peaceful and stable regime respecting human rights.

So what’s going on?

No prizes for guessing what’s going on in Afghanistan though. This is something that you always suspected, and now it’s been proved to be true. All these British and American soldiers dying so that companies such as Rio Tinto Zinc and the like can make a fortune.

And it wont have escaped your notice that despite almost 300 British soldiers being killed in Afghanistan, the three groups that have done the survey are all American. So what do you think that the UK will get out of its military occupation, its huge financial sacrifice and the deaths of its military personnel?

It’s really hard to believe it, but the UK has fallen for it again! It’s totally pathetic.

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Tuesday 15th June 2010 – Errrr ….

… well, yes!

The broyer arrived here comfortably on the back of the trailer. And the trailer looked extremely comfortable on its new tyres too.

So once we unloaded it, Terry set off back to pick up the tractor. And after a while, Terry turned up – riding the tractor, with the van and trailer nowhere in sight.

In fact, the trailer has folded up, as you can see.

There was clearly not enough ground clearance on the trailer and what it looks like is that as Terry has turned to go up a hill, the front end of the van has raised (as you would expect), the back end has gone down, and the jockey wheel on the trailer has grounded out.

And instead of the trailer riding up on the jockey wheel, the weight of the tractor on the trailer has kept the trailer flat and the A frame has given way instead. After all, there was probably well over a tonne of pressure on it at that precise moment.

Mind you, if there were to be a problem with the trailer, here would have been exactly where we expected it to be. It wasn’t as strong as it might have been and we did have to weld part of it as you may remember. And I have to say that our welding was fine and it probably held it together.

It was our intention to replace the A frame in early course and so it will just have to be in earlier course.

And of course there is nothing wrong with our theory about all of this. It’s the practical side that has let us down.

At least the tractor did actually arrive here and Terry did end up by mowing that field as planned so it wasn’t all in vain. We did what we set out to do, and that’s something.

The next question of course is “how does Terry get his tractor back home again?”. And that’s something that we can deal with without too many issues. Steps have already been taken in that respect as you will find out if you read on below.

Inside my barn is another caravan. It’s the one I lived in between 1998 and 2003 and the interior was trashed by rats when I was ill. But never mind the interior – the chassis is in much better condition than the other trailer, having been stored inside a barn for the last 12 years.

So once Terry went off to mow this field, I set about taking the caravan body off this chassis. You can see that I’m well-advanced here and I reckon I’ll have it finished and the trailer outside by tomorrow afternoon.

Next step of course will be to put the flooring and the tyres off the other trailer onto this one (so we won’t be wasting what we’ve already spent) and we can use that to get the tractor back to Terry’s.

It’s all good stuff and all of this isn’t half solving a lot of my space and storage issues. It’s an ill-wind indeed that doesn’t blow anyone any good.

But talking of ill winds and blowing, we were blown another depressing November day with another 25.5mm of rain. This weather is totally absurd. I’ve never known anything like it.

And in other exciting news, there’s a CREFAD (the organisation that gives encouragement and assistance to businesses in the Auvergne) meeting about eco-building and renewable energy taking place shortly, and I’ve been approached this evening to see if I would like to sit on the Panel. Is the Pope a Catholic?

Monday 14th June 2010 – This is a significant photo …

… and for two reasons. Firstly, it’s the first pic of Caliburn in his new home. At lunchtime I took him for a drive on the new hardstanding to flatten it down a bit. But the ground hasn’t dried up enough (and it’s still p155ing down now) so it’s no surprise that at one stage he bogged down. But I was expecting it and I had the chain winch ready.

It’s also significant in the respect that it’s the first pic with the new Nikon D5000. I was in fact all ready to use the Pentax K100D but the battery was flat and the ones on charge wouldn’t fire it up. So it seemed to he the right time to fire up the Nikon.

But never mind being bogged down – this was one of those days where problems seemed to come along in droves. After Terry came round for some of my scaffolding poles, I went into Montlucon to pick up these tyres for the trailer – and I had a puncture. Then of course there was the bogging-down, and then on the way to St Gervais d’Auvergne I got stuck behind a circus convoy – “Showman’s Goods” as they are described in British Road Traffic Law or “Les Forains” as they are described over here. So it was 30kph (if we were lucky) all the way there.

And at St Gervais d’Auvegne I’ve ordered all my wood. The guy in the sawmill has undercharged me, and I pointed that out to him (I don’t believe in taking advantage of small businessmen – I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me) but he insists that he’s right. But €126 for one thing and €99 for another and then a few other bits and pieces will never ever make €167 no matter how hard anyone tries to make it.

Once everything was sorted out in St Gervais d’Auvergne the next stop was to Liz and Terry’s to fit the wheels and tyres on the trailer.

The route as usual took me past the birdwatching centre at the back of town, which is my favourite spot for photographing the Puy de Dome. Now that I have the new Nikon D5000 I can take a pic from here and compare it with one of the photos taken with the Pentax K100D and we can see if there’s a difference.

Terry was out earning some folding stuff when I arrived and so I put the new wheels on the trailer and then helped Liz with some weeding.

Now we are all ready for moving this tractor tomorrow. What with all of the effort we’ve put into it, I hope it all goes according to plan.

Sunday 13th June 2010 – Sunday is a day of rest …

… but not for me today – I had things to do.

One of the things was to go to Pontaumur for an Eco-building fair. But that was pretty much a waste of time. There were about 30 stands, of which about 25 were trying to get people to sign up for this “Become a Solar Energy Producer and Sell to the Electricity Board” scam.

If you’ve ever experienced this scam – with the cold canvassing phone calls and the harassment in every shopping centre, then you’ll know what I mean. It’s what double glazing was in the 1970s, cavity wall insulation was in the 1980s, financial planning was in the 1990s. Nothing more than a means of the disreputable sharks looking out for poor helpless minnows to swallow.

Think about it for a minute – on a good day (and I mean a good day) I can create 4KwH of electricity. Selling all of that to the EDF will get me 4x€0.55 – ie just over €2. Say that I can do that on 50 days per year, that’s €100 per year. The cost of my set-up here was about €6000 – so it will take me 60 years to get my money back. But I’m using for the most part cheap analogue equipment. Going over to new digital equipment you can add another €3000 easily to that.

And I installed my system myself. How much would the labour charges be for someone else to do it? And then what will be the return on the investment? And when the resale price falls from 0.55 to 0.45 later this year, then what?

Solar (or wind) energy is never ever going to be cost-effective at today’s rates and today’s prices. No-one is ever going to get rich from selling it back to the central supplier here in Europe. There are going to be thousands of disappointed customers in five years time, just like there were with Endowment mortgages, because greedy people who have seen nothing but the Pound signs will have been suckered in by a bunch of sharks.

Renewable energy is a lifestyle choice and not much else – that is, until the retail price of energy is adjusted to reflect its true cost. And then, of course, it will be totally different.

However I did meet Christiane there – I met her 2 weeks ago at the Plant Fair too – and I also found someone to talk to about a system of lagoons for dealing with my waste water. So that’s back on the agenda.

Before that however I went to the Authors’ Fair at Pionsat to chat to Marianne. Bill was there too.

Later round at Terry’s we took the broyer off the tractor and with a winch and ramps we went to put it in the back of his van. But either the van has shrunk or the broyer has grown since we last measured it and now it won’t fit.

We’re having no luck at all with this blasted tractor-moving.

Saturday 12th June 2010 – Long Distance Runaround

Well … errr … Yes. No wonder I’m feeling Fragile “That’s quite enough of that” – ed.

And I bet you never ever imagined that there would be a steam locomotive involved in today’s rubbish either. Especially not a North American “Mikado” 2-8-2, but nevertheless, here you are.

And in case you are wondering all about it, I’ll tell you more of this anon.

Just for a change for a Saturday I woke up early “lucky Early” – ed and after breakfast I went to fetch the two spare wheels for the caravans.

And I know that they are here in my barn. I remember very well having a blow-out on each of the two caravans when I brought them down here and changing the wheels at the side of the road. And I know exactly where I put the wheels with flat tyres when I arrived here too.

But the way things are around here, if they aren’t in their proper place then I’m well and truly snookered.

In the end I turned over the four piles of tyres but they weren’t in any of them and that has really got me puzzled now. But no matter – off to Liz and Terry’s to get the two off the trailer. And I really didn’t want to do that as I need those two to stay inflated so that I can move the other caravan chassis around but it really can’t be helped.

The trailer wasn’t there of course, it was out on a chantier with the scaffolding and so I had to go around there to liberate the wheels.

This chantier is taking place at the old railway house at the Viaduc des Fades, about which I have written a great deal in the past and there’s an excellent view of the Viaduc from there. As you might expect, his calls for a photo.

So having liberated the wheels, it was off to Commentry to the tyre place. And it was indeed the guy who I had met at the autocross back in 2008 and who reckons he can source all kinds of unusual tyres. So having posed the question, he replied “well, I’ve switched the computer off now. Come back Monday afternoon and I’ll order them. We might have them by Tuesday night”.

But Tuesday morning the tractor needs to be on site so that’s no good. Off to St Eloy les Mines to the new tyre place. And the only 13-inch tyres that he had were “reinforced” – not even “commercial van”. And there he was, insisting that they would be good enough. I don’t like the guy at that place and I never did and I’m not putting any old tyres on that trailer just for the sake of it.

So off to Pionsat to referee this challenge match. And the pitch all overgrown and full of weeds and two players practising their golf on it.
“When’s this match taking place then?”
“September” Matthieu replied.

Ahhh well.

But in for a penny, in for a pound. I had an unexpected couple of hours of freedom and an urgent task to undertake so I went chaud-pied to Montlucon to the tyre place at the back of Carrefour – he who had done me proud with tyres for Caliburn in December.
“What’s it for?” he asked
“A caravan chassis that I’ve converted into a trailer for carrying heavy loads. The existing tyres just collapsed under the load”
“What kind of load will it be carrying? A tonne?”
“At the very least” I replied

So a rummage down at the back of his storeroom produced three 10-ply steel radial commercial van tyres. “These will do you fine” he replied.

Downside is that I can’t have them fitted until Monday as he is full to the brim. But that gives us Monday afternoon to play about with them.

He is also having a sale on tyres for Caliburn – buy two and get the second half-price. And I need two to go on the front as I don’t want to wear out my snow tyres. These will set me back €216 which is a far cry from the €272 that I was quoted back in December. All of this is working out expensive.

So then I realised that I hadn’t done all my shopping (I’d bumped into Bill in Carrefour and while we were waiting for the tyre place in St Eloy les Mines to open, we went for a coffee) so off I popped to the Intermarche at the back of LIDL.

The parking borders on to the railway line and there was a crowd of people gathered around the fence peering through it. It seems that it’s some kind of Open Day at the railway roundhouse and there were several old and interesting objects on view.

One of the things that caught my eye was this delightful rotary snowplough. It’s not a patch on the rotary snowplough that I saw at Chama in the Rocky Mountains in 2002 of course, but it’s quite impressive for around here.

France’s railway – the SNCF, or Société Nationale des Chemins-de-Fer Français – underwent a huge modernisation programme in the 1950s and 1960s just the same as most Western countries. Steam locomotives were retired from service and diesels took over.

Everyone who travelled around France in the 1960s and 1970s will remember the typical red-and-cream diesel multiple-units and railcars that replaced the steam shuttles and it was nice to see a couple of them on display here.

Pride of place, however, has to go to the Mikado. It’s a 2-8-2 in Anglophone notification, although the French, who count the axles not the wheels, would call it a 1-4-1.

It’s one of the R class – number 420 in fact, and was built by Baldwins in the USA just after the war as part of the “Marshall Plan” to re-equip the European rail network after the ravages of World War II. France ordered 1340 of these (to give you an idea of how much of the French railway network was destroyed during the war) but only received 1323.

The other 17 are lying at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Newfoundland, due to the ship that was transporting them – the Belpamela from Norway, sinking in a heavy storm on April 11, 1947.

The type remained in service with the SNCF until as late as October 19th 1975 when R.1187 performed its last duty.

R.420 had been stored by the SNCF but was put up for sale in June 1976. Luckily it fell into the hands of a preservation group in Clermont Ferrand.

It is one of the 12 survivors of the class, although the fate of three of these is hanging in the balance since the company that was restoring them went bankrupt.

It underwent a full restoration and was passed fit for rail service in March 1982. Today, it’s the equivalent of the British “Flying Scotsman”, performing steam excursions.

As an interesting aside, in July 1987 the locomotive was officially classed as a French Historic Monument.

Tonight was the cheerleaders or majorettes competition in St Eloy les Mines and I was planning on attending. Piles of girls in skimpy costumes chucking sticks about and sometimes even catching them – but after today’s exertions I don’t think that I could stand the strain.

I hope Terry is grateful for all the sacrifices that I’m making on his behalf so that we can get his show on the road! Missing out on a display of girls in skimpy clothing is not something I would do lightly.

And in other more depressing news, here, in the comfort and safety of my own attic, I have been flaming well stung on the leg by a perishing blasted wasp!

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Friday 11th June 2010 – Liz rang me up at lunchtime …

… and we had a really good chat about a lot of things. But after a few minutes, she said “but that’s not what I want to talk to you about really. Someone wants to hire the scaffolding tonight so we were wondering that if you weren’t doing anything you could come round and help us dismantle it and put it on the trailer”.

And so what of I did have anything else to do? Hiring out the scaffolding involves the receipt of The Folding Stuff and we need as much of that as we can get.
“I’ll be there in half an hour!”

On my way to Liz and Terry’s I stopped off at my favourite photo spot, the bird-watching point near St Gervais d’Auvergne, and it goes without saying that there wasn’t a single one of any kind of bird that I would be interested in spotting.

The view over to the Puy de Dome and the Puy de Saucy was so obscured by clouds that it wasn’t really worth photographing, although I did notice that someone was setting fire to something in the distance.

It didn’t take us long to dismantle the scaffolding, especially as the client, who was clearly in a rush, came around and helped. And now that is out and earning some dosh and that can’t be bad.

Liz kindly fed me and we had another chat. I took advantage of the shower there and then it was home time.

And I have a pile of things to do this weekend. I’ll be rushed off my feet.

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Thursday 10th June 2010 – Look what I’m having for tea!

Yes, strawberries. The first of the year, and all grown with my own fair hands too in my own garden.

Unfortunately there aren’t not all that many. It looks as if the local wildlife has been helping itself to them but nevertheless there were five left, and these, together with some soya cream, is a sure sign that summer is here at last.

Or is it?

It was raining again this morning and although it stopped for several hours, at about 18:00 it started up again in earnest and it’s still chucking it down now.

A quick look inside the wheelbarrow will tell you everything that you need to know about the amount of rainfall that we’ve had this last couple of days. Remember that this was empty just a couple of days ago when we were shovelling all of these stones around.

Liz came round this morning with my beans and vegan cheese and that’s good news. There are also some tins of curry and so it’s back to my Saturday night ritual again. We had quite a chat and it was a shame that she had to go.

And after that I carried on with the tidying up outside. Now that I have a hardstanding (or a wetstanding, or a notwithstanding) I’m moving over there everything that was propped up against the side of the barn. In a couple of weeks we’ll be putting up a scaffolding against the barn in order to do the barn roof, and I’ve been waiting years to do this. For many reasons actually – not the least being that I can finally move the solar panels off the roof of the Luton transit and onto the wall of the barn.

I’m tidying up a few other things too so I’m clearly not well. And when it clouded over at about 17:50 I called it a day and came up here. In fact I crashed out for half an hour.

In other news, I see that the new Conservative Government is planning to remodel University education. The Minister has considered several University models, including major part-time suppliers, ans has decided to try to remodel things on the lines of that well-known supplier of distance education, the … errrr … University of London.

As I said a few years ago when they set up a committee to consider part-time degree education and it consisted of staff from that other well-known supplier of distance education the … errrr … North Staffordshire University, the days of the Open University having any kind of significance and playing any kind of major role in shaping Government policy, these are long-gone. The OU has lost its relevance and has received yet another kick in the teeth.

Increasing prices and tuition fees brought an angry response from the National Union of Students. But of course they are a small-minded militant body made up of kids still wet behind the ears. So where was the response from the Open University Students’ Association – that body of 180,000 grown-up and mature students? The answer is of course “nowhere”. Either no-one considered the OUSA to have any relevance (which is a damning indictment of OUSA) or else whatever OUSA did say was considered to be not worth reporting (which is a damning indictment of OUSA).

It seems that OUSA has outlived its relevance too. But we all knew that, and a long time ago. A couple of years ago when the Labour government considered the idea of increasing costs and reducing subsidies, the response of that grown-up and august body of mature students was to … errr … sign a petition! I mean! We did things like that in Primary School when we were 10 and 11. Was that really the best that OUSA could come up with?

I once worked in a multinational multi-government organisation and we used to receive petitions from all kinds of people in all walks of life, on a regular basis. And do you know what we did with the petitions that we received? Well, we never bought any toilet paper, that’s for sure. That’s how petitions are treated in organisations such as that.

And the strawberries were delicious!

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Wednesday 9th June 2010 – Those of you with long memories …

… will recall the 11th of September 2008 when I had a whopping 48mm of rain in one day.

But that was an exceptional case – most of that fell in a brief half-hour period as the result of an incredible storm. Nothing that we have had since has ever come close.

That is, until today. When it rained and rained and rained for the entire day non-stop. This horrible drenching rain that soaks absolutely everything and I don’t think that it’s ever going to stop.

And when I took the stats at 22:00 as usual I recorded 36.5mm of rain in that 24-hour period. And that’s the most rain that’s fallen here (apart from 11th September 2008) by a country mile.

My hardstanding has a river running down it right now as water cascades from just about everywhere in the neighbourhood. The whole of the ground is like a sponge.

Clearly working outside was impossible so after lunch I did some work in the bedroom but knocked off early as it was far too dark to see anything.

The weather really was that depressing.

But I did go down the garden to check up on all the plants, and my attention was drawn to some movement in the field.

We get to see plenty of wildlife here, deer and all that kind of thing. But I never normally have the camera with me. But today I did, quite luckily, and I was able to stand and watch, and reel off a pile of shots as a small fox played “pouncy pussy” with an object in the field.

So absorbed was it with what it was doing that it didn’t notice me there so I watched, getting soaking wet in the process, as it rounded up and then captured its latest meal. I really don’t know who was the more absorbed, me or the fox. But it was interesting all the same.

I think that foxes are beautiful and I just don’t know why it is that people want to hunt and kill them. And in my book, huntsmen who dress up in ridiculous garments and set a pack of dogs on an animal like this and tear it to bits as a public spectacle are on roughly the same social level as paedophiles if you ask me.

I think that they are all thoroughly sick in the head.

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Tuesday 8th June 2010 – How about this for bizarre?

As you know, I spend some of the winter cutting down trees for firewood and the first that I cut was the old tree just in front of the house that looked like it had died (and a good move it was to do that too as it immediately revitalised itself and went berserk)

.The wood that I cut down I chopped into lengths and stacked neatly (for once) at the side of the barn to dry out ready to burn.

However, one of the the lengths sprouted a branch or two so I reckoned that there must have been tons of sap still in it. But not at all. In fact when I tried to move it during my tidy-up session I noticed that it had pushed some roots out and grown back into the soil.

Now THAT‘s unusual.

But I’ve not done much in the way of tidying up for the simple reason that the weather has been against me. I did a machine load of washing yesterday and it was such a beautiful evening last night that I left it out to dry. So of course we’ve had nothing but torrential downpours all day and everything is thoroughly soaking. I spent the morning computing and after lunch did some of the moving around but dodging the showers was difficult and in the end I made a coffee and came up here to watch a film.

But there’s been so much rain that my hardstanding is like a squelchy sponge again. I was hoping that it would stay dry to give me a chance to tamp it down. And ironically the puddle that was soaking wet and into which I spent a day embedding rocks into it, that’s currently the driest and most stable part of it now. That’s weird too.

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Monday 7th June 2010 – I had another gardening day today.

You can see in the photo that I’ve rediscovered my bean and pea frame, so seeing as I now have three pea plants and four bean plants ( and isn’t that disappointing?) I put it up so that they will have something to cling to. When I saw the lack of beans and peas this year then I needed something to cling to for support, but I hadn’t recovered the frame then.

The radishes I planted a couple of weeks ago are going berserk and the spinach is now coming up. maybe things are putting in a late burst.

I’ve sown another row of carrots in place too, and transplanted the first showing of cauliflower and the second showing of broccoli. The cucumber plants I planted in the small cloche and to do that I had to take out the trays of herbs. They are on the window ledge of the house for now.

You might recall that I brought my herbs back from Brussels and planted them in a trough. I had some more in small pots and so I made up another trough and those herbs have gone into there. I’m putting them in troughs so that in winter I can take them indoors.

The mint I left in a pot and planted the pot in the trough for the simple reason that mint goes berserk and spreads everywhere if you don’t contain it.

The soil in the trough by the way is 50% compost from LIDL, 50% soil from when I dug out the earth beichstuhl and a dusting of wood ashes to give it all some potash.

So that was the afternoon. In the morning I was computing and before lunch I did a load of washing – the first for ages down here but you might recall that I did a few loads in Brussels when I was there and Liz kindly did a few loads for me while I was helping Terry.

This evening was the Anglo-French Group. Mark prepared a good game for us and we had some fun. We were somewhat divided into two groups though – some of us working upstairs and the others talking and smoking downstairs.

So tomorrow now that the garden is done for this week I’ll carry on moving stuff from the side of the barn. I want to get all of that stuff moved as soon as possible.

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Sunday 6th June 2010 – I went to a barbecue this evening …

… round at Bill’s house and it was nice of him to invite me.

So a barecue – eating outside – yes, you’re right! The weather has changed yet again. Waking up this morning (someone perishing well telephoned me at the unearthly and ungodly hour of 09:51) it was cold, clammy and grey. And as the day continued it got worse and worse.

Luckily Bill had managed to borrow one of these pagoda tent thingies from someone so we weren’t all getting wet otherwise it could have been nasty. The Hound of the Baskervilles made its displeasure felt (or rather heard ecause he was locked up in the house) during the evening but what do you expect?

And that was my day. I haven’t done anything else and I’m not all that concerned. Sunday is a day of rest.

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Saturday 5th June 2010 – I was in Marcillat en Combraille this evening …

… for a meeting about tourism. I arrived promptly at 19:30 to find out that the meeting actually started at 17:30. At that time I was in the swimming baths at Neris les Bains.

But nevertheless I was well-entertained by the woman who runs the tourist board and towards the end of our discussion I realised why it was that I had been invited. It seems that the Allier’s equivalent of SMADC also run some kind of programme on local radio – in this case Radio Tartasse – and they are interested in an English-language programme. Of course, before I say anything I need to speak to Liz about it but I did suggest that they talk to Christian at SMADC and see about syndicating what we do for them.

After the meeting I went for a drink with Marianne at the local hotel and in there drinking were Geoffrey and Francois from the Anglo-French group. We had a good chat about things while we were there.

On the way back to Caliburn, just as the sun was setting I couldn’t resist taking a pic of the village square and the donjon. It was just at the right time too – not too light and not too dark either – and it’s come out pretty well. It does help, having a good tripod.

It’s been probably the hottest day of the year today. The temperature reached as high as 35.8°, which is the highest temperature since 7th September last year.

Not much chance of having me working in that. I spent the morning watching the local farmer repair the fence at the back of the house here and then bring his cattle along, and then I spent the rest of the morning doing some work on the website.

This afternoon was shopping and nothing exciting, and then into the pool at Neris.

But I’ll tell you what – I’m noticing more and more tattoos on more and more people over here and I can’t do with tattoos at all. There was one woman in the pool, clearly in her early 50s and with a figure that most women half her age would die for – and she knew how to show it off to the best advantage too – and covered with tattoos. I just don’t know how people can do it and I don’t know what pleasure there is in it either.

There was another woman in there too – and as she went swimming past me on her back I thought of saying to her “for God’s sake don’t breathe in!”.

So here I am in my room tonight – it’s 00:20 and I’m shirtless and it’s still 27° in here, even with all of the windows open. In fact it reached 28.7° degrees in here at one point.

Heaven knows what it’s going to be like in August.

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Friday 4th June 2010 – I needn’t have worried …

… about getting up for 09:00. At about 06:15 some kind of rodent on the roof decided to try to scratch away at the tiles to try to get in. And so there I was, lying in bed quietly reading a book until 08:00 when the alarm went off.

Then it was off to Marianne’s and off to pick up the Foreign-language library. The people in whose shed it’s stored are selling up and so the library needed to be moved. Marianne had the key but when we got there, the owners of the shed had put this huge whacking great padlock on the door.

It totally amazes me the people who spend probably tens of quid on these enormous heavy-duty anti-theft anti-everything padlocks, and then use a hasp and staple that is fixed to the door and doorframe with woodscrews rather than coachbolts. So 30 seconds later we were inside the shed and moving the books.

We’ve put the books in the garage of a neighbour for now – a little old lady in her 80s. This lady was telling us how her garden had gone to pot and she had had some professionals in to sort it out for her but there was lots that needed doing. I mentioned that I had a friend in the business and described what he did.
“Petit bricolage? Isn’t that the kind of person that goes around doing little odd jobs for single elderly ladies?” she enquired.
I can see that I’m going to have to start charging Terry 10% commission! But seriously the best way to develop the kind of business that Terry is doing is to talk, talk and talk.

Marianne made lunch and then I came back here and ran Caliburn a few times up and down the lane at the back to tamp down the track. But it was far too hot to work – it’s been a gorgeous day – and so I stayed up here until 17:00.

I’ve now started to move stuff from around the outside of the barn and put it on the hardstanding. I need to make the space to put the scaffolding for when we do the roof. That’s going to be pretty imminent.

-2

Thursday 3rd June 2010 – I went outside this morning …

… and had another look at that damp patch. I went to have a dance in it and sure enough a whole pile of water welled up in my footprints.

I have mixed emotions about this. I’d like the new hardstanding to dry out as quickly as possible so that I can use it, but on the other hand I can see the advantages of digging out my own well.

So I dunno. Bernard reckons that it might be 8 days before it’s safe to drive onto the hardstanding – to give it time to settle and to tamp down, but this damp patch he reckons will take much longer. I’ll be interested to see what it’s like in a fortnight.

But I was right about this morning. I had a nice leisurely breakfast, did some work on the computer and spent most of the afternoon in the garden planting. I’ve more veg coming through but it’s still weeks behind down there. Mind you we had a good hot windy day with the wind now blowing from the east. I’ve done some tidying up as well and I can now get into the barn for a change.

And talking of the barn it won’t be long before we start on that roof. At least all of the stuff that’s lying around in the way can be put on the new hardstanding.

Tomorrow I have an early start. I need to be in Pionsat at …errrr…. 09:00. No idea how I’m going to manage that.

-1

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 – The quarry opens …

… at 13:30 after the lunch break and at 13:40 the lorry turned up. It took him a good 15 minutes to negotiate the tight angles and corners around here, but once he was in position, he promptly deposited 15 tonnes of gravel.

The lorry then went away and half an hour later it was back with another 15 tonnes which was likewise promptly unloaded.

There is a downside of all of this, and that was that he left with a cheque for €628. Hasn’t that torn a huge hole in my budget for this year?

And if that wasn’t enough, at 16:30 Sebastien and Bernard turned up despite their bereavement and immediately set to work.

They were only here for an hour or so before they were all finished, so it didn’t take too long. Mind you, they did tell me that they were here all Saturday afternoon digging out and moving about 30 trailers worth of rubbish and so on, depositing it in the waste land up the lane, and they did an hour of spreading and tamping down with the digger.

It’s cost me another €200 for the labour and machinery for everything that they did, which might sound like a lot to some people (but certainly not to me) but when you think about it, at a minimum wage of €8:50 per hour, €200 represents about 24 or 25 man hours of labour alone. And would this ever have been done by a man working 25 hours with just a shovel?

Anyway, they’ve left behind them about 80 square metres of hardstanding. And you have to admit that this looks pretty good too. This was much better than I was ever expecting.

But we’ve hit a problem in that we might have uncovered a hidden spring. Water is bubbling up and of you look closely in the middle of the image there’s a large damp patch. After they went I spent about an hour sinking rocks into it to bind together the sand and gravel and also to allow the water to bubble to the surface if that’s what is happening. It’s best to get it to come out in one place rather than undermining the hardstanding, and then I can simply lay a trench and pipe it away.

However I reckon that the weather might have something to do with it. You know about all the rain we’ve had recently and we had another 24mm today. There’s water everywhere.

Jean and Elizabeth and their friends popped round today as well to see how I’m getting on. Elizabeth is impressed with the garden and Jean is impressed with the work inside. It’s been a long time since they came here.

Tomorrow I’m going to take it easy. It was hard work shovelling that stuff today.

-2

EPIC HALL

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