Category Archives: Les Guis

Monday 17th May 2010 – It’s been a long time …

… since you have seen the front of the barn looking like this. In fact, you’ll notice that the Subaru has gone (it’s now down by the Passat) and the caravan chassis has also gone, with the roofing sheets for the barn being put where the caravan chassis was.

Terry and Simon came round today and helped me move the stuff and once we had the caravan chassis out, we changed a wheel, freed off the brakes, pumped up a tyre and took it round to Terry’s.

It’s in worse condition than I thought having stood outside for 8 years in total and 3 years since the dear departed Liz smashed off the body with an axe. So first thing was to take off all the wooden floor and scrap it.

Once we had done that we freed off everything that needed freeing and that was when we noticed the bent corner jack. And in undoing that, that was when we noticed the chassis rot. This is not going to be as straightforward as I expected.

Luckily Terry had some angle iron and an electric welder so he did the first bit and I did the second and considering it’s 15 years since I last did any electric welding I was quite impressed with what I did. But really I’m going to have to get some gas bottles again – I’m much better with oxy-acetylene welding.

Once we had the trailer welded up we went off to order the wood that we need to make a super-duper heavy-duty trailer bed and then we called it a day.

Tomorrow we’ll be grinding off the rust from the chassis, painting it with Hammerite or whatever and then wiring some trailer lights and reflectors onto it. Hopefully the wood will be ready too tomorrow afternoon and we can spend the evening fitting it.

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Sunday 16th May 2010 – Football isn’t everyone’s cup of tea …

… and as we were all staggering off towards the pie hut at half-time today during the match at St Maurice pres Pionsat I couldn’t resist taking this pic of a Biollet St Maurice supporter overcome by emotion due to the hectic pace of the game.

But the young lady fast asleep by the touchline and the blue sky will give you some idea of the weather today. Summer seems to be back – and about time too.

Mind you, I can’t blame the girl for falling asleep because it was one of THOSE games this afternoon. The heat was clearly getting to everyone and so it was played at something of a leisurely pace and in the end, finished as a 0-0 draw.

Pionsat were the better side though and did have one or two chances to take the lead during the match, but I do have to admit I’ve seen many more exciting games than this one. At least, is was a pleasant day out.

I woke up at 09:57 to the sun streaming in through my windows here. It looked beautiful and I couldn’t resist thinking to myself that it was so nice that someone was bound to spoil it. And right on cue the phone rang. Bernard, the football club chairman, wanted to tell me that his son (he who has the digger) wanted to talk to me and could he come round.

So I hauled myself out of bed to wait for him. I asked Bernard a while back if he knew of someone with a digger who can dig out where I want to park Caliburn and he recommended his son. But he was stuck on a chantier in all of this bad weather. It now seems that they’ve been able to work and it may well be that by Friday they’ll be finished. So he came to see the job and reckons he’ll ring me on Friday or Saturday to tell me when he can start.

I told him about Simon’s job and he’s keen to do that too. And by the purest coincidence it seems that where Simon is living is the old workshop of Bernard’s uncle and Bernard was born in the house just next to Simon’s.

This world is getting far too small for me.

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Saturday 15th May 2010 – His NIbs made some more new admirers today.

Yes, we did this furniture removal today and Strawberry Moose came along to take charge, supervise and in general look after the children while the adults did the work.

Of course this calls for a photo opportunity (have you ever known Strawberry Moose to miss out on one of those?) and here he is being feted by James, Samuel and Julianna while Liz, Esther and Lionel look on.

The furniture removal took most of the day, what with one thing and another, but we had a chance to meet up with Clare and Keith. And Clare very kindly donated to the cause a complete set of kitchen cooking knives that she had received as a free gift and which were surplus to requirements. That was really nice of her.

After the removal was over we went back to Liz and Terry’s where we discussed plans for the forthcoming week and also to continue the discussions over our moneymaking activities. We’re a long way from being destitute of course and we are all doing things to keep ticking over but you need to be proactive and take control of matters. Consequently on Monday we will be extracting the old caravan chassis from the wilderness around here, repairing it and loading Terry’s small tractor onto it so that it is ready for work and then fitting the towbar off my old Transit onto Terry’s van so that he can tow it about. Then Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday we will be fixing the pipes at the back of Terry’s house, seeing as the kwikstage scaffolding is up there.

There are lots of other things too but if you plan to finish them all, the first thing that you need to do is to make the start. And that’s as good a place as any.

Once those things are out of the way we can see where we are up to.

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Friday 14th May 2010 – Tomorrow, if I remember,

I’ll post a photo of a whole pile of wooden windows. They are about 6 feet tall and about 18 inches wide – something like that, and there’s probably a dozen of them. They were in Simon’s house when he bought them and he ripped them out for double glazing and asked if anyone would like to take them away.

As you know, in my drive for self-sufficiency I’m growing my own food (assuming that this perishing weather relents and we have some decent late-spring weather) and a greenhouse is an essential. I have the cheap little LIDL plastic one and someone gave me a complete aluminium greenhouse but minus all the glass. However a big pile of wooden windows fitted into a frame like an American balloon house (and how I built my verandah) and stood on breeze blocks and that’s an admirable greenhouse, especially as I can make it to measure.

And see – I did remember the photo!

My day of rest following yesterday’s exertions was broken in the afternoon as Terry decided to try his hand at driving his van. We went round to the Lady from Luxembourg who is looking for a handyman and I introduced them to each other. She was impressed with the size of Terry’s equipment and has signed him on, which is good news for Terry. He’s registered himself with the French authorities as a handyman and so now he needs some clients.

Once that was out of the way we went to Mazan to see Simon. He’s looking for a digger to dig the hole for his septic tank and I know a man (Bernard, the President of the Pionsat football club) who just happens to have one. Simon was out though, but his windows were in and he did say that I could have them, and there were two of us with Terry’s big van (which was empty). And so the rest is history.

Shopping at St Eloy les Mines was boring – there was nothing of note – and that was my day today.

Tomorrow the removal has been put back until 10:00. It seems that I’m not the only one who doesn’t recognise the existence of 09:00 on a weekend morning.

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Thursday 13th May 2010 – "And what kind of time do you call this?" …. ed

Yes, didn’t I say something about an early night? The weather was grey, depressing and miserable and so I wasn’t expecting much but 39 teams turned out for this football tournament. And so it went on until just now – in fact it was 01:20 when I returned home.

And I’m absolutely worn out too because I ended up refereeing the major part of the matches. I have to earn my corn now! I made a few mistakes but I suppose it’s a good sign when you realise it.

Another thing as well – at 15:00 when it all started I was leaping over the barrier onto the pitch. By the time the final came around at 00:50 I was crawling under it on all fours.

Tomorrow is Friday and I ought to be working but I’m tired and exhausted so I’m going for a “Saturday” day tomorrow – a gentle lie-in and then a shopping afternoon. And quite right too seeing as Saturday I should be working on this furniture removal thingy so I need to build up my strength.

Wednesday 12th May 2010 – You can see …

… what I’ve been up to today in the bedroom, even if the photo is rather blurred. I’ve fitted the two uprights (although you can only see one) for the front of the wardrobe and I’ve started to line the walls within the wardrobe with polystyrene insulation.

In fact a good day on this will probably see the wall finished, boarding included.

It won’t be tomorrow though. It’s yet another bank holiday (Ascension in fact) and there’s a footy tournament at Pionsat. And now that I have the appropriate qualifications, I’ve been asked to referee it. But it won’t be for long if the weather is anything like today. We’ve had another totally miserable grey wet depressing day again. Never mind November, it’s actually like a winter January day here. Even the cold is a wintry kind of cold.

In the garden though I noticed that a new potato plant is starting to appear so something is moving. And my onions and garlic are loving this weather – they have fine glorious bushy green leaves the sort that I’ve never seen on anything I’ve grown before.

And in other news, my SIREN number came today. I’m now a registered French tradesman and I can go out and look for work – which reminds me of an international conference that took place back in the early 1980s between Jimmy Carter, President Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth II
Jimmy Carter ….”we transplanted a cows heart to a man and within three months he was looking for work”
President Gorbachev ….”That’s nothing. We transplanted a cow’s leg to a man and within three months he was looking for work”
Queen Elizabeth II …”That’s nothing. We transplanted a complete cow to 10 Downing Street and within three months there were three million men looking for work”.

But talking of looking for work, I’ve been roped in to a furniture removal on Saturday. At 09:00 would you believe? Still, I’ll get up early if there is the folding stuff involved.

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Tuesday 11th May 2010 – Not that it will be of any surprise to anyone, but …

… the good weather didn’t hold. The weather front that was slowly drifting across here last night seemed to have settled down for the day.

It was just like November here again. Patches of sunshine interspersed with torrential rain – another 12mm today – and not much point in doing anything outside. And it was like that even into the evening. As it was getting dark tonight at about 21:20 I looked out of the window to see another cloud rolling slowly up the mountain as you can see.

So it goes without saying – the torrential downpour that I heard when I woke up this morning prompted me to stick my head back under the covers and that was that until … errrrr … later. And after breakfast and a couple of hours on the computer I was a long way from doing anything. Lieneke came round for a chat and she stayed for ages. Not that I am complaining of course – it’s good to see her. We had a long chat and we looked at a couple of websites where she is featured. She also told me that my suspicions are true – Claude and Francoise have … errrr … left the area.

After Lieneke left I had lunch (well, more like an early tea) and then while I was trying to carry on working in the bedroom I had a whole series of phone calls, including a couple from Tracy which was very nice.

So I took the hint and knocked off at 19:00. No point in working if people won’t let you. I’ll try to have a better day tomorrow. But I know that the weather won’t be helping me.

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Monday 10th May 2010 – I was working this afternoon …

… in the bedroom. I’ve put the first layer of battens on the left-hand wall, added another strip of insulation (the last I have as it happens so I need to buy some more) and put all of the counter-battens on the back wall.

Tomorrow I’ll be putting some on the side wall and then starting to put the polystyrene insulation on top.

You’re probably thinking that it’s due to the weather that I was working inside, but ohhhh no. It’s true that when I first woke up it was raining heavily but by the time I had woken up definitively there was a beautiful blue sky and for much of the day it stayed like that.

This morning after working on the computer I planted out the first sprout plants, put the beetroot out to harden off and did some more sowing. I also noticed that the cauliflower are now starting to show themselves. And with the damp conditions in the greenhouse for the last few days followed by the heat today I’m hoping that a few more might take off.

After lunch it was working in the bedroom. I might have to go back to Brussels in a couple of months or so and I’ll be bringing a pile of domestic stuff back with me. I’ve nowhere to keep it as yet so getting the bedroom ready might come in handy so that I can use it as a storage space for now.

This evening we had just a couple of little showers and a thunderstorm as a weather front moved across from the East. But I hope this weather keeps up for a while – we need it.

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Sunday 9th May 2010 – Well, I got my weather-guess horribly wrong.

I woke up this morning to the sound of the rain crashing (and I mean crashing) down on the roof and it was freezing cold. Whatever breeze had blown away the clouds last night had been replaced by a strong wind that had blown them back again.

You can make up your own mind about the weather – I’ll just tell you that in the 24 hours to 22:00 this evening we had 23.5mm of rain. That’s just over 120mm (almost 5 inches) since a week last Friday. Or to put it in more frightening terms, an average of 12mm per day.

From this pic taken at the footy you can just about make out the Font Nanaud (the mountain pass between Pionsat and Gouttieres) in the distance through the rain. That’s the horizontal grey line at about 2/3rds height. You can see the darker squall clouds such as the one hovering over the goal. My estimate was that this particular cloud was at about 150 feet.

This cloud was one of many being slowly blown across the football pitch by the wind, drenching everyone and everything in tons of water. It was horrible.

All of the players were wringing their shirts out every so often and the linesman from Beauregard Vendon was running the line with his umbrella – a sight that I have never seen before and one that I probably won’t ever see again.

As for the football, Pionsat lost 4-0. But it has to be said that firstly Beauregard Vendon are leading the division by a country mile and are unbeaten throughout the season and secondly Francois the goalkeeper was carried off the field with a leg injury after just three minutes of the game.

This deprived Pionsat of the goalkeeper and Christophe who was playing up front went into the goal thus depriving the team of the centre-forward. In those circumstances a defeat was always on the cards.

Apart from the weather, what else can I say?

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Saturday 8th May 2010 – Something exciting …

… happened at the footy this evening.

In fact many exciting things happened at the footy – more of which anon – but the most unusual of them all was at about 5 minutes to half time when I turned around and noticed a cloud of water vapour rising from off the disused railway embankment at the back of the ground. It was quite astonishing.

The second half was played through the banks of the cloud that was being slowly blown across the Overflow End of the pitch by a light but steady breeze. All in all it made for quite a surreal .atmosphere for this … errrr … tense game.

I say “tense” because that’s exactly what it was. With a Lapeyrouse linesman giving goal kicks against Pionsat when the ball hadn’t crossed the line, throw-ins against Pionsat when the ball hadn’t gone out of play, offsides against Pionsat that were nothing like offsides (I was right level with play – much more than the linesman was), and the linesman coming onto the pitch to threaten (yes, to threaten) Gregory after he had put in a heavy but legal challenge on the Lapeyrouse winger.

And with Lapeyrouse players collapsing like ninepins every time a Pionsat player got near to them and with a Lapeyrouse keeper hurling abuse at the Pionsat attackers all throughout the match, how the referee allowed this game to continue I don’t know. But Pionsat lost 1-0 and it’s the result that counts.

Back home (up here is above the cloud level experienced in the valley down at Pionsat) I discovered why the water vapour suddenly rose like that. All the clouds have gone and there is a clear sky with millions of stars again. We were obviously experiencing the effects of the change of the weather – some sudden temperature inversion and a pile of heat radiation into the atmosphere. It may well be hot tomorrow.

I went into St Eloy les Mines to do my shopping earlier and to my surprise almost everywhere was closed yet again. Of course, it’s May 8th – VE Day – and so most places were celebrating the end of World War II in Europe.

But I made an astonishing discovery. I popped round to Claude and Francoise and ….

the bell push has gone from the front door (there’s a long story about this bell-push)
their letter box has been removed
the European Cardboard Box Mountain appears to have disappeared
their car has gone.

All the indications seem to suggest that they have badgered off into the sunset. How bizarre!

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Friday 7th May 2010 – I’ve finished doing the fireplace in the bedroom.

I cut a piece of insulated plasterboard to shape, stuffed it in the hole over the top of the boarding and then screwed it in place. It was a perfect fit too, much to my surprise.

After that I filled in all of the joints with polyfilla stuff and that was that. Perfectly windproof and draftproof.

I’m not going to smooth it down or do a final filler coat for of course it will be covered by the space-blanket insulation, some more polystyrene stuff and then some plasterboard. In fact, if you look you can see where I’ve got to with the battening for all of that.

I’ve been working hard in the bedroom this afternoon, but in the morning I was out in the garden. I did some more succession sowing and then planted the main-crop potatoes. I’d left them in the sun and the warmth hoping that they could chit but they didn’t do all that much. But anyway I didn’t have enough so I went into the bag to get a couple more (there were about 30 left) and to my surprise those in the bag had chitted more than those in the sun. So I hastily prepared another bed to stick them in. No point in wasting them.

At training tonight they had a proper 6-a-side match seeing as how they had two goalkeepers. And I was ashed if I would referee it. Franck the trainer said that it would be a good opportunity for me to practise my technique but I reckon that it was more of a comment on my footballing skills last week. I’ve a lot to learn about refereeing – it’s easy doing it behind a desk in a classroom but it’s a different thing entirely on a pitch. But at least I got my positioning right. That’s always been one of my major gripes about referees.

In other, depressing news which will upset more than a few readers of these pages, Liz’s autopsy has now been published. It appears that while they were doing the surgery on her main artery they “nicked” another small artery nearby with one of the wires that they were using. Ordinarily that would have caused no problems but of course she had been pumped full of anti-coagulents so the cut didn’t clot and she bled to death.

Yes, medical manslaughter as we all suspected.

I remember just before the General Election of 1997 talking about the NHS with a friend of mine, a lifelong Labour supporter. Someone was extolling its virtues (it did have virtues then) and Nina replied grimly “yes, so they had better be careful in whose hands they leave it”.

Nina knew Liz. I wonder what she is saying now.

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Thursday 6th May 2010 – I boarded up the fireplace today.

I knew the offcuts from the tongue-and-grooving would come in handy sooner or later.

There’s a heavy-duty plastic sack at the back of this, and then a framework around the inside of the fireplace. Then the offcuts of tongue-and-grooving were cut to size and shaped to fill in the hole and finally I bunged up everywhere with filler.

Next step will be to screw some insulated plasterboard to the boarding and seal that all round and it should be a nice draught-proof seal.

This morning I woke up at 08:20 to the sound of the rain driving down on the roof. “Badger that for a game of soldiers” – and stayed in bed til 10:00. And after doing some work on my website I dodged the rain to plant out some more peas and beans and then to catch up with sowing some more succession seeds. I’ve a full greenhouse now and it looks impressive but nothing seems to be germinating. This year might be something of a washout in the garden in more ways than one.

But it stopped raining at about 15:00. Some blue bits appeared in the sky and by late evening there was even a sighting of that golden object that hangs around up there some time. But it’s still cold though and I had the fire on again up here tonight.

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Wednesday 5th May 2010 – This is just flaming ridiculous!

It’s the 5th of May today (did you all have a good Star Wars Day yesterday?) and we have had a heavy snowfall. It’s unbelievable.

We were out and about on our travels today, as I told you yesterday, and on the way down to Clermont Ferrand we noticed in the rain that at times it was looking like snow. In Clermont Ferrand we saw one or two cars that had a covering of snow, which surprised us greatly.

But that was nothing like the surprise that we had as we were coming back over the Col des Goules near Orcival we were greeted by the sight in this photo. This is just absurd.

Mind you, in certain respects I whouldn’t have been surprised. When I woke up this morning, the temperature in my attic had dropped to a mere 12 degrees, just like winter in fact and the driving rain that we had through the night was still falling .

Still, never mind. I set of for chez Liz and Terry through the rain and all in all it was very unpleasant but we managed to accomplish all our tasks.

We obtained the tax certificate for Terry’s van and then doorstepped the lady at the Chambre de Metiers who, despite her surprise, received us and gave us all of the information we needed.

After lunch (thanks, Terry) we went to the URSSAF to enquire about why our applications for this auto-entrepreneur registrations for Liz’s and my business plans had never been processed. It turns out that we had missed out a vital step in the process so the woman there (probably the most helpful and friendly French Civil Servant I have ever met) completed mine on the spot (so now I am a properly registered French businessman), gave Liz the advice she needed to complete hers, and told Terry what he needed to do to make his application.

What was funny about the visit to URSSAF was that we couldn’t quite find the building on this Industrial estate so Terry helpfully suggested “it’s a Government organisation so look for the poshest building”. And he was right!

At the Tribunal de Commerce the reception staff were much less helpful – hurling abuse at us as we tried to find out where to go but one of the administrators who we doorstepped in his little office put us on the right track.

But back here, even though it’s cold and miserable and wet (I have the fire on here right now) there is only a scattering of snow. But we have had TWENTY EIGHT mm of rain today and it is still pouring down. You really cannot believe this weather.

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Tuesday 4th May 2010 – I’ve been working inside today …

… and I’ve made an exciting discovery. In the bedroom there was a wooden fire surround with a small coal-fired stove and a metal backplate. So as my insulating of the walls is now about to move around the corner I need to remove the stove and the fireplace.

Once I had done that the backplate came away and a whole pile of dirt dust and rubble fell away with it leaving (after I had cleared it up) a big fireplace.

Including a fire basket too, When I think of all of the time I have wasted looking for a fire basket and there we are with one bricked up in a wall.

So why have I been working inside?
The answer is –
water bucket max temp 11; min temp 9.5. Solar energy in the barn 0.0
Yes, a full and heavy cloud that has stopped any sunlight getting through, and has stopped the heat radiating back into the sky at night.
There’s no need to tell you that rainfall was a whopping TWENTY SIX mm today. You’ve probably worked that out already.

And so there you are.

Tomorrow Liz Terry and I are going to the Chambre des Metiers. I rang them up first thing and the woman explained that she would have someone call me back that morning. Of course they haven’t so it’s doorstepping time

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Monday 3rd May 2010 – Winter has returned.

Yes, blasted weather! Outside 2 hours ago it was just 4.2 degrees and threatening to go even colder. The sky is full of damp and there’s a mist rising from the ground, getting ready (I shouldn’t wonder) to combine with the cloud that is rolling up the hill. I hate this weather!

This morning I had to ring up the British Embassy in Paris and also the Chambre de Metiers in Chamalieres but of course, with them being civil servants they are closed today. So if they are having a bank holiday then so am I, and I stayed in.

I wasn’t idle though. I’d been letting the footy website slip a little just recently so today I edited and uploaded all of the photos, wrote all of the outstanding commentaries that I could find and then uploaded them too. So all you need to do is to follow the links from this page and you will see the history of FC Pionsat St Hilaire this season in technicolour glory.

There are still some reports missing but I reckon that they are on the digital dictaphone, wherever that may be. Whenever I find it, I’ll do them as well.

At the Anglo-French group tonight in Pionsat something happened that has p155ed me off completely and I’m going to have to do something about it before it escalates out of control. After all the work that we put into running it I’m not going to stand by and watch someone wreck it out of sheer bloody-mindedness and behaviour that would be unacceptable in a three-year-old.

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EPIC HALL

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