Category Archives: old cars

Wednesday 25th September 2013 – CROSS-BORDER INCIDENTS

We’ve had one of those today.

I’ve left Rachel and Darren’s, and I’m back on the road again, heading South-West, and that of course takes me over the border into Great Satan.

Just for a change, I crossed over the border at River du Chute, a tiny little part-time border crossing up near my piece of land, where I woke up the border guard. It’s clear, in some internal staff regulation somewhere, that border patrols have to give “the works” to a certain number of border-crossers every hour, and so when you haven’t had anyone across your border for three weeks, then this is your one chance in a lifetime to take out the thumb-screws.

This interrogation included the legendary conversation –
Border Guard “Why are you crossing over here?”
Our Hero “Why not?”
BG “Where have you come from?”
OH “Centreville”
BG “So why didn’t you cross over there?”
OH “Because I wanted to cross over here”

And so we then had the full search of the Dodge. I suppose it might have been different had I answered the questions differently, but seriously, just how DO you answer questions like that and keep a straight face? It was also the first time that I have ever been asked to show my driving licence.

But if anyone wants a finer example of the fear and paranoia that is gripping the citizens of the United States, you son’t eed to look further than this. It was just like trying to cross the border into the Soviet Union back in the 1970s and I’m waiting for someone in authority in the USA to admit that maybe the Soviets had a point. 50 years of destroying Communism and then they install the worst aspects of it in their own country.

Pillarks.

mennonite horse buggy with cornBut anyway, having manipulated my way across the border and inspected the old cars and tractors, and manoeuvred my way around the Mennonite horse buggy convoys transporting the corn that they have been harvesting, I was off on the next stage of my adventures.

At Presque Ile I built up the supplies again, and I also bought a new bed. This bed is really nice and comfortable but it’s rather Heath-Robinson and extremely difficult to manoeuvre around, and impractical when there’s more than one of you in the vehicle. And as well as that, having been screwed and unscrewed so many times, the fixture is weakening. However today, at Walmart they were selling a real “Coleman” folding camp-bed with mattress, and I don’t mean one of these cheap and nasty cots but a proper lightweight bed with springing and the like, and all for $50. That’s much more convenient and easy to store.
Now what I’m doing is heading to Albany in New York because I want to go back to Montreal via Lake Champlain and the Richelieu Valley, the route of the “Last of the Mohicans”, and so I’ve drawn a straight line on the map between the two points and I’m doing my best to follow it.

triumph herald convertible left hand drive ashland maine usaThis route is producing some stunning scenery, not the least of which is this early Triumph Herald 948 convertible. When was the last time that you saw one of these in the UK, never mind anywhere else? I didn’t know that they exported these to North America, and this one is Left-Hand Drive, as you can see.

But it shows you the demise of the British motor industry when just 50 years ago they were selling all kinds of marginal products to different places all around the world, and 10 years ago they couldn’t even sell anything in their own country. I can’t recall any other manufacturing base that has collapsed so quickly and so completely.

My route has also taken me over the 100-mile dirt-track Highway 159 into the Baxter State Park and it’s here that I’m staying the night. And it was here that my good fortune ran out because not only was I nabbed for the gate fee, I was also nabbed for the campsite fees. Still, the first this year after all of the “visiting” that I had done to date. I’m not complaining too much.

Anyway, it might only be 19:30 but I am totaly whacked, so I’ll see you all again in the morning.

-6

Sunday 15th September 2013 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… the sun was out this morning. Absolutely right on cue too, because the festival is now over.

I consequently caught up with a few more mundane tasks such as tidying up, something that I seem to be rather lax about as you know. Anyway once that was sorted out and a few other things up to date I headed for the hi… town.

We’re back into the more mundane photography too, as you might expect. This one isn’t mundane though.

During the various land reclamation schemes that have gone on throughout the world for over a thousand years, one aspect that has occurred almost everywhere is the straightening of water courses to ease the flow of water and to reclaim more fertile farming land from the bed of the old course of the river and in particular, some of the more pointless meanders.

ox bow lake fredericton new brunswickThese areas are of course filled with silt from the river and so are more fertile than the surrounding land but as the soil is less compact there, any really heavy rain sinks in and is absorbed like a sponge rather than running off. When these areas are thoroughly saturated in prolonged heavy rain the water rises to the surface and you cans ee traces of the old water course.

There’s a marvellous example of an old meander, what they call an “ox-bow lake” this morning on the way into Fredericton via the old road

dodge power wagon frederictonA little further on we encounter another interesting item. This is a Dodge Power Wagon from the 1940s I reckon (but I’m never very good at guessing the ages of American vehicles).

It has been mobile, would you believe, but its last licence tag expired in 1977 and it looks as if it was used for a while subsequently as a stationary crane for a paving company. Anyway it’s not been used for ages, all rusted up, and it seems to be on its last legs, which is quite a shame.

In town, there was nothing at all going on and so I wandered around for a while and then, taking full advantage of the public internet access in Fredericton, I wrote the web page for the Canned Heat photos and they are now on line. For reasons concerning copyright and image theft I’ve degraded the quality of the photos substantially, but there are high-quality images available for anyone who would like to see them, as long as you say the magic words.

So tomorrow I’m back on the road. No idea where I’m going, though. But ask me if I care?

-5

Sunday 8th September 2013 – “NOTHING IS MORE EMPTY …

clinton agricultural fair fairground maine USA… than a deserted fairground” said John Betjeman in his book First and Last Loves.

So I reckon that he must have been to Clinton, Maine in the past because, believe me, this was empty and deserted. Mind you, it was something silly like 07:30 in the morning in the middle of a torrential rainstorm so that might have something to do with it.

Anyway, we didn’t hang around any and we were on Interstate 95 pretty early heading back northwards. A stop at Dysart’s truckstop for breakfast (for me, beans on toast with hash browns on the side) but, unfortunately, no cheerleaders, and then off shopping to a place called Sam’s Club.

Anyone from the UK will immediately recognise the concept only under another name – Makro – a trade warehouse for small businesses.

We ended up with three trolley-loads of stuff to bring home but I reckon that I won the prize, finding a copy of “Dragon”, the speech recognition software that works with my new dictaphone, and all for $45, which is cheap in any kind of currency.

We were so long in there that the sun was out when we left, and by the time we arrived at Houlton, it was a pleasant evening. Here we changed partners. Darren and Rachel were in a rush to get back home but Zoe still needed some shopping so I swapped passengers, and Zoe and I went on a rather fruitless expedition around some of the Houlton shops.

abandoned rolls royce scrapyard bridgewater maine USAThe border crossing is at Bridgewater in Maine – that brings us over to Centreville, and here at Bridgewater is a junkyard and a sight that you don’t see every day – a scrap Rolls Royce. THat shows you just how much these new Rolls Royes have degenerated since the days of the Silver Cloud in the earky 1960s.

It’s not the first Rolls Royce that I’ve seen in a scrapyard. The legendary McGuinness’s in Longport, Stoke on Trent had a Rolls Royce in there for a few years, but that was full of silt to a depth of about 9 inches – clearly major flood damage and probably only Third-Party insurance. Beyond the financial capability of anyone to put right, I imagine.

But this one seems to be undamaged in the general scheme of things – I reckon a major repair bill that is beyond the capacity of the owner to put right and enough to frighten off any prospective purchaser.

But what a way for a Roller to meet its end – stuck at the back of a junkyard off the beaten track in the wilds of Maine. That’s a sad story.

-2

Thursday 5th September 2013 – I’VE ARRIVED …

… in New Brunswick now, at Rachel’s house. And arrived an hour late too because, although I know it better than most other people and I even have an extra clock programmed into my computer especially, it went clean out of my mind that the Maritime Provinces are in a different time zone to Québec.

MOrris 8 cabano quebecThe route itself is quite interesting. For example, when was the last time that you saw a 1940s Morris 8 in the UK? Seeing one over there today would be quite something so seeing one here in Canada is quite something else. This is an E series Morris 8, production of which lasted 10 years from 1938 to 1948.

It’s for sale too and I had a good look, but having the world’s worst body repair and the world’s worst spray job and with loads of bits missing, it’s something that doesn’t have too much of a future unless someone does something about it pretty quickly

lancaaster bomber kb882 edmundston new brunswick quebecSomething else that doesn’t have too much of a future is KB882, my Lancaster bomber at Edmundston in New Brunswick. THe owners of it have no idea what they have here – it’s one of only 7 surviving Lancasters and one of only three that flew active service on missions in World War II over Germany and it flew into this airport in 1964 when the locals stuck it on a plinth. And here it sits, 50 years after, having been looted and pillaged ever since.

I have called these people “clowns” and other uncomplimentary names and I know for a fact that they have read my remarks and so I shall continue to call them that until they swallow their pride and hand this aeroplane over to someone who appreciates its value and gives it the respect and repair that it needs. The treatment that KB882 has suffered at the hands of the good burghers of Edmundston is nothing short of a national scandal.

-4

Saturday 29th June 2013 – WELL I WAS WRONG …

… about my weather prediction today. In fact it started off grey, wet and miserable and simply got worse and worse.

And in something that must be a new world record, I was in Montlucon, a quick round of all of the shops and back home by 12:30, would you believe?

What has contributed to that a great deal is that theres a new Leclerc hypermarket opened just a little way down the road from Brico Depot.

It’s huge, clean and tidy, the parking is really easy, the aisles are nice and wide and, in common with most Leclerc hypermarkets, there are plenty of checkouts and they are always well-personned so there are none of these enormous queues that you find in the Auchan and the Carrefour.

For these reasons alone, the new Leclerc will get my vote for shopping for the forseeable future.

I didn’t in fact leave my notebook at Brico Depot. It was in my pocket all the time.

Nevertheless I went and redid my shopping there this morning and with no pressure from any outside influence I bought everything that I’m likely to need to finish off this bathroom properly.

I’ll restart in there on Monday and put my back into it.

I came back a different way that usual and I’m rather glad that I did.

1962 opel rekord domérat montlucon allier franceDespite everything that I’ve recently been saying about old cars on islands, you do still occasionally find them on the mainland too.

And here just down the road from LeClerc at Domérat I stumbled across probably the most exciting car that I’ve seen for quite some considerable time – Peugeot 230 pickups excepted of course.

And isn’t this a real beauty?

1962 opel rekord domérat montlucon allier franceShe’s a 1962 Opêl Rekord 1700 P2, in almost-mint condition, one owner from new and with just 67000 kms on the clock.

It’s for sale at just €7500 and I could easily be tempted by this, although Opel did make a pick-up version and a convertible, one of which would be even an more exciting find,

Even nicer though would be the Soviet Union’s copycat GAZ M21 III but I wouldn’t have a clue where even to start to look for one of those.

This afternoon I did a little (yes, just a little) tidying up here and then, despite the miserable weather, it was time to go out.

fete de st jacques virlet village walk puy de dome franceRegular readers of this rubbish will recall that at the weekend round about the Fête de St Jacques it’s the custom here in Virlet to go for a walk to beat the bounds of the commune and have a little party afterwards.

Despite the miserable weather, a hard-core of about a dozen or so of us set out, up tp our knees in soaking wet grass and sliding about on the mud.

It made me feel quite at home.

fete de st jacques virlet village walk puy de dome franceIt did brighten up slightly as we made our way around, and it became much easier to walk once we were on the metalled road.

Neverthless, it was still far too wet for our traditional feu de joie, but someone did bring a DVD, a copy of the Fernandel film En Avant La Musique – a tyical whimsical film of village life in Italy during the war, and we sat around and watched that instead.

All in all we had a good time. I wonder what tomorrow will bring me.

-3

Thursday 20th June 2013 – AS I HAVE BEEN SAYING …

… "and on more than a few occasions too" – ed … one of the benefits of living on an offshore island miles from the mainland is that as long as you keep your car on the island and don’t wander too far, the Controle Technique requirements are usually … errr … more adapted to island life

You stand a very good chance of seeing vehicles that you wouldn’t see in many other places.

old opel kadett B 1970 ile d'yeu bay of biscay franceA case in point is this gorgeous late 1960s – early 1970s Opel Kadett B that Cécile and I stumbled across on the supermarket car park this morning.

It’s Opel’s version of the car that the British knew as the Vauxhall Viva. More reliable, not so prone to rust but so much more lacking in character if you ask me.

And I can’t think when was the last time I saw one of these anywhere else either – not even when I lived in Belgium. It’s in … errr … an “original state” too – a nice curiosity but not one that would be high up on my most wanted list.

Nevertheless, it proves a point.

plateau peugeot 203 pickup ile d'yeu franceAs you know, what is high up on my most-wanted list is that Peugeot 203 and I had a phone call from the owner today (of COURSE I left a note on the windscreen! What did you expect?).

Basically, it isn’t for sale but he will study all options. What that means is that if I make a massive offer it may well be up for sale, but I’m not sure that I have that kind of money.

But back to the supermarket for a moment. The wi-fi port on Cécile’s computer is in fact locked up in the BIOS and so the internet supplier (in a boutique in the supermarket) offered to fix it free of charge, which he did.

Now Cécile is one very happy little bunny with wi-fi internet connection at last.

We also took the opportunity to do a mega-load of shopping as tomorrow we are coming home. Our time on the island is up – for now at least. For Cécile however, she will have to come back and she is resigned to having to stay here for some time.

This afternoon we sent cleaning up and getting ready to leave the island.

I’ll be sorry to go of course, as I’m most at home in a maritime environment, but I have plenty of other things to do as you know and little time to do them.

-6

Saturday 15th June 2013 – MY PEAR TART …

… was something of a wash-out, I’m afraid, and quite literally too.

It tasted very nice with its layers of pear slices and nutmeg, with powdered chocolate and soya cream all over the top but unfortunately, for reasons that I haven’t yet understood, it ended up swimming in liquid.

The cooking in the oven didn’t dry it out at all, so the base was far too wet. I have a lot to learn about baking, that’s for sure.

Another disappointment was the Charity Shop. It did indeed sell books, all of about 50 of them, and there was only one that might have been of interest to me – Fly for Your Life: The Story of R.R. Stanford Tuck.

But as fortune would have it, and as you might expect, it’s a book that I already own.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceA third disappointment today was the old castle of the Ile D’Yeu. it’s situated on a large rock about 20 metres off the coast of the island, reached by a sort of suspension bridge.

Not the castle itself, I hasten to add. I’d seen that from a distance the first afternoon that I arrived here and I was quite impressed by it.

I was quite looking forward to seeing it and I certainly wasn’t disappointed on that score.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceThe walk from here out to it is really beautiful and the setting is stunning.

However, due to the considerable amount of coastal erosion that has taken place over the centuries, there is only one way to approach the castle, and only one direction from which to view it.

And again as fortune would have it, in the early evening the sun streams right into the lens of the camera from that particular viewpoint.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceIt’s a late medieval fortification dating to the Hundred Years War, Built on the orders of Olivier IV de Clisson.

He was one of the Lieutenants of the King of France during the first half of the 14th Century but fell into disgrace after being captured by the English in December 1342 at the 4th Siege of Vannes.

The manner of his capture and subsequent release (in a prisoner-exchange) led to allegations of treachery which were believed by King Philippe VI and, being tricked into visiting Paris after his release, he was summarily executed on 2nd August 1343

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceThe castle was captured in 1355 by the English under Robert Knolles, born in Cheshire and one of the most able – and probably the most ruthless – of the English commanders of the period in France.

His reputation for devastation of the territories that he captured is still a subject of considerable discussion today, and the burnt-out shells of French stone houses are often referred to as Knolles’ Mitres.

It was recaptured by the French in 1392 under none other than Olivier V de Clisson, son of the Oilvier IV de Clisson who had ordered its building.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceIt declined in importance in the 16th Century and the dismantling began towards the end of the 17th Century following an edict by Louis XIV – the Roi Soleil.

He was concerned that it might serve as a strategic base for the enemies who might attack France.

But the castle does have a most unexpected claim to fame. The castle in L’Ile Noire, Hergé’s 7th adventure of Tintin, is said to have been based upon the Vieux Chateau de l’Ile d’Yeu

But it isn’t all doom and gloom (or doom and sunlight).

The guard-rail that I’ve built for Cécile’s mother for the steps from her front door down to the street level seems to have worked fine, and has been admired by all of the neighbours.

I dug out a hole at the side of the steps (pulling up mostly rocks, I have to say) and sank a length of downspout into it.

hen I sealed off the bottom end with cement to stop the water getting into it, and them tamped a load of soil and gravel around the downspout to hold it well into the ground.

After that, I fitted a mounting bracket (in fact a flooring joist bracket) to the wall and with two of the lengths of scrap wood that we picked up at the builder’s yard, I made a mortice joint with the primitive tools that are on offer here.

I assembled the joint, stuck the upright in the tube and cemented it in, and the horizontal sloping rail into the wall bracket and screwed it in, and there you have an ad-hoc handrail.

Like I say, I could have done it better but there aren’t really any tools here to work with.

old cars mini traveller ile d'yeu franceYou may remember me saying when I arrived here something along the lines of isolated islands and old cars.

And so when was the last time that you saw a Mini Traveller? I cant even think when it might have been that I last saw one.

So here’s one for you to reminisce over.

But there’s something that doesn’t look quite right about the way this car looks (and I don’t mean the wide wheels either) if you ask me and I can’t think what it might be.

Anyway, tomorrow is Sunday and so it’s a lie-in (I hope). I might even have a day off if I’m lucky.

-4

Monday 10th June 2013 – IF YOU PEER …

port joinville ile d'yeu france… through the doom and gloom and the fog and mist you can just about make out the town of Port Joinville on the Ile d’Yeu.

I’ve managed to struggle across the Bay of Biscay. Strawberry Moose was smuggled aboard as a stowaway in a suitcase along with the usual bottle of the hard stuff.

As a result we were treated to strains of “It Was On The Good Ship Venus” all the way across.

After all, you can all remember him rehearsing for the chant de marins competition in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec, Canada last year.

caliburn overnight parking fromentine ile d'yeu franceHere’s my spec from last night though. Tucked out of the way down a dead-end road near a sailing school kind of place.

That was another comfortable night spent here – as you know, I’ve stayed here before and I had no complaints that time either.

I was up and about quite early too, and took Caliburn to the garage where he’ll be staying for the next week or two.

The owner is a big fan of old cars and we had quite a chat – so much so that I almost missed the navette that would take me to the ferry.

Luckily though I managed to leap aboard – well, with such leaping as I do these days – I’m not as young as I was and we headed off into the briny.

fort boyard fromentine ile d'yeu franceIt’s been a long time since we’ve had a ship of the day and there isn’t a great deal of choice here in Fromentine.

This little offshore supply vessel will have to do for now. She’s the Fort Boyard, built in 2002 (although you would never think so to look at her) and just 472 tonnes.

She takes her name from the Napoleon-era island fortress just down the coast near Rochefort.

Our boat, which I forgot to photograph by the way, is just a simple jetfoil thing.

It’s the kind of ship that people as old as me would remember that used to do the express connection between Dover and Oostende back in the 1970s and, looking closely at it, it was probably the same boat.

And not a coffee machine in sight. What a waste of time this is.

And so I passed the time on the way across by reading one of the books that I had bought at the bookshop yesterday.

port joinville ile d'yeu france And it wasn’t until I was half-way across that I realised the significance of the book that I had chosen. Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember – probably the most-famous (and most-likely the most accurate) story of the sinking of the Titanic.

How appropriate was that?

Cécile met me at the terminal at Port Joinville and took me for a ride around the island to show me everything.

And one thing that I do like about island life is that the Controle Technique – or MoT regulations to the British – are somewhat relaxed if you have no intention of ever taking your vehicle to the mainland.

plateau peugeot 203 pick-up ile d'yeu franceAnd so here’s a vehicle that I would absolutely die for.

A Peugeot 203 plateau, or pick-up. I would pay a King’s ramsom to have one of these, that’s for sure.

It’s been my dream to own one of these for almost 40 years, ever since I first encountered one on my walking tour of Finisterre in the mid-70s

plateau peugeot 203 pick-up ile d'yeu franceI’ve seen a few since then, and more than just the odd one for sale, but none that was worth having.

They had rather the unfortunate habit of bending in the middle due to rot round about where the rear of the cab joined up with the pick-up bed and that’s not a do-it-yourself repair by any means.

But this one looks pretty sound underneath, due not least to the amount of oil that has been thrown up out of the rear seal of the gearbox

Apart from that, I’ve had the guided tour of the cote sauvage – the wild part of the island, and it really does live up to everything that I was told that it would.

Mind you, it’s only early June and the tourists haven’t yet arrived.

I bet that it will be nothing like this in August.

-2

Wednesday 29th May 2013 – When was the last time that you saw …

Autobianchi Bianchi Chaussee de Charleroi Brussels… one of these? I couldn’t work out what it was at first. Either a Gogomobil or a Frisky was what was going through my head at first, but it is in fact an Autobianchi, a microcar from Italy and so rare that I haven’t even seen one in Italy. But here it was, sitting by the side of the road in the Chaussee de Charleroi in Brussels.

Anyway, after my lost day yesterday where I spent some of it in bed and the rest of it wishing that I was back in bed, I went out and about. And wasn’t that a waste of time?

Firstly to the Maison Communale for a copy of Marianne’s death certificate, and after much ado about nothing I eventually found the correct person. €8:50 they wanted – per copy – and after picking myself up off the floor and asking for two copies, I was told that I couldn’t have them as Marianne and I weren’t married. A notaire needs to apply, so it seems.

Not to be out-done, I went to the undertaker’s. Now I don’t know what he spends his extortionate fees on, but it’s not on his premises, I’ll tell you that. Art-deco 1920s is my guess and it hasn’t been cleaned since then. The kind of place where, if you give the curtains a good shake, a couple of bats would come flying out.

It seems that I’ve paid (well, I haven’t, but I’ve been booked down to pay for) 3 copies of the death certificate. So the secretary asked me “haven’t you had them yet?”, which elicited the obvious response of “why else would I be here if I had?”. anyway, she rang up the commune to enquire and she was told, and I heard it clearly from where I was sitting “but you never asked for them”. So someone else trying to stick me for dosh on false pretences. Anyway, after a lengthy discussion and “frank exchange of views”, I can go to pick them up tomorrow.

From there I went to have lunch and had the estate agents on the phone. They are extremely worried that I’m trying to deal them out of their commission and are thus keeping close tabs on me. But two can play at that game as well – I was not really in the mood for conciliation today.

After lunch I went for a good walk and found a CD sale. I’m €46 lighter but my CD collection is now considerably heavier and it’s all good stuff too. High time I took more care of myself and my well-being. As long as I can still hear the music I’m okay.

But apart from getting myself soaking wet, that was that. Highlight was, of course, the music. And also the Autobianchi.

 

 

-2

Thursday 4th October 2012 – I STARTED MOVING …

… the stuff from off the hardstanding today.

I laid down a sheet of plastic behind the Mercedes 240D, covered it in cardboard (the plastic, not the Mercedes), and then stacked up all of the breeze blocks that were lying around.

And as I tool a wheelbarrow-load of rubble up to the rubble pile, I came back with a barrow load of breeze blocks and so the pile down here is growing while the pile up there is shrinking.

Mind you, it’s going to take ages to move it all – not least because I need to rake up all of the rubble from out of the sand and clay that came out of the wall.

And if it’s at all possible I need to remove the sand and clay and use that to fill in the paths between the raised beds.

But even so, I didn’t do too much because at about 15:30 the heavens opened and we had a torrential downpour. Impossible to work outside.

That was the cue to come inside and I had a good search for the mop and mop bucket (which I eventually found) and then I washed out and mopped up the cupboard that I had been building at the back of the stairs.

When that was clean, dry and dust-free I then made a start on crepi-ing the walls.

I’ve gone for crepi in there as it hides all of the imperfections and bad joints – it’s not easy working in a space that’s 1.5m x 0.80m.

I’ve painted about half of it before I called it a night – at 19:55. You can see how much I’m enjoying it, even if it is a swine to apply.

But at least, this idea of having work outside in the good weather, and work inside in the bad weather – that seems to be paying off as I always thought that it would.

-1

Wednesday 3rd October 2012 – I SET FIRE TO MY BRASSIERE …

… today.

As you know, i’ve been scything down the undergrowth next to the lean-to to create a load of space where I can store all kinds of stuff while I carry out stage 2, but I’ve been overwhelmed.

6 trees I’ve cut down, with enough firewood to keep me going for a month I reckon, and I’ve uprooted all kinds of shrubs and undergrowth

burning brassiere les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut there’s only so much of the shrubs and undergrowth that can be composted, and apart from that, there was nowhere else to put all of the brambles and so on.

And then, of course, I remembered.

Last year I bought a brassière from Brico Depot just for this purpose and so I spent a very enthralling afternoon burning all of the stuff that won’t compost.

And didn’t it burn well too? br clear=”both”>

So this morning after an early start and a couple of hours on the internet I went out to attack the jungle. Like I say, I cut down 6 trees.

But one of these trees was a proper full-sized tree and that took some moving. I must have spent about an hour digging up the tree stump.

mercedes 240D les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut the area to the side and to the rear of the old Mercedes is now clear, and the next job is to move all of the stones and rubble from the wall of the lean-to that you can see to the left.

Once they are all gone, I can rake over everywhere and level it all out and then lay the tarpaulin out.

Once the tarpaulin in properly in position I can then more all of the stuff from off the hard-standing out in front where I park Caliburn. It’s going to take me an age to do it all.

As if it didn’t take an age to do all of that today. In fact I was so carried away that it was 19:20 when I knocked off today.

In other news, my “new” mobile phone arrived. It’s not new, but a factory-reconditioned one with all bells and whistles and on examining it,

I discovered that not only did it have the bells and whistles, it also had the previous owner’s address books, it had her bank account details and bank card PINs stored in the memory.

What a crazy thing for the previous owner to do, especially with the number of phones that are stolen each year. And then not wipe off the data when you part-ex the phone.

And then for the eBay vendor not to do it makes me wonder what kind of “refurbishing” job that this phone has had.

Aren’t some people totally crazy?

-1

Saturday 8th September 2012 – WHEN WAS THE LAST …

… time I saw an SD1 Rover?

sd1 rover 3500 ohio usa october octobre 2010I can in fact vaguely remember – early October 2010 in Ohio, USA as it happens. Here’s the photo to prove it and I’m still recovering from the shock.

In the UK is must be years ago when I borrowed one that a mate was halfway through dismantling, so that I could go to Kings Lynn to drops some stuff off on a girl that I was seeing at the time and the exhaust fell off halfway out.

And so this morning in Montlucon I was completely stunned to see one drive past me as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. And seeing a second one drive past me an hour or two later was even more astonishing. I’ve no idea what was going on there and I bet that I won’t ever see something like that again.

And I nearly didn’t make it to Montlucon either.

The effects of the last few days have been telling on me, because despite the early night I slept right through the alarms this morning. It was only the farmer bringing the cows back (I’m glad I did that wall when I did) that woke me up.

I had a good wander round and bought nothing much out of the ordinary – maybe a pair of these shell trousers that I wear. Auchan had them on sale at €9:99 so I reckoned that I would buy a pair and see what they are like.

I’m fast running out of clothes because I left a huge pile in my lock-up in Canada to pick up when I go back – which should have been this weekend but it isn’t and that’s why I’m running out.

I had a good hour in the pool at Neris-les-Bains as well and finally managed to see the remains of the Roman Baths – how long have I been going there and I haven’t seen them before?

In the blistering heat the baths was crowded as you might expect. And someone was having a load of fun!

A couple were standing about 5 yards apart and hurling an object about between them – the object being a girl of about 3 or 4. And every time she hit the water she was squealing with delight.

I was squealing too, but for a different reason. All of the pool was open and the water was absolutely freezing. Almost as cold as that pool in Québec back in May.

Tonight the football season gets under way and with no game at Pionsat I went to Marcillat en Combraille to watch AS Marcillat’s 1st XI.

One division higher than FC Pionsat St Hilaire in theory (but they play in the Allier leagues, not the Puy de Dome leagues) but you wouldn’t think so. The match was awful and so was AS Marcillat – they only lost 5-2 but they were lucky to get the two and St Prix should have had a dozen.

I’m off to two matches tomorrow – at Chateaugay for the 2nd XI at 13:00 and then down the road to Clermont la Glacière at 15:00 for the 1st XI.

Two teams that I haven’t seen before.

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Thursday 7th June 2012 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

vinegar water weedkiller les guis virlet puy de dome france… that we discussed weedkiller the other day.

Joy suggested a 50-50 mix of vinegar and water and so I tried it. And you can see the result.

A pile of burnt and scorched grass. And so there’s clearly some mileage in that idea,

Thanks, Joy, but I shudder to think about how much vinegar I’m going to need.

This morning it was work as usual on the website but I didn’t get much done due to a couple of lengthy and complicated phone calls that led to a lengthy form-filling session.

All of that made me late for my trip with Marianne and while Liz was wishing me all the best for the afternoon and me saying something like “knowing my luck it will pour down with rain” we suddenly had the most terrific thunderstorm and cloudburst.

Right on cue, you might say.

church chateau sur cher puy de dome franceAnd so I picked up Marianne and off we went for a good wander around Chateau-sur-Cher.

The village is so named because the remains of a Gallo-Roman fort were discovered on the promontory overlooking the River Cher, on the spot where the church sits today.

It’s certainly an impressive site for a defensive fortification – surrounded on three sides by a very steep climb and I can understand why the Gauls would have chosen it

lime burner chateau sur cher puy de dome francenot only were there some interesting sights to see around the village and around the river, but that we were also directed to an intact chalk-oven and to an outcrop of a coal seam somewhere out off the beaten track on the way back to St Hilaire-près-Pionsat.

The chalk oven took some finding and that’s hardly a surprise. You can see that the chimney is all overgrown with all kinds of everything and you really did have to know where it was before you could see it properly

lime burner chateau sur cher puy de dome franceBut it was totally fascinating, as a good exploration confirmed once I’d been able to hack my way through the vegetation into it.

It seems to have been built from a kit or something like that, because the fire bars are noted with Roman numerals – presumably indicating the position and order in which they should be assembled.

I’ve never seen that before.

coal seam outcrop chateau sur cher puy de dome franceApparently the coal seam that we visited 2 years ago and about which I posted on here breaks out in a few other places in the Combrailles.

We had a good scratch around in the vicinity and, sure enough, we found some evidence. Not worth coming here with a mechanical shovel though – the Highways Department’s sign erectors would have been here a long time ago had it been worth the effort.

There are even some mining remains where someone had a go at trying to exploit it, but they are all overgrown apparently (as if the chimney was not) and so we need to wait for winter to hunt for those.

cadillac deville chateau sur cher puy de dome franceHighlight, for me at least, has to be this beast sitting here abandoned inthe garden of an abandoned cottage in the village.

It’s a Cadillac DeVille, one of the “fourth generation” models from the early 1970s I reckon, and what is significant about it is that according to the maker’s plate under the bonnet it’s actually a “Bienne” – a Swiss model made in that town where general Motors had an assembly plant for 40 years until 1975.

But scrambling over vehicles like this brought back some very happy memories. How poor Nerina must have suffered.

Meanwhile, in other news, I’ve run out of black ink for the printer. I’ll have to see if Terry can order some more for me.

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Wednesday 28th March 2012 – PREPARING THESE RAISED BEDS …

… is not as easy as you might think.

I did another one today and all in all it took me a good four hours to have it ready and planted.

This particular one has the shallots and also some of the onions. And I hope that I have better luck with them than I did last year. I didn’t find a single shallot and neither did I find a single onion.

raised beds gardening les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnyway, here’s a photo of the garden as it is at the moment.

Down the right-hand side you can see the land that I cleared a couple of weeks ago when I had my garden fire The framework for the greenhouse and the windows to fill in the framework are there as you can see.

You can see the drain to the right, and then right on the extreme right-hand edge is the stone wall that marks the property boundary.

There’s also a pile of gravel and a pile of broken bricks there too.

The white metal that you see is the remains of an old Ford Transit and in it is a pile of wood from trees that I cut down when I started to clear out this area, whenever that was.

The other pile of wood in the right foreground is from trees that I cut down this winter.

On the left side are the raised beds. Down at the end is the newest of the beds, which will have the new potatoes. To the left of it is the new compost bin.

The three beds covered in black plastic – they were last year’s beds. They are dug through and they will be having beans and peas in them.

Then, by the cloche are the two beds that I have dug out these last two days. The two beds that will be having the brassica and that I dug out last week are the two covered in black plastic by the old grey Ford Cortina.

So just four more beds to dig out, and two that need just a quick going over, and then everything will be ready for planting. But I need to put the early spuds in soon, and the cabbages will soon be past their planting date if I don’t get a move on.

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Wednesday 14th March 2012 – WHAT A SHOWER!

Even though it is soon to be the annual conference of an … errrrr … organisation (said he, using the term loosely) that featured quite heavily in these pages at one time or another, it is not to that which I am referring.

Neither am I referring to my visitors either.

And I use the term in the plural because I had more than one today.

First off at 09:00 this morning, the phone rang and it was Désirée, the local estate agent.

And 09:00 too, you might be thinking, but to everyone’s surprise, including Yours Truly’s, I’d been up for hours. And I mean hours as well. I’d been trying to speak to Désirée for a while and at last she was free and so she came round here for a chat.

Amongst the things about which we chatted, and probably the most important, was the building that I own in Montaigut. Long-term readers of these pages will know that I own something like a derelict warehouse there and I use it to keep some cars, namely the Traction, the 2000E and the Mark V Cortina estate.

Above it though is a large space that was formerly six large rooms on two levels, but the dividers, both horizontally and vertically, are long gone. I need to do something about this place and converting the upstairs into two apartments is what I have in mind.

And so I had a good pick of Désirée’s brains – after all, she’s the professional.

Another visitor was Bill, who came round with a radio-cassette player out of an old car. There was a tape stuck in it and being an electronic unit you can’t get the tape out without power.

At least, most people can’t get the tape out but with the aid of three long fine-pointed screwdrivers and a pair of fine long-nosed pliers, I can manage to do it.

All these years of a misspent youth, that’s what I put it all down to.

2012 first GARDEN FIRE BONFIRE les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn between the visits I finally managed to light the fire, the first of the year. And that is busy (even as we speak) disposing of much of the waste wood and the weeds that I have been pulling up this last couple of weeks.

You’ll notice though that it isn’t on the site of where the greenhouse will be. There was far too much stuff to burn, and the trees were overhanging far too much.

But I’ve left some over there – I’ll burn that off tomorrow and that should kill off many of the weeds on the site of where the greenhouse will be.

But back to the shower thing. At 18:00 I noticed that the water in the solar water heater was at 31°C today, and that the water in the dump load was off the scale again. So 5 litres of that water into the solar water heater gave me 38.5°C and I had my first home-grown shower of the year.

Just for a change I actually feel properly clean.

And I was right about the wind as well.

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