Category Archives: rob_nicolette

Monday 13th August 2018 – YOU HAVE TO LAUGH!

A few weeks ago Hans and I were in a restaurant in Liège in Belgium surrounded by beautiful young girls who would surely have attracted our attention 10 years ago, but instead we were talking about our medication and bathroom visits.

This morning, Terry, Ingrid and I were sitting around the breakfast table discussing Old-Age Pensions.

We’re getting old, aren’t we?

Ingrid’s spare bed was quite comfortable, and I was joined during the night by one of her cats. And wasn’t the cat surprised when it discovered that it wasn’t Ingrid stroking it, but a stranger?

Once we’d organised ourselves, we headed off back to my house and began to search for objects that I needed and which I should have fetched when I was here last time. I discovered most of them, but one thing – the most important – has eluded me and I’ve no idea now where it might be.

With the piles of plastic crates that I brought with me, I started to pack up the books, CDs and DVDs that are still down there. But I did say that this was going to be emotional and I was quite right – especially when I discovered the mouse nests, complete with baby mice, in amongst all of the books.

It’s amazing just how much nature has taken over since November 2015 when I was carted off to hospital. To come back and live here, what with all of the weeds and all of the livestock, would be very difficult indeed for me.

In the end, I abandoned the project and locked up the house. I’ll have to come back and do some more when I’m feeling much more like it, whenever that might be.

We went round to say goodbye and thank you to Lisette, and also round to say hello and goodbye to Rob and Nicolette. They have always been very good to me and they were very supportive when I was here a few weeks ago.

We said goodbye to Ingrid too and I arranged with her that once my October session at the hospital is over, she might come to visit me for a while. She starts a training course in October so we’ll have to see how it fits in with her timetable.

Terry’s van is much more powerful than Caliburn but it has a low-ratio gearbox for more torque (which is just as well when you see what it usually pulls around behind it) and so it’s not so quick as Caliburn when it has a load on.

But it went really well on the way back and even though we stopped for half an hour for lunch, it took us a total of 7 hours from door to door on the motorway, and that’s impressive. Having left at 13:15, we were back at 20:15 on the dot despite having planned to be back by 21:00.

We had a quick snack when we returned, and then I went to bed for an early night. I was thoroughly exhausted and I’ve no idea how Terry must have felt.

0

Thursday 19th May 2016 -I WAS OFF …

… on my travels again today.

I started off at the Doctor’s this morning at &0:00, only to find that my doctor is on holiday and it was a locum in attendance. That means that most of what I wanted to discuss was pretty pointless but I handed over a few letters from the hospital and had a form signed, as well as a quick check-up. My heart-beat is high but apart from that, things seem to be quite normal for now.

Montlucon was the next port of call. I had to pay a bill at the laboratory that does my blood tests and then another bill at the tax office for all of the documents that the hospital gave me before I went off to Leuven. There’s nothing else outstanding that I cans ee for the moment, although I have a couple of bills to pay at Leuven when I return.

Once that was out of the way I went back home for an hour, most of which was spent chatting to Nicolette whom I encountered in the lane. She seemed to be quite concerned about my health, which is nice of her.

Caliburn had his controle technique at 15:OO and the garage had forgotten that I was coming. But they squeezed us in and of course Caliburn passed with flying colours. And then we nipped off to the other side of St Gervais d’Auvergne for his service. So he’s all done and dusted now and ready for the road.

Back here, I crashed out for an hour and then made tea. Microwaved potatoes and mushroom and lentil curry was on the menu followed by some of Liz’s home-made vegan ice-cream. And now I’m off to bed. I’m feeling even worse than yesterday and to make matters worse, my “upset stomach” has returned.

I’ll see if I can pick up where I left off last night because I was off on a few travels too. The first part involved my being somewhere on the continent – it may have been in Occupied Europe or a neutral country during the war but it was a big tower-block kind of building. I was talking to a woman there who was expressing her surprise that the top floor was occupied by the British Royal Air Force Bomber Command which was using the premises to direct the bombing attacks against Germany, whereas just a couple of floors down, the German Luftwaffe had offices used to direct fighter control against the British bombers. I replied that that wasn’t the only thing that was unusual – out in the grounds was a military hospital where half the staff was British and half was German and they were dealing with wounded soldiers of both armies.
From there, I found myself in Crewe in a huge traffic queue trying to go over Edleston Road bridge. I was in a driverless car – a while Volkswagen Karmann Ghia – and so I left the car to see how it would do. And it advanced quite nicely in the traffic, except that it was going too fast for me to walk after and with my illness I wasn’t able to run after it – and this really had be worried. I remember that on the bridge was an end-terraced house with the door round the side (which actually fronted onto Edleston Road) and it was actually my house. I was reminiscing about how many of these houses used to be built on the bridges in Crewe.
We haven’t finished yet, because there was a football match taking place between one of Pionsat’s teams and a team that consisted mainly of females and which only had 10 players. Pionsat were however struggling to get on top in this game and on one occasion they broke clean though the defence and the player had a shot but a defender stuck out a foot and diverted it out onto the post and out for a corner. From the corner the ball came in and the keeper missed it but a Pionsat player headed the ball in off the post for a goal. There were three Pionsat players in an offside position but they weren’t interfering with play so there was no reason why the goal should be disallowed but one of the defenders, a young man, argued so much with the referee that in the end he was sent off the field, which tilted the game even further into Pionsat’s favour.

I’ll see if I can pick it up from there.

0

Monday 14th December 2015 – WELL …

… that didn’t work out quite as planned, did it?

I told you that I was going back home this afternoon to have a tidy-up, but it didn’t really work out quite like that. I did make it home with no problems but the first job was to unload Caliburn. There was all of the tiles in the back, as well as three big sacks of tile cement and grouting, a pane of glass, some floorboarding and a pile of other stuff too.

But although I moved all of the heavy stuff out of Caliburn, and one or two other bits too, but that was my lot, I’m afraid. It rather finished me off. I did manage a little later to make a door handle of sorts for the front door though, so my afternoon wasn’t completely wasted.

I blame a lot of it myself on what was going on through the night. I’d had an early night and started to watch a film, and that’s almost always guaranteed to send me off to sleep, just like it did last night.

And then I was on my travels again. With a fitful night, I don’t remember too much about it. But what I do remember was exciting enough. It concerns something like a vampire on the prowl over London and some kind of surgeon being implicated as the perpetrator. Doctor Watson was leaning out of the living room window at 221B Baker Street whilst musing to Holmes and recounting the 31 departments (are there 31? There were last night anyway!) in a modern Victorian hospital to which a surgeon might be attached. But I was exploring another avenue, a thread that led past a group of teenagers. I somehow managed to filter a message down to them with just enough information to provoke them, so as to see if it might smoke someone out of their cover. And sure enough, some girl rang me to thank me for the information which had helped them greatly. I tried to engage her in conversation, as part of my plan, but the line went dead – either we had been cut off, or (more probably) she had hung up. But I do remember being in my bedroom (wherever this might have been) which was a total tip (as usual) in a bed on wheels so that I could paddle it about the room. And I’d woken up at the usual time despite having had a late night but it was now in mid-afternoon and I was still in bed, not sure how I was going to manage to go back to sleep and also thinking that in five minutes I could have this room looking really tidy, so why wasn’t I doing it?

But that’s enough of that. I crawled myself out of my stinking pit at just before 08:00 and it wasn’t long before the nurse came. I had my injection and also my blood sample (and he burst out laughing when I told them how many goes they had had at the hospital to find my blood) and then I spent the rest of the morning working on the notes for my trip to Canada.

Coming back from home this evening I bumped (well, not literally) into Nicolette. She was taking their new dog Snowy (a younger version of Siroy who is unfortunately no longer with us). We had quite a chat and then I came back here, with Caliburn storming up the Font Nanaud, clearly enjoying being a quarter of a tonne lighter.

So tonight I’m watching Leicester against Chelsea and then I’m off to bed. I have the hospital in Montlucon tomorrow.

-2

Saturday 31st October 2015 – ALL THAT I REMEMBER …

… of my voyage last night was being in another grim little bed-sitter (rather like the one in Hong Kong the other night) but this time with a view over a large green open space that was being used as a public park. The boundaries of the park were a ridge with a stone wall at the top and then a road at one end, the road on which was my room on one of the sides, at the bottom was a kind of wood or copse, and I couldn’t see the other side of the park very clearly.

But I wish that I could remember what was going on.

I was up nice and early in the sunlight and after breakfast carried on with some work that I had been doing.

That took me up until lunchtime when I headed off to St Eloy and the shops. A kilo of grapes at €2:29 went down well – they really were gorgeous – but I didn’t buy anything else apart from the usual.

That was, until I went into Cheze. I bought most of what I needed (eventually after a good search) but no water tank. So I’ll have to make one out of a plastic box and hope that that can keep going. And I met a guy from the football club in there too.

On the way back I met Rob and Nicolette out walking the dog, and then I came back here and had a nice quiet evening – there’s no football this weekend.

So tomorrow will be a lie-in, and then I’ll see what tomorrow might bring me. Cold fruit juice, I hope, because I’ve left the fridge running all night again.

0

Friday 13th March 2015 – I HAD A …

crazy paving les guis virlet puy de dome france… delivery this morning. Terry came round.

I have a patch of uneven ground underneath the window of the ground floor outside. I intend to build a stone wall to a level and then infill with all of the brick ends and rubble that is hangong around here and then pave it over to make a little terrace.

The crazy paving is much cheaper if you buy it by the pallet rather than by the square metre, and Terry wanted half a load for a job he’s doing. It made sense to me to buy the other half and keep it here for a year or so until I need it.

Consequently I didn’t start on the painting of the bedroom until about 11:30, but by 14:20 I’d finished it all. It’s not very good though as it’s thin and patchy. It’s not spreading too well.

After my lunch break (and a little siesta) I went back out and put the second coat on the paintwork that I had done yesterday. As it looks as if I’m going to have to put three coats on, I thinnned it out with another 2 litres of white paint and it now looks like a lovely custard colour.

I went down to Pionsat for the shopping this evening, and on the way back I had to call at Rob and Nicolette’s. It seems that, for some reason best known to herself, the boulangère left my bread there instead of at my house.

Not sure what’s happening there.

-1

Monday 8th July 2014 – TODAY WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… where I didn’t feel like going outside at all. Woken up by another pile-driving downpour of rain at about 06:30, I was thinking to myself “what a way to start the day”.

Anyway I finally made it out of bed at the usual time and had the traditional couple of hours on the web site. And just for a change I made myself a second cup of coffee at about 10:45. I was cold.

Just as I was about to pluck up the courage to go outside working, Rob came round. His internet is down and he was desperate to check his e-mails. Not a problem of course and we ended up having a lengthy chat. That put paid to any plans that I had to go outside to work as by now it was raining again and so I did some tidying up on the ground floor.

I missed out on lunch. I became involved in something on the internet and it was gone 17:00 when I stopped for my butties. And here’s a surprise. The lettuce fairy seems to have come by while I was away. I have 10 small lettuce plants in one of my raised beds and I’m convinced that they aren’t anything that I planted.

Later, I had a chat – in German – with Cécile. That almost finished off the day but I was determined to make at least some progress and so I tidied up in here, dismantled the old easy chair that marianne gave me years ago and I’ve had here in various stages of disrepair over the last 7 years, and erected the new chair that I bought in IKEA the other day.

It has arms that hold me up and so its much easier to work on than the sofa. That has no arms and so I sink lower and lower on that until it’s impossible to work.

Yes, for CHF29:00 this chair seems to be a good buy.

-1

Monday 9th June 2014 – I HAD TEA TONIGHT …

… sitting outside on a garden chair. Yes, at lunchtime, Tery and I moved the chairs and table onto the concrete, and doesn’t that make a nice little terrace? It’s very nice and comfortable.

I had a very disturbed night last night. It was far too hot in here so I left the inverter running all night so that I could have the fan going, but I had to turn it off after a while as I couldn’t get off to sleep.

And during the night I was in prison. And I was too, even down to being in a cell and choosing my bunk. That was frightening to such an extent that I was glad to wake up.

After breakfast I was out straight away and attacked the waste land next to the Subaru. I cleared as much as I could with the long-handled secateurs and then when Terry turned up we attacked it with the digger. The little Kubota did really well pullind the Sankey trailer with the soil and rubble in, up to where we tip it.

land rover minerva parking space les guis virlet puy de dome franceBy the time lunchtime came around we had dug out and flattened a parking space at the side of the Subaru and so we pulled the Minerva across the way into what will be its new home for a while.

That is necessary because where the Minerva was parked, that is where we will be laying the next load of concreting, so it had to be cleared.


takeuchi mini digger digging out earth bank les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce we had done that, we moved the rest of the stuff and then dug out the rest of the earthern bank so that it’s now level with where we dug out the other day.

Terry went off home after that and I tidied up. And then I took advantage of the solar hot water. It was 38°C which is no surprise seeing as we had the hottest day of the year today – 38.4°C. I must have drunk 3 litres of liquid during the day.


While I was emptying the trailer on one of my trips, I met Nicolette who was taking the dog for a walk, and we had quite a chat. It’s been ages since I’ve had a good chat to her.

Up here in my room it was 31.8°C, and so it was no surprise that I ended up eating outside tonight.

Tomorrow I’m going early into St Eloy so that I can order all of the breeze blocks that I need to build the retaining wall and line the inspection pit, as there will be one of those here too, and I’ll also order the concrete cubes that I need to build up the columns that will support the roof

-4

Saturday 1st February 2014 – CALIBURN STARTED …

… first turn of the key this morning. But then again, the temperature was much warmer and, after the glorious, magnificent day yesterday when I had 134.4 amps of surplus solar energy, it was overcast and pouring down with rain.

And I didn’t even stop for breakfast either but straight off to Montlucon just like young Janet going to the fair at Carterhaugh in Tam Lin – “as fast as go can me”

First stop was the Auchan where I hadn’t been for ages, and I bought the things that I couldn’t buy yesterday. but hasn’t the Auchan changed? Store enlarged and everything moved around, but fairly deserted. You can see where the new LeClerc has found its customers.

Second stop was Brico Depot where I spent a staggering €450. But then, I need about 85 m² of insulation to do all of the walls downstairs and when you see this space-blanket insulation on special offer – 23-layer thickness for just €3:80 per m², which is far, far less than half-price, well, you have to go for it.

I also bought the paint (and I’m still recovering from the shock of course) and the tongue-and-grooving for the ceiling out here, as well as a huge pile of staples for the percussion stapler seeing as how I’m running low.

And that, dear reader, was that. Not even 12:00 and I was well on my way home. So much so that it wasn’t until I arrived home that I realised that I hadn’t bought the big water filter kit that was on offer at just €59:00 and which I also desperately needed.

GRRRRRRRRR!

sapeurs pompiers fire brigade montlucon allier franceOn the way back through the side streets of Montlucon I pass by the fire station and there’s always some exciting stuff going on there.

Today they were stretching the extended ladder and the young apprentice firemen … "firePERSONS" – ed … werepractising running up and down the ladder. I had a good look at them and then left them to it. Far too tiring for me, even just looking at it.

annual village meeting virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon we were having the annual village get-together at the village hall in Virlet. M Le Maire gave his little speech, and I spent most of the time chatting to Pete Marsh and his lady-friend and also Rob and Nicolette from up the road here.

I didn’t stay long because I don’t “do” social events, but I did stay long enough to receive my village Xmas prezzy (an LED pencil-torch) and also a copy of the photo that they took of me for the village year-book.

So now I’m home and I’m staying home. No footy tonight but the season restarts tomorrow with Pionsat’s 1st XI home to Lapeyrouse.

-6

Tuesday 9 July 2013 – I WAS RATHER OVER-OPTIMISTIC …

hole in wall aeration bathroom les guis puy de dome france… with this idea that I might be able to finish this wall today.

You can see that the smaller pipe that will be the aeration for the composting toilet, that’s in place, but there’s no sign of the larger one that will be about 6 feet above it, and I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to do it.

I’ve come up against a solid lump of ironstone and while I was able to drill over half of the wall thickness, I didn’t even make 10cms today.

This lump has a triangular point that is sticking out right into the path of the core drill and the inside of the core drill has grounded out against it.

I’ve drilled all round it with a long SDS drill and I’ve been pounding away at the triangular lump with an SDS chisel and point, but the hole is too deep to do much good and the triangular point is stopping the chisel and point from having a good grasp of the rock.

What I can see me having to do is to grind off part of an angle-grinding disc so that it will fit down the hole, and I’ll have to see if that might do anything. It was really frustrating, I can tell you.

Of course you might be wondering why I don’t go in from the outside.

I must admit that at one time I was ‘arbouring thoughts about that but with not having a small arbour any more, I need to stand off the wall about 1 metre.

With this enormously heavy and powerful SDS drill about 7 metres off the ground on a ladder, you can see that it’s not really possible.

But I had another good night’s sleep last night with the fan going all night for a second time (it was 27°C up here) and the much-maligned and totally underrated Percy Penguin put in a rare appearance in my dreams. My subconscious is clearly trying to tell me something. And awake before the alarm went off, I was all set for a good day’s work on the computer – at least until Rob came around.

hole in wall aeration bathroom les guis puy de dome franceBut just look at this. Those of you will remember that my good friend Liz died in March 2009 and I bought some fruit trees to plant in her honour.

What with one thing and another though, they’ve remained stuck in the buckets in which I originally planted them and so they are pretty cramped, but one of them has actually produced a fruit.

How astonishing.

But what else?

Ahh yes! When I knocked off I had a look at the water filters and, as I expected, they were choked solid with muck and all kinds of things.

Anyway, the sandbag, the puzzolane and the stainless steel filter have been thoroughly rinsed and cleaned, and the fibreglass mesh has been replaced.

Now it passes water even better than I do, and that is saying something.

All I need now is some rain. But not until I’ve finished this blasted wall, please.

In other news, there’s talk of a furniture removal from Le Quartier up to Gateshead in the very near future. I can’t really spare the time but I would really enjoy the trip.

-5

Monday 8th July 2013 – LAST NIGHT WAS …

… so hot that it was well gone 02:00 and I still hadn’t been able to lie down. Over 25°C up here, it was.

And so I did something that I’ve only ever done once, I think, before.

That was to leave the inverter running all night and I dug out the mains desk-top fan and left that running on the “low” position all through the night.

On that position the fan makes just a gentle humming noise and I think that that rocked me gently off to sleep.

Up at the usual hour of 07:30 as well (although I didn’t feel much like it) and after breakfast I carried on with the website for at least … ohhhh … half an hour, before the first interruption of the day.

Despite having his internet fixed on Friday morning, it’s gone down again so Rob was looking for the use of my cable for half an hour or so…

Ohh yes – who’s next? Yes, there’s this local Reactionary rag called the Trou des Combrailles – the local hippies and activists feuding within its pages.

They are doing an article on wind turbines and they want to feature something about me in it, so someone was sent to interview me.

Apparently they are against wind turbines because they “look ugly”, so I asked the reporter chappy if he would rather have a nuclear power station or a coal-fired generating plant up there on the brow of the hill,

However, in common with most NIMBYs (and these environmentalists are no different that anyone else) they would rather have their electricity from a nuclear power plant next to someone else’s back yard rather than something ecologically and environmentally-friendly near to them.

Eventually I managed to attack the shower room wall seeing as how we had some kind of good clear weather.

And after much anguish looking for my other arbour (which I eventually found) it was all systems go.

breather pipe shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe hole that I started is now finished off, with the pipe cemented in place and with the outer filter fitted.

It just needs to be cut to length though on the inside of the wall and so I’ll do that when the plasterboard is in place.

As for the second hole, well…

The long arbour and the huge core drill are so heavy that I couldn’t lift the SDS drill. How I wish I had a small arbour!

There is one but that’s for an ordinary drill and so I tried that. The very small one is only a 10mm chuck but the other one is 13mm and that fitted, but I broke off the chuck key.

Tightening it up with a screwdriver didn’t work and so it was the SDS drill or nothing.

Of course, it’s a rubble wall on the interior and we collided straight away with a big lump of ironstone and that brought everything to a juddering halt.

But using the battery SDS drill with a 300mm (and then a 500mm) drill bit I spent a couple of hours breaking up the ironstone in situ and once that had been done I could attack it with the big SDS drill and the huge core drill.

By the time 19:00 came round and the power started to drop off (it IS 1400 watts, after all) I’d done well over half of the core drilling. And there was dust everywhere (and blood on my new wooden floor – drat!)

My hair was a real mess and so in the end I cut it all off and gave it a run over with the sheep shearer. After that I had a hair wash, a long chat with Marianne and another one with Cécile (her mum has had another fall and is now in hospital – a wise decision for Cecile to return).

Now I’m whacked and that is that.

Tomorrow I need to have another go with a standard SDS drill to break up some more of the rock in the wall and then, if nothing else goes wrong, finish off with the core drill.

If I can get all of that done I might have time to strip down the water filters and have a play with them.

-7

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 – WELL, THE SHOWER ROOM …

shower room stud wall les guis virlet puy de dome france… is looking much more like a shower room now.

All of the horizontal battens on the stud wall have been cut and shaped, drilled for the passage of cables, and then screwed into position.

And if I feel like it tomorrow, I could even put the plasterboard onto the stud wall and that would make a whole world of difference;

In fact, you are probably wondering why I didn’t do that this afternoon.

I could quite easily have done too but in fact I was plagued by interruptions.

Marianne and Rosemary both rang me up today for long chats and I was there for ages with them.

And then Rob and Nicolette came round just as I was getting into full swing. Their internet had gone down and they needed urgent access, and then they needed to report the fault.

That took ages to sort out as well and by the time everyone had left me alone the hours were slipping away and it was ever so frustrating.

Of course, I’m not complaining about the interruptions. Quite the reverse in fact.

Firstly, it’s nice to speak to friends and have a good natter. It all helps oil the wheels of social intercourse.

Secondly, when I fell off my ladder back in November 2011 Rob drove me all the way to Montlucon, waited patiently for three hours while I was sewn up, and then drove me home – and wouldn’t accept even a centime for the fuel.

You’ll put yourself out for neighbours like that every time without a moment’s hesitation, but it always seems to happen at inconvenient moments.

And for the first time in I don’t know exactly how long (but we are talking years here) I had music while I worked for the whole day.And it’s quite true what they say, that “there’s none as thick as those that want to be”.

Having tried a whole series of devices to have music where I’m working, I finally worked out the solution that is so obvious to everyone else. Why don’t I simply take my little notebook computer and find a safe place to wedge it?

Exactly what I did and I had music all day. Berk!

As for last night’s dream, I can’t remember too much of it but I do remember having to rescue Strawberry Moose from an oven and finding that all of his antlers were burnt off – something that I found really upsetting.

I’ll have to give up this cheese lark, I’ll tell you.

-6

Tuesday 29th November 2011 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again.

And if I keep on spending it like this I won’t have any left.

First thing was to go to Marcillat in order to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse with Liz.

And from there it was to Montlucon.

At LIDL I bought nothing out of the ordinary but at Auchan I bought as well as the usual stuff a little present for Rob and Nicolette for having looked after me, and also a battery pack seeing as all mine are duff. There it was on sale and I said that at €29 it would be a good deal. But with an air compressor included and selling at €22.95 it was an even better deal.

At Brico Depot they had the plywood that I wanted. And 2mm thicker, it cost €9 less than at the other place. And so I now have all that I need. I’m not sure why though because I don’t have the scaffolding to fit it now, as I said yesterday.

What I can be doing instead though is to build the greenhouse but would you believe I forgot to buy the perspex for the roof.

D’ohhh! That was no good.

There’s an issue over my tubing as well. I can buy it from the steel mill at Montlucon but would you believe that a huge place like that (so huge it has its own railway network and locomotive – which you have seen before) they don’t have a bender.They’ve given me an idea where to go and so I’ll follow that up.

And I have my window! Hooray!!!! That’s safely in the van now.

But here’s a thing.

You’ll have noticed without doubt that I have been strangely quiet just recently on the subject of the front door that I would be fitting to the house. But there’s a reason for that. Brain of Britain has done it again and bought a door that opens the wrong way. Mind you, it was at a give-away price in a sale so there’s no harm done there.

But a casual chat with the sales people at Lapeyre revealed that the “exotic wood” selection – the selection from which I have chosen all of my windows – is being discontinued in February. And as a result, they’ve started a clearance sale. The door that matches my windows – a big one with double glazing all the way down the front, is just €374.

That’s too good a deal to miss and so I have bitten the bullet. Now I shall have to get working.

At Rob and Nicolette’s I gave them their prezzy and thanked them for their help the other day. I was grateful for the effort that they took.

But with me forgetting all sorts of things today, this bang on the head doesn’t seem to have helped me any.   

-2

Friday 25th November 2011 – YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN IN STITCHES …

CUTTING DOWN CONIFER TREES les guid virlet puy de dome france… watching me cut down the conifers at the front of the barn this afternoon.

But I’m not in stitches – I’m in staoles.

6 of them!

All across the top of my head.

I did something today that I vowed that I would never do – and that is to use a power tool to cut down a tree. When you are sawing away by hand, you can feel the tree start to give and you have plenty of time to move out of the way as it slowly keels over.

But with a power tool you can’t feel it and it takes you by surprise. And that’s not good if you are 3 metres up a ladder.

So it caught me under the chin, lifted me off the ladder and dropped me on the floor where my head struck the trailer with a glancing blow.

But I’m inpressed with that Ryobi 18-volt saw that I bought in the USA last year (almost as impressed, Rhys, as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin). It didn’t take long at all to go through this tree.

So let’s look on the positive side.

I was bleeding everywhere and so I went to Rob and Nicolette’s to get Nicolette to look at it as I couldn’t see anything of course. One look from her and Rob was detailed to drive me to Montlucon.

We waited for a couple of hours there (and I chatted to the father of one of the FC Pionsat St Hilaire footballers who had been admitted following a car accident) and then I was examined and stapled up.

What a waste of time that was, though. I have a stapler at home and Rob could have done that without having to waste 4 hours of his time. But I was grateful for his help – it’s nice to have good neighbours.

Of course we had all of the old jokes – “the Doctor examined your head but found nothing” and all that kind of thing.

But one piece of optimism is that many things work better if you give them a kick or if you bang them. I wonder if that will work for me now.

puy de dome franceWhat makes it worse was that I was only cutting down the trees for something to do while I was waiting for some paint to dry. It was so nice again today that I gathered up all of the pieces of wood from the greenhouse and I’ve painted them with a couple of coats of wood treatment and the first coat of the wood staining.

And I was only doing that because I can’t do the roof on the lean-to yet – the scaffolding is in the way.

I was going to give it all a second coat this evening and then start to assemble it tomorrow but badger that. I’m going to have a day off tomorrow.

-2

Monday 25th April 2011 – DID YOU MISS …

… me last night when you were waiting for this entry to come on line?

If you did, you’ll have to improve your aim.

But seriously, we had a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon just as I sat down to read my e-mails. And the first flash of lightning, and that was that.

Rob came round a little later – “has your internet gone too?” It seems that the very first flash of lightning got the village’s internet relay box. How about that for a shot?

Anyway, we had to wait until Tuesday evening for it to come back on line.

Mind you, it isn’t as if you missed anything. With it being a Bank Holiday I had a day off and so I did nothing except read a book or two, watch a film or two, and work on the Newfoundland web pages.

But we had rain, all 4.5mm of it and now there’s about 100 litres of water in the water butts.

I’ve used too much cleaner in there though and so it’s rather more soapy than I would like. But I have 30 litres of clean water that I saved and so I can use that for cooking, and meanwhile keep on drawing off the water in the butt to use for washing, washing up and so on.

I started by drawing 30 litres out and saving it in a different container. That’s reduced the water in the butts of course and so as more rain falls (if it ever does) it has a good start on diluting the cleaner that remains.

It’s all trial and error around here.

I’m quite a trial and there’s error a-plenty!

0

Thursday 25th November 2010 – WINTER HAS FINALLY ARRIVED

There was no snow when I woke up this morning, but it wasn’t half flaming cold.

So after breakfast I piddled off outside and dug up all my onions. There’s maybe about 50 of them and that’s not really enough for a year’s worth of cooking. I should have planted many more than that.

But with the temperature continuing to drop and with the heavy torrential rain that started to fall I called it a day in the garden and started to unpack the supplies that had come from the States and the supplies that Terry and Liz had bought me from the UK.

heavy snow les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd while I was doing that, the heavy rain turned to heavy snow and that was that. It snowed and snowed and snowed and now we have had quite a pasting. It’s sub-zero outside and this snow is going to stick.

I went round to Rob and Nicolette’s too to thank them for keeping an eye on the premises. Nicolette said that she had had some of my beans and courgettes – one of which weighed 4.5 kilos! Courgettes grow well round here.

She had made a huge courgette and bean soup and had frozen some of it for my return which I thought was really nice of her. And in exchange I gave them a little something that I had bought in Canada and which was in the box of goodies.

Funnily enough, I went there at 18:00 for a quick chat and it was 20:45 when I left yet it only seemed like 5 minutes that I was there.

And now I’m holed up here in my room with a raging blaze from the little fire. The temperature was 7.4 degrees when I came up here but a good blaze for an hour or so brought the temperature up to 18 degrees, which is much more like it.

And I have no intention whatever of moving from here.

-3