Category Archives: La Batisse

Sunday 28th June 2015 – I’VE FINALLY MANAGED …

… to have a day off work today. And not only that, I had a decent lie-in too.

Mind you, I had to go to visit the beichstuhl and I did think about going off for a coffee but when I checked the time, it was only 05:45 so there was little chance of that happening. I went back to bed and slept until 10:00. And quite right too!

After breakfast, I reviewed the stuff that I had written for Radio Anglais and found, much to my surprise (or maybe not, as the case might be) that I had a totally new slant today on some of the stuff that i had written. Consequently, I had to amend some of it and edit out a pile of it from the notes so that I can review it for another time. I mean, it has to be correct.

I also built up a database of venues so that there’s a list of websites from which I can extract events to broadcast, and simple contact boxes from where I can copy-paste the information en bloc into the notes rather than having to type it out individually every time.

After lunch, I sorted out all of the washing that needed doing, including the bedding. Seeing as it was 38°C in the solar shower, I had a beautiful soak and I’m finally going to have clean bedding. I’d bought some new linen sheets and quilt cover last time I was at the Auchan and I went to use those, but much to my surprise, there were no pillow cases in the set.

Even more surprisingly, I’d had some pillow cases the same colour when I lived in Winsford 35 years ago and I had hardly ever used them. And even more more surprisingly, I managed to lay my hands on them. Isn’t it good having a well laid-out wardrobe and everything stowed away nicely?

I went round to Cécile’s to check on her house and make sure that everything was OK. That gave me an opportunity to borrow her washing machine to do a load of stuff while I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our radio show.

Liz cooked a gorgeous vegetable pie for tea and the dessert was out of this world – something like a Black Forest Gateau in a wine glass. I’ve never had a dessert as nice as this.

I picked up the washing on the way home and now I’m going to have an early nice – a nice clean me in nice clean bedding. How I’m looking forward to this!

But something interesting has happened on the Social Networking account that I use. I once had a friend – a friendship that ended quite acrimoniously over a posting that he made about me on another site – and he had a daughter who used to confide in me quite a lot about the problems that she was having at home at the time but whom I haven’t seen since then.

All of a sudden, my Social Networking site has put her on my “list of potential friends” whom I should contact. So what’s happening here? How come it is that this site has made some kind of connection between the two of us? Of the couple of billion people who have an account on there, this would be an astonishing coincidence if it’s been a haphazard connection.

Clearly there’s something going on here. I wish that I knew just what it was.

-2

Thursday 19th March 2015 – YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE THIS, BUT ….

… the bedroom is empty of everything apart from a set of steps and the tools that I need to lay the flooring.

Everything that I don’t need for the foreseeable future is now downstairs on the ground floor, as are all of the plasterboard offcuts. The things that I don’t need right now but which I’ll be requiring in early course are now stacked up on the stairs so I’m bound to trip up over them and break my neck before I’m much older.

That left three sheets of plasterboard and that was something that I was not looking forward too. They were too big to go down the stairs, my idea of a trapdoor didn’t work, and there was a scaffolding outside the window that I would have to dismantle.

One sheet was easy to deal with. This was the waterproof plasterboard for the shower room. I needed two full-lenght strips to finish off in there so by the time I’d cut them off, that left me with a full-length strip about 35cms wide and I could pass that down the stairs with no difficulty.

The second sheet was one of those that I bought years ago, one with the 40mm of insulation backing. That however was cracked across its width roughly halfway down so I reckoned that I may as well complete the damage. The tow halves of that went down the stairs with some degree of difficulty, but much less difficulty than dismantling the scaffolding.

This left just one sheet. And I thought to myself “sod this for a game of soldiers. I’m not dismantling the scaffolding for this” and I cut that in half too.

That resolved all of the issues at a stroke (of the plasterboard knife).

This gave me just enough time to sweep out the bedroom prior to lunch. And it does look nice in there.

After lunch I went round to Cecile’s. She and her mum are leaving tomorrow and she needed help to load up her car and to do a few other things too. It gave me an opportunity to rescue the floorboards that I had left there when I needed to unload Caliburn in a hurry a couple of years ago.

On the way back, I went to see Simon. He has a machine for fitting floorboards and he had offered to lend it to me. So I went to pick it up. It’s similar to a stapler, with an automatic magazine for the nails. You have to hit the piston with a heavy mallet to get it to work, and if you have the machine in the correct place, it punches lost-head 3-inch nails right through.

I forget how many times I’ve clouted myself with a hammer fitting floorboards, and if this maching works as well as it looks, I’ll have this floor done in no time.

-2

Thursday 12th March 2015 – I MADE THE BEST EVER …

… fire that I have ever made at Cecile’s today. It burned beutifully and did everything that it was supposed to do. I only wish that it had burned like that during the bitter winter of 2013.

Mind you, it wasn’t easy.

I lit the fire as soon as I went round there, and promptly filled the house with a thick oily smoke. Nothing was coming out of the chimney at all.

I had to let the fire burn itself out (by which time Cecile and her mother had arrived) and then I dismantled the chimney pipes. And no-one was more surprised than me when, after much ramming, prodding and poking, an enormous dead bird fell out. It really was a monster bird and he was well-wedged in the chimney. I’ve no idea how come he came to be stuck there.

Reassembling the chimney pipes was much more complicated, and we ended up moving the stove so that the pipes lined up better. And it was during this manoeuvre that I was drowned in a load of soot (wo much for my gorgeous heated shower in the verandah this lunchtime).

It turns out that with the dead bird blocking the chimney, the soot had falled into the trap and this was blocked solid. Chiseling it all out, I noticed that was a small vent in the trap, presumably to provide an updraught for lifting the smoke up. Unblocking and cleaning the chimney pipes solved many of the problems, but I reckon that it was cleaning out the vent in the trap that gave it the finishing touch.

Yes, the best fire that I have ever seen out there at La Batisse.

So what was I up to this morning then?

I’ve started to put the paint on the wall this morning. Everywhere that I papered on Tuesday now has the first coat of paint.

It’s lighter than the paint colour on the landing. That’s because I found another 5-litre tub of white paint, so I mixed three litres of that into the yellow. It looks much better now and I can’t wait to see it with the second coat on.

I had enough time to go round and mask off the rest of the bedroom. That’s a task well-done and so I can crack on with the rest of the first coat tomorrow

And then I had my lovely shower.

I also found time to do a machine-load of washing at Cecile’s, for which I’m grateful.

And it is nice to see Cecile and her mum again after all of this time.

-1

Thursday 19th February 2015 – I’M ABSOLUTELY WHACKED …

… and I’ve no idea why either.

I was so tired last night that I was in bed and asleep by 22:20 and I’m not sure if that had ever happened before when I’ve not been ill. I slept right through until the alarm at 07:30 and I still managed to crash out at about 15:15 for a good 45 minutes after I had come back from Cécile’s. And I’d still go to bed right now given half a chance.

You may remember my target for today – to have the fixed shelving and the fixed fronts on the wardrobe by knocking-off time. Well, I managed to accomplish that and here you are, in all its glory.

It’s really quite funny but like most things around here, I ended up redesigning it, even when I was halfway through fixing it and it’s not quite thesame as it started out being. And I was almost held up by the lack of a 300mm plank for the intermediate shelf.

But not to worry – I remembered that I had two of them for my bookshelves up here in the attic and so I came up here and dismantled the bookshelves. Now I have books all over the place, but at least I have shelves in the wardrobe.

I’m well-pleased with this

What needs to be done next is for the moveable shelves to be fitted (if I can find the struts) and the doors to be made and hung. It’s quite a tall order to do that tomorrow – if i manage to do half of that I’ll consider myself lucky.

Saturday 24th January 2015 – I HAD A NICE …

… morning out today.

I was up early this morning despite havig had a late night and having been on my travels again. I was driving up to Southern Scotland with Rosemary and had taken the road via Derby (the old A6) which had led to some kind of deviation around the Matlock area. We ended up at Carlisle in a motel but the room that we had been given also doubled as a rest room for the staff and I was continually being disturbed by staff members coming in for a smoke and so on. In the meantime there were a couple of boys with fishing nets and jam jars and wearing helmets, diving into pools of the most disgusting and dirty water, looking for what, I don’t have any idea.

By 09:00 I was at Cécile’s to show a couple of people around Cécile’s house and on the way back I called at the Intermarché and ended up having lengthy chats with various people, including Marianne.

I went round to the Mairie afterwards. It’s census time again and I’ve been away from the house for just one day, and guess which day it was that they called? I now have to declare myself at the Mairie but of courseit was closed this morning so I resolved to go back this afternoon.

No chance of that, though. We had the heaviest snow of the winter this afternoon and everywhere is a white-out. I’ll have to go there another time.

I spent this afternoon working on the text for the radio programme and that’s almost finished. An hour tomorrow and it will be done.

Apart from having a lengthy chat with Cecile this evening, that’s my lot today. It’s not been the weather for doing much else.

-2

Wednesday 10th December 2014 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… this afternoon. An estate agent wanted to visit Cecile’s house in order to take some photos and as I have the keys, I had to let him in. And it was cold, wet and miserable too outside. I didn’t feel in the least like going out but I do need to become involved in civilisation a little more.

I had an early-ish night last night and so once again I was wide awake long before the alarm went off. And after breakfast O had a lot of work to do. Now that i’ve started on the mince pies, I eed to attend to other Christmas matters, such as ordering everyone’s Christmas presents. Christmas is sneaking up on me and I don’t want to be caught unawares like I usually am. I’ll have to go into Montlucon on Saturday too as there are more things that I need.

Back from Cecile’s and after lunch, I carried on with the front panel of the control board for the barn’s solar panel installation. The European and British 230-volt sockets are now installed and wired, and the two 12-volt sockets, one for the main circuit and the other on the overcharge circuit, are in place.

I’ve identified something that I’ve missed too. The overcharge circuit needs a fuse and I’ve forgotten to fit it. Still, it’s not a big problem and there is plenty of room for it.

I’ve also made a start dismantling the old control board. I had a dual cigarette lighter socket thing there, and that also had a digital DC output that could be switched to a variety of DC voltages and comes with assorted “ends” for charging low voltage DC appliances. That’s that I want for the new control panel – with a USB adaptor in one of the sockets and using the other socket for things that can’t be fitted with one of my 12-volt plugs – and so that’s the first thing to come off that old control panel.

And it won’t be the last either.

-2

Sunday 24th August 2014 – AFTER THE EXERTIONS OF YESTERDAY …

… I was up and about quite early again. Long before the alarm went off at 07:30 in fact (yes, I had forgotten to switch off the alarms, hadn’t I?)

So a leisurely breakfast and chilling out in front of the DVD player for a while, I pressed on with the next batch of radio shows – I want to get ahead as much as possible if I can.

After lunch, I went round to Cecile’s to do some washing, check her post, sort a few things out for her and to organise one or two things, and then came back here to watch another film. I’m not quite sure what happened then because the next thing that I remember was that it was 20:00 and the film had finished. Yes, crashed out again and I’m not surprised either.

So tomorrow, I’ll have a lie-in and then pack ready to leave, do a mound of washing up and unplug the 12-volt immersion heater. I don’t want that running while I’m away. If it boils up and the water evaporates, I’ll be in trouble.

Monday 21st July 2014 – DURING THE NIGHT …

… we had 15mm of rain. No wonder I had difficulty sleeping and … errr … difficulty getting up this morning.

And if that isn’t enough, it’s carried on raining for most of the day and I shudder to think about how much rain there is the raingauge when I go downstairs in a few minutes to take the statistics… "20.5mm" – ed .

After breakfast I had an urgent letter to write and then spent the rest of the morning trying to make one of the three printers lying around here to work. To no effect whatsoever.

In the end, remembering that Cecile wanted me to check her post at La Batisse, I picked up her letters but at the same time printed off my letter. I could then send that off by recorded delivery at Pionsat.

After lunch, I waited for the rain to subside and then went out to finish off the guttering. And it is finished too – at least as far as I can reach. And even though I say it myself, it looks as if it might even work. Tomorrow I’ll have to move the scaffolding round a little so that I can reach the rest of it.

I’ve also slackened off the cable that restrains the wind turbine against the wind. I’d tightened it up too tightly and it had bent the pole. Slackening it off a little put the pole more upright and even enables the wind turbine to pivot around better on its axis.

That all took until 19:20 when I knocked off and came up here where I crashed out for an hour or so. Tea tonight was a gigantic mushroom and lentil curry, seeing as how mushrooms were on special offer on Saturday at LIDL in Commentry. That will keep me going for three or four days.

Sunday 22nd June 2014 – THE NIGHTS ARE CLOSING IN

Yes, what happened to the first half of the year? I have never known one go so quickly. It’ll be Christmas before we know it.

Even more astonishingly, there I was lying in bed for a good half-hour thinking that I maybe ought to get up, and when I did, noticing that it was just 07:40. On a Sunday too. I’ll never have a decent lie-in at this rate.

Resuming my usual habits after this last few weeks of work, I watched a film this morning while I was breakfasting. Today’s offering was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and I was totally puzzled by this film. I was sitting there watching ti all warm up and wondering when the action might begin and suddenly it ended. 2 hours or so of no real plot and no real action and I can’t think of where the time went because there was nothing memorable about it.

However, having read the reviews of the film, I’m clearly in a minority of one. Lots of people consider it to be the best of the films.

So I spent the rest of the day doing some informal tidying up in here until it became too hot, and also tidying up a huge pile of files on the computer.

This evening Iwas round at Liz and Terry’s rehearsing the radio programmes as we are recording tomorrow. I also went round to Cécile’s to pick up a couple of letters.

Tuesday 3rd June 2014 – TERRY RANG ME UP …

… this morning. Apparently his car parts are coming at lunchtime and was I free?

I certainly was and so after the usual couple of hours on the website, I loaded up Caliburn and repaired my big monster trolley jack and then I was off.

I went via Cecile’s and picked up a couple more letters that were in her letter box, and as I arrived at Liz and Terry’s, a white Mercedes van pulled up behind me. It seems that the parts and I had arrived at the same time.

We did the wheel cylinder on the Transit first and then changed the rear shoes and adjusted the handbrake. It took a while to bleed the cylinder and, not being quick enough with my bleed tube, I ended up with a jet of brake fluid up my sleeve when Terry pressed the brake pedal too quickly, but eventually we had the van on the road with all of the brakes working fine.

The Jeep however was another matter.

Changing the shoes wasn’t as easy as it might have been – a cutaway in the face of the halfshaft would have had the job done in 5 minutes and I don’t understand why it is that Jeep has made the job so difficult when it could be so easy because there really isn’t too much to it at all.

We put the new brake drums and discs on and then fitted the new pads (and that wasn’t easy either thanks to Jeep’s overcomplicating what might otherwise be a simple, straightforward job). Terry then took the Jeep for a run and while the footbrake was perfect, the handbrake was useless.

I adjusted it a couple more times and while I could get the shoes to lock up on the inside of the brake drums simply by tightening the adjusters, the handbrake still wasn’t working. It’s a case of of seized cable or seized operating mechanism, so it all needs to be dismantled, cleaned and greased.

By now though it was 21:10 and going dark so I’ll be back here tomorrow. I was covered in oil and so Terry let me have a shower for which I was grateful, and I came back to find that the phone here is down.

It’s not my lucky day, is it?

Sunday 25th May 2014 – THIS BLASTED WEATHER!

When I finally awoke this morning (at … errr … 12:37 this afternoon – I must have been tired) it was absolutely beautiful. But I didn’t have much chance to enjoy it as I had a lot to do (much of which didn’t get done).

I left early for the football (as Pionsat were playing the Goatslayers at Teilhet) as I went via Cecile’s to check her mail, check on the house and do a load of waxhing. and the lawn is completely overgrown – I’ll have to cut that again pretty soon.

Pionsat lost 2-1 at the Goatslayers which is hardly a suprise as they only had 9 players out. Christophe, Julien and Jerome are injured and Kevin was unavailable, and after the maximum effort last night no-one was available from the 1st XI. But the weather broke. We had a thunderstorm and torrential, driving rain enought to chill anyone’s ardour.

I was round at Liz and Terry’s later to rehearse our radio shows, and Liz cooked a vegan lasagne which was excellent as usual. And then I made my way home, picking up the washing on the way back.

-2

Tuesday 22nd April 2014 – SO WHAT’S HAPPENING …

… over there tben? There’s quite a fire burning for some reason or other and I wonder what’s going on.

I couldn’t hear the pompiers or any amulance or anything and so I don’t know how urgent that might be, but it certainly looks most unwelcome.

However, it’s not likely to burn for very long because we’ve had something of a torrential downpour this evening. There’s been the odd shower or two and we had a thunderstorm pass over at about 15:00 but it really meant business this evening.

Still, the first real rain for a couple of weeks and so we can’t complain too much.

The rain is my fault too, for I’ve been out gardening today. And I noticed that the three surviving strawberry plants have flowers now. But that’s by the way.

First job was to plant the Brussels Sprouts that I bought on Saturday. So I gave that bed a good hoeing over first, and carried on to weed a few more as well while I was at it. Then I planted the sprouts, followed by the 12 lettuce that I bought. 6 of them went in between the sprouts, and the other 6 went in between the cabbage that I planted the other week.

After lunch I sowed the new potatoes, and then I turned my attention to the seeds. Seems that I have some lettuce coming up, and there’s signs of life in the leeks too. But still nothing much coming up anywhere else.

Now though, I have some sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower seeds sown, as well as some organo and basli seeds. Tomorrow, though, i’ll need to push on.

At 17:45 I came to a halt as I had to go round to Cécile’s to show some househunters around – that was what I was on my way back from doing when I noticed the fire.

I made another mega-curry tonight. This one is a mushroom and green pepper one, and that will keep me going for a few days too.

-1

Sunday 20th April 2014 – EVEN THOUGH IT’S EASTER SUNDAY …

… I was out working today. And not at my place either but at Cecile’s. She came home today for a couple of days and so I liberated a lawn mower and attacked her jungle. At least she can find her house now. I also lit a fire for her to warm up her house seeing as it’s been empty for almost a year.

She came round here too for a couple of hours and I made tea for both of us. It’s nice to have visitors occasionally.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI should have been playing Teilhet this afternoon but the Goatslayers couldn’t raise a team. So that was today’s footy kicked into touch.

Apart from that, I’m disappointed with this Dragon speech recognition software. Try as I might, I can’t find out how to inport an *.mp3 file into it to be transcribed. And that was what I wanted it for in the first place.

As for Audacity – I started to import a soundtrack of a video at about 15:30 this afternoon. It’s now 02:05 and it’s still trying to import it. I’m not very impressed with this either.

So apart from all of that, I’ve not done very much.

And I don’t care either. And it’s Bank Holiday tomorrow too.

Saturday 12th April 2014 – SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY …

… is the Pionsat 1st XI’s habitual method of play. But just for a change this evening, they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. And if they had played for 90 minutes of every match with the same fire and spirit that they played the final 10 minutes of today’s match, they wouldn’t be anything like staring relegation in the face.

They won 4-3 with two goals coming in the final 10 minutes, and it’s just as well that they did, because being rlegated by losing to the Chimps of all people would have been more than any man could bear.

But the story of the three goals conceded sums up Pionsat’s season-

Pionsat concede penalty fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot montel villosanges 12 avril 2014 puy de dome ligue division 1 france

A moment’s inattention and hesitation lets in a Chimps attacker. A beautiful sliding tackle from a Pionsat defender wins the ball and the attacker goes down over the defender’s outstretched leg. How the referee could award a penalty for that is something that totally mystified me.
But then, had the defence been awake and attentive, the defender would not have got that far.
Unmarked attacker at the far post heads in a superb cross past Frederic who is once more standing in for Michael who has been standing in for Matthieu. It was indeed a superb cross, taking every totally by surprise, but there shouldn’t ever be anyone unmarked and onside in the penalty area.
It’s true that a more experienced keeper would probably come out for the cross, because as long as he got a fingertip to the ball, he could have flattened the attacker without fear of conceding a penalty, but you can’t blame a stand-in keeper for that, and it would have been worse if he had hesitated and been caught in no-man’s
land

And in any case, Frederic kept his team well in the game with a spectacular full-length diving save from a free kick halfway through the second half. Any regular keeper would have been proud of that effort
A loose ball in a crowded penalty area. Frederic runs out for it, shouting “leave it” to his defence. Instead, one of his defenders passes it back to him.
With a defender touching it last, Frederic can’t pick it up and so has to kick. Surrounded by three Chimps, the result is inevitable

So from 2-1 up, they are now 3-2 down and with just minutes to go. Pionsat win a couple of corners and from one of them, Vianney rises highest and heads onto a post and bounces into the net for the equaliser, past the keeper’s outstretched fingertips.

But a point isn’t enough to keep their slim hopes alive -they need all three and there are just seconds left.

And then we have a most astonishing thing.

Pionsat win a free kick just inside the Chimps half, right out on the far touchline probably 50 yards from goal. Blond Frederic takes it and swings it high into the penalty area. The ball sails over everyone’s head right into the keeper’s hands … and right through the keeper’s hands into the net.

Stunned silence in the crowd and I’m not sure who was the most surprised – the keeper or blond Frederic. But a goal is a goal is a goal, and Pionsat finally manage to win after several weeks of lack of success.

If only they had done this a few weeks ago.

So this morning, another early start. And I was in Crewe during the night at my old taxi office in Wistaston Road (but a different one at the back of another car sales place). And I was to audition for another rock group and needed some equipment and so went to the music shop just down the road (that isn’t there of course) where I bumped into Zero and her father.

But after breakfast I cracked on with my website work and then at lunchtime went round to Cecile’s to see how things were and to pick up some mail seeing as how her redirection has finished – and taking advantage of her washing machine too.

Then into St Eloy to shop (where I bought some seeds that I needed) and to pay a huge pile of money to someone in a shop there. Yes, I’m going to be having a new toy – more of which anon.

After picking up my washing (and thinking that maybe I ought to mow Cecile’s lawn sometime soon) I came back here – and crashed out for 2 hours. And a deep sleep it was too for just a crash. I was back in Crewe again at a house that bore more than just a mere passing resemblance to the one in Davenport Avenue where I lived with my parents.

And so then the footy. I’ve had a busy day today.

But watch these pages over the course of the next few days.

-6

Monday 31st March 2014 – I WASN’T SO GOOD …

… at getting up today. It took a great deal of effort to haul myself out of bed, but once I was out, I wasn’t so bad.

After the customary couple of hours on the web site, I went outside. This furniture removal is now postponed until tomorrow so I had a look at a couple of petrol-engined appliances that had been hanging around here for a couple of months.

Of course, they didn’t work and so I wen into Pionsat for some clean fuel. I also nipped to Cecile’s as apparently there was a bird stuck in the window.I was too late for the bird unfortunately and I can’t take it out as it’s fallen behind some shutterings that we spent a day or so fitting, and I didn’t have the tools with me.

Back here, giving everything a clean and draining out the fuel tanks and carburettors and the like, I finally got everything to work and I even managed to mow a bit of grass.

The new plastic greenhouse thingy is erected and I’ve put the pots with the courgette seeds in it, those that I potted last week, and also the shrubs that I bought. And while I may not have carrots and parsnips and radish, or even courgetttes, the garlic is going well, and the onions and shallots are close behind.

I fell asleep again at lunchtime but when I finally did make it outside, I did another raised bed. I must push on with those.

But I also had a visitor. Someone at the footy had seen me – or, rather, Caliburn, and he made an effort to track me down as on his farm he has a wind turbine that hasn’t been functionning for a few years and he wondered if I could get it to work for him.

So that’s another half-day out when we have some wind. This vehicle advertising really pays.

-4

EPIC HALL

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