Category Archives: Gerzat

Monday 27th August 2012 – AFTER THE EXCITEMENT …

… of Sunday, today was just a routine radio day.

Despite a late night I was up early and I printed out all of the paperwork for the recordings and sorted out some music too for Radio Arverne.

While I was at it, which I am occasionally, Rosemary rang up too to see if I would be heading out to Montlucon in the near future. She needs to pick up a few things.

As it happens, I need a few things too – well, more than a few things actually but many of them are unfortunately not available in shops – and so I’ve tentatively pencilled that in for Wednesday morning.

Liz ad I met up for our Radio Anglais recording sessions in Marcillet-en Combraille and Gerzat and much to our surprise they all went according to plan.

I am however very miffed by the fact that I didn’t need to have done all of that work last week. It turns out that about 4 or 5 weeks ago I’d done a pile of stuff on traffic convictions and penalty points on a French driving licence and I’d completely forgotten about it.

We didn’t need any of the stuff that I spent all that time doing this last few days.

Still, it won’t go to waste – it means that I can spend a few weeks, if not months, writing this year’s Christmas Special without being under any last-minute pressure.

What didn’t go to plan though were the roads and the traffic. The place was crawling with grockles blocking the roads and rubbernecking everything. I hate this time of the year.

Anyway, now I’m home and as I’m pretty much shattered I’m off to bed for an early night.

See you tomorrow.

-2

Monday 23rd July 2012 -171.4 AND 160.1 AMP-HOURS …

… of solar energy in bank 1 and bank 2 respectively might not be a new record (although it isn’t far off), but 154 amp-hours of that being surplus and hence being diverted into the dump load (the hot water tank) – now, that definitely is.

And having emptied out the hot water from the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load, which was still at an indecent temperature and filled up the tank this morning with cold water, that brought the water temperature down to just a mere 39°C.

And by the time that this 154 amp-hours of solar energy had finished, it was enough to push the temperature of the water off the scale – ie over 70°C.

Now that is impressive.

The temperature of the water in the solar shower tank may well only have been 30°C, but 5 litres of water out of the dump load took it right up to 38.5°C and I had yet another lovely shower.

And I’m all clean now, just for a change.

Mind you, I wasn’t half dirty earlier on.

This morning, after my 07:00 start (despite only going to bed at 02:30), a leisurely breakfast and an hour or so on the laptop, I went round to Marianne’s to move the International Library from her friend’s garage to an empty room at François’ at Barrot.

That was enough to make anyone filthy

From there it was off to LIz and Terry’s to pick up Liz and then off to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Arverne.

And as well as the 5 that we had planned, we needed to do a 6th as Bernard had somehow managed to lose the one for this week. And it’s not very pleasant in the heat up there in their attic.

That’s it, really. Quite busy but nothing much to show for it.

I’m off to bed now, another ridiculously early night as it’s another early start tomorrow.

I’m changing the cylinder head gasket on Liz’s car.

-3

Monday 11th June 2012 – IT’S ASTONISHING.

Today, the weather was so much better. Only 14mm of rain.

So once again I awoke to the sound of a torrential downpour but no staying in bed today. We had to be a-radioing at 10:00 and I had a lot to do before I could set out.

But it wasn’t as if it mattered any. The woman who does the engineering for Radio Tartasse at Marcillat-en-Combraille forgot that we were coming and so we had something of a wait until she arrived.

The best-made plans of mice and men, and all that.

But eventually we managed to record our 6 weeks of programmes. Luckily I did 2 rock programmes before I went away and so they are up-to-date too.

Back at Liz’s, I was very kindly permitted to have a shower and to wash some clothes. This depressing, miserable weather has meant that I have had no hot water for a week and more, and so I’m really grateful for the good friends that I have.

No need to worry about quantity, as I have said before. It’s the quality that counts.

Down in Gerzat at Radio Arverne this afternoon we did another 6 weeks-worth of programmes and so that’s everything recorded until the end of July.

On the way back, we stopped off at the Carrefour in Riom to buy some of these ethylotests. The law in France from July 1st is that every car should have a breathalyser fitted for the use of the driver and the supermarkets are selling them for peanuts. I bought a kit of 2 for €2:00 and you can’t say fairer than that.

I also had another bit of good luck there.

Last year I bought a neat 25-litre 12-volt coolbox for Caliburn for €27:95 or something like that and it’s useful for when I’m out shopping and when I’m on my travels – I need a place to store the cold food in the hot van.

I drove all around Canada just now wishing that I had had one in the car there too, and here they are in the Carrefour again – this time for €24:90.

So I’ve bought another one and I’ll pack it in the suitcase and fill it with clothes or something next time that I go over and then I can leave it in my storage unit over there in Montreal to keep the cool food and drink in.

It’s MoT time for Caliburn too and so we called in at the testing centre on the way back. Caliburn of course passed with flying colours and so we are all happy

At the Anglo-French group it was nice to see Clotilde back from Annemasse.

Yes, I’ve been rushed off my feet today and not had a moment to myself. That’s why I’m blogging early – I’m off to bed in a minute for an early night.

-1

Friday 20th April 2012 – We’ve been recording today.

Liz needs to make an urgent departure for the UK and I’m off on me ‘ols, so today was the only day left for recording our radio programmes. It was just as well that I spent that week a couple of weeks ago churning out a pile of stuff to keep in reserve because it’s currently being used.

And how!

We recorded 9 radio programmes today which is something of a record. 3 for Radio Tartasse and 6 for Radio Arverne – that all covers a period of 6 weeks and so takes us through to mid-June when we should all be back again, unless my aeroplane crashes, one of my ferries hits an iceberg or I run away with a couple of nubile bimbos.

And you’ve no idea just how tiring it is doing all of this. So much so that I crashed out for 10 minutes or so at Liz’s when we returned. But very kindly, Liz let me have a shower there, which has saved me a journey to Neris and the swimming baths and means that I can spend all day here tidying up. No point in going to the shops when I don’t really need anything before I go. For my Sunday pizza I’ll make one on a bread base with some mushrooms out of a tin, a chili, some olives and tomato. What can be simpler?

Back here, I watched a cattle – chronologically-disadvantaged-person film (well, hardly, seeing as how the action in the film is taking place in 1951) about which I have spoken before at great length. It’s Riders of the Whistling Pines starring Gene Autry and what makes the film particularly noteworthy is that it concerns the widespread use of DDT and heroes and villains. The heroes are the ones who want to spray the forest with DDT and the villains wre the environmentalists who prophesy that the waters will be poisoned and all of the fish, cattle, and everything else that comes into contact with it will die a horrible death. And it’s all accopanied with scenes of the goodies flying their aeroplanes and the huge clouds of DDT that are emitted therefrom.

Yes, imagine that today!

And what with one thing and another I was searching around the internet for a group called “Eyes of Blue” – a Welsh rock band featuring inter alia “Taff” Williams and Phil Ryan (later of Man) and “Pugwash” Weathers, later of Gentle Giant. And astonishingly, their two albums, Crossroads/in Fields of Ardath are available on Amazon. And so that set me off and I discovered some even more obscure albums from other Welsh bands of the late 60s and early 70s likewise available. And so I’ve been spending my money again. And more than maybe I ought to as well, but these albums are quite rare and extremely sought-after and so copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say … "you said that the other day" – ed.

Having these albums in my letter box waiting for me might encourage me to come back home after my trip. 

-4

Friday 30th March 2012 – WE WERE RADIOING TODAY …

… and so that involved a trip to Gerzat.

In the gorgeous glorious sunshine as well, even though it was less hot today.

This morning was therefore printing stuff off, and then going off to Sauret Besserve to pick up Liz.

We recorded 5 programmes, ao as to get ourselves well ahead of the game seeing as I’m having serious thoughts about going for a holiday again. I have the wanderlust, don’t I?

And then back home, via Liz’s to drop her off and for some coffee and vegan ginger cake.

birdwatching site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne gouttieres puy de dome franceOn the way back I stopped off at the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne to take a few pics with the new zoom lens that I bought a while ago.

Again, it’s manual focus and that is causing a few difficulties.

And I’m beginning to realise that this was not the best of my decisions. Only one of the photos was worth keeping, and this was a shot of the church at Gouttières, about 10 miles away.

And you can see, running from to centre to mid-right the road that I take when I go home.

So, like the 50mm lens, it will work eventually and do the business once I can work out how to get it to do what I want.

Back here, I had the TV on again and watched a DVD of Steppenwolf Live at Louisville, Kentucky.

I bought this ages ago but the little DVD player didn’t go it justice. The new AKAI though is magnificent and the sound, turned right up as befits any rock concert, is the best CD-type of stereo player that I have around here.

I just hope that this TV lasts the pace. If I can get 5 years out of it, it will be excellent

But one thing about this Steppenwolf concert – there are only four musicians on stage. John Kay on vocals and guitar, another guitarist, a drummer and a keyboard player. No bassist.

But never mind how you can possibly play “Born To Be Wild” and “Pusher” (to name but two tracks) without a bassist, there is nevertheless a bass being played somewhere out there, and it’s not being done on the foot pedals of the organ, as I once saw the famous bass line of Darkness (11/11) played on stage by Van Der Graaf Generator when they didn’t have Nic Potter with them. It’s definitely a bass guitar

Overdubbing at a later date for the DVD? Perish the thought.

-5

Monday 27th February 2012 – IT WASN’T QUITE …

… as warm up herethis morning.

A mere 13.4°C up here in fact.

But considering that the temperature had dropped to -2.2°C outside last night and that I had no heating on in here last night either, I was quite impressed by that.

I’m wondering in fact whether or not it’s staying warmer up here since I finished the ceiling in the room below. It does seem like it.

This morning I went off to Sauret-Besserve and picked up Liz, and then we made our way down to Gerzat to record the Radio Arverne programmes. And wasn’t that a farce? They have had new computers and new programs installed and Bernard didn’t know how to work it all.

It took quite a bit of telephone assistance together with a little first-hand aid from Yours Truly to organise everything.

At one stage it looked like we might have to come back and do it all over again – an idea that didn’t impress me too much.

Instead of being a quick hour or so it ended up more like two and a half hours. Both Liz and I had things to do this afternoon so that meant hurrying back up here to get ready, and then off to Radio Tartasse in Marcillat en Combraille to carry out another little task, more of which anon.

Today we had well over 11 hours of solar energy – a huge improvement on winter’s previous best of 10:49. It seems that the weather has suddenly opened up.

So much so that when I came back from Radio Tartasse I did a little gardening – not on my garden but in the lane there are several small trees starting to grow and their branches have been scratching the side of Caliburn. I spent a pleasant half hour or so cutting them down.

I had a fire up here tonight although it wasn’t strictly necessary. And the temperature went to over 25°C while I cooked my baked potatoes and ratatouille.

It won’t be much longer before I have to abandon the idea of cooking up here on the stove. It’s warming up far too much.

-2

Monday 23rd January 2012 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again today.

Yes, doing my “Imelda babe – going shopping, shopping for shoes” bit (and quite funnily, I was listening to Golden Heart, the album from which the above-names track is taken, on the way to Liz’s this morning).

The boots that I bought in a Hudson’s Bay trading post in Canada 15 months ago died a death over Christmas (the sole split) and the canvas shoes that I use for wandering around here aren’t really suitable for much.

And a chance glance across a busy road from the Auchan on the outskirts of Clermont-Ferrand revealed a sale on at a shoe shop

So I’ve now acquired a pair of black leather boots, not exactly what I wanted but they look fairly solid and 50% off the retail price of €59 made it look like something respectable, and they will keep my feet warm and dry for the foreseeable future.

But that wasn’t all.

They had some boots that are a kind-of cross between wellingtons and après-ski boots, with thick soles and fur lining and looking pretty solid, and all for €22 as well.

Having frozen my feet off at the football over the weekend and being up to my neck in mud around here as well, I decided that a pair of those wouldn’t go amiss either – for going to to footy and for working outside in the bad weather.

Two pairs of footwear – you really WILL be calling me “Imelda” now.

So what was I doing in Clermont-Ferrand this afternoon?

Well, we’d been to Gerzat this morning to record the radio programmes for Radio Arverne – spending a lot of the time talking rubbish as I predicted.

But I’m running low on soya milk and not having been to Montluçon and the Auchan there for a while, we decided to multi-task and visit the Auchan on the outskirts of Clermont-Ferrand, which is only a cockstride away from the road that takes us home.

And the rest is history.

Back at Liz and Terry’s, I had a really nice surprise.

You may remember that when we were doing the house roof back in 2009, we had Terry’s little cement mixer running here. It’s only small but it runs on just 375 watts and it ticked over all day comfortably on my electrical set-up here.

But it’s really too small for Terry now that he’s in business and so he’s acquired a big professional mixer that needed repair, and he’s now repaired it. The upshot of this is that “would I like a more-or-less permanent loan of the small mixer?”

Well, do bears have picnics in the woods?

A little mixer like that quietly ticking away all day while I do some important building work won’t half make my life easier and I have plenty of work for it in the summer, that’s for sure.

Aren’t I grateful?

This evening, I had the wood stove running hot, and garlic bread, pizza and rice pudding for tea were all cooked in the oven.

All in all it’s been quite a good day today. Hasn’t it just?

-4

Tuesday 20th December 2011 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… lovely tea tonight.

Baked potatoes and tortilla wraps with spicy beans. And once again it was cooked in the oven on the new fire, and once again it did an excellent job.

So much so that tomorrow night I’m going to go for a rice pudding and see what happens about that.

This morning I awoke well on time thanks to this new alarm clock that I have. It has a projector light that flashes the time across the room and makes enough noise to awaken the dead.

But printing off the paperwork for the radio station didn’t work – the new computer doesn’t recognise the printer and I can’t upload the drivers. I’ll have to see if I can do that by downloading them (which I can’t because all of Epson’s European sites don’t work).

So Radio Tartasse was done and then we set off through the driving rain to Gerzat. And as we drove over the Combrailles I joked to Liz that everyone in Riom would be basking in the sun in shirt sleeves.

They weren’t, as it happens, but the sun was there, and some blue sky too.

At Radio Arverne I had a premonition about the music we were to play and sure enough, in what could only be a gazillion-to-one chance, we had both picked a track with the same title. How bizarre!

We did the programmes for January and then recorded our Christmas special. That was a bundle of laughs, and what we did for the carols – well, you’ll find out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Home into the hills and into the driving rain again. I lit the fire in here and that was that. I had no intentions of moving and so I didn’t.

But tea was nice 😉

-2

Friday 2nd December 2011 – IT’S FRIDAY …

… but it’s not Five o’clock, and it’s not Crackerjack either. But it is the last Friday that I’ll be spending here for a week or two. I’m hoping to go to the UK at the end of next week.

And despite having gone to bed quite late last night, that didn’t stop me being wide awake at about 07:00 this morning. This sleep thing is becoming ridiculous.

Liz and I arrived at Radio Arverne’s place in Gerzat at about 10:40 for our 11:00 appointment and eventually it was about 11:47 before we started recording.

We did the four Radio Anglais programmes for December and then Bernard sprung it on me. Would I write another Christmas Special for an hour, to be broadcast in … errrr …. 2 weeks time?

I shall have to get my finger out, won’t I?

We got back to Sauret-Beserve 20 minutes late after all of that and I shot off to Montel-de-Gelat and the sawmill to pick up a load of timber.

I had to wait around there for ages as well as they didn’t (despite what they said on the ‘phone) have any treated wood so they treated it while I waited, and that took ages too.

And while I was there I was chatting with the staff and it turns out that the office girl is the wife of the Montel goalkeeper whose photo that I took was published in the paper the other week, and the office manager plays for Pontaumur and one of my photos of him scoring against Pionsat was published a few weeks before that.

There were two clients there from Pionsat too. One of them had an old Transit pick-up that was clearly custom-made. A PTAC of 3.3 tons for a start – that’s impressive. And he had so much wood dropped in it that it was sagging right down at the back end and he crawled all the way back to Pionsat at 40kph. 

And when I returned home and unloaded my wood I realised that I had forgotten the demi-chevrons that I need to finish off the greenhouse.

D’ohhhh.

And so I went upstairs and crashed out for a while instead.

-2

Friday 28th October 2011 – HOW LONG IS IT …

st gervais d'auvergne gorges de la sioule puy de dome france… since I took a pic from the birdwatching platform near St Gervais d’Auvergne just up the road from where Liz and Terry live?

Quite some considerable time, I bet.

I was up and about quite early (well, early for me anyway) this morning and after something of a hasty breakfast, in the words of the great Mars Bonfire I got my motor running and headed out for the Highway

st gervais d'auvergne gorges de la sioule puy de dome franceIt was a cool damp morning but it was heating up quite quickly (well, for this time of year anyway) and this was causing the mist to rise out of all the hollows.

It doesn’t half look impressive when it does that, particularly from up here, and you don’t need any guesses to work out exactly where the Gorges de la Sioule might be when it’s like this. It didn’t half look impressive and it’s one of the sights that everyone should aim to see when they come to visit the Combrailles.

Liz and Terry’s house is down there somewhere and sure enough, they were bathed in mist when I arrived.

Anyway, I picked Liz up and we went to Gerzat for the Radio Arverne sessions of Radio Anglais. We were there for just after 10:00 and so we went for a walk around the town for 20 minutes before Bernard turned up.

It took just over an hour to record the four sessions today – even though Bernard was rather … errr … confused and disorientated. He just now has rather a lot of editing to do.

Back at Liz and Terry’s, Terry and I had quite a long chat about things and then I came back here.

It was raining of course after lunch and so in a change of plan I’ve done a huge amount of tidying up on the ground floor and the first floor and it actually looks like something now to a certain degree. I’ve also done some tidying up outside and that has helped, especially as the vegetation is now dying down for winter and some lost articles are now coming into view.

And tidying up as well. How about that? And to tell you the truth I would have been tidying up this afternoon even if the weather had been absolutely gorgeous because there is a cunning plan looming in the background.

-2

Thursday 29th September 2011 – THE PHONE RANG …

… at 10:00 this morning. And it’s a good job that it did too otherwise I would be still asleep even now.

So much for that early night!

It was Liz on the phone, reminding me about our recording session later doday. And had she not done so I would have gone there for 16:30 and not 14:30. No idea how come that time had entered itself into my head.

But anyway I was in plenty of time to pick her up and we made it to Gerzat with plenty of time to spare. And it’s a good job that we did too because my first task on arriving was to fix their computer which had stopped working. .

Once I’d organised that we could record our next four programmes.

We are using a different format from now on, though. We have 15 minutes rather than 10, and the programmes are divided up into four segments

  1. there are the events
  2. we have the supplementary information – for one week Liz does a recipe, a second week I do a gardening bit, and for the other weeks we discuss useful French phrases.
  3. we have music – English-speaking songs and such-like
  4. we have the legislation bit

And it was hot there too – the temperature displayed on the wall on the pharmacy round the corner was off the scale – more than 40 degrees and I could believe that too. We were sweltering. Late September too!

Liz cooked tea as well which was nice – it’snice being waited on hand and foot every now and again, especially with the delicious food that Liz produces.

Yes, as Golden Earring so famously said that beautiful evening on the beach in Scheveningen in the early 90s – “There’s one thing I want to tell you man – it’s good to be back home”.

-3

Tuesday 30th August 2011 – DAY ONE OF MY VOYAGE

I’m not sure if this should actually count as Day One because firstly, there wasn’t much of it and secondly, I didn’t actually leave the country. It was however they day that I hit the road (or rather hit the rails) and so for that reason I’ve included it as a fair candidate.

Having said that though, I did actually hit the road rather early. I was all washed up, cleaned up, tidied up (well, sort-of) and on the road for 09:45 because today is the day that Liz and I record the Radio Anglais programmes for the month of September. We did the Radio Tartasse sessions in the morning and then I drove Caliburn down to Liz’s and left him there, piling myself and the baggage into Liz’s voiture for the journey down to Gerzat and the Radio Arverne sessions.

When they were over she heaved me out at the railway station at Riom and that was that. And only a wait of 75 minutes for the train. Good job there’s a coffee machine here.

railway locomotive riom paris gare de lyon franceThis is the locomotive that pulled my train for Paris Gare de Lyon.

I sat next to a girl on the train up and we had a healthy conversation for at least 10 minutes before we worked out that we were both British. She was from Inverness and a student at St Andrews studying French for Scientists. She was spending a year’s exchange living in the language but she’d been in Aurillac for a month house-and-dog sitting.

Her family lives in the wilds and they have no mains electricity – just solar panels and wind turbines and so we had a good chat about that and I gave her a card.

We had the usual struggle across Paris with my giant suitcase and there has to be a better way to go to the airport than this – hitting the city in the evening rush hour with swarms of people and escalators out of order and miles to walk. I’m going to have to resolve this somehow.

At the airport, I dunno where this blasted shuttle bus has gone to – I have to wait about a year for it to turn up. And then by the time that I’ve sorted out everything at the hotel and gone for a walk, the only restaurant in this village here is closed. It only opens Thursday Friday and Saturday evenings and closes at 21:30. So that’s no use to me.

Nothing to eat tonight then. I hope that the rest of my voyage is better than this.

0

Friday 22nd July 2011 – IN HASTE …

… because I’m off to bed in a minute and I’ve forgotten to tell you of my adventures today.

I’ve been busy doing nothing (or very little, anyway) although it might not sound like it. But then again, spending all day talking isn’t very much like work to me, is it?

The morning was spent as usual working on the laptop, all nice and pretty and up and running with its new battery. And that’s almost as impressive as my galvanised steel dustbin.

This afternoon though, I went to Gerzat. You may remember from the other day that our radio recording session down there was cancelled due to this funeral, and so this afternoon was when we had arranged to go down and record it. I wanted it to be done before I hit the road.

I drove down to Sauret-Besserve to pick up Liz and off we toddled to Radio Arverne where we just for a change it all went according to plan.

We drove back to Sauret-Besserve where I dropped off Liz and said “hello” to Terry, and then I came back here.

A quick check-over of Caliburn and there we are. Tea-time and not very much else because I need to muster my forces. The next couple of days are going to be busy and I need to be on form. I believe that I have mentioned that all of my life’s work will come to fruition on Monday, if all goes according to plan.

0

Tuesday 28th June 2011 – And just for a change …

I was up before the alarm clock at 08:30 – dunno what happened there. But it meant that I was in plenty of time to go down to the bank and pay for the bits for my broken anemometer before going to Marcillat en Combraille to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse.

The guy from the Danish company that sells the bits sent me a nice e-mail with all of the information that I needed to know – the IBAN account, the SWIFT number and all of that and so I duly printed it out and took it to the bank. The bank official took one look at it and said “what’s the company called?”. It seems that the information wasn’t as complete as I had thought.

And so after Radio Tartasse it was down across the Puy-de-Dome to Gerzat to record for Radio Arverne – but the major issue here was that the garage at St Gervais d’Auvergne had sold out of diesel. An enforced trip to Les Ancizes solved that issue but that took a good 20 minutes out of our itinerary leaving us with just enough time to grab a butty and a coffee at Chatel-Guyon.

While we were in the Radio offices we could see the storm break over the Combrailles and impressive was not the word. Magnificent is much better and it did really make us wonder what it was that we might be coming home to.

The Carrefour at Riom came up trupms again – not only did I do my shopping but they were selling off electric 12-volt coolboxes at €24:00 – not very big but big enough to fit in Caliburn’s footwell for when I’m on my travels and it’ll hold a good few items and (hopefully) keep them cool. But not only that it was having a sale of SatNavs and I now have a little Western European Mio Moov M305 – for all of €59:00, to replace the other one that mysteriously disappeared. It has speed camera warning installed but not only that, I can sign for a 3-year update of the speed cameras for €49:95 and maps of North America are available for €49:95 as well – meaning that I can sell the Magellan that I bought in Canada last year and get some of my money back.

giant hailstones manzar chateauneuf les bains puy de dome franceOn the way back home the devastation caused by the storm was impressive to say the least. We stopped between Manzat and Chateuneuf to take a pic of what looked like snow but it was in fact hailstones.

I measured them and they were about 20mm in diameter – and that was quite impressive too.

Back here, the temperature reached the high 30s but the storm had brought with it a total of 24mm of rain – and it’s still raining. It’s a mess here but then again the plants won’t be complaining. They will be loving it all.

But talking of coolboxes, I’ve been thinking again – which I know is dangerous. I’m using almost no electricity from the solar panels on the barn, except for the washing machine once a fortnight. And it’s a shame to waste it all. In addition, in a couple of weeks or so I’ll be moving them to their final position and adding the 4th panel that has been conspicuous by its absence.

It’s a shame to waste all of this electricity and so I have a cunning plan. From mystats I notice that in the year to 2009, which was the last complete year that I was relying on the panels over there, I generated 9000 amp-hours of electricity over there with 3 panels. So with 4 panels that should give me about 12,000 amp-hours in total. That’s in the region of 150 KwH. Now in that year about 40% of the days saw the batteries fully-charged, which meant that there was a good deal of electricity wasted. Add to this that with the solar panels in a much better position I ought to be getting much more electricity than I did back in 2009. Half as much again is not too much to hope for – I had 22,000 amp hours from each of the banks on the roof on the house – about 285 KwH.

Anyway, to cut a long story short “Hooray” – ed, I’ve been seeing some fridge-freezers – proper mains ones – that have a start-up motor of about 75 watts and (so they reckon) use about 135KwH on a normal daily basis – and so I’m wondering whether or not to splash out a bit of cash into a decent sine-wave inverter and small fridge-freezer, run it off the power in the barn and leave it in there.

That will be something to think about. But of course the most important thing to think about is where I’ll put it. You can’t even get a cat into the barn at the moment let alone swing it around.

-5

Tuesday 24th May 2011 – I know it’s not much, but …

home grown strawberry les guis virlet puy de dome france… it’s all my own and grown with my own fair hands.

Yes, the strawberries are coming into season and this evening for tea I had the four that have ripened so far. It’s impressive that I’ve got some as well after the devastating winter that we had.

It put the seal on the day too, because it was beautiful. Liz and I recorded our programmes at Radio Tartasse and Radio Arverne, and in between we went for lunch at the side of the River Sioule in Chateauneuf-les-Bains, in the glorious weather that we had.

We went from Chateauneuf to Gerzat by the scenic route through Blot and Charbonnieres and that was a gorgeous drive too – all in all it was an excellent day.

But there are changes afoot at Radio Arverne. As we suspected all along, SMADC has withdrawn its funding from our programmes. And it’s worse than that too because SMADC was leasing the radio aerial that transmits to the Combrailles, at €13,000 per annum. Radio Arverne can’t pay that and so it stops our programmes being broadcast to our own heartland.

However, all is not lost. There are a couple of other areas within range of the other transmitter that want to take the programme, and so could we continue the programmes but direct them there instead? We are open to offers, of course, but we can’t research any events to publicise because we have no contacts there. And so we’ve left it that we will still come, that we will produce our programmes, and that the regions that want to broadcast them will supply us with details of the events.

As well as that, they want us to prolong the running time of the programmes. Strangely enough, Liz and I were talking about that. We had the idea to talk about recipes, local Auvergnat ones for the Brits and British recipes for the French, and also some kind of gardening stuff – “what are you doing in the garden right now?”.

So we’ll have to wait to see what happens. it’s all confusing but then again nothing worth doing is ever easy to do.

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