Category Archives: Pionsat

Saturday 26th September 2009 – YOU MISSED …

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire puy de dome france… all of the excitement tonight.

Freezing cold autumn weather, a Pionsat win and a draw, debatable referee-ing decisions, a series of mysterious yellow cards flashed at no-one in particular, and for the first time ever, a referee losing his temper in the middle of a match.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire puy de dome france And if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, we had a whole raft of hotly-disputed decisions, a couple of fierce arguments, a punch-up, one of the best goals I’ve seen for ages and a couple of errors that schoolboys would be embarrassed to make.

Yes, we have exciting times out here in the wilderness of rural France. It’s much more fun than watching Manure Knighted on the box.

This morning I went into Commentry and didn’t I have a lucky find in one of the crud shops? Remember yesterday when I dropped my tape player down two storeys in the house? well they were selling a portable bicycle accessory tape player with built-in stereo speakers for 5 euros. It works with an external 6v DC socket too. Can’t be bad at that price. I can’t wait to try it out.

Back home later this afternoon, I did another load of washing. I need to get up-do-date before winter. The cold even now is starting to threaten.

And no footy tomorrow. What on earth am I going to do?

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Thursday 17th September 2009 – I STARTED ON THE HEAVY ENGINEERING TODAY

fitting new joists stud wall attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve fitted the first of the new floor beams, and also one of the uprights that will enclose the head of the stairs.

And I’ll tell you now – that Hitachi battery-powered SDS drill that Terry ordered for me from Screwfix is phenomenal. It went right into the stonework of the house – with a bit of effort it has to be said – but nevertheless it drilled the holes for 4 big anchor bolts and it’s held them firmly.

cutting mortice joint into floor joist les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo, what’s the plan?

Well, it all revolves around windows of which there aren’t all that many. The stairs up to the attic rise from bottom-right to top left as you can see and there’s a window at the bottom of the flight.

What I’m doing is to make a U-pattern staircase that will go from the centre of the attic (just where the window is in fact) down to the left and then round back on itself. This will be enclosed by a wall around the upright and a couple more of its friends.

To the right of the upright will be covered over with flooring and that’s the bit that I will be using as my office. It’s 2.1 metres from there to the front wall of the house.

fitting new floor joists attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe stairs are going to be narrower – 65cms instead of 1m so with an allowance for the woodwork the double width of the U shape will be 1.50m.

And where the stairs will stop at the floor below will give me a an empty space of 2.1 m by 1.5m which will have a window in it (the window that is currently at the foot of the existing staircase) and that empty space will eventually become the bathroom (but not any time soon).

Do you understand that?
If so, would you mind explaining it to me?

Mind you, it wasn’t straightforward. I had to open the window-that-will-be-the-bathroom-window to heave a few old chevrons out – but the blasted thing fell to pieces in my hands. I know that it needs to be replaced and indeed it will be but I hoped it would last for another year or two.

So there I was having to patch and screw it back together before I’d even got started. And mauling huge beams up into the attic isn’t my idea of fun either. In the end I ended up cutting that one down to size outside.

After I’d finished and had my well-earned cup of coffee I had to nip into Pionsat and empty the chemical beichstuhl.I hate doing that when there are people around so finding the village square overrun with the fairground attractions rather put me off my stride.

Hence I nipped round to the other publics across the way from the village hall and of course it’s Thursday – dancing lessons night – and half the Anglo-French group were there with Mark standing outside. It was just not my lucky day.

And talking of it not being my lucky day I’ve now run out of vegan chocolate cake. I wonder if Terry needs any more wood moving.

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Saturday 12th September 2009 – GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire equipe 3 neuf eglise puy de dome franceThe footy season commenced this evening and Pionsat’s 3rd XI (who were in action aganst Neuf-Eglise’s 2nd team) started where they left off at the end of last season. Damian in goal with his teflon gloves and a 3-0 defeat.

The 1st XI are in action at Miremont and the 2nd XI are in action at Pontaumur tomorrow afternoon. Both away from home and I haven’t been to either ground before so I’m rather spoilt for choice. I can go to Pontaumur again as their 3rd XI are in the same division as Pionsat’s 3rd XI but seeing as it’s the 2nd XI’s 1st game in Division 2 following their promotion, I reckon I’ll be wandering off there to give them my (im)moral support.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I went into Montlucon today and spent a record low 200 Euros at Brico Depot.

And there is a good reason for that. Most sheets of construction material are of a standard size – 2.40 metres long. And short wheelbase Ford Transits are 2.42 metres long in the load bed to take this into account. So I have absolutely no idea why sheets of insulation-backed plasterboard weigh in at 2.50. It’s totally illogical.

I need about 20 for my attic but of course they won’t go inside Caliburn with the door shut and you can’t drive 30 kms with both the back doors wide open, and you can’t leave them in the back of the van until you need them. So if you stand them sideways upright with just one door half-open you can get 13 in which is enough to be going on with, particularly as you have to unload them and put them somewhere (like standing upright outside the house covered by a tarpaulin).

And they are big and awkward to manoeuvre. There’s no way I’ll be getting these up the ladder into the attic in one piece. I’m going to have to cut them to shape outside and then get them up into the attic. And where I could in theory fit a whole one, it’s still going to have to be cut in at least half so I’ll be able to handle it safely.

Mind you, the spending spree continued as I ordered my bed-settee (340 Euros) and my occasional table (I don’t know yet what it is for the rest of the time) and I had to pay a 25% deposit. It’ll all be ready for early October which is my deadline for doing the attic out. A lot of money for a bed-settee you might think, but I’ll be spending a lot of time on it and so I may as well be comfortable.

They also had a really comfortable office chair (like the old one in Brussels that I have curled up and slept in on numerous occasions) and a really dinky miniature gas cooker which has caught my eye for the future.

And as luck would have it they were having a sale of bed linen at the Auchan and I now have 2 quilt covers, 4 pillow cases and 2 fitted sheets for a grand total of 25 Euros. And all in matching colours too! All I need now is a room to put it all in.

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Thursday 27th August 2009 – WORK ON THE ATTIC …

fitting of chimney tube into wall les guis virlet puy de dome france… has started in earnest this morning. And in fact if I had been able to find my heavy bolster chisel when I started to look for it instead of having to search for two (yes, two) hours to find it, I would have started this morning.

I’ve whacked a huge hole in the wall that took me through into the chimney, and I’ve passed in a piece of enamel piping 125mm in diameter. This is the outlet for the woodstove that I will be putting up here for the winter to keep me warm memo – buy a woodstove.

I then mixed a huge bucket full of cement and cemented up the hole around the pipe and filled in the cracks that were in the wall. when I finished that, it was 18:00 to the second, so I knocked off. Not like last night where I was so carried away by enthusiasm that I was still working at 19:15 when I noticed the time.

You can always tell when I’m absorbed in an interesting job by how late it is when I knock off.

12 volt LED lightbulbs les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis morning I went chaud-pied to St Eloy to get the LED lights. And, major disappointment, they only had 7 GU10s, 7 MR16s and 6 E14s.

Needless to say, after I had left they didn’t have any at all.

They also had a few cans of the wood treatment that I like (albeit increased in price to 8.99 instead of 7.99) and they are two tins lighter of that stuff now too. It’s very good stuff, this LIDL wood treatment.

I went to Pionsat afterwards to pick up my new bank card and to empty the chemical toilet when I get the time, get the new improved beichstuhl up and running.

While I was emptying the toilet, a woman came in to use the facilities. She made about half a pace in, grabbed her nose, said “God, it stinks in here” and piddled off, giving me a huge grimace. And that took me completely by surprise – I had thought my chemical toilet was known the whole world over by now.

And back home, while looking for the bolster chisel I measured up everything that I’m going to need to do my room. It’s going to stretch my budget considerably but then again, comfort has its price but it is its own reward.

And talking of cracks, an ugly crack appeared on the wall of the OUSA office the other day. But Als Ryan had it papered over before Turdi de Hatred could read it.

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Tuesday 4th August 2009 – A PHOTO FROM A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE TONIGHT

painting facade kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome franceand if you look closely you will notice that the facade of the house has been painted down to the level of the decking on the scaffolding.

That was this afternoon’s task – the morning was taken up in cementing underneath the rest of the eaves. It wasn’t easy without a bricklayer’s trowel, that it until I tried out a piece of recycled plastic slate. What a good finish you can get with a few offcuts of those!

Lunchtime involved a visit to the bank at Pionsat. The temporary insurance certificate for Caliburn has run out
and they haven’t sent me a new one yet.
“Well, you haven’t sent us the log book” was their story
“You didn’t ask for it” I replied. “You just asked for proof of Caliburn’s new registration number and I dropped off the certificate three weeks ago”
“Yes, but we still need the log book”
So GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to the Credit Agricole! I wish they’d make up their blasted minds!

And it was so hot today that the 15 litres of water in my mini-heat-exchanger was scorching. So I took advantage of that and had another shower. Two in a week! I’ll wash myself away at that rate.

I also connected up the fridge. I’ve decided just to run it during the daylight hours in sunny conditions. I have to do something with the excess solar charge seeing as how the batteries in the house now top out after just 30 minutes and isn’t this a change from a short while ago? I’ve filled it full of these ice-packs so that it should retain the cold for a while and I’ll have nice cool orange juice for breakfast.

After the shower I xylophened the two planks that I’m going to be using for the fascia boards on the house, and put the first coat of wood preservative on. I’ll do the second as soon as I wake up and then put the second coat on the house under the eaves while the planks are drying. When they are dry I’ll fit them and then fit the guttering. After that, the scaffolding will come down another level.

And in other news, I had a phone call from a guy I met in the Auchan. He wants to come round and talk Solar Energy so we’ve arranged for Saturday at 18:00. Good job it looks like we’ve been working around here. I’d hate him to think that this total disorder is habitual.

Perish the thought, hey?

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