Category Archives: Barrot

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

Wednesday 20th June 2012 – AFTER THE USUAL …

… couple of hours on the laptop I went off to Rosemary’s for the afternoon.

On the way there thought I had a couple of interesting encounters, firstly with the German guy – Heidi’s husband or partner or something – who lives over the back here, and then with Francois Carriat who lives at Barrot.

Francois was full of energy as usual – “on your way back, drop in. I could do with a hand”.

memorial to the fallen nazi puy de dome franceOn my way around to Rosemary’s, I came across this memorial. I can’t think why I hadn’t noticed it before, because I’ve been up and down this road quite a bit.

Many people criticise what the perceive as the lack of resilience of the French population to the Germans in World War II.

Leaving aside the question that I don’t recall the British civilians of the Channel Island doing too much to resist the German occupying forces – even down to the extent of sitting on their hands in starvation conditions for 9 months after the war had passed them by, the real fact is that there was quite a considerable amount of French resistance!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the numerous plaques that we have seen scattered around the countryside honouring people who were fusilés – shot – or decapité – decapitated – by the Germans, and we’ve seen the cemeteries at Ixelles and Evere in Belgium.

I wonder how these critics would cope if they were running the risk of being shot or decapitated every day.

Round at Rosemary’s we made some space in her barn, put my door in there and loaded up Caliburn with the rubbish, as well as a few bits and pieces that she knew that I would like.

Then we had a coffee and a chat to put the world to rights as we usually do.

I brought the rubbish back here because I have some stuff here that needs throwing away …{thud] …[thud] and I can heave that into the back of Caliburn and make just one trip down to the dechetterie at Pionsat.

Francois certainly did need a hand too. He’s had a rotavator in his small field and turned it into some kind of market garden, and a friend offered him “some” tomato plants. This “some” turned out to be about 150 and they were about 10 inches high with flowers on them.

Anyway, to cut a long story short …”hooray” – ed … Francois did the planting and I followed on behind with the watering cans and we managed to plant most of them before it went dark.

For my trouble Francois gave me a dozen for which I am grateful, and also a chili plant.

Not only that, he fed and watered me too, and we had a good chat about all kinds of things. Including the fact that tomorrow there are four groups of musicians who will be roaming the Streets of Saint Gervais d’Auvergne playing in all of the bars.

Now that sounds like a fun evening and so I might just as well go out and see what’s going on.

-3

Saturday 9th July 2011 – There’a an old French saying …

… to the effect that “il faut etre vu pour etre connu” – which roughly translated means that “you have to be seen in order that people will recognise you” and this is what I keep telling people. You need to get out and about and visit all kinds of events possible and make sure that people recognise you, so that you stick in their memories.

I take it to extremes of course – I drive a yellow-and-black van and all the clothes that I wear are yellow and black – corporate clothing. And it works too. Some people came up to me in LIDL today – “you’re Eric, aren’t you? From the Anglo-French group. We recognised your van on the car park”. And of course, being colour-coded, they knew whose van it was. Works every time.

But with the idea of being out and about, and going to all of the events possible, some times you come up trumps as well.

TF3 indignes des combrailles francois carriat barrot le quartier puy de dome franceFrancois, the local environmental activist from Barrot at Le Quartier, was having another one of his events and he’s asked me to go along. I like Francois very much and his friends are quite friendly too and interested in what I’m doing, and so I went along with pleasure.

But I never expected the French television chain TF3 to have a camera and a reporter there

.

TF3 indignes des combrailles francois carriat barrot le quartier puy de dome franceLuckily Caliburn is sign-written and so I parked him in a strategic place. But I’ve learnt something of a little lesson here ahd what I’m now going to do is have a banner made – one that I can keep in the back of Caliburn together with a few bits and pieces of samples just in case anything like this happens again. You live and learn.

And so it just goes to show – you need to be prepared for all eventualities and have everything to hand. You never know who you are going to meet when you are out. Nothing like this would ever happen if you stayed indoors brooding and sulking.

strawberry moose barrot le quartier puy de dome franceAnd I wasn’t the only one who goes in search of publicity and seeking a presence in front of the television cameras.

Strawberry Moose was pleased to see the television people too and took the opportunity to have his views aired on television. Appearing in public before his fans and making new friends has always been top of his priorities

Interestingly, one of the guys at this meeting was talking about building his own wind turbine. Even more interestingly, this American company I was talking to yesterday sells all of the complicated machinery that you need that you can’t manufacture yourself when you are building your own wind turbine.

I have a feeling that I might well be on to something here.

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Sunday 19th June 2011 – I’m going to bed in a sec.

eric hall renewable energy energies renouvelables francois carriat fete de barrot les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, I had an early night for a change. But then again I needed it for I’ve been busy today at Francois’ event at Le Quartier today.

I met loads of interesting people, picked up loads of interesting ideas, and even sold some product, so it was definitely well worth while my going even though I smell of wood-smoke seeing as I was set up next to a guy selling woodstoves that he makes out of old gas cylinders.

strawberry moose eric hall renewable energy energies renouvelables francois carriat fete de barrot les guis virlet puy de dome franceStrawberry Moose was moose-napped again by a young admirer – he certainly has more luck than I do – and came back decorated with flowers. He liked that very much.

I met loads of friends too – too numerous to name – and I was reminded that there’s a chantier at Karl and Lou’s on Saturday.

It was quite a good event and my stall worked well but I didn’t stay for the dance and disco stuff – I feel much better curled uo with a glass of warm wincarnis at my age after my exertions just recently. And if a couple of these apparently-genuine enquiries come off I’ll be able to eat next week too.

In other news, another thing that I foretold has truly come to pass. Yes, the Septics are in talks with the Taliban. And who is surprised by this news, except the UK of course whose public position that “We will never negotiate with terrorists” (although in that case what the Good Friday Agreement is all about is a totaly mystery) is now in tatters and revealed as the farce it was always going to be.

The USA is pulling out of Afghanistan shortly and the whole basis of these negotiations with the Taliban is that the Yanks have no confidence that Khazi’s government will last 5 minutes after they have gone. The fact that Khazi’s writ runs no further than the walls of his palace is something that I have been saying for years – now it seems that the USA agrees with me.

And so what does this mean? It means that the west is fleeing from Afghanistan with its tail firmly between its legs. Not only did the Yanks lose all these people at the World Trade Centre, they have lost 4000 more in Afghanistan and the Brits almost 400 dead and for absolutely nothing at all, and as well as they they have stirred up a hornet’s nest of hatred that won’t die down in a lifetime.

The West’s campaign in Afghanistan has been a failure, and it’s been a failure since day one. Serve the badgers right as well.

-1

Saturday 1st January 2011 – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And quite right too!

Wishing everyone the compliments of the season, and me too because regular readers of this rubbish will realise that it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

it’s a Bank Holiday today and so that means a lie-in, and then a day of leisure where I do as little as possible.

Not quite though, because François was having a get-together and because regular readers of this rubbish tell me that I need to get out more often, I decided to go. It never does anyone any harm to socialise – including me.

The usual crowd was there of course – not very inspiring unfortunately. But nevertheless I’m glad that I went because Bill was there and at least I can have a good chat or two with him.

The good news to come out of that is that Bill has offered me an immersion heater – 100 litres – that he’s just taken out of his house. I’ve been looking for a small one like this for quite a while.

If I can change the element from 230 volt to 12 volt then this will go nicely in the barn to use as a dump load for the excess solar energy, assuming that we ever get any more decent sunshine.

Not sure when that might be.

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