Tuesday 3rd March 2015 – I HAD A GOOD DAY …

… at work today, for a change. Although, as usual, you wouldn’t really notice.

I was up early enough and after breakfast had a good crack on at the laptop. As well as the Radio Anglais programmes, I’ve restarted work on my website again. I’ve done almost nothing on it during the winter but now Spring is here and it’s time to come out of hibernation and get a wiggle on

In the bedroom I spent some of the morning finishing off the second door on the upper part of the wardrobe, cutting out the lets for the hinges and fitting them, and then fitting the door handle and the magnetic catch. Once I’d done all of that, I could hang the door.

And then take the door off, file down part of the edges so that it would fit better and then rehang it.

Off to Caliburn next, to fetch another pack of floorboarding and bring that upstairs. Then I could make up a board out of seven planks, ready to cut down to make doors 3,4,5 and 6.

After lunch, I cut two strips 770mm wide out of the board that I had made. 770mm is the height of the upper doors (give or take a millimetre or two) and these two strips will form the four doors that I mentioned just now.

One of the strips I cut down to make two doors of exactly the right width for doors 3 and 4, and then fitted the reinforcing battens. I had to cut down some wood for the battens, and the table saw that I bought in Commentry a couple of months ago did the job expertly. In fact, I was running the electricity and power tools today (the circular saw, the belt sander and the table saw) until 18:40 today without significantly draining the batteries and I’m well pleased with that.

So now the two doors are ready to be hung tomorrow morning, and then I can crack on with cutting down doors 5 and 6. When they are done, there will be just door 7 to fit, and then the upper fascia panels and then I can varnish the wardrobe.

Tonight, I didn’t light a fire. 17.8°C in the attic it was, which was impressive for this time of year. I cooked tea on the single burner camping stove that I use for making coffee and as well as working perfectly (a good plan making these huge curries and packing them into individual portions – they don’t take much heating) it warmed up the place by 1°C.

On the subject of electricity, I noticed that at one stage we were having 42 amp-hours of surplus electricity. It didn’t last long but it pumped uop the heat in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load.

-1

Monday 2nd March 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… as much done as I wanted to today – but then I had quite an interruption round about lunchtime.

I struggled to get out of bed this morning, but nevertheless I cracked on with my stuff about Algeria and managed to finish that, at least, even though I was late going down to work.

I managed to fit all of the framework for the upper doors, although one piece had to be recut after it split while I was malleting it into position. All of that took much longer than I anticipated, due mainly to my having to cut a couple more fascia pieces as the ones that I had set aside were not strong enough.

Once that had been done, I went out to fetch a pile of floorboards from Caliburn and then made the first of the upper doors.

But this was when I noticed the smell of burning.

We had a brief patch of sun today and I ended up with 45 amp-hours of power going down the cables to the home-made 12-volt immersion heater. It seems that the connector on the positive cable wasn’t up to that and the connection was arcing out. I ended up having to cut it off, fit a new connector, cut off the insulation and then solder it using the new gas soldering gun that Terry bought me for Christmas.

My soldering is total rubbish as you know, but it has to be better than my crimping, so it seems. and it was then that I noticed that the thread appears to be stripped in the heater element. I had to remove the screw and do my best with a nut and bolt, but that’s not looking so good and I’m going to have to deal with this.

All in all, I ended up having lunch at about 16:30.

Back at work I carried on until 19:00. All of the hinges are in place but the door needs trimming down. That’s not the kind of thing that you can do when you are tired and so I’ll be dealing with that first thing tomorrow.

-1

Sunday 1st March 2015 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… gone to Chamalières this afternoon for the footy as FC Pionsat St Hilaire were replaying a postponed match from before the Winter Break. However, what with one thing or another, I couldn’t summon up the energy to hit the road.

I had a nice lie-in though – 11:00 it was when I left my comfortable bed. And after breakfast I finished off the rock music notes for Radio Anglais and then started on the additional notes for the Radio Arverne broadcasts. This wasn’t as easy as it might have been, because April is one of these 5-week months where I have to write something random to fill in the extra week.

I try to write something about French culture and history for those broadcasts, but my two little booklets couldn’t produce a single useful item that happened in that week in the past and I ended up having to use the internet to search out something. As it happens, that week in April is the anniversary of the date of an attempted coup d’etat against the French government in 1961, and while maybe the French don’t like to talk too much about it, it’s quite an interesting historical event for foreigners, for the coup d’etat hinged upon several other events in French history about which we foreigners know very little.

I’ve not progressed very far though because I’ve been more interested in reading rather than writing, but I’m hoping that I can find half an hour or so tomorrow morning to do some more.

I was on my travels in the night too. I’d actually bought another apartment in Brussels – one that was really nice and comfortable and with a beautiful west-facing balcony where I could sit in the sunset. One of the prime reasons for doing this was to keep in touch with the girl who was working at my solicitors as I had a little crush on her.

In fact, there was a group of us travelling somewhere and we had to meet up at a car park on the edge of town. I resolved to walk to the car park as I knew that she was taking her car and I intended to blag a ride with her. I turned down a couple of offers from other people and sure enough, she turned up but in another car driven by a friend. They agreed to give me a lift, but the girl sat in the back (which spoiled all my plans) and I sat in the front next to the driver.

On arriving at our destination, we all left the car but across the square was a Citroen Traction Avant painted bright yellow. Of course, I had to go off and photograph it (it had turned into a Solex moped by this time) and I lost touch with this girl with whom I had been hoping to spend the day.

Such is life when you travel on your nocturnal voyages.

But was really was significant about today was that this was the first morning of the year when I recall hearing the birds chattering away early in the morning. Spring must be just around the corner.

Saturday 28th February 2015 – NOW HERE’S A THING

During breakfast this morning I gave the cinders in the woodstove the customary riddling-over to drop the ashes into the tray below and I also cleaned the glass window as usual. Half an hour later, I noticed that the cinders had caught light and were burning. The riddling must have done the trick, but it’s not every day by any means when I can restart the fire next morning. It certainly was an exceptional thing.

And it wasn’t early either.

I had a late night last night and so was in no rush to leave my stinking pit. But some ******* rang me up at 09:30 this morning and that was that. They hung up as soon as I answered the phone and if ever I find out who it was and lay my hands upon them, then they will find out just how much they annoyed me.

I did half of the text for the rock music programmes this morning, but I’ve been struggling this afternoon. In fact I crashed out for a good few hours until 20:00 – that shows you just how well I’m feeling just now. In fact I’m off to bed as soon as I’ve done this, and I shall sleep until my name changes to Eric van Winkle.

I’ve only been outside once today too and that was to take the stats and bring in some water. I’ve done nothing else at all despite all of my best intentions. I’m going to have to pull myself together I reckon and sort out this fatigue issue.

Friday 27th February 2015 – IT WASN’T QUITE …

… such a late start this morning, although I did finish mixing the live concert for the rock show that i’ll be broadcasting in a few weeks time. I just need to do the text for the rock programmes (which I’ll do tomorrow morning) and that will be the rock shows done for the month of April.

Back in the bedroom, I started to fit the shelving in the wardrobe.

First job was to cut down the shelving strip. It comes in 2-metre lengths and so seeing as how I had four of them, I could each one in half to give me 8 lengths of I metre, and then measured up so that they could be screwed correctly into the back and front walls of the wardrobe so that the shelves will be level.

I ran through the offcuts of pine boarding that I had lying around, and there was enough to make 6 shelves, with some judicious cutting. Not enough, so I had to cut up a pine board in order to make two more.

What astonished me was that I went outside to find the clips that support the shelves and I was able to put my hand on them straight away. It’s not every day that this kind of thing happens, especially around here is it?

But anyway, now I have all of the shelving fitted and doesn’t it look nice?

I wasn’t so lucky with looking for the clothes rail. I know that I have two oval ones that I salvaged from a previous project, but I’ve absolutely no idea where they might be found. They will have to wait for another time.

I’ve also started fitting the framework for the upper row of doors, and it seems that I have miscounted and don’t have enough hinges, magnetic catches or door handles. Well, that’s just typical isn’t it?

And I’ve also managed to screw a screw into my thumb while I was at it.

Later on, after knocking off, I went to Pionsat and the Intermarche to do the shopping. And ended up having a lengthy chat about the virtues of Canadian maple syrup with a fellow-shopper.

Thursday 26th February 2015 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. However this was not due to any urgent desire to get to work. I knew that I shouldn’t have finished off that bottle of pop before I went to bed.

That gave me an hour or so before starting work and so I made a start on the next month’s issue of radio programmes. I might as well put this time to good use. I made quite a bit of progress too but like anything else, there’s never enough time to do anything.

I had a good day at work today. First job was to take that sheet of floorboarding that I had made up yesterday and cut off one of the doors for the wardrobe.

Once that had been done, it needed the diagonal bracing and the door handle fitting, and then I had to organise the hinges on the door and on the frame. With that done, I could hang the door. And while it needs a little sanding where it’s tight on the frame , it’s quite a good fit.

Next task was to cut down the remaider of the sheet of floorboarding to make the second door. And then to repeat all of the above procedure as on the first door and hang that.

That was a good fit too except once more, a little tight on the frame (but sanding will take care of that of course).

However, the width was about 2mm out but I was able to deal with that by undoing the bracing, using a large sash clamp to pull the floor boards closer together and then te-attaching the bracing. That way, I recovered the 2mm that I needed and the widths are perfect, which is certainly impressing me.

Once the bolt had been fitted on one of the door and the lock and magnetic catch fitted to the second door, then we now have two pairs of doors on the wardrobe and this is starting to look serious.

Knocking off for lunch 15 minutes late and knocking off for the evening 45 minutes late – you can see just how much time and effort that I’m putting into this bedroom. I don’t understand why it’s not progressing much quicker than it is. That’s something of a complete mystery to me.

Tomorrow, I’ll be fitting the shelving brackets and then cutting the shelves to fit. That is, provided that we have some sun. Today, we were bathed in a hanging cloud all day, solar energy was nominal and the batteries didn’t half creak when I was running the circular saw. We need a good day pretty soon.

-1

Wednesday 25th February 2015 – BACK TO WORK TODAY

And I didn’t feel much like it either. A late night last night and the battery going flat in the mobile phone that I use as an alarm clock meant that I wasn’t awake as early as I would have liked, and I crashed out for half an hour at lunchtime too.

Once I actually started work (about 20 minutes late) I cracked on – or so it seemed – but despite working consciensciously throughout the day, I haven’t made all that much progress and I don’t know why.

The story of my life just recently, I’m afraid.

I cut the second door of the wardrobe down to size (and much to my surprise, the width is millimetre-perfect), sanded off the edges with the new belt sander, did the lets in the door and the frame for the hinges and fastened them, and then hung the door.

Once it was in place, I fitted the handle, fitted the door lock and drilled out the hole for the key, and fitted the magnetic catch.

That took me nicely up to something of a late lunch and I went off upstairs for a little doze

After lunch, I rooted out another couple of packets of floorboarding (and also found the strips for the shelving supports for the inside of the wardrobe – I knew that I had them somewhere) and then made the sheet of planks from which I’ll be cutting out the doors for the other half of the wardrobe.

I also made the framework for the doors and that took me to 18:30, so having more-than-recovered the time lost due to my late start, I called it a day.

For tea, I cooked a mega-pepper-and-lentil curry that’s now divided up for another three meals, and now I’m off to bed.

I’ll be carrying on with my doors tomorrow – I wonder how far I will get.

Tuesday 24th February 2015 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

And I celelbrated by doing absolutely nothing at all. And quite right too. I’m entitled to have a birthday day off work.

I intended to celebrate by having a nice long lie-in, and I managed until all of about 09:00. And apart from having to go outside for a load of firewood, hauling myself out of bed was the most strenuous thing that I’ve done today.

I’ve not cooked tea tonight – one of the main reasons being that I’ve hardly had the fire on. Just two little fires of about 45 minutes each – that’s been enough to take the chill off the room up here as it’s not been all that cold, despite what the weather has been doing outside. A late lunch and a few nibbles was sufficient.

And I’m feeling better today that I did yesterday, that’s for sure. Mind you, I don’t think that I could have felt much worse.

Monday 23rd February 2015 – I’M NOT SURE WHAT’S HAPPENING …

… but I’ve had a bit of a bad day today.

Despite having something of a decent night’s sleep last night, I almost crashed out recording the radio programmes this morning, and it was something of an effort to drive back from Gerzat this afternoon. Back here, I crashed out for 3 hours or so and now, at just 22:40, I’m dying to crawl into bed and forget about today completely.

Mind you, I had something of an exhausting night last night and that might explain a great deal. I was walking from Brussels back to here and in the traditions of the well-known Irish joke, I’d fund a boarding house with a typical boarding house landlady, and I was setting out there to walk the route. When I reached the end of the day and was tired out, I would walk back to the boarding house for the night, and then next morning, walk back to where i’d left off the previous evening, and start out along the route, walking back to the boarding house at the end of the day.

No wonder I was exhausted.

At Radio Tartasse, we learned the news that we had been dreading – that Henri had not recoverd from his illness. He was 90 years of age but looked probably no older than 70 and was full of vitality, but a short while before Christmas he went down as if he had been poleaxed, and aged 40 years overnight.

It’s something that catches up with all of us eventually, sooner or later, but I really enjoyed Henri’s company, his knowledge and his good humour and I shall miss him.

After lunch, during which I demolished the leftovers of Liz’s vegetable pie from yesterday, we went off to Gerzat. and although we had a half-hour wait for the studio, the recording sessions went perfectly and we’d done in an hour with no delay at all.

And then I had to come back here.

But now I’m off to bed, I’ve cancelled the alarms and I’m going to sleep for ever. I really must be sickening for something.

-1

Sunday 22nd February 2015 – HOW LONG IS IT…

… since I’ve posted a pic of the Puy de Dome?

Yes, I’ve been down to Liz and Terry’s this afternoon. On Monday we’re recording our radio programmes on Monday so we need to rehearse. Consequently Liz cooked a lovely tea and we ate it after doing whatever we needed to do.

It gave me a chance to see the Puy de Dome anyway, all bathed in snow and looking like a lovely Christmas cake with its coat of icing.

Liz and Terry had other guests too. Simon and Tina, friends of Liz and Terry, were there and as it happens, Simon is a drummer. That’s worth knowing and we shall have to work on that.

You may remember that I moved Caliburn up the hill last night. I didn’t really need to because although we did have snow, it wasn’t enough to worry about. And by the time I’d finished my leisurely morning, almost all of it had gone.

Back here tonight I lit a fire. But it didn’t catch and spluttered out. And seeing that I’m going to bed in a minute I’m not going to persevere so I’m classing this as a no-heat day.

Saturday 21st February – I WOKE UP THIS MORNING …

… "der dit der dah dit" – ed … to something like darkness.

And it wasn’t as if it was very early either. The truth was that we had had a snowfall during the night and the roof windows were covered.

It snowed intermittently throughout the day too – quite severely at times – but nothing seemed to stick. Nevertheless, seeing as how I’m going out tomorrow, I took Caliburn and parked him at the top of the hill in the lane because the temperature will drop during the night and if it snows like it did today then we really will be having transport issues.

The snow put paid to any plans that I might have had about going out. I stayed in all day and did nothing. I couldn’t even summon up the enthusiasm to do any tidying up.

I did go out to take the stats and while I was there I filled up the empty kettles, and that was the lot.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry either. I’ve been working hard just recently and I deserve a day or two off work.

-1

Friday 20th February 2015 – AHHH WELL!

Yes indeed!

Yesterday I told you of everything that I needed to do on the wardrobe, and how I would be lucky to do half of it. In fact I’ve managed to make the framework for one pair of doors, assemble a pair of doors and hang one of them.

And that’s it.

And I’m not sure why either. It’s not as if I’ve been slacking or been distracted, or spent hours looking for stuff either. I’ve put in a good shift and made good use of the circular saw and the new belt sander (with which I am very impressed – it does exactly what I wanted it to do) too, but for some reason I don’t think that I’ve advanced very much.

I’ll have to work much harder than this if I want to make progress because this isn’t very good at all. if I carry on like this I’m never going to accomplish anything. However, I’m not quite sure how I can work any faster. After all, as I have already said, it isn’t as if I’ve been slacking.

After knocking off, I went into Pionsat. Firstly, for a pile of shopping at the Intermarche of course, and secondly to put a load of washing into the washing machine there. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … installing the little launderette at the Intermarche was the best thing that the owners of the supermarket ever did.

I had the clothes hanging outside in the wind, because we’ve been having a lovely windy day today, but when I was outside later doing the stats, it started to rain so I’ve stuck it all in the verandah.

Now I’m all set up for the weekend.

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.

Wednesday 18th February 2015 – IF YOU WERE TO LOOK …

… at the photo of today’s work, you would be forgiven for thinking that I don’t seem to have made much progress.

In actual fact, I reckon that today was the day when I accomplished the most work in the bedroom to date, in that all of the electricity in the dressing table area is now installed.

There’s a pair of 12-volt sockets (you’ll notice that I use North American plugs and sockets for my 12-volt circuits as they take high-capacity cable), a 230-volt mains socket (I use British plugs and sockets here because the plugs are fused) and a light switch that powers one of these IKEA LED light strips.

All I need now is some extra-long screws to fasten the socket to the pattress, and also a mirror. But they will both come in the fullness of time.

I would have made much more progress too had I not fastened the connectors to the wire of the LED light strip before I’sd threaded it through the hole. I had to cut off the ends and pass the wires through, and then I couldn’t find any more connectors. I spent about half an hour looking too. In the end I had to invent something.

But you’ll notice the difference between today’s photo and yesterday’s. We have the mirror backing in position and also the other side wall of the dressing table area. We really are making progress.

Tomorrow I won’t accomplish too much because I have to go to Cécile’s to show someone round. But I’m hoping that I can fit the top of the wardrobe as well as the intermediate shelf. If I can do that, as well as to start to assemble the front walls, I shall be quite happy. But I have a feeling that I’m going to miss my target of the end of the month, and probably by a week or two as well, to finish the bedroom.

I had another helping of my vegan aubergine and kidney bean whatsit for tea, and I realised that I forgot to add the olives too. What a performance!

Tuesday 17th February 2015 – I’VE BEEN ON MY TRAVELS …

… during the night and was having such an exciting time that I was determined to remember every second of it when I awoke.

Of course, you can guess what happened. I awoke and … paff … it was gone.

Ahhh well.

So this morning after something of a slow start (I’m not quite sure why I couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm) I cracked on. And much to my surprise, by the time that I had knocked off for lunch, I had really accomplished something.

and here you are – my first ever home-made chest of drawers.

Don’t worry about the front panels by the way, they will be replaced eventually with pine planks when I have finished the wardrobe and know what offcuts that I might have left over. And they will pass in front of the wardrobe frame too, in order to hide the framework which isn’t quite straight.

Making the sides was exciting though. I had to make the first one and fit the runners in position by trial and error. And to my surprise, I only ended up 14mm out in height. And that was soon remedied with an offcut and from the outside, you would never notice.

The second side was of course so much easier, having already made the first and having taken copious notes.

The gap in between the two sides needed to be 549mm and to my total astonishment, having assembled the framework back in 2010 or 2011 or whenever, and doing it by guesswork, I had left a gap of 548mm. And what is 1mm betweem friends?

After lunch I fitted the top to the chest of drawers, fitted one of the sides of the wardrobe above the chest of drawers, and cut and shaped the piece for the back where the mirror will be. It’s all becoming quite exciting here as I progress.

But two things stick in my mind and one of them is annoying me intensely. I’ve designed the wardrobe so that the internal fitting is 500mm, meaning that I can use 500mm pine boards without having to cut them. However, the flaming, blasted, perishing 500mm pine boards are actually 505mm, meaning that I have to trim 5mm off each board.

This is a total shambles, I’ll tell you that. If there were anywhere else to go other than Brico Depot, I’d be there.

But the second thing that I have to say is based on the first thing, and this is definitely positive. That is that despite the hanging cloud that has covered us for all of the day, I’ve used the 650-watt circular saw intermittently today and you would never ever notice from the state of the batteries. Installing these new, big heavy-duty batteries back at the end of autumn was an excellent move. those old second-hand batteries would never have coped with this.

For tea tonight, I made an exciting vegan aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit. I’ve lost a load of supplies, including the macedoine vegetables and the kidney beans. I’ve no idea where these might have gone but its bewildering. I’ve had to use subsititutes and it doesn’t taste the same.

But where have these supplies gone to then? This is bizarre.

EPIC HALL

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