Saturday 17th January 2015 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING MY MONEY …

… again today.

Last night I looked at the weather forecast for the next few days and apparently the snow is going to arrive on Tuesday night and stay with us for quite a while. Around here of course, no-one goes anywhere in the bad weather unless they really have to, and so I made a decision that I would go to Montlucon today instead.

For once, I was up and about early and in Montlucon for the opening of the shops.At Amaranthe I bought the usual vegan cheese and some vegan paté, and at Noz I merely bought the usual rubbish.

I struck the jackpot at Vima though. You may recall that I bought a soot sucker – a 500-watt vacuum cleaner thing usually used for sucking the ashes out of a woodstove – and I’ve been using it as a vacuum cleaner. It works but not as well as it should as the dust clogs up the filer and thus it needs a few moditications. However, in Vima, there was exactly the machine for the job – a proper 600-watt vacuum cleaner especially designed for dust-sucking and complete with the correct bag filter and all of the attachments. And just €14:99 as well, seeing as it was an ex-demo machine. How can you refuse at that price?

At Brico Depot I spent €170 – and that’s without the tiles. I would have had them too but the server I spoke to promised to come back to me “in a minute” – and half nn hour later, I was still waiting.

However, I now have all of the skirting board, the glue to fit it, the interior crepi for the wardrobe, some more wallpaper glue seeing as how I’ve run out, all of the beading, and tons more stuff besides.

But it was here that I really did hit the jackpot. An electric 600-watt belt sander for just €20:00 was the first thing and that will speed things along here, that’s for sure. But the highlight, at just €0:95 each, were the clip rings for holding the capped halogen (or in my case, capped LED) bulbs into the ceiling. If you remember from reading this rubbish from ages ago, I’m having issues about the weight of the bulbs pulling themselves out of the sockets. Now I can set the bulbs in the false ceilings and clip them in. And where there’s no false ceiling, I can use these plastic junction boxes.

On the way back I stopped at the swimming baths at Commentry and went for a swim and a really good shower. Now I’m set up for the next couple of days.

Back here, I had a little snooze and then did the script for the rock radio programmes that we do for Radio Anglais. Tomorrow, I’m going to be doing some more radio stuff. I’ve been letting it drag for a while.

-1

Friday 16th January 2015 – AFTER ALL THAT I SAID LAST NIGHT …

… about having loads of sun so that I could sand down the floor of the shower room, then I woke up this morning to a hanging cloud. I suppose that that was odds-on, wasn’t it?

So having put the kybosh on the sanding, first thing this morning was to put the second coat of wood treatment on the old exposed beams. That didn’t take too long, From there, I attacked the floor on the landing on the first floor.

And cutting the first floorboard took almost all of the morning. It needed three lets cut in it so that it could fit around the verticals, and they had to be cut pretty precisely. Once that had been done, I had to cut a couple of countersinks into it so that the hinges that fit into it will be flush with the surface.

I needed to cut some floorboarding planks into 50mm lengths to make a framework for the trapdoor, and so despite the absence of electricity I decided to put the new table saw to use.

As I suspected, it is a cheap rubbishy thing (as I suspected) but it did the job well enough once I’d worked out how to fit the guide rail. But in news that will surprise most people, but not the more cynical amongst us, the built-in measure is reading 4mm short. Good job I measure up after I cut the first one, isn’t it?

After lunch, I filed down the offcuts that I had cut so that they made a neat line, and then went off to look at the painting. My masking isn’t up to much, it seems, as I have plenty of white spaces where the masking tpe prevented the wallpaper from reching, and also some of the wood treatment on the old beams has filtered down behind the tape. I’ll have some touching up to do on Monday.

Last job tonight was to cut the second “long” plant to size. That needed trimming off and a couple of lets cut into it to fit around the verticals. That’s now done and so on Monday, another thing that I can be doing is to cut out the trap door in the lower layer of floorboards. Whnen that’s done, I can fit the last two sheets of plasterboard on the studding on the landing, and then cut out the trap on the upper layer of floorboards.

-2

Thursday 15th January 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the painting of the walls in the stairwell today. And I’m glad that I put a second coat of paint on the walls as they certainly needed it – when it was dry, the first coat didn’t look as well as it had looked when I was doing it.

As the colour dried out, it went darker. Consequently I tipped another litre of white paint into the 3 litres of blue paint that was left over and the paint mixer attachment that I fit into the Ryobi Plus One drill mixed it all up quite a treat. I shall be doing a little more of this paint mixing now that I know that it works.

This afternoon I started to strip off the superfluous masking and I must admit that it looks quite nice, especially the contrast between the blue paint and the wooden ceiling and window surrounds. Mind you, the removal of the masking took longer tha I expected.

Once I’d done that, I had to remask around the roof beams that are visible, and I put the first coat of dark brown wood treatment on there. The second coat will go on tomorrow morning first thing.

Finally, I cut down to size the piece of wood that I’ll be using as the end stop of the shower room floor that fits under the door. That is now fitted into place now, ready for me to start tomorrow on fitting the floor on the landing (unless we have plenty of sun in which wase I’ll be sanding down the shower room floor ready for varnishing.

Wednesday 14th January 2015 – WELL, HERE YOU ARE THEN.

The stairwell, all painted a nice blue.

It wasn’t going to be as nice as this though, because the paint was a lot darker than indicated on the tin and I didn’t fancy that idea too much. So into the can went a litre of white paint and that lightened it up a little.

And it was a good job that I did that too, because there wouldn’t otherwise be enough to do a second coat, which is what I’m going to be doing tomorrow. And it needs it too because I’ve been doing it with a brush and it doesn’t go on particularly thoroughly.

It took ages to do too, and it was long after 14:00 when I knocked off for lunch – more like 15:00 in fact, but I wasn’t going to stop work until I had finished the painting.

After my very late lunch I tidied up again and then carried on with the floor in the shower room. That is now all down and fitted in position, apart from the end block which will go under where the door will be.

For tea, I found an old tin of curried mixed beans and so I fried some onions, garlic and potatoes in olive oil and spices, and then added the tin of curried beans and a large tin of vegetables. Now there’s enough there for a good few days and that suits me fine.

For tomorrow after the second coat of paint, I’ll be cleaning up the exposed woodwork of the beams and rafters and painting it in the dark brown wood preservative. Once that is done, I’m going to go for it and start on fitting the door for the shower room. At least if I can do the door frame that will be a great advance.

I’ve worked out that I need three clear days to varnish the stairs and leave each coat to dry before I walk on it. If I go to the shops in Montlucon a week on Saturday, we’re rehearsing the radio programmes on the Sunday and then recording on Monday, then it looks like I have almost a week and a half to do as much of the flooring and woodwork that I can and sand everything down ready to start the varnishing on the Saturday before I head off to Montlucon.

That sounds like a good plan.

-1

Tuesday 13th January 2015 – D’OHHHH!

It’s mystified me for quite a while – the subject of the wind turbine on the side of the house.

You may recall that just before I went to Canada in August I was up on the scaffolding at the front of the house tidying up all of the wiring and one of the things that I tidied up was the wiring to the Wind Turbine. I also fitted a charge controller, a timer and a data panel.

Returning from Canada after 7 weeks away, I was expecting to see a significant reading on the data panel and the timer, and no-one was more astonished than I was to see not a thing. That really confused me greatly.

I didn’t give it much thought after that, being preoccupied with other things, but I did notice while I was up on the scaffolding getting some tools the other day that there were two wires danging down from underneath the junction box. The thought immediately went through my mind that I must have forgotten to connect them up, and that was the explanation for nothing happening.

Today, with 20 minutes to spare before lunch and having promised to deal with a few odd jobs today, and especially with the I went up onto the scaffolding to connect up the wires.

Prising off the top of the junction box, I noticed that these two loose wites were supposed to be loose – they are the wires that will be connecting the third bank of solar panels in due course, and the wires connecting the wind turbine were properly connected up. At least, that’s what I thought at first, but closer inspection revealed nothing of the kind.

Don’t ask me what goes through my mind at certain moments, or whatever I must have been doing at the time, but somehow, despite the clearest indications and a great deal of effort being put into colour coding and all that kind of thing, I somehow managed to connect up the positive lead to the negative feed, and vice versa.

I stood and stared at this for about 10 minutes open-mouthed, and then disconnected everything and reconnected everything correctly. And almost immediately, the green power light that I had fixed into the junction box came on. Since then, I’ve had the old familiar sound of the wind turbine murmuring away in the background.

I really don’t understand what goes on in my mind sometimes, but it’s worrying.

During the night I’d been on my travels around the Holmes Chapel area of Cheshire, in XCL, my red Ford Cortina Mark 5 estate that lives in a lock-up in Montaigut, and I was up comparatively early this morning.

After breakfast I came across another “d’ohhhh!” moment too. It seems that I was premature in declaring that the wallpapering had finished. I’d missed a bit and so I had to deal with that first. Once that was done I had to vacuum up the dust on the stairs (I’m enjoying this soot sucker that I’ve converted into a vacuum cleaner) and then mask everywhere off. That took most of the rest of the morning.

After lunch I collected up a pile of wood, did some tidying up and tool collecting, and then in the last hour or so started work on the shower room floor. THat’s now all cut to size and ready for nailing down, sanding off and varnishing now.

Remember what I said yesterday about knocking off? Well, here I was at 18:00 with the floor only half-done, but regardless, I carried on working until it was finished off.

And in the water butt, following on the fractured tap there, the front water butt is now empty and ready for cleaning and a new tap fitting. But of course I don’t have a new tap (I should have bought one on Saturday, shouldn’t I?) so it’s a good job that I drew off those couple of buckets of water for a reserve supply

-1

Monday 12th January 2015 – WOO HOOOO!

Yes, I’ve finished the wallpaper in the stairwell this afternoon. It doesn’t look particularly pretty but at least it’s all on and it will be staying on now, and that is that.

I had something of a little lie-in this morning so it was about 10:30 when I started work. First job was to vacuum up the dust with the soot-sucker. It didn’t half clog up the filter, but I’ve had experience of this in the past and it didn’t take very long to sort it out.

And in news that will startle almost everyone, I didn’t knock off for lunch until 14:30 – 30 minutes after my usual time. Working later than the normal knocking-off time (18:00 in winter, 19:00 in summer) is not an unusual event, but to work on past the lunchtime break is absolutely unheard-of.

However today, it was 13:45, too early to knock off and a piece of blank wall looked so inviting. As I was on a roll, I threw caution to the winds and pushed on. And I’m glad that I did too, because after lunch and I cracked on, I was done by 17:30 and that was that.

I spent the remaining time doing a few odd jobs, including changing over the plug on the new table saw (I use British plugs and sockets here as you know, because the plugs are fused. By 18:15 I was done and dusted, and that was that.

I can’t paint the wallpaper for a day or two as the paste needs to dry thoroughly. It looks like Wednesday to make a start on that. Tomorrow therefore I’ll push on and do all of the masking-off and catch up with a couple of other jobs that need to be sorted out

Sunday 11th January 2015 – I HAVE DONE …

… absolutely nothing today. I haven’t even made any food since breakfast.

And breakfast was rather late too. having had a more reasonable night last night, I was awake before dawn broke. But badger that for a game of cowboys. The nice clean me turned over in the nice clean bedding and went back to sleep until 10:20. I deserve it after my efforts of the last week.

I did manage to go outside once too – to bring in a few bits and pieces from Caliburn, but that was about that.

Something worthy of note, though. Another day in january when I’ve had no heating on at all. It’s going a little chilly now but I’m off to bed in a minute. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … stuffing this place full of insulation was the best thing that I ever did. Money spent on insulation is never wasted.

-1

Saturday 10th January 2015 – I’M A FIRM BELIEVER …

… that if a thing is destined to happen, it will happen. Regardless of however much input one puts (or doesn’t put) into the whole procedure. It seems to happen time and time again and the only secret of this is, as Jacqueline De Bellefort said in Death on The Nile – “You have to follow your star wherever it leads, even to death itself”.
é
And with this in mind, I went off to Commentry this afternoon.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t.

I had made a stunning breakthrough with this 3D program that I’ve been playing with. I had totally given up on the modern version of it ages ago and had gone back to an ancient version, and there I was last night trying to make a 4th Generation character work properly when, all of a sudden, it all clicked into place and I was so engrossed in what I was doing that it was 06:00 this morning before I realised it, and I hadn’t had any tea either.

Consequently, it was 11:20 when I crawled out of my stinking pit and seeing the bright sunlight and clear sky I resolved to go to Commentry and the swimming baths. Pausing only to add a little more filler to the wall where there was a hole or two, at 13:30 I was off on the road.

The pool was a little (just a little) warmer than last time, practically empty and the shower was just as delicious, even though the private showers were closed for maintenance. And seeing that I was only half a mile from Bricomarché, I went off in search of some sunken hinges – I’ll need these for the trapdoor that I’ll be making in a week or so.

While I was there, not only did I find siome hinges that will do the job, I solved the problem of the handrail for the stairs. Some huge screwed eyes, with 16mm holes, and a 2-metre length of some very nice 14mm hemp rope – that will make a lovely handrail.

But here’s the exciting bit, that relates to what I was talking about earlier. I was thinking again about these wooden ends for the plasterboarding. Cutting up pine boards was my original idea but at Montlucon the other week the stuff on offer was rubbish. At Bricomarché the stuff is so much better, the staff is so much more friendly and they have cutting facilities too.

So while I was wandering around turning things over in my mind, I came across the tool sale, and there on offer at just €44:00, was a cheap 600-watt table saw. It was the last one in stock too.

It’s not the ideal thing, but it’s the nearest that I can find and i’ll need to build a table for it if I’m going to cut doors down doors and things like this, but for what I want to do at the moment it’s ideal. I can soon trim down half a dozen floorboards with this.

I went to the new NOZ at Commentry too. I didn’t buy anything exciting but nevertheless it was a good opportunity to have a look round.

Back here, nice and clean for once, I crashed out for an hour or two. And I’m not surprised either. And I’m off to bed in a minute with nice, clean bedding too. And as it’s Sunday tomorrow, I ccan have a nice lie-in.

But I’m glad I followed my star all the way to Bricomarché at Commentry today.

-2

Friday 9th January 2015 – REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH …

… will be astonished by this, but believe it or not, I’ve started to wallpaper the stairwell.

Despite the lack of electricity today (it was another grey, miserable day today) I cracked on with the sanding down with the electric sander, stopping for half an hour for the boulangère and tidying up in the barn while I was waiting.

It didn’t take as long as I was expecting to sand everything down with the electric sander. In fact, by lunchtime everything was done and I had even put another layer of filler where it was needed.

after lunch though, the second layer hadn’t dried fully so I couldn’t sand it down, so I cleaned up as best as I could at the moment. This was when I noticed that there were a couple of areas had turned out pretty well. As there was still an hour or so before I knocked off, I decided to bite the bullet and start the wallpapering.

I hate wallpapering, I really do. I’m not much good at it, and working in a confined space in a stairwell is not my idea of a good job. But no-one else will do it if I don’t, and so I prepared everything.

And turning back to a few days ago, I found out why that wallpaper wouldn’t stick – the xallpaper that I put on the little shelving space under the stairs. It was in fact clear varnish that I must have put at one time into an empty paste tub. I wish I had labelled everything because it’s not the first time that this has happened.

The second piece of wallpaper that I fitted was quite straightforward, but the rist was a nightmare. All of the dimensoions were different and I was there for half an hour trying to position it, fit it and cut it to shape. Eventually, after much binding in the marsh, I got it to fit something like, a fact that peased me greatly, and I was quite pleased with it by the time that I has finished.

So that was one of the two most difficult pieces in, and on Friday afternoon too. i’m getting ahead of myself here, aren’t I? I went down to do my shopping this evening at the Pionsat Intermarche with a spring in my step.

But I do hate wallpapering. i’ve always said that whoever invented decorating wants f*****g. Although Nerina seemed to be of the opinion that on our honeymoon all those years ago I said “whoever invented f*****g wants decorating”.

But I dunno.

Thursday 8th January 2015 – IT WAS HARD …

… to get out of bed this morning. Being up and about at 04:00 might have something to do with it.

But it was a good job that I did get up though, because Terry came round to borrow a tool. And no-one was more surprised than me that I was able to put my hands straight on them.

And that wasn’t the only thing that was surprising. You may remember that I’ve been looking for the electric sander for the last couple of days? I had a flash of inspiration and went over to where it was supposed to be (although it’s been a long time since any other tool has been there) and, sure enough, there it was. However did that happen?

So after all of that, I started work. with the aid of Caliburn’s ladder, I reached into the corners of the stairwell, masked off everywhere and attacked the gaps in the plasterboard and the screwheads with the filler. The, I made a very wet mix of filler and went around everywhere putting a second coat on the low spots, of which there were quite a few.

After lunch, I started to attack the filler with the electric sander. It looks like a snowstorm out there at the moment, even though I was only able to give about 30 or 40 minutes’ worth of sanding as the weather changed dramatically and I lost the sun behind a huge black cloud.

Looking for something to do for the last hour or so before knocking off, I started on the wiring again. When I had straightened it out a few days ago, everything was in a real tangle so I didn’t make much progress. But with the hour or so that I had, I untangled everything, routed it properly and tidily, nd then made two wire clapms out of old wood battens and some 4×60 screws and clamped all of the wires to the ceiling beams.

Yes, we are definitely making major progress here and if I can finish the sanding tomorrow, providing that I can have 12amps of current, I’ll be ready for wallpapering next week.

I shan’t know myself then.

Wednesday 7th January 2015 – NOW THIS IS REAL PROGRESS.

You’ll notice that the cupboard at the back of the stairs has now grown a door. It’s amazing justwhat you can do with four floorboard planks, a handful of screws, two hinges and a tin of clear varnish.

And I do have to say that I am so impressed with this door -almost as much as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin.

It’s not perfect – for a start the hinges are not perfectly vertical so the door opens under its own weight when the bolt is undone, but bearing in mind that I knew nothing about carpentry before I started on this house

It took me all morning to hang the door, mainly beczuse I had to chisel out the lets in the doorframe in order to fit the hinges. I had also to go rooting around in the barn to find some laths to use as backing on the doorframe, and to cut down the panel over the door, so I’m not surprised about the time that it took;

After lunch I cracked on woth filling in the plasterboard. There was still a great deal that I could reach without the ladder, but tomorrow I’ll definitely be needing to use that. I’ll have to remember to unbolt it from Caliburn’s roof;

Tuesday 6th January 2015 – ANOTHER MILESTONE …

… has been reached today.

Remember in the Spring when I bought that 500-watt ash sucker that I reckoned that I could convert quite easily into a vacuum cleaner? Well, without any conversion at all, I used it today to vacuum all of the dust that had collected on the stairs over the last year or so. And I was ever so impressed with this, almost as much as I wam with my galvanised steel dustbin. Even though it’s only 500 watts, it did a terrific job – much better than I was expecting. Once that had been done, I set to and masked off everywhere in the stairwell that I could reach.

The small ladder that I used when I fitted out the stairwell is now being used in the inspection pit and so I had to spend most of the day being an acrobat trying to reach the far-flung corners, and it wasn’t until I’d knocked off that I asked myself how come I hadn’t thought about the small ladder on the roof of Caliburn.

It took ages to mask off the stairwell and so that left me only about an hour or so to start to fill in the screw heads and the plasterboard joints. It’s going to take much more than that to do all that needs doing, and so I’ll be spending most of the day on Caliburn’s ladder, assuming that I remember to fetch it.

WHat else I’ll be doing is to try to hang the door for the cupboard at the back of the stairs. I put the final coat of varnish on that this morning and so tomorrow morning I can fit the hinges on the door and measure up to fit the hinges on the doorframe.

Monday 5th January 2015 – I CRACKED ON …

… with the work today, but not necessarily in the direction in which I was intending to go.

I started off by cutting down some floorboarding planks to the correct size to make the end pieces for the plasterboard runs and the doorway into the cupboard at the back of the stairs and at the end of the wall by the stairs. The latter one involved some quite intricate shaping but it was soon done and doesn’t look to bad.

And I do have to say, if I haven’t already … "yes you have" – ed … that this Ryobi Plus One percussion screw driver is a tremendous piece of kit and I’m thoroughly impressed with this – almost as much as with my galvanised steel dustbin.

Next job was to clean off the stairs and mask off everything ready to start the filling of the plasterboard joins and screw holes, but then I had another idea.

If I sand down the filler (and for the moment, I can’t find the sander) the dust will go everywhere, including into the cupboard at the back of the stairs, so the cupboard will need to be masked off. And that gave me an idea. If I have to mask off the cupboard, why don’t I simply make the door for the cupboard instead? Killing two birds with one stone as it were.

As it happened, I had a pack of the cheap floorboarding left over, and that was exactly what I needed for the job.

I assembled the four lengths, battened them and reinforced the battens, cut the door to size (four cuts with the circular saw – just as well we had another Alpine day today) and then cut the lets for the hinges. The first coat of varnish went on too before knocking-off time and that was that for today.

This evening, the temperature in here reached almost 30°C as I cranked up the fire to cook some tea. I brought up some fresh wood and that burned fine, and then I put in some of that old damp stuff and it seemed to dry out as the fire became hotter. It was all quite impressive.

Tomorrow I’ll be putting the other two coats of varnish on the door and tidying up ready to start on finishing off the stairway.

-1

Sunday 4th January 2015 – THE LAST DAY …

… of my Winter Break today. It’s back to work properly tomorrow.

So to celebrate my last day off, I had a lie-in until all of 09:00 (I was in bed early last night) and since then I have done precisely nothing.

Well, that’s not true. Regular readers of this rubbish will know that I’m working on a 3D program thatI downloaded a few years ago – trying to make it work like it’s supposed to. I’ve spent all day on it working ona couple of knotty problems and much to my surprise I’ve managed to make one or two of them work – something that has taken me quite by surprise.

I was right about the fire too. With not having it on yesterday it was quite chilly here today and so I lit the fire this morning and had it running for an hour or so at breakfast. That warmed everywher up quite nicely. And then at about 19:00 I lit it again to heat the oven to cook my pizza. That’s about all of the heat today too – it’s not been all that cold outside today.

Apart from that, I was on my travels again last night and the highlight of my nocturnal perambulations was sitting on the stairs in a music shop somewhere playing a Gibson “longhorn” 5-string bass. I’m not sure where this comes from but it did remind me that I’ve not had my bass out for a week or two and I’m falling way behind with my schedules.

I must do something about this.

Saturday 3rd January 2015 – NOW HERE’S ANOTHER THING.

Make a note of today – the 3rd January. And today I have had no heating on at all in my attic.

This means of course that i’ve not had a hot meal today but it’s more important to try to run this place on an energy-efficient basis and with the temperature late at night being 15°C inside my attic then heating would really be superfluous.

What has contributed to this state of affairs is that at about 15:00 I had the gas ring up here going for about 15 minutes boiling a kettle so that I could have a really good wash, and that bumped the temperature up to 16.5°C at one stage. This just goes to show that all of the insulation that I have stuffed into the attic when I fitted it out has not been wasted at all. We have insulation in the ceiling, in the walls and under the floor as you know. Money spent on insulation is never ever wasted.

During the night I was working in an office somewhere and it was so hot in there that I removed my shirt and jumper. When it was time to go home and I put my shirt and jumper back on I nearly boiled away in the heat. I went off back home on the old Honda Melody that is around here – my urban transport mode when I lived in Brussels all those years ago and which is still here. The Melody hadn’t been used for so long that when I went to fill up with petrol the upper part of the filler cap came off in my hand leaving the lower part firmly wedged in and blocking the filler hole.

After breakfast I carried on with my relaxation and after lunch I had a good wash (see the above) and then went to Intermarché …
1) to do the shopping
é) to do the laundry which has been backing up here for I don’t know how long. Yes, it’s a godsend, this launderette here in Pionsat.

Back here, I’ve done nothing at all this evening except to sit in the comparative warmth of my attic. But I’m under no illusions – I’ll probably have to have a fire on here when I wake up tomorrow.

EPIC HALL

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