Friday 2nd January 2015 – I WAS IN CREWE …

… last night, back at Gainsborough Road. The four members of Golden Earring were in bed, which was a mattress on the floor in a smallish room rather like back at La Batisse, and they were giving a concert to about four people while they were in bed. It was all rather weird.

What was even more weird was that someone was writing up a schedule of the “concert” and I noticed that, even deep in the arms of Morpheus as I was, that I could tell that the address that they had written was incorrect.

For some reason that I don’t quite understand, Golden Earring feature quite often in my nocturnal ramblings.

I was awake at 07:00 this morning but there was no possibility of hauling myself out of my stinking pit. I stayed there until about 10:00 instead and then had breakfast. I watched More Than Murder, the second part of this Mike Hammer spectacular. Its French title is “Il pleut des Cadavres” – which crudely translated by Yours Truly means “It’s Raining Corpses” and that sums up the film quite well.

These films are about 90 minutes long and more people die in them than died in the 90 minutes that it took to sink the Bismark. I don’t suppose that the films are too bad but they are full of plot holes and non-sequiturs and the action moves on at such a speed that there’s no time for a substantial plot to build up. They are clearly aimed at the truncated attention span of the American MTV generation.

It does make me wonder that if the Director hadn’t had the time constraint of 90 minutes and all that had to be crammed into it, what would these films have turned out like? Marlon Brando, when he directed One Eyed Jacks ended up with a “Director’s Cut” of about 9 hours or something like that, and the savage editing clearly showed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Director’s Cut of More Than Murder would double that with plenty to spare.

The Boulangere was late today but the time wasn’t wasted. When I built the woodshed Iused a pile of old pallets and there was tons of wood left over – the feet of the pallets and the like. So I separated all of the feet from the planks – some of them were quite substantial – and brought them up here. They didn’t half get the fire going.

And apart from that, nothing else happened today.

Now apart from FC Pionsat St Hilaire, I don’t usually talk about football very much on here. But I follow the antics of Bangor City Football Club. This is the largest and best-supported club in Wales, and I started to follow them when I used to go to Bangor to see a girlfriend who was at Uni there. They are having a dismal season this year, languishing at the foot of the Welsh Premier League and running around like a bunch of headless chickens directed by a manager who seems to have lost the plot completely in my opinion and a spineless Board of Directors who, it seems to me, have totally abandoned their responisbilities.

Had they won today, they would have risen off the bottom of the table because the team above them lost, but instead, they gave another clueless and inept performance and lost 3-0. It’s already looking like an odds-on relegation certainty, and this is a fine end to the biggest club in Wales.

It’s high time that the Board of Directors accepted its responsibilities, dismissed the manager, released some of the underperforming players and brought in a manager and some players who know how to fight..

What’s going on at Bangor City is a total shambles and the Board of Directors must accept total responsibility for the disaster that is staring them in the face before it’s too late.

-1

Thursday 1st January 2015 – HOWEVER DID THIS HAPPEN?

Yes, at 07:30 this morning, the alarm in here went off. I’ve had it switched off for over a week, so I’ve no idea what’s caused that to go off. And after an 04:00 finish last night, that was the last thing that I needed.

Never mind, I turned over and went back to sleep and that was how I stayed until just before 11:00.

After breakfast, I watched Stacy Keach as Mike Hammer in MURDER ME, MURDER YOU, one of Mickey Spillane’s detective films. It’s not the best of the hard-bitten private eye films – for that you are going to have to go a long way to find anything that will beat The Maltese Falcon or the Tony Rome films, but it was on sale with another Mike hammer film at a throwaway price in NOZ and I can say that I haven’t wasted my money.

Apart from that, I’ve had a day of rest today. I haven’t even cooked a meal. We have however had a beautiful Alpine day which had thawed out the taps so that I can at last isolate the front water butt and when I’ve emptied that I can change thr fractured tap.

I’ve had fire issues too. I tried several times to get the fire to light but to no avail. In the end I sorted out a pile of new wood offcuts and that managed to stimulate a reasonably healthy blaze.It seems that the wood that I brought in the other day is saturated and that’s not helping matters, to while I had a good blaze going with the new wood, I put some of the other wood in the oven to dry out. We’ll see what that is like tomorrow.

So Happy New Year to everyone. I wish you all for 2015 exactly the same that you all wished for everyone else in 2014.

-1

Wednesday 31st December 2014 – NOW HERE’S A THING.

While I was having (a rather late) breakfast this morning, I started to empty out the woodstove and clean the glass window. But much to my surprise, the big log that I put in there last think last night was still smouldering away.

It didn’t fire up however when I opened the foor, but it was still something of note to see it.

After breakfast, Iwent out to look at this idea of fitting the wood to the ends of the runs of plasterboard as I mentioned yesterday. However, I was thwarted right at the start, because it was one of these jobs where you needed to do several other things before I could start.

I had to fit a few lengths of tongue and grroving as a false ceiling, but before that I had to fit the plasterboard onto part of the stud walling. And before I could do that, I had to move some wiring around.

Anyway, you get the picture.

However, we have made a little bit of history because we now have, for the first time, plasterboard on both sides of part of the stud walling. That’s history in the making of course, and it means that whatever is between the two layers of plasterboard is there for good now, in exactly the same place as it’s going to be.

There’s 5 lengths of tongue and grooving in the ceiling as well, enough to clear the stairway.

And while I was doing all of this, I had another idea. I don’t have too much of this wood that I was talking about yesterday, so seeing that it’s good, heavy stuff I’m going to save it for where I’m putting the hinges for the doors. For the rest, I’ve been experimenting with floorboarding. I cut one to size, trimmed off the tongue and then with the circular saw I cut the width to size.

I had to file and sandpaper the edge where I cut the width to size, and it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I was fearing. A power plane or a belt sander would finish them off quite nicely but I don’t have them so I’ll have to do without.

So while it might not look as if I’ve done much today, it is in fact an enormous amount of progress both physically and psychologically too. Just one piece of wood to be fitted and then I can start to fill and then sand down the stairwell ready for wallpapering and painting

-1

Tuesday 30th December 2014 – WELL, THAT WAS A WASTE OF TIME.

Remember yesterday when I was busy putting that piece of wood in to fill that unexplained gap in the woodwork and ended up falling down the stairs?

This morning I started to fit the plasterboard into position, and after a good hour or so at the cutting, measuring and fitting, and also fitting in some bracing which was unaccountably absent, the light suddenly went on in my head. Yes, where is the insulation in the wall?

Off came all of the plasterboard that I had cut and shaped, and off came the bracing that I had fitted, and on went 40mm of polystyrene insulation. And now I can see why there was that unexplained gap – it was for passing the insulation through and out behind the stairs. Still, it’s too late to do much about that now.

Before I had started on the plasterboard, I had taken the masking off the floor under the stairs on the landing, and put the first coating of varnish on there. I’d put the second coat on and fitted the stairs too. So that’s another job out of the way.

I’ve even had a bit of good luck too. Aeons ago, when I lived in Brussels, I bought a pack of 100mm wide 25mm thick planed wood planks to make some shelves, but I never used it. I discovered two of the planks and tried them as end-stops for the plasterboard stud walls. They seem to be perfect for this job and so tomorrow I’ll have a go at fitting tham.

I’ve also rerouted a pile of wiring so that it will run under the false ceiling on the landing and then down with all of the other wiring between the stud wall that has the shower room on one side and the head of the stairs on the other side, and I can’t think why I didn’t do this ages ago.

As for the water issues, the front tap thawed out slightly today and the leak isn’t anything like serious. It’s losing about half a litre every hour, but more when the tap is open. The rear tap is still frozen up so I can’t isolate the front tank.

Mind you, the frozen tap is doing that so it’s the same thing really, and as for the leak, the front tank needs to be emptied anyway so that I can change the tap so it’s neither here nor there. I’ve emptied 40 litres out of it today into various containers and I’ll keep on doing that for now until the weather warms up and I can isolate the front tank.

-1

Monday 29th December 2014 – OUCH!!!

Yes, I fell down the stairs today.

I was at the top of the stairs fixing in a piece of wood into the corner at the back of the upper stairs and I had to reach right across the stairwell to screw it in. And then I forgot that I was reaching right across a void and put my foot down again. And that was that.

But that’s not the worst of the problem. I’m going to be having water issues here when the thaw sets in. It’s not so bad at minus 10.5°C such as we had during the night, but the severe temperature has cracked one of the taps on the water butt. The other two taps that control the flow into the front water butt are frozen solid so I can’t cut off the supply. That means that if the front water butt defrosts before the rear one, then I’ll lose all of the water in the containers.

That’s not the only issue that I’ve had with water either. I keep a 5-litre container of water in the bedroom for all kinds of different purposes, and I’ve managed to kick that all over the floor.

And that’s not all either. After varnishing the stair treads and risers that I cut the other day, I went to emulsion the wallpaper that I’d fitted in the stairwell. The first tub of white paint that I found had varnish in it. The secpnd one had lime mortar in it. And that was that.

Luckily I had some crepi left over from when I did the walls in the cupboard under the stairs, so I applied that to the wallpaper. And when I checked the job an hour or so later, the weight of the crepi had pulled the paper off the wall. In the end, I pulled the paper off the wall and put the crepi directly on the plasterboard. And if I had done that first instead of last, this job would have been finished three days ago.

I forgot to ention that Brico Depot on Saturday was having a sale of LED light bulbs – 4.2 watts at €3:99 each which is a bargain in anyone’s money. I bought all 14 that were left and this will complete the bilbs that I need for the barn with a couple left over.I tried a couple in the barn and I wasn’t half impressed.

As you know, I’m working in the bedroom and on the ground floor at the moment so I took out the 1.2 watt LED light bulbs in each room and put the extra 4.2 light bulbs in there. And the difference is phenomenal. I can actually see what I’m doing now in there at night and that makes a change.

This was something else that I should have done ages ago.

-2

Sunday 28th December 2014 – BRRRR!

I’ve just been outside to take the stats, and it’s minus 5°C outside. Absolutely taters it was and my tiny hands were frozen.

Mind you, i’m disappointed with this snow that we had. Here I was, expecting about two feet of snow given the weather last night, but what we did have was a light dusting and plenty of ice.

When I woke up this morning, it was a mere 12.9°C in here and that was enough to make me want to go back to sleep. I’d been on my travels during the night, back to the days of my youth. There were two girls in the house where I was living. One was something to do with the owners of the house and had a superb bedroom all to herself. The other was an adopted girl and she also had a bedroom all to herself which, although nothing like as luxurious as the bedroom of the other, was still quite impressive nevertheless. However this perceived lack of facilities caused her to burst into tears and she came to me for some sympathy.

After breakfast, with the temperature still not rising and having to open the rooflights to clean the snow off the solar panels (although I needn’t have bothered – w’ve had hanging clouds all day) I lit the fire in here and I’ve had a low fire ticking over in here all day.

I’ve been working on the web page for the end-of-year summary for the work that I’ve been doing on the place here, and also on the itinerary for my North American trip of 2014.

And that’s about it really. This hasn’t been the weather to go outside and do anything.

-3

Saturday 27th December 2014 – I DID MENTION …

… that we had some wind last night, didn’t I?

I wasn’t joking either, as you can see. Here’s a tree at the back of Virlet that has been blown down overnight by the gales that we had.

I went off to Montlucon today to do some shopping, and in particular to buy the stuff that I need for the stairs and so on. I didn’t feel much like it this morning, listening to the icy rain clattering down on the roof. However, at about 09:00, a small amount of sun broke through the clouds temporarily and that was the signal for me to get on my way and not miss the gap in the weather, seeing as we are about to descend into deep midwinter.

And I’m glad that I did because not long after I returned, the weather broke and by 21:00 we were having heavy snow. Now, at least, I’m set up for a week or two.

In Montlucon I was able to buy most of the things that I required. No wood for fairing off the ends of the plasterboard though. The good pine planks were in Brico Depot but they don’t cut, and in Mr Bricolage, where they do cut, the pine boards were rubbish. I’m going to have a go at cutting the pine boards that I have here, and see how I do.

I couldn’t find any paint that I wanted either. So in the end, I bought a 10-litre tub of white emulsion and a tube of yellow paint dye. I’ll have a go at mixing that up and see how it turns out. One of these paint mixers driven by a portable drill should mix it up nicely I reckon, and I have one of those somewhere.

I didn’t buy much that was special, although I did stock up with the usual stuff. And in Amaranthe they had some Edam-style vegan cheese so I’m going to give that a try over the next few weeks. They had jars of Tajini -at quite a price, it has to be said, but I bought another one. At least I can keep my supply of home-made hummus going.

And diesel at €1:09 per litre. It’s not been that cheap since about 2006. I fuelled up Caliburn and now here I am – with no plans to go anywhere until Spring.

-2

Friday 26th December 2014 – HAPPY BOXING DAY

And I finally had something for which i’ve been waiting for quite a while – namely, a decent lie in. In fact, it was well after 10:00 when I woke up this morning – and quite right too.

I’d been on my travels during the night too. Part of my adventures were concerned with dealing with a load of scrap machinery and buying old cars at a car auction. And from here we moved on to Canada and dealing with a General Election where the votes were measured in feet and inches around a pillar and the candidate whose candidature were were overseeing was a homeless vicar who received 14 votes.

This morning though, I watched the third Fantômas film, and then followed this up with Adventurer: The Curse of The Midas Box

I found the latter film in a bargain bucket in NOZ for just €1:99 (about £1:50) and that surprised me as although I didn’t know the film, the cast was certainly impressive and it’s a modern film. I have to admit that it wasn’t a particularly good film despite the cast, but I don’t regret the purchase and the film certainly didn’t receive the panning that the critics gave it. In my opinion, it’s something along the lines of “Harry Potter and Hermione Grainger meet Jack The Ripper” – there seems to me to be a clear influence in this film from the Harry Potter films.

I’ve also had my Christmas dinner today. Potatoes, roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli, sprouts (perfectly cooked) and seitan slices, followed by Christmas Pudding and custard. And delicious it was too.

Now we are having a howling gale outside – the weather is going to change I reckon, and I’m sure that the bad weather is just a whisker away.

-1

Thursday 25th December 2014 – MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers. And I shan’t make any wisecracks about the walls of the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station because I say the same thing each year and you must be sick to death of it by now.

During the night I was in Rome being fleeced by an Italian shopkeeper, and having to sort out a few kids, some of whom were mine and the rest of whom were kids that I was looking after, and they were having a fight in a hotel room and the police had been called.

I was awake early this morning but managed to stay in bed until about 08:30 – I wasn’t in anything of a rush to leave my stinking pit as I’m sure that you can imagine. And after breakfast, I did precisely zilch.

I’ve watched a few films though. First up was The Mask of Dimitrios starring Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet. Lorre is one of my favourite actors and this film continues the joint roles that the two of them played in The Maltese Falcon. That’s a film that I can watch time after time after time, and having seen the Mask of Dimitrios, that will be the same.

I’ve also watched the first couple of Fantômas films. Louis de Funès is my favourite actor but occasionally he has a tendency to over-act and these films are not amongst his best. But still, I found a box set of the Tantomas films going cheap

I’ve not eaten much today either. I have plenty to nibble on so I’ve been attacking all of that. I even found a bag of Bombay mix from I don’t know when and that tasted wonderful.

And do you know what? It’s more of the same tomorrow. I’ve absolutely no intention of going anywhere or doing anything at all. Which is probably just as well as when I went out just now to take the stats, there was the start of a heavy frost. Everywhere is cooling down again and there’s snow forecast for Sunday.

-2

Wednesday 24th December 2014 – I HAVE HAD A CALAMITY HERE TODAY.

Most of you know by now that my favourite comedian – in fact, my favourite media personality, is none other than the famous, if not legendary Frankie Howerd. My first serious encounter with him was in my early youth, in the TV series “Up Pompeii” in which he played Lurcio, the slave. About 20 years ago, the BBC rebroadcast all of the episodes and I recorded them on Video, and they were my first transfer onto DVD.

All of the episodes, including the pilot issue and the “Further Up Pompeii” series, were crammed onto 3 DVDs and I’ve been watching one episode each morning over breakfast now that I’ve finished the marathon that was the Saint.

I went to put the second DVD in today but it wouldn’t play, and a closer inspection revealed that the disc is split. So that’s destined for the bin and I’m devastated, particularly as the cassettes from which the DVDs were copied went into the dechetterie at Brussels when I emptied my apartment there.

So what do I do now?

ON the other hand, I’ve had a surprising evening this evening. I was invited out for a meal at a friend’s house. This friend has a friend who is chef at something of a famous restaurant in the Allier and for New Years Eve he’s on duty. And for the first time ever, he has two clients coming who are vegans.

He put a bit of research into a menu but seeing as how he had never cooked anything like this before, he wanted a guinea-pig to taste his concoction. Hence my invitation to dinner.

And the result? all I can say about it is that if the guests receive what I received this evening, they will be delighted. This was about the best meal that I have ever eaten in my life and I will give his restaurant five stars on this basis alone.

During the night, I was on my travels again. I was in Crewe – Mill Street in fact, and Mill Street before all of the demolitions and slum clearances in the 1960s. I’m not sure exactly why I was there.

At work, I pulled up the stairs that I had put into position yesterday, and the first thing that I did was to varnish the upper side of the wood. While it was drying, I sanded down the filling that I had done in the plasterboard that I had fitted yesterday, and then wallpapered the plasterboard. Once I’d done that, I masked off everything ready for painting.

While the paste was drying I suddenly had rather a dramatic revelation that stopped me dead in my tracks. It seems that I have forgotten to buy any paint to paint the wallpaper. This is a serious setback and that’s going to hold me up for a few days.

I varnished the reverse side of the wood for the stairs and then called it an early day. After all, it is Christmas Eve and I’m a bit stuck right now for the moment. but one good thing is that having cleaned out the chimney, I could bank up a really good fire and I had a big kettle of water boiling away in less than half an hour. I had a lovely hot wash ready for my trip out this evening.

-1

Tuesday 23rd December 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the stairs up to the attic.

Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t really. All of the wood has been cut and shaped, that’s for sure, but they haven’t been nailed into place. This is because the filler that I used on the screw holes took quite a while to dry. I wanted it to dry before I nailed down the stair treads, because access is so much easier to sand down the filler, paste the wallpaper and paint everywhere when the treads aren’t in place.

Not only that, I can put the varnish on the stair treads and risers before I nail them down too, and that will be another task completed. I’ll have two lovely shelves when they are finished and I can start to stack away the china and so on.

I had plenty of fun cutting the treads though. Two of them had to be cut by trial and error because taking measurements on the slant was not very easy. And much to my surprise, it all fitted where it ought to do.

We also had another Alpine day today and I had almost 60 amps of surplus solar energy today, with the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump loa reaching 33°C, which is the highest that it’s been for a considerable time.

In other news, you can imagine that with the events of the couple of nights over the weekend, about which I talked at the relevant moment, I’ve been on something of a nostalgia trip, spending a lot of time musing on events that happened, didn’t happen, could have happened, might have happened and what I would have liked to have happened at a certain moment in my life. This wasn’t helped today because the *.mp3 player reached the point where five particular albums suddenly presented themselves, one after the other,

These five albums, Benefit, Aqualung, A Passion Play and Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull and Nicely Out Of Tune by Lindisfarne, were five albums that were being played non-stop by a certain few of us during this particular 18-month period and it must be something more than just coincidence that they suddenly appeared, one ofter the other, at the time when I have all of this nonsense going on in my head.

It’s all becoming quite eerie.

-1

Monday 22nd December 2014 – NO WONDER …

… that the fire wasn’t working properly last night. Just have a look at this little lot!

Yes, the chimney was totally blocked and the smoke had no possible way of reaching the outside, except via the door and the air vents of the stove.

I consequently dismantled all of the tubing and spent over an hour cleaning everything out. And it certainly needed it too. In places it was solidly blocked.

The upshot of this all is that the small fire that I had this evening was burnt up in half an hour and the temperature had risen from 14.2°C to … errr … 34°C, and all in half an hour too. The food tonight was cooked in seconds instead of the usual couple of hours.

All in all, it was a very worthwhile exercise, cleaning the chimney. And I’m glad that I did too, because during the night we had a severe frost, the first of the year and the temperature had dropped to minus 2°C outside (lucky that I had plenty of residual heat in here). That also meant that we had one of these Alpine winter days today – not a single cloud in the sky all day. The first day like this for ages and the batteries are now fully charged at last.

I spent the rest of the working day on the floor. Not horizontally of course, although I did have my moments. I recut some of the horizontals for the stairs on the lower part of the staircase so that they are flush with the uprights of the stud walls. And I am well-impressed with the Ryobi plus one percussion screwdriver. That drove the big long screws home in no time – much better that with the normal screwdriver.

For lunch, I made some hummus again. This time with olives and tomatoes, and a bit more water and oil so that it was a little more damp than before. And it did taste good too.

After that, I fitted the riser for the lowest stair on the staircase, and then fitted the second layer of flooring behind it. Finally, I fitted the two pieces of plasterboard that go there.

Tomorrow, I’ll fill the screwheads in the plasterboards that I fitted today, sand them off and then fit the treads for the stairs. Once they are done, I can varnish the flooring in there and then I’ll have a couple of shelves for storage.

-1

Sunday 21st December 2014 – WELL, I KNOW WHAT …

… I’ll be doing tomorrow morning first thing. And that is to dismantle the stove pipe and give it a really good clean from top to bottom. Half an hour after lighting the fire this evening, the fire went out and a huge cloud of black sooty smoke blew back into the attic. Now, I smell like a kipper.

And it’s a good job that it’s not all that cold in here this evening.

I’d noticed for the last couple of days that the window on the stove was sooting up quickly, and that’s clearly the reson why. The stove pipe is all blocked with soot. I do remember a good few years ago making a vow that each summer I ought to dismantle the pipe and clean it, but of course I haven’t done that for a couple of years and this is the result. I shall have to sort it out tomorrow.

As for today, it’s Sunday so I haven’t done a thing. I had a nice lie-in until about 10:00 and since then I’ve just been pottering about. I’ve been outside a few more times than yesterday, but not too many.

And here’s a surprise – there’s been no rain during the last 24 hours. I can’t remember when this last happened but it wasn’t within living memory, that’s for sure. And we had some very blue sky today, the first time since I don’t know when too.

-1

Saturday 20th December 2014 – THE ONLY TIME …

… that I put my foot outside the house today was to go to take the stats. And I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I’ve set foot outside my little attic.

I did have it in my mind that if the weather was reasonable, I’d go to Commentry to look at the new NOZ that has just opened there and to go for a swim. But one look outside at the hanging cloud that was covering my little mountain was enough to convince me.

Instead, I spent the morning working on another session of rock music programmes for Radio Anglais and the additional notes for the Radio Anglais programmes that are networked to Radio Arverne. This afternoon, I did a little desultory tidying up in here. And that was that.

Mind you, I had a lovely tea tonight. I still have some of these vegan meat substitute packets left, one of which was a packet of dehydrated Lincolnshire sausage. I made myself some Lincolnshire sausages, seasoned with black pepper and rosemary. I fried some of these with onions and garlic in some olive oil in the oven, and had some real potatoes and carrots with them. And it tasted beautiful.

Not only that, there are some sausages left over for tomorrow, and I’ll save my pizza for Monday.

I was on my travels again during the night too. I’d left my job in Brussels and I’d gone back to Nantwich where I re-enroilled at my old Grammar School to re-do my education in the 6th Form. The school building was under major repair so the school had moved into a new and unused wing of the Teachers’ Training College at Crewe Green. I was totally lost – I didn’t have a clue where to go to, so a girl from the 6th Form spent a good half-hour explaining everything to me before the classes started. I was quite impressed by her tact and patience that I invited her to lunch. I remember saying that she will have more of an idea where I’ll be at lunchtime that I will, so I’ll stay put and she’ll have to come and find me.

All in all, it was quite poignant.

However, I don’t know what is going on at the moment. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I took part in an experiment that looked into dreams so I’m quite used to remembering what I’ve done and where I’ve been during the night. But this last three or four nights thiese little voyages have been quite significant and are well-etched on my memory – much more so that the usual run of nocturnal adventures.

Clearly there’s something going on in this plateful of spaghetti that is inside my skull – I just wish that I knew what it was. But, as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … I just wish that my life during daylight hours was even half as exciting as whatever goes on in my head during the hours of darkness.

-1

Friday 19th December 2014 – NOW, HERE’S A THING!

Yes, two projects completed in a week, and two goals achieved. That’s something of a record for me, isn’t it?

At knocking-off time at 18:00 this evening, I was just fastening down the last piece of boarding for the floor of the landing. Bang on cue, in fact.

it’s only the first layer, of course. There will be another layer on top of this, a layer that will run through into the bedroom through the doorway that you can see to the left. But to do that, I need to go round to Cecile’s to rescue the floorboarding that we stocked there when we were trying to make some room here.

It wasn’t particularly easy to do this part of the flooring, what with the stud wall being built on top of the old floorboarding. To remove thet, it’s necessary to drill a line of holes along the base of the stud wall, rather like perforations, chisel down as much a spossible, and then using a huge crowbar, prise up the flooring and hope that it breaks off along the perforations. Finally, chisel off the rough edges to make sure that it’s something like a neat line.

But I’m glad it’s done anyway. It’s not often that I reach my targets.

Mind you, I managed it despite a few interruptions. Sophie the boulangere was late coming round with the bread and that interrupted my work, waiting for her. To pass the time, I took all of the food out of Caliburn and stored it away. And then, somewhat later, we had an avalanche in the European Cardboard Box Mountain, and I had to refill one or two of the boxes and restack the Mountain. One or two of the items that fell out of one of the boxes were things that would have come in handy over the past few days – but that’s what usually happens, isn’t it?

After knocking off work, I went round to the Intermarche for the weekly shopping. And this turned out to be rather expensive, due to the fact that I bought a few other bits and pieces to nibble on for Christmas

i was on my travels during the night too. I was running ly taxi business again, and it seemed tht some of the things that I needed – the books about tourist sites all over the world that I had been making up, had “disappeared”. I spent ages climbing over the roof of some old Ford and Bedford Lorries during the pouring rain and the soaking cardboard boxes and old mattresses, but they were nowhere to be found. Being fed up of all of this, I ordered all of my staff to assemble on the Common at the back of the allotments. My intention was to give every last one of them the statutory notice to leave my employment.

I walked up there and on the way, I fell in with a girl with whom I went to school from age 5 to age 18. Strangely enough, this is a girl about whom I haven’t given even one moment of thought, whether at school or subsequently, so I don’t have a clue how it was that she put in an appearance.

This led on to a recurring dream that I have every now and again, one that is so real and vivid that I often wonder whether or not it ever did take place, but subsequently to my selling my business in 1989, and after the purchasers died, I ended up with a couple of Mzrk III cortinas and I started running the taxi business on the side again, everything totally unlicensed. I abandoned that after a few months, but a short while later, restarted yet again. Of course I know that this never happened, but it’s such a real dream, I’ve had it so often and it’s left such an impression on me that I do have to convince myself.

-1

EPIC HALL

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