Friday 21st February 2014 – I WAS WATCHING …

… Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince last night. And so consequently all through the night I was running around at Hogwarts.

Yes, three bad nights of sleep in succession – no surprise that I crashed out for a couple of hours when I returned home late this afternoon.

But as for Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, that’s a perplexing film. It’s full of holes, more like a succession of scenes with no interlacing connection rather than being a continuous film.

Scenes start off at random in the middle of action, so you don’t know how the actors arrived at the situations and emotions that they are expressing.

I realise that you can’t cram 700 pages of novel into just 151 minutes of film, otherwise you’ll end up with something like One Eyed Jacks, where the original director’s cut ran to well over 5 hours, but nevertheless there was tons of stuff that was irrelevant that could have been left out, just as there was tons of stuff that was relevant that should have been included.

But two things came to mind during this film –

If Professor Dumbledore were to put on the market the magic wand that he used to tidy up Professor Slughorn’s house, he would … errrr … clean up. I would give all that I had, and more, to own something like that where a simple flick of the wrist would finish the repairs here and have the place all spick and span.
Ginny Weasley is ordinary, banal, boring even. Whyever didn’t Rowling develop a romance between Harry Potter and Luna? She has much more character and personality than poor Ginny and would have been an ideal foil for Harry to bounce his ideas around. She’s definitely my favourite character in the films and, ironically, when there was one of these apps on a social networking site to “answer 30 questions to find out which Rowling character you are”, I came up with Luna. No – I’m convinced – Rowling got it all wrong. The ideal partner for Harry Potter should have been Luna.

So once I had woken up and crawled rather unwillingly out of my stinking pit, I crawled even more unwillingly off to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record the rock programme for Radio Tartasse, and when Liz arrived we recorded the English-language information programmes.

From there, we went on to Liz and Terry’s fir an early lunch (and that car was still in the ditch after all this time) and then on to Gerzat and Radio Arverne for the other lot of programmes.

By this time I was about flaked out and so I didn’t even stop at Liz and Terry’s for a coffee on the way back. I managed a stop at the Intermarché to do my weekens shopping (save me going anywhere tomorrow) and that was about that.

But I need to find a proper sleep rhythm from somewhere.

-10

Thursday 20th February 2014 – I THOUGHT FOR A MINUTE THIS MORNING …

… that we were going to have a nice day. And so while I was in the verandah making coffee I hung the washing outside to dry in the wind (it’s still not dry since Monday evening).

However … you’ve guessed it. That was the Kiss Of Death and within 15 minutes it was teeming down with rain again, just like always.

So where did I get up to today?

All of the plasterboard is on the outer wall, and I’ve also fitted it at the head of the stairs. That meant cutting and fitting a set of counter-battens of course, as well as putting a second layer of that space-blanket insulation on the outer wall. This house will be the best-insulated in the whole of the world – and quite right too. No money ever spent on insulation is wasted, as I have said before. And that’s even more relevant as fuel bills rocket up to the roof.

Once that was out of the way, I trimmed off the floor in the attic so that it’s now flush with the beam that I fitted in 2009 (and I can’t think why I didn’t do that years ago) and I’ve faced off the beam with some of the pine shelving that I’ve been using to make the risers for the staircase. And in fact it looks quite neat.

I wish that I could say the same about the plasterboarding though. It’s a total mess and there are at least two pieces that need to be taken off to find out what on earth is going on underneath them. Both of them 10mm; both of them screwed to the same counter-batten – so why is the top one about 5mm proud of the bottom one?

Apart from seeing loads of places where I really should have done so much better with these stairs, I won’t ever build another staircase on outiggers and cantilevers like this one. Itwas by far and away the quickest way to build it when I was in a desperate hurry to move into this room back in late autumn 2009, but fitting the insulation, the counter-battens and the plasterboard has been an absolute nightmare. If I had realised that it was going to be as difficult as this, I would have ripped out the staircase last week, plasterboarded the walls in one go (probably have taken me an hour) and done the stairs another way.

But still, you live and learn.

-4

Wednesday 19th February 2014 – I THOUGHT THAT I WOULD SHOW YOU …

… a photo of the staircase as far as I have got today, because for the next couple of weeks this is as far as I am going.

There are 8 stairs in position as you can see – that is, 8 treads and 7 risers, and all are properly battened. For the first time in this house, it’s felt as if the stairs really are secure and solid.

I had to move the light that illuminates the stairs down to the ground floor, and then I had to carry out another major task. If you look to the right you’ll see where the plasterboard stops a huge beam bolted to the side wall of the house. I fitted that in 2009 and you’ll notice that the bolt heads are proud of the beam. They need to be set in flush and the easiest way is to use a hole cutter over the heads, make a recess, and then tighten up the bolts further. But do I have a heck as like hole cutter that fits over the bolt head that doesn’t have a spindle-centring drill? So after much ado about nothing, I had to unbolt the nuts, drill pilot holes all round, chisel out a recess, refit the nuts and then grind off the surplus lengths with the angle grinder.

No wonder it took me ages.

But anyway, Now I have one of the plasterboard pieces on the wall to the right, and I can do the rest tomorrow and see how far I can reach.

Terry rang me up and wanted me to contact Lieneke. Much to my surprise, she’s here right now and so we had quite a chat to catch up on what we missed. And then later on I made one of my legendary lentil-and-green-pepper curries and that will see me through to the weekend. No point in working if I don’t have to.

-4

Tuesday 18th February 2014 – I HAD AN AFTERNOON OUT …

… this afternoon. This involved moving a pile of stuff with Caliburn and so first job this morning was to empty Caliburn and then to put away everything that I had been storing in him. And that took a while, I can tell you.

I then swept him out too, and repaired one or two electrical bits and pieces that needed fixing. So at least he’s now clean and tidy in the back.

Next on the list was hanging out the washing, and then to clear out a space at the side of the existing compost bin and put there the one that I bought last year in this Government composting scheme. ONce I had done that, I could empty the beichstuhl, such pleasant jobs that I have around here.

So I picked up Marianne and then we went round to Bill’s to load up Caliburn and then went off to Montlucon and the salerooms. On the way we called at LIDL as they were having another LED light sale. This time it was the 1-watt lights that I use, and at €2:99 each now. They had 6 in stock, and now they have none at all.

We went to Brico Depot too where I bought some more wood and some heavy duty varnish for the stairs. You can tell that this is now becoming really serious.

Anyway, we ended up in the cafe at Leclerc having a coffee and a chat and then it was back home via the fresh veg shop. And I had to take in the washing as by now it had started to rain.

Yes, it’s all happening here now.

-5

Monday 17th February 2014 – I SEEM TO BE COLLECTING …

… photographs of cars in ditches these days. On my way to Liz and Terry’s this evening, there was another one on its side in a ditch just outside St Gervais d’Auvergne. And judging by the state of it, it had slid along the ground on the other side for quite some distance too. No idea what had happened there.

But yes, we’re in the studios on Friday recording the bext instalments of Radio Anglais and so we were rehearsing this evening. A little later than usual as I had to show someone around Cécile’s house at 17:30. And if any proof were needed of how small the world is these days, then this will surely count for something. As soon as the guy stepped out of the car, I said “But I know you, don’t I?” And indeed I did as well – he’s a footballer from Miremont, a club that plays in Division 3 of the Puy-de-Dome league and a regular opponent of Pionsat’s 2nd XI up to last season.

I picked up Cécile’s post too (she had 2 letters) and while I was there I took advantage of her washing machine.

But as for today – totally astonishing. Up until about 15:00 there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I had an excess of 184 amp-hours, pretty much a record for all time, never mind just February. It took the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater to 61°C which, from a standing start, is pretty impressive too. In fact, if I had had the shower cabinet which I keep on meaning to build, I would have gone for a shower this afternoon.

As for the work on the house, there is nothing more soul-destroying to be working on a plank of a stair tread for an hour, cutting it in 11 different ways so that it fits to perfection exactly where it’s supposed to go, and then finding that you’ve cut it upside-down. Doing that once, the other day, was bad enough. But doing it a second time, like this morning, well, that’s just inexcusable.

But now I have 6 treads and 5 risers installed, and just one more of each will be enough for now as that brings me round to the bottom corner. From here downwards involves heavy engineering such as replacing the floor, but what I need to do, the whole purpose of this, is to put the plasterboard onto the wall of the sairwell, and I can do that when I’ve done my final step.

-8

Sunday 16th February 2014 – SUNDAY AGAIN …

… and so in accordance with principles laid down for a long time, I had a nice lie-in (until 09:45) and since then I haven’t done a tap of work.

That is, I finished the radio programmes that I started yesterday, and then carried on rearranging my file storage system, and you’ll be amazed at how much room I’ve freed off on the external drives and there’s still plenty to go at yet.

Apart from that, I left the house just three times – twice to fetch water and once to fetch some wood. And that was that.

It wasn’t like that during the night though.

I was on the western seaboard of the USA and I got to hear about a safe that was being installed in a house so that the owner could put all of his valuables in there. I waited just until the safe was inaugurated and then went round there armed with a 3-metre length of 27mmx27mm lath (I’ve a few of those here as it happens). I attacked the safe installer with the piece of wood and I shot the householder, then made my escape with the loot.

Outside the house was a car with three people – 2 women and one man – who were waiting for me. I hopped into the car and said “where to?”, to which one of the women replied “Green Bay, Wisconsin” (home of the Packers as it happens).

Howeverwe were being picked off one by one by the Police and eventually there was just me, on foot, at the border between the USA and Mexico. I crossed into Mexico, and as I walked through the little fenced alley in no-man’s land (or “no-person’s land” as the legendary Turdi de Hatred once called it) I was admiring a llama grazing in a field. At the Mexican border I was admitted but the young Border Immigration officer wouldn’t stamp my passport. He said that just for a day visit it wasn’t necesary. However I insisted, saying that it would be a useful indication of my presence as well as being a nice souvenir of my visit and eventually he agreed to stamp it.

But why does all of the excitement happen through the night?

-3

Saturday 15th February 2014 – I SHOULD HAVE BEEN …

… at Marcillat tonight for the football. However, the ground is situated right on the crest of a scarp slope about 6 miles from here and the floodlights are clearly visible from the end of the lane, and when I reached the end of the lane, I could see nothing.

I drove as far as Virlet from where the ground is even more visible just across the valley, but there was no change – still total darkness – and so I turned round and came home.

Mind you, it doesn’t surprise me. We had torrential rain again today and it’s probably about 6 weeks since we last had a day of no rain at all. I’m up to my knees in mud around here and so I imagine that it’s just like this at the football ground at Marcillat.

Even more intriguing – when I went out to take the stats just before going to bed last night the temperature was an astonishing 13.5°C. Mid-February too! It was more like mid-April outside last night. This “winter” that we are having is totally crazy.

Today, I wasn’t in a hurry to leave my stinking pit, and after breakfast I made a start on what was left of the rdio programme that needs writing. However, I lost interest halfway through and ended up carrying on the sorting out of all the files on the various external hard drives hee, punctuated by a bried visit to the Intermarché at Pionsat for supplies for the weekend – I’m going to Montlucon on Tuesday so I’ll do a major shop there for the rest of the week.

But it was exciting through the night, I’ll tell you. It was my turn to be in a wheelchair and I was racing through the streets of Halifax (Yorkshire, not Nova Scotia) in the snow at speeds of up to 45mph through the traffic, allowing for the momentum of the downward slopes to carry me back up the steep hills. Excitement wasn’t in it! If I could maeket a game like that, you can forget your amusement parks!

-4

Friday 14th February 2014 – NOT ONLY DID I …

… finish the stair tread that I started last night, I’ve fitted a couple of risers and fitted the battens for a third one.

First job, though, was to re-route a couple more electrical cables and the telephone cable that were in the way, and that wasn’t a job of five minutes either. They were one of the first cables that I fitted and so, as you would expect, in the following 4 years all kinds of cables have been threaded in over the top of them.

But with the new treads, and the risers in at the top two stairs now, they are about 100 times stiffer than they were before when I just had scrap off-cuts of wood as treads, and no risers at all. It’s all looking quite good and I can’t wait to restart work on Monday, and I bet it’s been a good few years since I said anything like that.

But I shan’t be doing too much on Monday as someone is coming to view Cécile’s house in the late afternoon. And on Tuesday I’m taking a pile of stuff to Montlucon for the sale room there (nothing of mine, of course. I don’t have anything worth selling) so it’s going to be something of a short week.

-3

Thursday 13th February 2014 – IT TOOK ME MOST OF THE BLASTED DAY …

… to fit one tread of the stairs.

But then again there are several good reasons for that.

Firstly, it’s one of the larger stair treads and is on an angle. Furthermore, access is difficult and the tongue needed to be cut off the first piece and then sanded down to give it a professional appearance. I’m not going for half-measures here. And not only that, it needed to be cut in 7 different ways, with the use of a floating T-square and other geometric instruments.

The result wasn’t perfect, but where it missed, it would be covered over by plasterboard so it didn’t make much difference.

Next I cut the second piece, and that was an excellent job but … hang on … the levels are out. And it’s from the same plank of wood. But the tongue is off-centre and so I must have cut the second piece upside-down.

And so I recut a second piece and made sure that it was the right way up before I shaped it. And then took it upstairs and … hang on … the levels are still out. Dammit dammit dammit! It’s the first piece that I’ve cut upside down after all of the work that went into it and the time that it took!

And so I recut a first piece and learning from the errors of the first attempt, this one ended up pretty near perfect and it’s ever so impressive, even if by now it was lunchtime.

After lunch I cut the third piece, which was another good measure, and then for the fourth and final piece I had an offcut from the bathroom that was the correct basic length before shaping.

And having done that, this was when I realised that despite the wood of the bathroom being exactly the same as the rest of the wood, the tongue was too long. That therefore had to be cut down and filed.

Once all of that had been done, the whole tread needed to be properly aligned, screwed to a batten to keep it all in position, lifted off, taken to the workbench for trimming with the circular saw.

It was at this point that the battery in the circular saw went flat.

Once the battery was recharged and the tread trimmed off, I could put it back in position and nail it down, finally removing the batten.

So now you can see why it took most of the day to do all of that.

With 40 minutes left, I measured up and cut the first piece for the upper stair on the reverse angle. That involved nine cuts with all kinds of geometric equipment and also a hand-drawn angle as I couldn’t fit the floating T-square into the gap. And to the surprise of not only Yours Truly but everyone else reading these pages, that ended up millimetre-perfect. And the correct way up too. I just had to trim a little off so that I could swing it round the corner and into position, but the plasterboard will cover that gap.

So what’s going to hold me up tomorrow then?

In other news – we had one of those days where we had everything – except the Plague of Locusts. Wind gusting up to 67km/h, torrential rain, hailstorms. You name it, we had it. It’s like Passendaele 1917 outside here right now – most unpleasant.

And tonight, just as I was about to start eating my tea, Trixie phoned for a chat. I ended up with cold pasta and aubergine casserole, but as I have said so often before … "and you’ll say it so often again" – ed … what’s a little inconvenience when it comes to your friends? I value my friends higher than my stomach. But it’s amazing how often it happens, isn’t it?

-2

Wednesday 12th February 2014 – NOW IF ONLY …

… every othee tiling job that I have to do would come out as well as this one, I would be as happy as Larry.

They set really nicely into the tiling cement yesterday and so this morning, first thing that I did was to grout the joints. And as you can see, it seems to have come out very well and I’m really pleased with this.

It looked even better at the end of the day when It had thoroughly dried and i brushed off all of the loose grouting and wiped it down with a damp cloth. As I said, I wish that all of my tiling would look like this when it’s finished.

So once that was out of the way I returned to the stairs. And now I have three treads all properly fitted and nailed in place. It took ages too as every length needs to be cut and shaped individually and some of these treads have 6 or 7 lengths in them, the ones that are going to be used as shelving. And a couple of lengths had to be cut lengthways too, one of them only 1.5 cms wide. but the circular saw saw to those. They needed filing and sanding down afterwards to make some nice smooth, straight edges.

I had to change a couple of rails too. I’m reshaping all of these to fit under the profile of the plasterboarding but with the chevrons, they are too deep and so foul the insulation. I’ve changed them for demi-chevrons.

So you see, I’ve not been idle at all today, even though I don’t have too much to show for it.

-1

Tuesday 11th February 2014 – I DIDN’T FIND …

… my tile cutter today, but I found something else instead.

Quite a few years ago I was at a car boot sale at Hexham with Dave Boustead (whatever happened to him?) and amongst the objects that I picked up was an ancient Rawlplug electric tile-cutter, for a couple of quid if I remember correctly.

And this morning, we had bright blue skies and not a cloud in sight and fully-charged batteries by 11:00 and so after I’d put the second coat of varnish on the wood that I’ve been fitting, I wheeled out the tile cutter.

It needed cleaning and a little oiling and so on but to my surprise once I’d loaded it up with water we were off. I did a few test cuts and then set about the tiles.

There are loads of design faults with this machine – I can think of a hundred ways to improve it – but it did the job as I asked it to do and, to be honest, it cut them better than I could have done. So no complaints from me.

By lunchtime, they were all cut and cemented to the window sill. All they need now is to be grouted and I really do wish that I had done the window in here like this now.

This afternoon, I started on the definitive version of the stairs to the attic. When I built them in 2009 I was constrained by time and also by the width (60cms) of the wood that I had at hand. None of this now though. High time I did them properly using real wood and with real rails.

This means, in effect, removing the rails, cutting them down so that they fit behind the plasterboard that I’ll be fitting, and then cutting up floorboarding to 67cms which, apart fom giving me three strips to a length of 2m, fits perfectly upon the new rails.

It’s taking me ages to do this as you might expect, but it looks much better than scrap chipboard and the like, and takes my weight so much better..It’s looking much better already and there’s only one tread fitted so far.

With a brief interruption for rain (i had to fecth in the washing) I was well away when knocking off time came round.

I’m clearly enjoying myself.

And while I’m on the subject, the Xantrex charge controller in the barn, the one that packed up last autumn, has now miraculously sprung into life.

-2

Monday 10th February 2014 – I WISH I KNEW …

… where my tile cutter is. I could have finished the window surround today.

As you can see, I’ve done three of the sides with the offcuts of tongue-and-grooving from the ceiling. That meant fitting battens to the walls and routing the anenometer cable underneath. And then each piece of tongue-and-groowing had to be cut and shaped individually, and that took a while – until lunchtime in fact.

After lunch I put the first coat of varnish on all of the wood that I’ve fitted so far, and then we started the “hunt the tile cutter”.

Last time I had it, it was in Brussels and as you might remember, we fled Brussels in such haste that stuff was packed any old how. I spent all afternoon until long after knocking-off time looking through the barn and the lean-to and I’ve no idea where it might be.

But apart from that, I was on the move again during the night but I can’t for the life of me remember where I was and who I was with. And today, to give you some idea of howdark and depressing it all was, we had 12mm of rain and by 16:30 it was sleeting.

So tomorrow I’ll put the second coat of varnish on the wood and then play round two of “hunt the tile cutter”. It has to be here somewhere.

-2

Sunday 9th February 2014 – WITH IT BEING SUNDAY …

… I don’t feel bad at all about staying in bed until 10:30, even if I was in bed long before 23:30 last night. Decent sleep and li=ong lie-ins is what Sunday is made for.

And what else?

Absolutely nothing. The only times that I’ve been outside the house were to fill two kettles of water and to take ths statistics. And that was that.

I’ve been tidying up some files on the various external drives that I have – trying to bring some order out of chaos. Nietzsche said “out of chaos comes order” but Neitzsche never knew me.

And that’s your lot. I’m off to bed again now for another early night – ready to resume the conflict for tomorrow; See you tomorrow night.

-2

Saturday 8th February 2014 – WITH IT BEING SATURDAY …

… that signifies “shopping”. But first I had to heave myself out of bed, and that wasn’t easy. I heard all of the alarms of course but as I was under no real pressure to leave my stinking pit, it was … errr … some time later that I finally surfaced. Mind you, I had been busy. There was a sale on at IKEA through the night and once I’d managed to explain to the salesman what “memory” was all about, I bought a 4GB I-pod for just €15 in the sale. I wish that I could do that in real life.

First job was to write the script for the next rock music show on “Radio Anglais”, and that didn’t take me too long as I was in a creative mood. And then I went round to Cécile’s. She had asked me to check the post (there wasn’t any) and to check the attic to see if there were any leaks given the miserable weather that we have been having this last three or four weeks (and there was nothing evident). I did however take advantage of Cécile’s washing machine again while I was there.

In St Eloy there was nothing exciting on sale except a hand-powered vegetable dicer. I’ve been looking for one of these for ages and sure enough, LIDL had them in the sale.

Back here, I hung up the washing in the verandah (no point at all in hanging it outside unless I want it to have another rinse) and then I came up here with a coffee and crashed out for a couple of hours. Going to sleep some time after 03:30 and trying to wake up at 07:30 is doing me no good at all.

And no footy tonight, nor tomorrow either. Everything is postponed given the state of the pitches around here. And it’s worse in the Creuse just dosn the road where the entire football programme for the weekend has been cancelled. This weather is beyond a joke.

-4

Friday 7th February 2014 – THE FIRST THING THAT I DID TODAY …

… was to rip off the tongue and grroving that I had put on the ceiling.

Well, actually, it wasn’t. First thing that I did do was to crawl out of my stinking pit, and at the unbelievable time of 09:20 too. I heard all of the alarms go off (it’s very hard not to) and I remember thinking that I’ll get up in a minute. And so almost two hours later …

Anyway, back to the plot. I ripped off all of the tongue-and-grooving that I did yesterday. It wasn’t going on correctly and I was certain that I could do better. And while I was having my breakfast I also had some inspiration.

So I had to recut every single piece and refit it, but I am glad that I did because the effect is so much better as you can see in the photo.

All that it needs now id to be varnished, the light to be fitted properly and for a couple of bits of beading to be added, but that will have to wait as there is still plenty to do before I reach that stage. In fact I’ve already mad a start in sheathing in the window. And it’s a good job that I don’t throw anything away, because I needed a few thin strips of wood to make a batten and here, hanging around in the house were the offcuts of the 10mm playwood sheeting that we used on the roof back in 2009.

Here’s a somewhat gloomy view of the reverse angle, showing the sloping part of the ceiling and one of the two shelves that I’ve fitted. There’s a bare wooden beam that’s exposed there at the back, and I’ll be repainting that in due course.

I solved the problem of cutting the tongue-and grooving down the length. The Ryobi Plus One circular saw on the softest setting saw to that, and without tears too

-1

EPIC HALL

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