Tuesday 7th January 2014 – I CAME IN …

… this evening when it was too dark to see what I was doing outside. And a quick glance at the clock showed me that it was 17:58 – almost knocking-off time. The days are certainly lengthening.

And not only that, we had 16.1°C outside this afternoon and I was half-inclined to take my jumper off. This weather certainly is crazy.

I had a bad night last night. I couldn’t get to sleep until long after 02.00 and when the alarm went off at 07:30 I felt like nothing on earth.

I lost count of how many buckets full of stones and rubble I moved from the living room, and it’s taking longer than it should . I’m having to fill them by hand rather than with a shovel because, if you remember, a couple of years ago I dropping my box of tamper-proof fitting dismantling tools all the way down from the attic, and I only ever recovered half of them. The rest are on the floor somewhere all nicely mixed in with the rubble and stones, and I need to recover as many as I can.

In any event, the mound of rubble down the garden is looking quite impressive, and as for the heap of stones, that is even more so. I can’t believe that I thought that I was going to run out of those when I was fixing the lean-to.

I called a halt in there at about 17:15 because without a light (which I may fix tomorrow if I think on) I couldn’t see what I was doing inside. I spent the last part of the day in the garden raking out the loose weeds in a couple of the raised beds. I have to start on the garden some time soon.

No fire up here again this evening. 16.3°C. This weather is totally bizarre.

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Monday 6th January 2014 – GOD IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed. Even though I had had an early night and was wide awake when the alarm went off, it was still a struggle.

And the first thing that I noticed was that in my haste I had forgotten to do the washing up last night, and there is very little that I hate more than waking up to a pile of dirty washing-up.

First job this morning was to empty the composting toilet. Such lovely jobs that I have to do here of course. And after that I had to sort out some wood. I’m running low on kindling but there’s a big bin of it that was thoroughly soaked in a downpour. I had to drain that out and, seeing as it was (for a change) a fine day, I laid it all out to dry.

To get there though I had to attack my pile of old windows – some that I had picked up from the dechetterie for the glass, the fittings and, of course, the wood to burn. So while I was there, I dismantled a few of those.

This then led to the woodshed. I hadn’t quite finished it off as there was a curtain, made from a tarpaulin, to hang across the front. While I was busy adding wood to the woodshed I took 20 minutes to sort that out, and now that’s finished.

Next job was to start moving the stones. And some of them were flaming heavy too – I’ve no idea how I got them into there in the first place. Most of them I could lift out but a few I had to roll.

This afternoon when the big stones were out of the way I started to tidy up some of the rubbish. And there was a pile of that too, but once that was out of the way I could look at the rest of the rubble.

To move that, I needed to clear the space where I had been tipping the rubble before. A year or two’s worth of weeds, nettles and brambles needed cutting down and removing so that took a while, and before I knew it, we were in the dark.

Still, with all of the donkey work having been done, the rest should be straightforward tomorrow.

No fire up here tonight and it’s 16.8°C up here. This weather is astonishing. I even ended up cooking downstairs tonight – far too warm here for a fire.

But guess who put a tin of lentils instead of a tin of kidney beans into his aubergine and kidney bean casserole?

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Sunday 5th January 2014 – IT’S MY LAST DAY …

… of seasonal break today. And how did I celebrate it? I started by staying in bed until 10:30 am. Mind you, with all of the rain, I didn’t really want to get up anyway.

And after breakfast? I did nothing at all. Not even any housework. Just carried on working on these web pages that relate to my Canada 2013 voyage.

I watched a film this evening – The Horse Soldiers starring John Wayne.

I can’t believe that it was the film that he followed Rio Bravo because Rio Bravo is a classic yet The Horse Soldiers is an awful film. The plot is rubbish, the script is dreadful and quite a bit of the acting is thoroughly wooden. And how William Holden could put in such a pitiful performance when you consider what has to be a masterpiece of a role in The Wild Bunch. That will be one of life’s most important mysteries.

As for tonight’s gridiron, The Chargers stuffed the Bengals and the Packers can’t get going against the 49ers. I’d normally stay up to watch the rest of that but I’m going to bed. I’m back to work tomorro.

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Saturday 4th January 2014 – I FINALLY MADE IT …

… off the premises today, but I didn’t go far, which is just as well.

I had yet another bad night – not going to sleep until long after 02:00 and being awake long before dawn. And when I finally bit the bullet and hauled myself up, it wasn’t even 09:00.

Just as well, as I needed to make an early start.

I had to go to Cécile’s this morning. She’s awaiting an urgent letter which requires someone -such as Yours Truly – to make a dash to St Gervais prior to 11:30. And while I was there at 10:45 with plenty of time to spare, Cécile’s mailbox rather resembled Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, so that was that.

I nipped into St Eloy for the shops and the only excitement there was that LIDL was having a sale of tapes. Not the audio variety but the sticky variety and I never have enough aluminium tape or masking tape, so I stocked up. And with all this extra expense, well, my shopping came to a massive €25:00. It’s good to be here and not in Brussels.

This afternoon I did some more work on the website – only a bit because the lack of sleep caught up with me and I crashed out for 90 minutes.

Later on I watched what is my favourite French film, La Folie Des Grandeurs starring my hero Louis de Funès. A magnificent comic actor and this film sums up everything that there is to say about him.

Tomorrow it’s my final day of rest and I need to make the most of it because I’m back at work on Monday. I’ve been making a little list of things to do and believe me, there’s enough to keep me going for a couple of years.

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Friday 3rd January 2014 – I DIDN’T GO OUT TODAY …

… either. And once again, wide awake while it was still dark and that wasn’t enough foor me to leave the comfort and safety of my own bed. In fact, we had to wait until … errr … 10:30 before I rejoined the land of the living.

Breakfast started the day as I meant to go on – I dropped my coffee all over the downstairs floor and that was that.

I’ve spent all of the day working on the web pages for my voyage to Canada. There’s tons of stuff of course and it isn’t going to write itself. When I start on summer hours, I work on the website from 10:00 to 12:00 and work outside until 19:00, but we are a long way from there right now.

Cécile rang up for a long chat at lunchtime, and that was really everything that happened today. A quiet day by any standards – I’m building up my strength ready to start work in earnest on Monday.

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Thursday 2nd January 2014 – AS PREDICTED …

… I didn’t do anything today. I had yet another day of rest.

And quite right too.

Mind you, it wasn’t so much of a rest seeing as how I had a very disturbed night with all kinds of weird dreams – I was with my younger sister, and then I was on a motorbike going through the suburbs of Paris although it wasn’t Paris, all kinds of things. No wonder I hardly had a minute’s sleep.

And awake before dawn too. Not very often that that happens, but it’s been happening too often for my liking juqt recently.

After breakfast, another couple of DVDs and then I finished the outstanding web pages for Les Guis. We now have pages for 2011, 2012 and 2013 all organised. But I’m going to have to do some more work on them as there is a pile of coding that needs updating. I really have been letting things slide.

Not the music though. I found a couple of old 1GB SD cards and I repaired a 2GB card where the locking tab had broken off, and then uploaded all the music. Now I can have music wherever I go.

I had a pleasant 75-minute chat on the phone to Trixi too. I haven’t spoken to her since we were in Greece together in October and there was a lot to catch up on.

And tea was boiled rice, steamed veg, and curried mushrooms with onion and garlic gravy, all cooked on the wood stove. I’m getting the hang of it now.

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Wednesday 1st January 2014 – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It didn’t start off as being too happy though. The mango-flavoured artisanal lemonade clearly had an effect on me because I was up and down like a jack-in-the-box through the night.

Of course, you really wanted to know that, didn’t you?

I eventually raised myself from the undead at about 09:30 and had a leisurely, prolonged breakfast drinking coffee, watching DVDs, and listening to the high winds that we are having again.

Later, I caught up with something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while.I copied most of my music onto the copmuter ages ago and a few years ago when I bought my SD-card hi-fi I copied it onto SD cards to play it up here. And I bought a car radio with an SD-card socket, so that I could play it in Caliburn too.

I’ve been buying quite a bit of music recently too as you know, but I’ve never updated the SD cards, and so, as I had a pile of 2GB SD cards hanging around here doing not very much at all, I’ve copied as much of my music as possible. I would have done all of the rest too but I’ve run out of 2GB cards. If I can’t find any more anywhere, I’ll have to do the rest on some 1GB cards that I might have somewhere.

I’ve also been working on the website. I’ve let the Lesguis site run down a little so this afternoon I did the 2009 page and the 2010 page.

Maybe, if I don’t feel like working tomorrow, I’ll do the 2011, 2012 and 2013 pages and that will be bang up-to-date.

So Happy New Year again. I wish you all for 2014 exactly the same as you wished everyone else for 2013.

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Tuesday 31st December 2013 – THE MOST ASTONISHING THING …

… happened today- so much so that it’s well-worth recording.

I have never ever talked about, much less photographed, the ground floor of this house. And for good reason too. When I bought the place back in 1998 I quickly dumped in there a pile of rubbish and since then the rubbish has been accumulating. Add to that a huge piles of damaged tiles, a couple of large piles of rubble from demolished walls and excavated floors, several bags of cement and plaster, and whatever else you can think of, then it really is a total disgrace.

On top of that, anything that doesn’t have a home anywhere else has been stuck in there to such an extent that moving around in there can definitely be a hazard to one’s health. I did once hear a story about someone who hoarded old newspapers and was crushed to death when a pile collapsed on top of her. Well, believe me, it’s not too far away from that on the ground floor.

Anyway, having said that, I was untangling a pile of cables from the equipment of the “Tower of Power” so that I can put that upstairs in the lean-to when, you’ve guessed it, I had an avalanche.

So that was that. I spent a delightful four hours this morning in the living room sorting out all kinds of stuff. New stuff into the lean-to, old good stuff ditto, plumbing fittings into the water room etc etc. That was followed by a couple of bags of paper waste into the old damaged water butt which will now be a paper receptacle, and a couple of bags of genuine rubbish into the back of Caliburn.

It doesn’t look like much of an improvement, for there’s 15 years’ worth of rubbish in there and I will need more than four hours to move all of that, but you would be surprised at the difference that it has made and now I can boldly go where no man has gone before since at least 1999. If that’s not progress then nothing is.

Another thing was that I had a bad night’s sleep. I was still wide awake at 03:00 and I was back awake again long before 07:30 when the alarm went off. Either there’s a lot of people talking about me, or else it’s my guilty conscience again.

And while it didn’t rain today, it was overcast and miserable with only the occasional glimpses of sun. We had high winds too – not like the high winds of the other day but high winds nevertheless.

After all of my exertions I knocked off for lunch at about 15:00 – late, I know, but I was on a roll – and then crashed out for a while and when I get my hands on the bank clerk from Pionsat ho woke me up with the telephone, he’ll be looking for a new set of teeth too. I was well away.

Tea was roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, boiled potatoes, leeks, seitan slices, onion and garlic gravy with sprouts done to perfection, all cooked on the wood stove, followed by vegan Christmas Cake and “artisanal” mango-flavoured lemonade.

What more can any man desire (apart from Kate Bush and Jenny Agutter to share it with me)?

So now I’m off work for the next couple of days. And then, who knows? I might even carry on with the tidying up.

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Monday 30th December 2013 – AS YOU MIGHT HAVE EXPECTED …

… seeing as how today was the day that I started back to work, it didn’t rain this morning. In fact, for the first hour or two I thought that we were going to have some bright sunshine all day, but that idea was soon dispelled, even though the rain did manage to hold off.

And as I said yesterday, I’ve been shelf-filling today. And indeed they are almost full. You’ve no idea how much stuff I’ve been finding that Ive had lying around the place. Quite a bit of stuff that I had forgotten about.

I’ve also put the old computer stuff up there on one of the shelves. I can’t think when, if ever, I might use it again but Marianne’s stuff is quite important I suppose. I don’t want to lose it or have it damaged.

Tea was another one of those meals that wouldn’t get going for ages and when it did, it went berserk. I have a lot to learn about this stove

Anyway tomorrow, I’ll do some more stacking for a while and then knowk off early. New Year’s Eve.

And guess what the weather is doing?

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Sunday 29th December 2013 – AS I SAID YESTERDAY …

… this weather is totally weird. As I prophesied, this morning, it was raining. Not as heavily as yesteray but raining just the same. And this evening, we have clear skies and stars and the like again. So it’ll pour down tomorrow – just you wait and see.

With it being Sunday I’ve had a kind-of day off. I’ve not done any houswork at all but I’ve finished recording all of the music that I bought myself at Christmas, I finished the second set of rock music programmes, and I’ve made a start on the general information programmes.

And that, dear reader, is that. I’m having an early night now for tomorrow I’m going to go back to work. I won’t be doing much but I do have a pile of shelves to fill.

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Saturday 28th December 2013 – REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH …

… will recall that ages ago I commented on some bizarre weather conditions that we were experiencing here – to whit the phenomenon that at night we were having beautiful clear skies with millions of stars visible to the naked eye, and then as dawn broke, we would immediately cloud over and have buckets of rain all day until late evening, when the skies would miraculously clear again.

This is exactly the weather that we have been experiencing here over the last few days, and each morning I’ve been woken up by a torrential downpour despite the beauty of the night.

This morning it was 05:30 that we had the downpour but I wasn’t going to be fooled by that. i’m still on holiday so I stayed in bed until 10:30 and I don’t care.

I worked on the radio programme for a while and then just after midday I actually left the premises! Yes, shopping in St Eloy where I spent almost nothing at all, and quite right too seeing as I didn’t need much and there was nothing on sale to tempt me.

On the way back home I went via Cécile’s to see if she had received any post, but her box was empty and her house hadn’t been affected by the violent winds that we’ve had. But on the way back, I noticed that the abandoned railway line from Les Racauds up to the tunnel at Les Bouchards seemed to be clear of weeds. That’s one part of the old Paris-Orleans railway line that I want to walk so it seems that I’ll be doing that sooner rather than later, once the weather dries out.

I did another radio programme this afternoon and then Marianne phoned me up for a very long chat. It seems that there’s a disturbing development with regard to the situation at Bill’s old place at Les Crouzons, and all hands will be required at the pumps for a couple of days as a matter of urgency. It’s to my advantage to be there, but that’s another few days away from here that I can well do without.

But I took the opportunity of mentioning the old railway line to Marianne and she’s going to draw up a plan of action for the next three months. We have a lot to do and we need to make the most of any decent weather than we might get. So far, apart from those few days in November, winter has been holding off. I’ve a feeling that when it dfinally does come, it will come in spades.

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Friday 27th December 2013 – AND STARTING AS I MEAN TO GO ON …

… I’ve had another day of rest today. And quite right too. I owe myself several from my exertions early in the year.

So even though it was still not light when I woke up, it was 10:00 when I heaved myself out of the stinking pit and into the land of the living. And while I was breakfasting, I watched an episode of The Saint where he is in Haiti with the zombies and the undead – and didn’t that bring back many happy memories of my time with the Open University Students Association?

It’s not really true to say that I had a day of rest though. In fact I attacked the database that I’ve been making and now that’s finished completely. And I’m astonished at what it’s thrown up. Quite clearly, I’ve not been keeping track of what I’ve been playing, and anyone can tell that Hawkwind has been my most favourite group during this whole series of radio programmes.

I need to shuffle the pack quite a lot, that’s for sure. But at least, doing these twice-weekly rock shows is giving me a good excuse to expand my CD collextion, so I’m not complaining.

And after that, I did the studio show for the next month’s programmes. As for the live concert, that’s tomorrow’s task. And I’m not even quite sure what concet I’m going to pick. Whatever it might be, it won’t be as stunning as the last three concerts that I’ve produced. They have been outstanding.

Tea wasn’t so successful tonight. I didn’t get the fire hot enough and so it took ages to cook the spuds. I consequently put the sprouts in too early and so they were overcooked. Cooking with this woodstove is a bit hit-and-miss, that’s for sure, but it’s doing the business here and saving on the bottled gas. If I can put these three extra solar panels up some time soon, I’ll have enough electricity in the summer to cook electric with the steamer and the slow cooker – won’t that be progress?

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Thursday 26th December 2013 – ALMOST TOO GOOD …

liz messenger vegan christmas cake les guis virlet puy de dome france
… to cut into, isn’t it?

And believe me, it tastes every bit as good as it looks – I promise you that. And the nicest thing of all about it is that I have no-one with whom to share it – it’s all mine!

So this morning I finally managed my lie-in. Even though I was awake quite early, it was 10:30 before I heaved myself out of my stinking pit, and quite right too. After breakfast I watched a DVD or two and then I had some work to do.

Now I know that I have said that I don’t work on Bank Holidays but there were one or two things that needed attention.

Firstly, I’ll very shortly be rewiring the electricity in the barn. And for that I need a new control panel on the southern wall. In order to make it work properly, I need to make a list of the items that are going to be wired into it. That’s not the sort of thing that one can do à l’improviste.
Secondly, my rock radio programme is getting a little out of hand. I’ve no idea what music I’ve been playing and, quite by accident, I discovered that I’d played the same track twice in three months and that’s not really on. Furthermore, I’m not on line all that often and I need access to band biographies and the like. I’ve already researched tons of stuff and so with all of this, it seems to be to be a good idea to create a database with all of the information on it so that it’s immediately to hand.

This evening I’ve had even more exciting things to do. I lit a fire and I cooked my Christmas dinner. Everything went according to plan and was cooked to perfection, even the sprouts (not overcooked) and the roast potatoes (done to perfection)

And it tasted magnificent too – but not as good as Liz Messenger’s cake.

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Wednesday 25th December 2013 – A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READERS

Yes, I’m back on the wall of Crewe Bus Station again, aren’t I? I say this almost every year, but then again it was the traditional greeting that appeared on there every year.

As I have said before too, I learnt all of my Human Biology from the drawings on the walls in there too, and my revision for my Biology ‘O’ Level was accomplished by going for a quick revisit. A Grade 2 pass was well deserved.

English literature, especially poetry, was also learnt and revised there too. I told you about the classic
“It’s no good standing on the seat
“The crabs in here can jump 6 feet
“And if you think that that is high
“Go next door, the b@$t@rd$ fly”
a couple of years ago, but I didn’t tell you about the other old chestnut
“Here I sit
“Broken-hearted
“Spent my penny
“Only f@rted”
which invited the equally-classic retort
“Broken-hearted
“Here I sit
“Tried to f@rt
“Had a $h|t”
Who needs Wordsworth and his blasted daffodils? This is true poetry.

But while we are on the subjecy, not many people know that limbo dancing was invented, not in Jamaica or anywhee similar, but by a Scotsman trying to get into the Crewe Bus Station toilets

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ve had the quietest Christmas ever.

Despite something of a late-ish night, I was wide awake at 06:30, which is certainly not like me, and although I managed to stay in bed until 08:30, it was nothing like the long lie-in that I promised myself.

After breakfast, I opened my prezzies. All of my CDs and DVDs from Amazon have arrived save one, which isn’t being released until mid-January anyway, and I’m also very grateful for Liz and Terry who bought me a Ryobi Plus One caulking gun and flourescent light.

I broke my flourescent light ages ago which is a shame because it was ideal for working in spaces where there is no electricity, and I borrowed Terry’s caulking gun when I sealed in the windows that I had fitted and it was absolutely superb.

I’ve also had another present from them but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out about that.

So that’s that. No-one called or phoned me and so I’ve had no interruptions at all. Just a leisurely day of music.

Now, I’m off to bed really early and I’ll see about that lie-in.

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Tuesday 24th December 2013 – TOTALLY ASTONISHING!

Yes, I should say so. The wind here has been such today that I’ve had more wind energy in the last 24 hours than I’ve had in the preceding 12 months. According to the anenometer on the barn, we had gusts of up to 52mph. I was in the barn as a little of this was going on, a quick glance at the wattmeter attached to the ageing 400-watt Air 403 that I bought from Southwest Wind Power in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2002 was showing that at that particular moment I was receiving 280.3 watts of power and I have never before seen anything even approaching that amount of power.

And even as I type, I can hear the hollow tube of the turbine mount whining away, which means that the wind turbine is still churning it out. All in all I’m overwhelmed with this and I do wish that I could have this amount of wind every day.

shelving unit upstairs lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome franceMeanwhile, back at the ranch, the shelving unit is finished – or, at least, it’s finished as far as it will be for the next few days and I’ll add the doors and siding in due course.

It took me about 4 hours to finish it off and to screw it down, and the hardest job was to set it all in tension. It’s not just a floppy old wobbly shelf unit but something quite structural.

The shelving planks are a little warped but firstly, it’s cheap concrete shuttering that I buy at Brico Depot. Rough and ready, very solid, very thick, and very cheap. And secondly, of course, it’ll straighten itself out when it has some weight on it. I don’t mind it being like this at all – it’s not as if it’s for the inside of the house, of course.

When I finished it, I started to load it up, but called a halt for lunch – rather later than usual but I was enjoying myself.

After lunch and a brief siesta (I really don’t know what’s up with me these days) I went round to Liz and Terry’s with their Christmas presents, and they very kindly fed me and also loaded me up with a pile of goodies too, more of which tomorrow.

And now I’m back here. All of the alarms are switched off and I don’t intend to be doing anything for the foreseeable future. After the year that I’ve just had, I deserve a really long break.

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