Friday 2nd November 2012 – I KNEW THAT …

… it was a mistake to have that second mug of coffee.

05:30 and I was still going round and round in my little room without the slightest thought about sleep.

When I did eventually drop off (simply lying down on the sofa), having switched off all of the alarms, it was all of 09:56 when I woke up – probably less than 4 hours sleep.

After something of a hurried breakfast I went off to Pionsat.

puy de dome franceThe tool lorry was there and I was bent on buying a new toy – and I bet that you are wondering exactly what it is

All cars made since 2002 (and many earlier ones, my 1988 Senator for example) are in principle fitted with an on-board computer, an ECU (Electronic Control Unit).

This analyses and stores all of the data about the running of the car, and keeps a list of faults on a computer chip.

Garages have machines that plug into the ECU (something with a connector like a SCART socket) which enables them to read the ECU and note any problem from which the vehicle might be suffering (a series of “fault codes”).

There’s a computer program that can decipher the fault codes and translate them into plain English.

In the USA all of this is in the Public Domain but in the UK, certainly as recently as 5 years ago, and maybe still today for all I know, this was all jealously guarded.

I’ve no idea what the situation might be in France.

Anyway, to cut a long story short – “hooray” … ed –  the tool lorry was selling hand-held ECU readers and the associated computer program, for just €69.

That kind of thing is worth its weight in gold, as you can imagine. And now there’s one here.

This afternoon, with the pouring rain, I carried on with the shelving. One of the side rails is now finished, and looking quite impressive too, rather an upmarket version of Richard Hauptmann’s ladder.

The other one is cut, worked and polished and will be assembled in the next rainy spell.

All that will remain then will be to cut the shelving to size and to varnish it all.

With the temperature up here being just 13°C that was the signal to light the fire again. And I cooked rice and another helping of my red pepper-and-lentil curry in the oven.

Beautiful it was too.

So now I’m off to bed, early for a change. I have a full weekend ahead of me and I need to be on form.

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Thursday 1st November 2012 – I’M GLAD …

… that it was today that was a Bank Holiday and I decided not to work, because it has done nothing but pour down all day – at times with some really torrential rain.

And after a not-so-early night, switching off all of the alarms and so on, I managed to stay in bed until all of … errr … 08:56am. So much for that!

so after breakfast (which included coffee for the first time since when I was ill – i’ve been reintroducing foods one by one to see if there is anything that is bad) I sat down and watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone;

It’s a really excellent film, much better than you might expect if you can steel yourself to pass the dire 10 minutes of opening.

I had loads of other things to do as well, but I did … precisely nothing. Sat and vegetated for all of the day. I didn’t even go downstairs to make any food – just nibbled on bits and pieces (but I did make a second coffee though).

Still, as Joy said, I deserve a day off every now and again where I shouldn’t feel guilty about doing nothing.

But if it’s as bad as this tomorrow I’ll crack on with the shelving in the cupboard. I really want that to be finished.

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Wednesday 31st October 2012 – I WAS IN BED …

… at some kind of ridiculous time last night – long before midnight in fact.

And I went out like a light and didn’t wake up until about 06:30. I wish that I could do that more often.

What with one thing and another (and once you start, you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are), I was detained up here until lunchtime and so it wasn’t until about 14:30 that I went out to play.

Another pile of wood was cut and then I made a start on … the garden, would you believe?

In the potato bed pulling out the weeds and about three potatoes. It’s been a miserable year for spuds.

I also pulled the courgette and about 10 chili peppers off the relevant plants. The frost has well-and-truly done for the plants but the fruits are still there? just about.

The courgette will be in next week’s curry and the chili peppers are currently drying out.

No fire tonight either although it’s rather close to the limit. There wasn’t anything to cook particularly.

And tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here. I usually have bank holidays off but I’ve yet to have one this year, so busy have I been, and so tomorrow my feet will be up all day.

And quite right too. I deserve it

-4

Tuesday 30th October 2012 – I LIT THE FIRE …

… tonight too.

Not for any particular reason (it wasn’t all that cold and I wasn’t planning on cooking anything) but it just seemed like a plan.

And it was a glorious day today too – not a cloud in the sky all day.

First job, now that I’m on winter hours, is to cut wood. Some out of the lean-to and some from off this big pile that I’ve been moving around from one place to another.

That took a while, especially as I was interrupted by a phone call from Percy Penguin, who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves.

But now that I’m a little-better organised … &#34ahem;" – ed … I can spend the usual 15 minutes per day on the wood.

After that, one job I’ve not done for ages is to replace all of the batteries in the ancillary equipment. I put a pile of those on charge and then went round changing everything.

We now have tons of stuff working that wasn’t working before, even including the projector clock.

This afternoon saw me tidying up some stuff (yes, honestly!) and then working on the bank at the back of the hard-standing – pulling out the overhanging rocks.

As for all of the soil, I’ll shovel it into the back of Caliburn one of these days, and move it somewhere.

In the verandah later I made a mega pepper-and-lentil curry, which should keep me going for the next short while.

No more courgettes though – the frost has done for them.  

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Monday 29th October 2012 – I’VE BITTEN …

… the bullet and lit the fire up here this evening.

Coming back from radioing, the temperature up here was 12.4°C – that’s about the limit for heat but what clinched it was the fact that I had Sunday’s pizza and garlic bread to cook.

It’s cheaper (like “cost = nil”) to cook them in the little oven on top of the woodstove. In no time at all the temperature up here was a balmy (or is that “barmy”?) 20.4°C and the pizza and garlic bread were done to a turn.

Not only that, the kettle on the top of the stove heated the water to a respectable washing-up type of temperature and so this is not only the first day of heat for winter 2012, it’s also the first day of no bottle gas.

A bottle of gas for cooking costs me about €32 and lasts me roughly 200 days. That’s about €0:16 per day that I’m saving.

Add to that the fact that a bottle of gas (at €32) lasted about 20 days in the old gas heater, then I’ve saved €1:60 per day on heating – a total of €1:76 per day in total.

The stove cost me €279, which means that at €1:76 per day it will be paid for in about 160 days. And as I use the stove about 100 days per year, it means that sometime round about Christmas it will be paid off.

A shrewd move, purchasing this woodstove.

We’d been radioing today, and that wasn’t without incident.

Radio Tartasse at Marcillat en Combraille forgot that we were coming (despite me reminding them on Friday) and so nothing was prepared, which meant that we had to make it up as we went along.

But at Radio Arverne in Gerzat the wheels fell off completely and we had to re-record one of the programmes a couple of times, as well as do some heavy editing, before we had a decent take.

But there’s a reason for that.

Liz didn’t have much sleep thanks to a hyperactive mind, and I had about one hour because, presumably, I have a guilty conscience about something or other.

Walking outside beating the bounds of my property here at 05:15 in the freezing weather because I can’t sleep – that’s a new one, isn’t it?

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceOn the way back from Liz and Terry’s as it was going dark, I stopped at my favourite spot – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne – yet again.

We were being presented with the most magnificent sunset as the sun slowly sank beneath the heavy clouds.

If ever a moment called for the camera, then this was it.

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceIt was even more interesting to stand there in the dark and watch all of the lights swich on one by one, like some kind of carpet of bulbs spreading out across the landscape.

And of course it called for a repetition of that well-worn old saying –
“Red sky at night – shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Les Ancizes is on fire”.

And that’s not all of it either. I also fixed the non-working flasher on Caliburn and readjusted the fan belt on Liz’s car.

It’s been a busy day today and I’m off to bed now – thoroughly exhausted.

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Sunday 28th October 2012 – BRRRRR!!!!!!!

puy de dome franceIt’s absolutely freezing outside. And I mean that too. Minus 1.6°C outside when I took the stats just now.

And it’s been cold all day as you can tell by just looking at this photo of the Puy-de-Dome that I took from my usual haunt – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne.

Winter has arrived, early as we predicted exclusively on these pages just 10 days ago, and we are still in October too.

puy de sancy puy de dome franceAnd just look over there at the Puy de Sancy and the Mont Dore. It’s more like Mont Blac over there right now. And those heavy clouds are threatening more punishment

And the snow isn’t just scattered over the high ground either. There’s piles of it in the middle distance too.

When that lot was unleashed last night, we were still on SUMMER time would you believe. The weather has gone totally crazy.

So this morning with the extra hour in bed, I was up and about at 09:20 and after breakfast and the usual paperwork, I spent a couple of hours doing some housework, cleaning and dusting and the like.

It’s certainly been such a long time since I’ve done any, and I can actually see some floor now.

This afternoon I went out to Terjat to watch AS Terjat play Neris les Bains’s 2nd XI.

An Allier Division 1 match, theoretically the same level at which FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI play, but there wasn’t a single player out there whom I would chose for my team. The quality really is quite poor in the Allier.

Neris-les-Bains are quite high up in the league and AS Terjat are mid-table, yet you wouldn’t have thought so from watching this match.

The first half with AS Terjat kicking into a howling wind, the match was played mostly in the Terjat half, but Neris-les-Bains were to all intents and purposes clueless in attack.

In the second half, playing with the wind, AS Terjat scored 2 goals in quick succession and as the wind dropped, Neris-les-Bains scored late in the game, due to a defensive howler in the AS Terjat penalty area.

fter that I went to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our Radio Anglais programmes for the coming week. Liz made a lovely tea and I had a nice warm shower for which I was grateful.

Back here though it’s freezing and I was sorely tempted to light the fire up here. November 17th was the first fire in 2010 – November 27th was the first in 2011,but the first fire in October is just crazy.

If it’s as cold as this tomorrow and I’m in all evening it will definitely be lit.

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Saturday 27th October 2012 – WHO WAS IT …

1st snow winter 2012 les guis virlet puy de dome france… who laughed when I said the other day that winter was on its way here and that it would be snowing before much longer?

Well, there you are. This was what greeted me this morning.

It’s the first snow of the year and it’s still October and we’re still on summer time here here.

I was up nice and early with every intention of going to Montlucon as I told you yesterday. But the main reason for going was to go finish off the day with a swim in the pool at Neris-les-Bains;

But if anyone thinks that I am getting into a swimming pool anywhere in weather like this, they are mistaken.

Instead, I stayed in this morning and did some more paperwork.

This afternoon the weather changed slightly and we had an hour or two of glorious weather – hardly a cloud in the sky – and so I nipped into St Eloy-les-Mines.

In this weather you have to go and do the shopping when you can, so there I was, doing a quicka dash around LIDL and Carrefour, spending a grand total of €18 on the weekly food shopping bill

The other day coming back from Nan’s, I noticed that Caliburn seemed to have his brake lights stuck on.

An investigation revealed that it was the driver’s side bulb showing both filaments at night, so I went to have a closer look.

I took out the light units and saw that the nearside lights worked as they should. On the offside though, a close examination of the bulb revealed that the bulb’s shaft had fractured.

As a result, the two internal wires were twisting and the current for the rear light was passing through the touching wires, lighting up the brake light as well.

Pressing the brakes, the current for the brake light was simply running to earth down the fractured shaft of the bulb.

Anyway, a new bulb has resolved that problem and we now have rear lights and brake lights like we are supposed to. My first guess of an earthing fault wasn’t so far out.

This afternoon I watched some footy on the computer and then prepared myself to go to Marcillat en Combraille to watch the footy. It’s cup weekend in the Puy-de-Dome and as you know, FC Pionsat St Hilaire were eliminated a couple of weeks ago by Clermont Foot Auvergne.

But to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … there was an inch of snow on the ground and it was falling thick and fast.

That put an end to the plans for going out, and I shan’t be moving now until it warms up again.

See you in April.

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Friday 26th October 2012 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about one thing.

And that was that I didn’t do too much today.

Up with the cock this morning (but that’s enough about my disgusting habits) and after breakfast (I’m back to 3 meals a day now so I’m clearly feeling better) I cleared off to Marcillat en Combraille.

Today’s the day for Radio Tartasse to record the Radio Anglais rock music programmes for the following month – get them out of the way as quickly as possible.

It didn’t take long either – a mere 28 minutes – and I was back here by 10:45.

Paperwork was next and then I carried on with the website – I’ve almost finished my walk around the city of Québec and it might even be on line by the end of next week.

I did intend to go outside today but the rain, that started as a slight drizzle, was by now a torrential downpour, and so I made a butty and came up here to watch a film. The Lady In Cement, starring none other than Frank Sinatra as a Philip Marlowe-type detective but with Attitude.

This film was a sequel to Sinatra’s Tony Rome, which I found in a junk shop for €1:99 and which so fascinated me that I bought the sequel full-price.

If there ever are any doubts about Sinatra’s acting ability then The Lady in Cement will dispel them completely. There are a few scenes in there that are magnificent, and it’s been a long time since I’ve said that about an acting performance.

These two films are so good that it did make me wonder whether or not they were ever going to make some kind of series out of them.

Anyway, after that I went downstairs and carried on working on the shelving for the cupboard.

Part of the problem with the wood that I buy is that it’s rough-cut stuff and so much of the time was spent sanding it all down ready to assemble. Given a few days of heavy weather though next week even that lot might be finished.

It won’t half be nice to have somewhere to store all of the stuff down there when the shelving is completed.

Tomorrow though I’m off to Montlucon if I wake up early enough. I need to make a mega-shop as I’m running low on stuff.

And that reminds me – the next monthly mega-shop that I do isn’t going to be in France. I might well be having my long-earned break 😉 

-4

Thursday 25th October 2012 – A BIG THANK-YOU …

… to everyone who thought about me while I was ill. I appreciated it very much.

A couple of you have suggested taking it easy for a while – sentiments with which I totally agree. Accordingly when the alarm clocks went off, I turned over and went back to sleep for a while.

Most of the day has been spent with paperwork – or rather, fiddling about with the printer so that I could print off a pile of paperwork.

It didn’t print in black last month and so I did everything in blue, but today I spent ages cleaning the heads and managed to get half a black printout.

One of the nozzles is blocked, and so I went to clean the heads again, and it ran out of black ink. I changed the black ink, but it still wasn’t printing properly and so I cleaned the heads again.

This time it ran out of blue ink.

I changed the blue ink, cleaned the heads, and it’s still not printing properly in black.

This means that for the foreseeable future I’m back to printing everything in blue again. I never seem to have any luck with printers.

This afternoon, I selected all of the music for the rock programmes but this evening was something exciting and unusual – Nan was having a little do and I was invited, as were Cécile, Gilles and Zoe.

We had a snack and played charades and so on for a few hours. It’s not like me to be sociable, is it?< Tomorrow is recording the Radio Anglais rock programmes for Radio Tartasse and so I won't be doing too much tomorrow morning either.

-5

Wednesday 24th October 2012 – HELLO AGAIN EVERYONE.

Yes, I’m feeling better now and I’ve even been outside this afternoon. That’s progress.

So what happened then? Basically, I started to feel ill on Friday night. I reckoned that I’ve eaten something that disagrees with me – but what, I do not know. O

By Monday night things had calmed down enough for me to try some food and drink and as that seemed to work after some kind of fashion, I’ve been gradually increasing my intake.

So far, so good.

But I’ve not been idle while I’ve been ill. Ohhh no!

I’ve done all kinds of paperwork that’s been outstanding, watched a load of decent films and recorded a few DVDs and CDs.

Today, with the weather being really bright and sunny with plenty of hot water, I collected up all of the towels and clothes and so on that might have germs on them, dug out the tabletop washing machine and given them a really good wash

So now, I wonder what tomorrow might bring.

-4

Saturday 20th October 2012 – I’M ALL ICKY-POOHS

I started to feel ill on Friday night and I wasn’t feeling so good this morning either and so I decided to stay in bed to sleep through it.

Or, at least that was the plan.

But it didn’t quite work out quite like that as for reasons that I won’t explain because you are probably eating your lunch right now, I couldn’t stay in bed for longer than 10 minutes at a time.

Consequently I reckon that I’ve eaten something that disagrees with me – but what, I do not know.

On the basis that if nothing goes in, then nothing can come out, I decided not to eat or drink anything until the crisis passed but nevertheless I nipped into St Eloy-les-Mines (and wasn’t that an exciting adventure?) to do some quick shopping.

Having taken a few elementary precautions, I went down to watch the football, including watching FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI win their first game of the season against the Goatslayers. but that was really too much.

Back home, I retired to bed and that was that.

0

Friday 19th October 2012 – THE HURRICANE …

… finally calmed down during late afternoon.

But not before several really impressive records were set. We didn’t quite manage the maximum wind-speed – the 66.7mph gust from May is safe for another while yet- but everything else was historic.

So much so that the Air 403 wind turbine on the roof of the barn generated more electricity today that in the rest of the 15 months that it’s been there.

The Rutland WG901 on the house surpassed the previous record and showed me the magic result on the timer
“Time since I took the last reading – 25 hours and 16 minutes”
“Wind time since last reading – “25 hours and 16 seconds”.

As well as that, the temperature here in the attic is now back up to the 20s – and I should think so too. I was freezing the other night.

So anyway, after the usual messing around on the computer I went outside to rectify the damage.

I picked up the kindling bins and the kindling and reorganised them (I don’t know why I bothered though – they blew over again) and picked up all of the stuff that had been propped against the end of the barn (and that blew back down twice more)

Major work though was with the Air 403 wind turbine fastened to the fence.

The screws have given way under the fierce battering that they took from the wind and the whole affair was blowing around like crazy. Screws clearly don’t work.

As I didn’t have any bolts long enough, you can see the benefits of having lengths of stud iron (or threaded rod as it’s called these days) lying around. I cut a few lengths of that and made up some bolts, and now it’s all properly bolted together and I hope that that won’t move again.

With no bread and still no boulangère I went into Pionsat to find out why she doesn’t love me any more, and I soon found out, much to my dismay.

The boulangerie is closed.

According to the notice on the door, it’s closed “until further notice” following an accident on the premises involving the oven. That’s upset my plans and no mistake. I shall have to think again about this.

Back home I finished off emptying the back half of the hard-standing. I need to buy some weedkiller to deal with the weeds on there, and on Monday I’ll start digging out the soil that has collapsed.

This is going to be a very long job.

-2

Thursday 18th October 2012 – IT’S BEEN BLOWING …

… a right old gale here today.

I’m having a world-record day for wind, that’s for sure. Even the wind turbine that is anchored to a plank and stuck up on a fence has recorded about 5 minutes of wind time, and that’s astonishing.

As for the others, the one on the barn has had over 17 hours and the one on the house has had over 21 hours.

And with the wind gusting to over 45mph the amount of energy created is phenomenal.

So much so that in the depths of darkest night I’ve actually seen the ammeters run backwards for the first time ever during the hours of darkness. 13.1 volts on the battery bank in the barn is unheard-of at 22:00.

Mind you, its playing havoc with everything else.

The bins with kindling in have blown over twice. I picked them up the first time but there’s no point in doing that again because they’ll just come down again.

It’s not raining, and not likely to either with this wind, and so they aren’t risking anything. Mind you my money is on a torrential rainstorm as soon as the winds drop.

I did mention yesterday that the weather is turning earlier than normal this year. I recall these windy conditions usually occurring in mid-November – in fact trying to watch a football match at St Avit back in 2008 one Sunday afternoon.

Yes, winter is definitely starting earlier this year.

I’ve also emptied half of the hard-standing now – I just need to clean out where the banks have collapsed and then I can do the next part of the job.

As for the bank itself, I’ve decided that I’ll go half-high with breeze blocks and then lay wire netting over the other half, pour cement over it so that it forms a kind-of ferro-cement and then lay stones over the top.

It should look quite pretty, but I’ve no idea how it will work out.

-2

Wednesday 17th October 2012 – I WAS LOOKING ….

…. through the stats for the past few years (the records that I have here go back to 2007) and one thing that I noticed is that this recent deterioration in the weather is occurring about 4 weeks earlier than in the previous years.

I hope that it’s not a forewarning because it won’t be very nice if it is.

Yes, last night was absolutely taters – temperature in my room dropped to 15.5°C. Hard to believe that this time last year it was still well into the 20s.

Anyway, a howling wind (good news for the wind turbines) brought the temperature up a few degrees.

This morning, after recording a few stats, I cracked on with my web site. At the moment I’m on my way to see St Andrews, the Scottish Protestant Church in Québec.

And when I finished that I went outside and emptied Caliburn of all of the pylons and the grillage that I had bought the other day.

After lunch I carried on moving stuff off the hard-standing – something that is going to take me years.

One of the difficulties I’m having is actually finding room to put stuff. But all of the old chevrons have been moved (back to where I moved them from 2 years ago) and I’ve also uprooted tons of nettles and entire root systems.

And tomorrow it will be more of the same, I reckon.

Totally frightening, what was growing in the hard-standing.

But there is an added complication in that part of the bank of the side of the hard-standing has collapsed, so I’ll need to dig that all out and then to secure it all somehow, otherwise it will just keep on slipping down and that will be a nuisance, to say the least

This tidying up of all of the nuts and screws and nails and so on is progressing apace. And it’s amazing what I’ve been finding.

It’s also turning out to be quite profitable – so far £0:15 and a token for the spin dryer in the laundry.

Spend, spend, spend, hey? 

-1