Sunday 16th September 2012 – HAVING LOST …

… my mobile phone about a month ago, it’s the turn of the dictaphone to go walkabout now.

I picked it up off the floor here and I’m convinced that I put it in my pocket, but when I arrived at Servant, it wasn’t there. No idea where that’s gone.

Yes, that’s where we are this Sunday – down at Servant.

It’s a cup match this weekend, so FC Pionsat St Hilaire have fielded something like a makeshift hybrid team featuring half of the 2nd XI

And while I was scrabbling around in Caliburn looking for my dictaphone, I missed FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s opening goal.

But not to worry, there were plenty of other goals that I didn’t miss.

Their opponents are a Third Division side and Pionsat cantered to a leisurely 4-1 win.

They didn’t at any time look under any kind of pressure, and could have had a bag-full more, missing two or three sitters on the way.

But, uncomfortably, they didn’t look all that convincing either. Last season, they would have demolished a team like this without any trouble at all.

Apart from that, all I seem to have done today is to back up my photographs onto DVD. I keep an external drive with the photos on, and also a portable drive as a fall-back.

I’ve also been copying them to DVD every time I have a fill SD card as an additional safeguard, but I’ve not done that since the second half of 2009 so there are thousands – and I mean thousands – to do.

It’s not helped either by the fact that the DVD writer is a little old and creaky and needs a long rest after each session, and that also some of the DVDs I have here are corrupted. Flood damage by the looks of things.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m off in the morning helping Rosemary with a furniture delivery.

I’ve swapped that for half a day’s work in my garden. It’s the only way that any weeding is going to be done in the near future.

-1

Saturday 15th September 2012 – I FOUND SOMETHING SPECTACULAR …

… in LIDL at St Eloy-les-Mines this afternoon.

Rummaging around, like you do … “like YOU do” – ed … I noticed several twin-packs of LED light strips. About a foot long, they consist of about 12 tiny LEDs and consume just 1 watt of electricity.

They are 12-volt and come complete with tiny mains transformer and little movement-detector.

I’ve been looking for something to use as strip lights in the kitchen whenever it might be that I start it, and also for the bathroom over the sink and the bedroom over the dressing table.

You can buy 12-volt flourescents and indeed I have a few here that I was planning to use, but they take about 7 watts and they are big, bulky things.

So I duly bought a pack and brought it home. And after cutting a few wires and so on, I gave it a try.

And blimey!

for just 1 watt, that’s incredibly bright. Now I have to go and help Rosemary on Monday morning so I’m going via LIDL at St Eloy-les-Mines and I’ll buy the rest of the stock of those lights.

That’s another problem solved. Good old LIDL, hey?

There was also a sale on at Cheze – everything in the shop 20% off today. Now I have a few decent tools lying around here that don’t have handles, like a rake, a sledgehammer and a binette – that kind of thing, and so I popped in there today.

So that’s something else organised.

I also bumped into Bill and so we went for a coffee and a natter.

This morning I sorted out the radio programmes for the rock shows that I do for Radio Anglais. I’m now up to November, with records selected and scripts typed and so that will keep me out of mischief for a while.

And then I headed for town.

Back home after the shops, I went through the SD cards and copied their contents onto DVD – something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while.

And I’m supposed to take it easy at the weekend.

Phew!

-3

Friday 14th September 2012 – I WAS OUT …

… on the scaffolding working until 19:30 this evening and that’s a surprise, especially as seeing that it’s Friday – or POETS Day today.

Normally, if I’m out working after 19:00 it’s because I’ve been carried away by something that I’m doing, to the extent that I’ve lost all track of time.

But not this evening.

I was well-aware of what time it was but this wall isn’t ever going to be finished if I don’t put more effort into it. Hence the extra bucket of mortar that I mixed after hours.

There’s no possibility whatever of it being finished by the already-extended date of Tuesday, but I’ll try to have it done by next weekend if I can.

Today I was working round by where the wall collapsed back 10 years ago. That created this massive hole and gave me the opportunity to fit the window instead.

They don’t go much for windows around here.

The condition of the wall around here is really sad and needs some careful attention. I don’t want the lot of it to fall on me like it did last time.

But it’s astonishing to think – and I’m really proud to say, that I’ve built up all of that wall from the level of the large window to the roof line, and a good metre-high length of wall at the back, all on my own.

And I knew nothing about building fieldstone walls and pointing before I started – never mind building a room.

One thing though, that checking on the stuff on the other half of the wall that I’ve already finished, I’m even more convinced that ramming these larger stones into the gaps with a sledgehammer seems to be the way to go.

Thhe vertical cracks haven’t developed at all – the rammed stones are holding everything up in tension.

This morning though I made rapid progress on the website and I’ve now finished the walk along the city walls of Québec – the only walled city in the whole of the Americas north of Mexico City.

Tomorrow I’ll make a start on the walk around the town.

-2

Thursday 13th September 2012 – I THOUGHT FOR A …

… moment this morning, like I do occasionally, you know, that I was going to be in for a session of working inside.

For the first time for I don’t know how many months. I woke up nice and early after my very early night, and the first sound that I heard was the gentle pit-a-pat of rain on the windows in the roof.

And so I set to work to catch up on the website for a change just recently (I’m now at the old Quebec arsenal), but right on cue, at 12:30 the rain suddenly stopped.

That was the only indication that I needed. I grabbed my trowel and dashed outside to work. Dodging the rain showers, of which there were more than just a few.

I’m rather pleased with the overhang that I built into the roof.

There were two reasons that I did that

I didn’t fancy cutting the long sheets of plywood
I wanted to keep the rain as far away from the foot of the wall as possible so that the damp doesn’t soak up into the walls from below.
That seems to work, anyway. The ground was bone-dry about 15 inches from the wall which was exactly what I wanted.

And hammering stones into the gaps until they are thoroughly and tightly in is definitely the way to go

This is shown by the hairline cracks that are appearing in the mortar that I’ve been doing just recently (this is natural – as the mortar dries out, it shrinks). They are now running horizontally, not vertically.

Obviously this wedging of the gaps is holding the walls upright.

I’ve finished off the one half of the long wall of the lean-to, right down to, and in fact below the level of the ground as I’ve dug a trench about 6 inches deep and sealed the wall down there too.

But now I’ve started on the second half of the long wall – the last bit to do.

It’s not going to be finished by the weekend, or anything like it unfortunately

But there’s still two and a half weeks before I have to decide if (notice the “if” rather than the “when” – that’s a disappointment) I’m going away for a while in October.

So tonight I’ll sit here and recover for a while and then go to bed. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, and then it’s weekend.

-1

Wednesday 12th September 2012 – I HAVEN’T BEEN …

… on my website for the last couple of days. The footy has now started as you know and so I’ve been redesigning the footy website and doing the pages for the first two matches.

Those pages are now on line so that’s something accomplished.

This afternoon, in between the rain showers, I’ve been driving myself up the wall again.

I’ve got down to the bottom on part of the wall at long last and I need to reach the bottom on the other bit that I’m working on. And it does look much better without the scaffolding in the way, doesn’t it?

That should be lunchtime or thereabouts tomorrow if I put my mind to it, extricate my digit and have a good start. Then I can start on the other half of the wall.

But anyway, banging a few of these oversize stones in really tight seems to have helped the wall settle, although of course the proof of the pudding …

In other news, never mind the temperature, I have all of the windows closed tight and I’m wearing a sweater. The temperature has collapsed and winter is on its way.

Tomorrow I’ll have to start wearing clothes underneath my overalls and won’t that be a novelty?

-2

Tuesday 11th September 2012 – IT’S RAINING!!!!!

First time for 10 days as it happens, and aren’t the plants (and Yours Truly) grateful for it?

I woke up at about 05:00 due to the mouse in the roof doing his usual clog-dance, and I could hear a pitter-patter of rain on the skylights here.

That was it until lunchtime when we had a another quick 5 minutes or so, but this evening at about 22:00 we had a torrential downpour and wasn’t it pleasant to hear the water cascading into my water butts?

What was even nicer was that on the lean-to the water was cascading down the roof, into the guttering and out of the hole where it’s supposed to go. I can’t wait to install the water butts and to start collecting all of this.

And so I went back out on my wall, but I’m not convinced at all about what I’m doing.

Although I made some progress today, it’s definitely not going to be finished by the weekend, much to my dismay, and not by a long way either. It’s taking ages.

The problem is that all of the sand-mud mortar behind the large cracks has totally flaked away so it all needs to be raked out completely.

This means that some of the stones are loose so they need to be prised out, something that causes the wall to sag a little where you’ve just cemented – because you start from the top and work down, of course.

You then need to find a slightly larger stone which you then hammer into the gap until it’s solid – which causes the bit of wall that you’ve just done to rise up – and then wedge in with loose stones, and cement it in.

And then of course, the bit that you did earlier that you moved about just now needs re-cementing.

And this is how it goes – it’s taking ages, but then again if it had been so easy it would have been done properly long ago.

Then of course I need to keep raking away all of the sand and cement that falls out.

mean, it’s not as if it’s difficult – just time-consuming. So I’ve no idea when it might be finished.

The Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival started in Fredericton today so I clearly won’t be going to that.

-1

Monday 10th September 2012 – OH DEER!

Oh deer indeed.

And to the deer that ran out in front of Caliburn somewhere between St Gervais d’Auvergne and Gouttieres on the way back from our Anglo-French Group meeting, Caliburn and I are really sorry.

But it’s a good job that I’m a vegan otherwise you would be in the pot right now.

Caliburn has a slight mark on the front bumper, which shows that he’s much more solidly built than the Chevy Malibu that I hired in Canada in 2003 (mind you, it was a stag that I hit back then) but I’m very much afraid that the deer went in all directions.

Ahh well 🙁

So apart from that dramatic end to the evening, what else?

After the usual bits and pieces on the computer, I went out and attacked the wall again.

But astonishingly, only 3 buckets of mortar went into the wall. And for a whol assortment of reasons.

I had to take down part of the scaffolding. That’s major progress in itself
But before I could do that, I had to move a pile of stuff.
Once that had gone, I had to hack down a pile of brambles and small trees to make some working space
I had to clear away all of the sand and cement that I’ve raked out of the wall and was piling up against the foot of the wall. That took ages, and I DO mean “ages” too

But I did make two startling discoveries

I knew that I had another garden rake somewhere, a big heavy duty proper one with real metal prongs.
And I would love to know what I was doing with it because it was under the stones that fell when the wall collapsed back all those years ago.
The handle has long since rotted away but I’ll buy a new one on Saturday at Cheze.
I now know the secret of why the lean-to is collapsing.
There’s a whole network of tree roots from the walnut tree that has infiltrated into the wall below ground level. Much of the day was spent extracting them, and I need to think of a permanent solution to deal with that issue.
Also, this is the bit where the wall is really bad.
Rainwater has infiltrated and washed the old mortar away and many of the stones are loose. They need extracting where possible and replacing with larger stones/
Either that or they need to be well packed in with other stones so that they can’t move and the forces above them are spread out horizontally.

So now you know why that’s why it’s taking me ages.

But anyway, at 18:45 I called it a day and had a quick a solar shower and following that, legged it to St Gervais d’Auvergne where we had the biggest crowd for quite a while.

And that is always pleasant.

-1

Sunday 9th September 2012 – ONE THING …

… about going to watch the footy with FC Pionsat St Hilaire is that you get to go to some really spectacular places.

The 2nd XI were playing at Chateaugay earlier this afternoon and the road up to the football ground has probably the best view that I have ever seen so far.

Way, way, way down there below us is the Michelin tyre testing ground and then over to the right is Gerzat where we record our programmes for Radio Arverne.

And if there had been less haze we could probably have seen right the way across to Roanne. It really was magnificent.
fc pionsat st hilaire fcpsh football chateaugay puy de dome france As for the football though, it was a disaster.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire started with just 9 players. A hasty telephone call brought along 3 more, somewhat late, and after 15 minutes there was something of a team out there.

With a smattering of new players this season it looked slightly-better organised.

But not for long.

Fabien, who seems to have found a little niche playing in the central defence, had to hobble off.

That meant a reorganisation with Xavier, who played up front for the 3rd XI last season, going up front and Bertrand dropping to midfield and Sébastien dropping to central defence.

When the new right-back was injured, Fabien came back on to replace him but was clearly struggling and it was clear that he was just a passenger in the side

Fabien was pushed up front, which is the correct thing to do with an injured defender and Xavier was put at right-back.

Xavier is a big, awkward, ungainly centre-forward – the type that causes a lower-league defence all kinds of problems in the opposition penalty area, but ball-control and tackling are not, unfortunately his strongpoints.

Shortly after this, someone in the Chateaugay side stood on François’ hand and so that was him off the field.

The willing and good-natured Xavier, who had done his best in goal a couple of times for the 3rd XI, valiantly took over there but the result was really a foregone conclusion.

As for the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 1st XI, it’s clear just how much Jérôme animated the forward line of the team and how much they depended upon him for their results.

With him gone, Michael Bucaud suspended and Matthieu Sikorski injured, they had nothing to offer up front which is totally amazing for a FC Pionsat St Hilaire 1st XI side.

I can’t remember if Cedric, the star centre-forward, actually managed a shot on goal. The service he was receiving was non-existent.

Two controversial decisions decided this match.

The referee overrruled a linesman in an offside decision and allowed play to continue.

So while the Pionsat defenders were waiting for the whistle in response to the flag, the Clermont la Glacière forward popped the ball in the net.

I know the referee (we had quite a chat in the interval) and he has a voice like a foghorn and I certainly didn’t hear him shout for play to continue – and neither did anyone else.

Five minutes later an FC Pionsat St Hilaire forward catches the ball brilliantly on his body and then volleys it beautifully from 25 yards right past the keeper into the net.

The other linesman signals for handball – and I was right level with play and if he has his hands there then I’m going back to school to re-learn all my anatomy – and the referee, miles from play, awards a free kick to Clermont la Glacière.

How the ref saw the incident when he was so far away and the player’s body in the way I just do not know, but I’m going to get myself a pair of eyes just like those just as soon as I possibly can.

Back on the way home, I stopped at the fruit stall at Combronde for some grapes and some melon and then I went round to Rosemary’s to drop off some stuff that I had bought for her in Montlucon.

I had a little pause though because just on one of the bends there was a magnificent view right across the Gorge de la Sioule to St Gervais d’Auvergne perching proudly on its hilltop.

That had to be a moment to reach for the Nikon D5000 and the telephoto lens.

Hard to believe that St Gervais d’Auvergne is a good 15 kilometres further on from here, isn’t it? A good purchase, this lens.

Rosemary and I had quite a chat too – more of a gossip in fact. But that’s not important when you are amongst good friends.

But she had a laugh about me and my grapes – that I can sit and eat through a whole bag of grapes at one sitting.
“You’ll be wanting to go to the bathroom all the time” she said.
“Not me, Rosemary. Once a day, 07:30, every morning, regularly as clockwork!”
That’s very convenient and useful, Eric!”
“Not when I don’t wake up until 07:45, Rosemary, it isn’t.”

-1

Saturday 8th September 2012 – WHEN WAS THE LAST …

… time I saw an SD1 Rover?

I can in fact vaguely remember – early October 2010 in Ohio, USA as it happens. Here’s the photo to prove it and I’m still recovering from the shock.

In the UK is must be years ago when I borrowed one that a mate was halfway through dismantling, so that I could go to Kings Lynn to drops some stuff off on a girl that I was seeing at the time and the exhaust fell off halfway out.

And so this morning in Montlucon I was completely stunned to see one drive past me as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. And seeing a second one drive past me an hour or two later was even more astonishing. I’ve no idea what was going on there and I bet that I won’t ever see something like that again.

And I nearly didn’t make it to Montlucon either.

The effects of the last few days have been telling on me, because despite the early night I slept right through the alarms this morning. It was only the farmer bringing the cows back (I’m glad I did that wall when I did) that woke me up.

I had a good wander round and bought nothing much out of the ordinary – maybe a pair of these shell trousers that I wear. Auchan had them on sale at €9:99 so I reckoned that I would buy a pair and see what they are like.

I’m fast running out of clothes because I left a huge pile in my lock-up in Canada to pick up when I go back – which should have been this weekend but it isn’t and that’s why I’m running out.

I had a good hour in the pool at Neris-les-Bains as well and finally managed to see the remains of the Roman Baths – how long have I been going there and I haven’t seen them before?

In the blistering heat the baths was crowded as you might expect. And someone was having a load of fun!

A couple were standing about 5 yards apart and hurling an object about between them – the object being a girl of about 3 or 4. And every time she hit the water she was squealing with delight.

I was squealing too, but for a different reason. All of the pool was open and the water was absolutely freezing. Almost as cold as that pool in Québec back in May.

Tonight the football season gets under way and with no game at Pionsat I went to Marcillat en Combraille to watch AS Marcillat’s 1st XI.

One division higher than FC Pionsat St Hilaire in theory (but they play in the Allier leagues, not the Puy de Dome leagues) but you wouldn’t think so. The match was awful and so was AS Marcillat – they only lost 5-2 but they were lucky to get the two and St Prix should have had a dozen.

I’m off to two matches tomorrow – at Chateaugay for the 2nd XI at 13:00 and then down the road to Clermont la Glacière at 15:00 for the 1st XI.

Two teams that I haven’t seen before.

-1

Friday 7th September 2012 – WHAT A GORGEOUS …

… tea 😉

New potatoes, beans and carrots straight out of the garden and into the vegetable steamer, all cooked with all my own surplus electtrical energy.

Then a veggie burger, onions and garlic fried in a mustard sauce with the vegetables and tipped, for the first time in I really don’t know how long, onto a plate.

No eating out of the saucepan for me tonight!

Yes, a meal fit for a king – with all of this surplus electrical energy from the glorious day that we had today, I had to do something with it. Cooking sounds like a good plan, and it’s one in the eye for my critics back in the UK.

I was up early today but somehow I couldn’t find any motivation for the website – no idea why. I’ve not advanced very far along the fortifications of Québec today.

But outside I cracked on and I’ve done quite a bit. Tons of progress today.

So much so that before I restart on Monday I need to take down half of the scaffolding. The half nearest the fence is now totally surplus to requirements so I need to remove it.

When that’s out of the way I shall rake out the soil to remove the stones, bits of cement and so on, and so I can kneel on the ground and finish off the last rows on that bit.

You’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to taking down the scaffolding. There’s been scaffolding there of one sort or another since 2002 – that’s how long I’ve been trying to organise this lean-to.

Give me another 7 or 8 days and with luck the scaffolding will be gone completely.

It’s still rather sad though. This week I should have flown out to Canada for the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival at Fredericton.

But like I said the other day, if I do that, and then go back out to Canada next Spring too, this lean-to won’t be started again until next June and that’s far too long to wait.

I’m pretty-much determined that I want to finish the outside before I plan any trip anywhere. Finish it all off this year and that will be that – one of the most important projects around the house all finished off

So, where shall I go to in October? That is, of course, always assuming that I will have finished this blasted lean-to by then.

-1

Thursday 6th September 2012 – I DIDN’T GET MUCH …

… done on the wall today either. This deadline of next weekend is looking less and less likely

The effects of all these early mornings proved too much for me today. I vaguely heard the alarm clock go off, but it was 09:10 when I set foot out of bed.

Had It not been for the fact that I needed to go for a ride on the porcelain horse (or what passes for a porcelain horse around here) I would probably still be in bed right now

A good few hours on the website and then outside at 12:30 and I managed to bung two really good bucket-loads into the wall.

Even better – after lunch, even with rearranging some of the stones, I still heaved a couple of bucket loads in by 16:30. However, such is the condition of the wall that all of that chalk mortar isn’t advancing me very much.

And 16:30 though saw me come to a rather shuddering stop.

According to my weather reporting, weather comes in five grades

overcast
cloudy
clouds
scattered clouds
cloudless

We started to day with scattered clouds but by 16:30 we had progressed to a cloudless day. The water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load was 63°C, the batteries in the barn were fully-charged and there was a good wind blowing.

There was also a big pile of dirty clothes to be washed up here in the attic and the bedding needed changing – the kind of things that need doing no matter what other plans you have, and so I stopped work on the wall and dealt with the washing.

Put all of that out of the way.

While this was going on, I did a few odd jobs around here, like changing plugs on appliances and so on.

As you know, I don’t use Continental plugs and sockets here but British ones, for the simple reason that the plugs themselves are fused and so any issues with my system won’t damage the appliances.

‘ve also wired in the new media trolley that I assembled on Sunday. It now has a 4-way 230-volt socket that plugs into the wall – I can plug all of the external drives and so on into it, and it also has 3 x 12-volt DC sockets for things like the DVD player, the video player and so on.

Finally, even though the water in the solar shower was quite cold, I bunged 5 litres of hot water out of the dump load into it and had a shower myself – clean myself up.

And so now there are clean sheets, clean pillowcases, a clean quilt cover, and a clean me. I’m quite looking forward to that and it won’t be long before I’m in it either.

And then tomorrow I really must get cracking and no mistake.

-3

Wednesday 5th September 2012 – IT’S NOT EVEN …

… 23:00 yet and I’m absolutely whacked.

2 early-morning starts have done for me and so I’m off to bed in a minute

One thing about a … gulp … 07:30 start though is that you can do tons of work and I’m well round the fortifications of Québec City now.

Mind you, there’s still a long way to go before I can leave the place, let alone finish my voyage from earlier this year.

As well as that, there are the journeys from 2010 and 2011 that have yet to see the light of day and I need to deal with them. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

This afternoon saw me up on the wall again.

I had to rearrange the scaffolding and then I raked out underneath the horizontal beam over tbe windows and cemented that in properly.

From there I cemented in one of the window frames that I fitted the other day and then did a big pile of touching up. Not that I would ordinarily bother but this new trowel is just so good. Short, narrow and very springy, it makes a lovely finish on the wall.

For the second part of the afternoon it was much more complicated.

There is a huge crack in this wall too and a few of the stones are quite loose. I’ve been moving them out, cleaning out the mud and sand that they use round here for mortar, and then finding slightly bigger stones to fit in the holes.

It’s like a jigsaw puzzle and needs to be done very carefully, but I’m getting there. Finishing it all by next weekend may well be a tad optimistic.

So for tea I cooked rice in the electric steamer and had a helping of the pepper and lentil curry I made last night. Rosemary rang me up in the middle of it all for a chat too which is nice, even if my tea did go cold.

And right now, 23:06 it is and I’m off to bed. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

-1

Tuesday 4th September 2012 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I was up before the alarm went off.

And just as well because with having visitors today, it gave me chance to tidy up a little in here and then go downstairs and steam-clean the kitchen.

As an aside, by the way, this unit that I bought the other week and assembled on Sunday, it’s really doing the business and I’m quite impressed with it. I think that this was a really good purchase.

So Rosemary came round for her lesson in pointing and to be frank I think that we spent more time gossiping than working. Nevertheless, she made a reasonable mix and managed two bucketfuls into the wall with a finish that wasn’t too bad at all.

However, I think that she understands that it takes longer than one might think, until you’ve been doing it for a while anyway.

One thing though for which I’m glad that she was here was that I had to change the wires over on the wind turbine.

That involved lying a ladder on the roof (at an angle of course) and then slotting another ladder into the space between the rungs and up the wall so that I could climb up on it.

Not for the faint-hearted, that but I couldn’t think of another way to do it. I needed an assistant for that as who knows what might happen when I’m on my own.

And bravo too, for her being only ever the third person to be brave enough to use the composting toilet.

Anyway, that’s that. I’ll have an early night and then attack the wall in earnest tomorrow. The quicker I start, the quicker I’ll finish.

-1

Monday 3rd September 2012 – I DIDN’T START …

… the pointing today, and I wouldn’t be doing any tomorrow save for Rosemary coming round for a lesson (talk about the blind leading the blind!) because I was rather side-tracked this afternoon.

And so I was this morning.

I made a good start though thanks to my really early night last night (in bed well before midnight) and I had a good crack at the web site.

With not being on long enough last night to charge the computer though, the battery went quickly flat and when I switched on the inverter to charge up the machine, the internet came on and my friend Marianne from Belgium was on line.

So we ended up chatting for an hour or so seeing as we haven’t seen each other on line for months.

But this afternoon, doing the pointing means of course lowering the scaffolding and as I was about to do that, I suddenly remembered that the wind turbine that I put on the side of the house in the early spring is only wired in temporarily.

If I move the scaffolding, that will be that and it won’t be long before the old manky wire that I used to connect up the wind turbine to the charging circuit in the emergency, all open and exposed to the atmosphere, rots away.

Consequently I set to to run some decent 2.5mm wire through some flexible conduit, and to install a junction box under the eaves for the second wind turbine that will one day be installed on the other side of the house.

And while I was up the ladder under the eaves it occurred to me that while I was there I could fit a light there as planned, that works off the dusk/dawn sensor and which will automatically light up the front door and down the side of the house to the door to the lean-to during the hours of darkness.

And as I was running that wire through the conduit, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to put a light under the eaves at the other end of the front of the house to light up the door to the verandah.

And so I ran yet more wire through another conduit.

Net result – the wire is ready to wire up the wind turbine, but I’ll wait until Rosemary is here before I do that. I’m going to have to be something of an acrobat and on a ladder that is hanging on a roof, I’d rather there was someone here to call the ambulance.

One of the lights, that over the front door and the lean-to, is now installed and when I came back from PIonsat tonight (it’s the Anglo-French club’s meeting) it was doing exactly what it was supposed to.

And doing it quite efficiently too.

Not that 1 watt of LED power is going to light up much, but I could certainly move around without a torch and that is what is the aim.

So an early start tomorrow to steam-clean the verandah seeing as how I’ll be having visitors. I might even clean some more in here too – you never know. I bet I still won’t find my mobile phone though.

I haven’t a clue where that might be.

-2

Sunday 2nd September 2012 – ONE THING THAT MAKES ME …

… appreciate how lucky I am with my friends is that they appreciate and respect my little foibles and peccadilloes.

Of course these days, nobody respects my little foibles quite like Percy Penguin, and then nothing like half as often as I would like, and as for my little peccadilloes, I bet that you didn’t even know that armadilloes and peccaries could mate

But back to the plot – having rung me at 09:00 a couple of Sundays ago, someone must have had a quiet word with Rosemary because it was at 12:30 this afternoon that she phoned me.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter how you wrap it up, it still comes as a hell of a surprise, if not a disappointment, when you yourself are still wrapped up in the arms of Morpheus in your comfy little bed at the time.

So after my rude awakening and my breakfast, I turned out a corner of my room here – the corner which was the likeliest to be the hiding place of my mobile phone.

No such luck with the phone, as I was half-expecting, but I did find another pile of missing stuff – something that always happens and something that is always a great comfort to me.

I’ve also rearranged a few things over there, put the printer in a more-permanent home, and sorted out all of the stationery too

After lunch, by which time I mean about 17:30, I assembled the desk-on-wheels thing that I bought the other day at Centrakor in Commentry, and that was no mean feat as the instructions for that were wrong too and I had to work it out myself.

It’s quite a nice piece of furniture, excellent value for €19:99. I’m well-happy with this for a purchase. I’ve loaded everything onto it now and it works quite well.

The downside of it all is that I seem now to have lost the remote control to the AKAI 12-volt DVD player.

So that’s the sum total of my day. I’m off now to have an early night to catch up my beauty sleep. I need an enormous amount of that.

But before I go off to sleep, let me just confirm something that you might already have gathered from a couple of comments that I’ve already made.

When I went off to Canada at the end of April I planned to go back again this autumn. Especially so, seeing that I left all of my winter clothes there when I came back.

But I’m making rapid progress with this lean-to as you know. I’ve accomplished so much since I came back from Canada last October and the end is in sight. I’m still all-fired up to carry on and if I stop, I might not have the momentum, the motivation and the weather to be able to continue.

It’s a shame to stop now when I can finish it off in a couple of weeks, and so Canada is now officially cancelled and I’m going up the wall.

-2

EPIC HALL

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