Saturday 1st September 2012 – IT’S HARD …

… to believe that not so long ago, I was up here in my attic melting away to nothing, totally unable to move with the heat.

This evening, not two weeks later, there were about 150 of us shivering to death on the terraces of the football ground in Pionsat.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. The footy has restarted.

We had a little competition between a few of the local sides followed by a friendly match between two veterans’ XIs – one of which represented the old team of Pionsat and the other the old team of St Hilaire before the fusion.

And believe me, some of these veterans cut still mutt the custard in the lower leagues of the Puy-de-Dome District Football League.

The final match of the night was the final friendly of the season (if any match with the Miners can be called “a friendly”) between FC Pionsat St Hilaire and Nord-Combraille.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire won that encounter at something of a canter thanks to a blistering 3-minute spell midway through the second half when they stuck three into the Miners’ net.

What was even more interesting was that FC Pionsat St Hilaire had no recognised striker on the field. Cedric wasn’t there, and it appears that Jérome (who is probably the best player I have seen in Division One) and Thomas (who on his day is as good as anyone) have left the club.

But there were two players out there new to the team, one of whom I’ve seen playing at AS Marcillat last season, who took the Miners apart.

There was another guy called Rene, who I saw play once last season and who looked thoroughly unfit back then, who seems to have been working hard in close-season and ran the opposition ragged throughout the game.

What is even more interesting from my point of view is that my signboard is up, as you can see on the perimeter fencing.

I’m something of a sponsor of the club, not in a big way of course, and that gives me the right to have a signboard.

I don’t expect that too much will come of it, but it’s advertising all the same and no advertising is ever wasted.

Furthermore, it shows solidarity with the local community and that is also very important in my opinion. Participating in the community means that you are no longer an outsider and in my opinion, all ex-pats should make some kind of active participation in the community.

As for the weather, I closed all of the windows on Thursday evening which is just as well as the temperature has taken a dramatic plunge. Last night it bottomed out at 5.5°C, a far cry from nights that didn’t drop below 30°C just 12 or so days ago.

What is even harder to believe is that despite it being Saturday, I’ve been working outside – on the lean-to in case you haven’t guessed.

This morning I wrote up the additional notes for the October radio programmes (I intend to be well ahead in the future) and then I went into St Eloy-les-Mines to do the shopping.

I spent absolutely nothing extra although I did go into Cheze, the DiY place, and buy the glass that I needed (€4:80 – made me wonder why I bought that sheet of perspex in the week).

I managed to bring the glass back without breaking it and then trying to find a safe place to put it until Monday, I reckoned in the end after much reflection that the safest place to put it was into the window frame.

And hence the work on a Saturday.

till, it’s in now. One less thing to worry about and one less job to do on Monday and I can have an extra 15 minutes in bed to compensate.

Tomorrow is Sunday, my first Sunday off for ages. And I’m going to have a lie-in and then do nothing all day.

Just you watch someone ring me up at 10:00 and spoil it!

-2

Friday 31st August 2012 – WHAT A WAY …

… to start the day!

Yes, a phone call at 08:00 from Terry “I’m off to the quarry – do you want any sand?”

Well, as you know, I am rather low on the stocks and so at 08:30 I was at the end of the lane and we went off together. 2.5 tonnes of that went into Terry’s huge trailer and then we shovelled 12 sacks – about half a tonne – into the back of Caliburn.

I was back home by 09:30, soaking wet because we were having a storm at the time. But at least i now have plenty of sand for Stage Two of my wall and that will keep me out of mischief for a while

few more hours on the web site – I’m currently walking around the walls of Québec right now (and did you know that Québec is the only walled city in the whole of America north of Mexico City?) – and then outside to play.

Pascal came round with the Twingo and a couple of dents that he had acquired. I had a play around to try to take them out out but that wasn’t any use – his car is well bashed up and so that was that.

After lunch I started on the guttering on the lean-to.

And not just started on the guttering either because there it is in all its glory, all finished.

No downpipe yet of course because I need to know the height of the water butts and all that kind of thing. That will be a later addition.

But what there is on the guttering which you might just be able to see is that there is some of that fine netting to keep out leaves and so on.

I had a few rolls of that lying around and so I’ve fitted it over the guttering. That is where the cold water supply for the house will be coming from and so I need to keep it as clean as possible.

What you might also notice if you look very carefully is the reflection of the sky in the upper right-hand window. That’s where I fitted the glass yesterday.

I was going to fit some perspex in the other one but then I thought that as I’ll be going into St Eloy-les-Mines tomorrow I may as well buy the real thing – waiting until Monday isn’t going to hurt any.

What’s also significant about this photo is that it’s taken with the Nikon D5000.

You remember that it packed up when I was on that icebreaker going out with the relief supplies to that island in the Gulf of St Lawrence in May and I had to send it away to be repaired.

Anyway, it came back this morning, much to my delight.

It seems that there was a crack in the housing, and some water from the driving rainstorm that we were having when I was on that boat found its way inside.

Strangely enough, I do recall when I was out on the Sageunay Fjord that the photos suddenly started to become woefully over-exposed. Maybe it was round about then that the crack occurred and the over-exposure would be due to the extra light finding its way in through the crack, bypassing the light meter.

I knocked off early today – 18:50 because I ran out of things to do that I could do in 10 minutes and anyway it’s POETS day today as you all know.

I’m going to take it easy this weekend and then start the re-pointing of the long wall on Monday.

I’ll finish this lean-to if it kills me.

-5

Thursday 30th August 2012 – I DIDN’T DO …

… anything like as much as I was going to do today.

I was up early and spent a few hours on the computer as usual, but it was after that that it all started to go wrong

Finding a fully-charged battery for the Hitachi SDS drill was the first issue that I had, and once I’d managed that, then drilling the brick pillars has caused some of the bricks to split. That’s annoying to say the least.

But anyway the window frames are fitted and that’s something. Next plan was to fit the fascia boards to the end of the chevrons on the lean-to,

However, in an astounding achievement the type of which surely only I can be capable, it seems that having cut the wood to the right length, I somehow have managed to discard the piece that I want and I’ve painted the off-cut instead.

As Kenneth Williams once famously said, “I’m often taken aback by my own brilliance”

I didn’t get much done after lunch as the phone rang. The handbrake on Marianne’s son’s car has ceased to function and so could I look at it.

He brought it round and I dismantled the rear end (brake drums held on by the wheel bearings, how I hate that!) to find that the auto adjusters aren’t working. So no surprise as the handbrake needs 12 clicks to work.

I reset the adjusters but that didn’t do much so crawling underneath the car, it turns out that the cable adjuster (there’s one of them too) has slipped out of position. I reset that and now the brakes will stop that little Twingo on a sixpence.

But that cable is totally weird. Most cars have one single cable and there’s a slider at the centre of tha cable that’s attached to the handbrake arm so that the brakes pull evenly, and when you work the manual adjuster, the adjuster works on both brakes.

But not the Twingo.

There’s no slider at all but just a single fitting on the end of the handbrake arm, and two cables, one for each rear brake on each side.

Consequently although moving the manual adjuster will tighten up the cable, it doesn’t equalise the brakes. If one side is lack, then tightening up the cable adjuster will over-tighten the good side.

It took us ages therefore to adjust the brakes correctly, setting up the automatic adjusters individually by trial and error until they were equal, and then tightening up the cable adjuster.

And then of course we had the issue of refitting the hubs and bearings, and torquing up the nuts. That’s something I really hate doing.

Back on the lean-to afterwards (just as well I finished the car as we had a torrential storm straight afterwards), I’ve fitted one window pane (one of them survived having a ladder thrown on it) and the second one is ready to cut.

But by this time, it was 19:00 and I was well fed up, so I called it a day.

And tea tonight? Courgette and lentil curry. You can see that things are going berserk in the garden right now.

-4

Wednesday 29th August 2012 – WE HAD OUR FIRST …

… no-show today.

Marianne and I went all the way out to Vergheas this afternoon for our Wednesday walk. Unfortunately no punters showed up, which was rather sad.

Mind you, it was only to be expected, I suppose. There had been the walk here a few weeks ago – the good one that I had been on, and then there was the pélerinage to the statue of the Black Virgin 10 days ago.

I suppose that everyone is simply Vergheased out.

Mind you it was just as well that no-one came because the sky was clouding over rapidly. We didn’t want to hang around too long. But long enough for one thing that I had wanted to do.

Vergheas is an old (and I DO mean old) fortified site – the mound upon which the church is built looks artificial to me, and that’s a good-enough indication.

What I had wanted to do was to see if there might be any trace of the old walls still remaining. When we had been here before, I’d had a good prowl around and had made a mental note of a couple of places that might be likely.

There was another flattened terrace on a lower level than that upon which the church is situated. This looked artificial to me.

The edges of this terrace were quite steep and in one or two places sloped down considerably towards the stream at the bottom. And sure enough, the side of that was lined with dressed stonework.

On the way back to Pionsat the heavens opened and we had 6mm of rain that fell in minutes. I can’t say that I’m sad about that, because we needed a good torrential downpour.

I was going to carry on working when I arrived home but I went upstairs and crashed out instead. I’d had a long, hard day.

This morning I was up early and met Rosemary at Montaigut en Combraille. She hopped into Caliburn and we went in to Montlucon. She ordered her new window at Lapeyre and I bought a load of stuff from Brico Depot.

I was back home for 13:15 – plenty of time to put the final coat of paint on the new woodwork ready to fit it tomorrow.

And in other news, and a bit of malicious gossip, if the conversation that was reported to me today means what a couple of people think that it might mean, no-one will be surprised if there’s a tiny addition to our little expat community’s population round about the start of the New Year.

-3

Tuesday 28th August 2012 – DESPITE MY …

… early night last night, I somehow managed to sleep right through the alarms this morning.

It was 09:22 when I finally heaved myself out of my stinking pit. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done that, hasn’t it

It was raining too – which makes a nice change. It’s been a while since I’ve had any. But it didn’t rain for long, but long enough to put 100 litres or so into the water butts and I am grateful for that.

The garden and my water butts needed it.

Despite this being a day where I was at home, I didn’t do any pointing at all.

I have done 75% of the painting of the woodwork for the window frames though – two coats on one side and one on the other – I’ll have to do the second one on there before I fit it all in

And while I was waiting for the coats of paint to dry, I was doing other things.

One of the things that I did do was to dig up some carrots and pull some beans. Proof, if any were needed, that thanks to all of Rosemary’s help my garden is coming up with the goods..

Add them to the new potatoes that I uprooted the other day, and then some cauliflower that I bought on Saturday, a veggie-burger fried with onion and then some vegan cheese sauce, it was absolutely gorgeous.

What a wonderful tea it all was too!

Another thing that I did was to empty Caliburn out. His load bed is now empty. I’m taking Rosemary to Brico Depot tomorrow and also to Lapeyre so I may well need the space.

I need some more guttering and also some more glass to replace that which … errr … met with an accident, and I need a very narrow springy trowel to replace the one that I broke here on the wall.

Finally, I’ve been tidying up downstairs too looking for my mobile phone which I appear to have mislaid somewhere. I didn’t find that but I did find the missing LED light strips, which pleased me greatly.

I’ve also thrown away about 1 big bin-liner full of rubbish – and there’s plenty more to go at too.

That took me to 19:00 and then I knocked off.

Montlucon tomorrow and then Thursday I can get cracking again.

-2

Monday 27th August 2012 – AFTER THE EXCITEMENT …

… of Sunday, today was just a routine radio day.

Despite a late night I was up early and I printed out all of the paperwork for the recordings and sorted out some music too for Radio Arverne.

While I was at it, which I am occasionally, Rosemary rang up too to see if I would be heading out to Montlucon in the near future. She needs to pick up a few things.

As it happens, I need a few things too – well, more than a few things actually but many of them are unfortunately not available in shops – and so I’ve tentatively pencilled that in for Wednesday morning.

Liz ad I met up for our Radio Anglais recording sessions in Marcillet-en Combraille and Gerzat and much to our surprise they all went according to plan.

I am however very miffed by the fact that I didn’t need to have done all of that work last week. It turns out that about 4 or 5 weeks ago I’d done a pile of stuff on traffic convictions and penalty points on a French driving licence and I’d completely forgotten about it.

We didn’t need any of the stuff that I spent all that time doing this last few days.

Still, it won’t go to waste – it means that I can spend a few weeks, if not months, writing this year’s Christmas Special without being under any last-minute pressure.

What didn’t go to plan though were the roads and the traffic. The place was crawling with grockles blocking the roads and rubbernecking everything. I hate this time of the year.

Anyway, now I’m home and as I’m pretty much shattered I’m off to bed for an early night.

See you tomorrow.

-2

Sunday 26th August 2012 – TODAY DIDN’T WORK …

… out like it was supposed to.

The morning bit went OK, though.

The first port of call was to La Cellette down the road, because today is the Pélerinage de St Avit – the Pilgrimage.

St Avit was the Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand in 570-something and his claim to fame was that at the time when th village suffering from one of these mysterious infantile epidemics, he summoned up a Spring, the water of which apparently cured the children.

This was something that was classed as a miracle and so every 2nd Sunday after 15th August the well is blessed and a statue of St Avit is paraded around the village.

Hordes of children come to the pilgrimage, especially those whose medical condition isn’t so good. They are presumably hoping for a similar miracle as that which happened 1450 years ago.

But something that Liz and Terry said later on in the day made me think, which is a rare event, I know.

With the current state of the National Health Service and other medical services in the United Kingdom, praying for a miracle is probably just as effective as a means of cure that any kind of treatment dished out in a British hospital by the NHS might be.

From La Cellette, Marianne and I went on down the road to St Maigner.

This is our final pot d’acceuil of the tourist season and I can’t say that I’m sad about it. These persistent early starts have been wearing me out.

The attraction here was not a musical turn but a rope-maker, who spent the session teaching people to use his rope-making machine.

My attention however was distracted by the vehicle in which the cordier arrived. And isn’t it beautiful?

It’s a 1949 Renault Juvaquatre, and what’s interesting about this is that it’s not the more usual saloon but an estate car.

The Juvaquatres were inspired by the Opel Olympia that had been released in 1935, and Renault quickly set down to work on a similar car. So quickly that it made its appearance at the Paris Motor Show in 1937.

Serious production had hardly begun before the Second World War intervened and it was not until 1946 that serious production began.

They filled the streets from then on for many years and you can still see them about on the roads very occasionally even today.

You aren’t likely to see an estate car – a break – version though. They are as rare as hen’s teeth and it’s been ages since I’ve seen one like that.

Paradoxically, when the Juvaquatre was replaced by the much more modern and legendary 4CV – the quatre chevaux – in 1951, they realised that they couldn’t make a van – camionette – or a break out of it because of the rear engine configuration.

Consequently, they reintroduced the Juvaquatre break and production kept on going until the quatrelle was launched in 1960

We did actually have some music though – it wasn’t all quiet.

Someone from the village produced an old wind-up gramophone and a collection of 78s and spent a happy morning there winding up the music.

It was all good stuff too – the traditional type of French accordion music that you would hear almost everywhere in the 1940s and 1950s and which has sadly long-departed from the scene

I was back home for lunch and then I waited for a phone call – and waited, and waited. I had arranged to meet up with someone so that we could go together to the Virlet brocante but i didn’t get the call.

And to tell you the truth I fell into the Arms of Morpheus at about 16:00 – I really don’t know what’s up with me these days.

At Liz and Terry’s, Liz and I rehearsed our radio shows and after tea we discussed a few plans and projects that we might undertake whenever we have some free time – whenever that might be.

Tomorrow we have our recording sessions, and after that it’s back to work.

-1

Saturday 25th August 2012 – I’VE BEEN …

… spending my money once again.

It’s the rentrée pretty soon – yes, all the kids will be back at school in 2 weeks’ time and so the shops are filled with all kinds of stuff.

There’s one shop, called Centrakor in Commentry that is a kind of down-market CASA if that’s at all possible, and they had something on sale that was quite phenomenal.

It’s a kids’ workstation type of thing – a few shelves, a slide-out shelf for a keyboard, a tabletop and then a couple of shelves at eye-level (well, eye-level for a 12 year old) and one good thing about it is that it is on castors.

The best part about it though is the price – a mere €19:99

Here in my little attic I have a kind of tiny round cheap plastic coffee table with two shelves and I have the DVD player/TV on the top shelf and the computer external drives on the other. And it rattle along and bits drop off and there’s no room for anything at all on it.

So when I saw this workstation thing my mind went into overdrive. So now there’s one in the back of Caliburn waiting to be brought up here and assembled whenever I get a moment (whenever that might be). But it’s ever so impressive, especially at that price.

I did quite a mega-shop today in Commentry in fact, including a proper stonemason chisel for raking out the cement from between the stones.

High time I had some decent tools and equipment around here – it might make the next bit of the wall somewhat easier.

From there I went on to Neris-les-Bains and the swimming baths. The weather has cooled down considerably over these last few days but the had all the sides of the pool open and so it was freezing in there. I managed 24 lengths today which is something of a record these days.

I came home afterwards and … errrr … crashed out. I’m not as young as I was.

This morning though I finished off the radio scripts – they need some alterations but I don’t really have the time to do it now and I was too tired this evening.

And after all of my worries as to whether it’s going to be enough, it weighed in at 38kb. That’s the third longest ever.

So now it’s bedtime ready for my day of rest tomorrow, when I’m going to be rushed off my feet.

-5

Friday 24th August 2012 – WELL, FOLKS …

… here it is. The wall’s all finished!

I was rather optimistic about my “couple of hours” – in fact it was more like 3.5 hours before it was all done.

But the hardest part of it was of course the clearing up afterwards that took the time – I don’t do clearing up as you know.

Anyway, there you are – all done and dusted. The tools have been put away and the araa has been cleared of rubbish the best that I can do.

As for the bits of old cement and so on that I dug out of the wall, they are on a tarpaulin at the side of the house. Soon I’ll be doing some concreting and I’ll be needing hardcore.

As for the weather behaving itself, the moment that I finished putting the last trowel of mortar into the wall, it started to rain. Bang on cue, you might say.

Anyway, seeing as it was 18:10 when I finished, I called it a day and boiled up some water for a shave and a good wash.

Following that, I crashed out, to such an extent that I didn’t make tea. I’d probably be asleep even now if Radio Tartasse hadn’t rung up – apparently the music files for the radio programme are corrupted so can she copy them again?

That’s where I was this morning, in Marcillat-en-Combraille, recording the Radio Anglais rock music programmes for Radio Tatasse. That was fairly straightforward after last month’s debacle.

So tomorrow is shopping at Commentry and maybe even the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains. A good soak and a good relax should do me the world of good, I reckon, after all of my exertions.

Sunday is the pellerinage at La Cellette and the pot d’acceuil at St Maigner with Marianne, followed by the Virlet brocante and then Liz and Terry’s for rehearsals for the rest of the Radio Anglais programmes, and that’s the weekend done.

And do you like my Sunday?

That, would you believe, is a day of rest.

-6

Thursday 23rd August 2012 – IF THIS WEATHER …

… behaves itself tomorrow then a couple of hours on that wall will see it finished.

Yes, you can always tell how much I’m enjoying myself by the time that I realise that it’s knocking-off time. Finishing time on summer hours is 19:00 (18:00 when I’m on winter hours) and tonight it was … errrr … 19:45.

But there’s only a couple of rows to do, and to do that I’ll need to rake away all of the rubbish that I’ve scraped out of the wall.

But I’m a little disheartened as there’s a horizontal crack appearing. It’s quite long but only a couple of thou wide and, surprisingly enough, not where I expected it to be (one of those three enormous cracks that were there in the wall).

Anyway, it’ll have to stay like that for now.

When I’ve finished the wall I’ll leave it all to fester over the winter and maybe two days next summer I can fill in any of the cracks and put another layer on.

And, mentioning the weather, we had a storm this afternoon. At about 17:30 we had a torrential downpour for about 15 minutes. That put some water in the water butts, which is just as well, and it soaked the garden too.

But it’s nothing like enough.

Right now there’s a tremendous light-show going on and someone nearby is taking a pasting. 4 hours of torrential rain through the night would be just what the doctor ordered.

As for this morning, Rosemary rang up for a chat and then a couple of hours on the radio programme took the total up to 32kb – it’s now nudging at the heels of the Post Office stuff that we did this time last year.

One thing’s for certain – when that is finished I won’t need to do anything else for the rest of the year.

And talking of radioing, tomorrow I’m doing the rock programme. Still plenty to do so I need an early night.

-3

Wednesday 22nd August 2012 – I HAD A …

… much better day today.

Or, at least, I think that I did but I won’t know until I compare the photo of today’s work with that of yesterday’s.

Anyway, this morning the issue of the chisel was decided by the fact that I couldn’t find the old screwdriver anywhere no matter how hard I looked, and so I fetched a metalworking chisel from the toolbox. I’ll be using that until I can buy a stonemason’s chisel on Saturday.

And it worked wonders too – first thing that I did after midday was to chase out a huge segment of mortar, and I was doing so well that I reckoned that I’d bung a bucket-load of mortar in before lunch.

I must have been so carried away though because a glance at the clock told me that it was 14:20 – a good 20 minutes after lunchtime and that’s not like me at all. You can call me anything you like as long as you don’t call me late for lunch

After lunch I heaved another 6 buckets of lime mortar into the wall.

But although it all went in really well and I was making some really nice and consistent mixes, this huge crack is being rather awkward and it isn’t really going how I want it to go.

None of the stones that I can find are the correct size and so it’s being a little patchy.

it’ll all stick together, that’s for sure, but it’s not as artistic as I would like it to be.

A good morning on the radio programmes too.

I’m now up to 23kb of our latest effort and it’ll be another big one I reckon, certainly overtaking the “load of rubbish” that we did in February and March.

But hark at me, hey? “Not as artistic as I would like it to be” – who do I think I am?

I’ll be starting to criticise other people’s curtains if I carry on like this!

-4

Tuesday 21st August 2012 – I HAD ONE …

… of those days where I couldn’t get myself started.

At least I had a good night’s sleep with the fan going through the night – so much so that I dreamt that I was back working at a job that I hated in a place that I hated with people who I hated.

Surprising isn’t it, what goes through people’s minds.

So this morning in the heat I stirred a few papers around – but I’ve managed 14kb of notes so far for the radio programmes and that should see us through the next recording session if I can’t summon up the enthusiasm to do any more.

>Outside this afternoon another 6 buckets went into the wall but it’s slow work despite me standing on the ground today doing the work.

I’ve been filling in two of the vertical cracks, and that has been time-consuming, and also it’s not been easy to move some of the old cement pointing that needs to come out.

The old metal screwdriver that I use as a chisel is giving up the ghost, I think. I shall have to buy a new one … “this heat really is getting to you” – ed.

Anyway, I reckon that if I can keep up this schedule, another 5 days will see this wall finished – and then it will be time to start on the long wall and point that.

But that should be easier … “famous last words” – ed … as I’ll be working off the scaffolding and you saw how quickly I did the house wall once I had a scaffolding up there.

Nevertheless, I’m impressed with what I’ve done so far. I shan’t know the place when it’s finished, whenever that might be.

Two phone calls too – one from Marianne telling me that our walk tomorrow at St Hilaire is cancelled as there’s a funeral at the church, and secondly from Rosemary who wanted a chat.

And I cooked a mega-aubergine-and-kidney-bean doodah to last for the next 3 days and just as I finished, the gas ran out. That’s over 10 months (8th October – I mark the bottles with the date when I connect them) that that bottle has lasted.

It just shows you the benefits of having the electric steamer and also the new woodstove. A far cry from when I needed to buy a new bottle every three weeks, isn’t it?

-3

Monday 20th August 2012 – I WENT TO …

… sleep last night with the new electric fan still working. First time I’ve ever left the inverter running through the night.

It clearly did the trick as this morning as it was quite overcast and there was even a hint of rain.

I’d had a decent night’s sleep too for a change in this weather and I think that I might try this again tonight. And I’ll need it too because the weather warmed up substantially again this afternoon.

All this afternoon I’ve been working on the wall again.

7 buckets went into it today and substantial progress is being made, although you would hardly think so from looking at it.

Nevertheless in one corner I can actually now work off the floor and not on a ladder, and that should speed things up. You’ve no idea how uncomfortable it was working on either a too-short ladder or a too-long ladder.

I had a visitor too – the young guy who rents the field at the back of the house came to check up on it. We had a chat and it seems that his response to my working in his field is that “well, it’s your wall” – which is a nice pleasant change from how things used to be.

In fact he told me that he didn’t even mind my working there when his cows were there, although he did mention that they might knock me off my ladder

But I’m glad that I sorted that out anyway – for a start it means that I don’t have to move everything out of the field in the evening.

And later on this year, I might even put up the scaffolding at the back of the house and finish off tidying the roof, seeing as he doesn’t seem too bothered.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in 2009 we did the back of the roof by me hanging on to an overhanging ladder that was anchored to the apex of the roof.

There’s a tiny window opening in the back wall and I’ve reached there, and peering in through the window it’s definitely true – the back wall has been built in two parts – the outer and the inner.

That makes me feel an awful lot better – if the outer does fall down, the inner will still be there. Mind you, after the amount of extra stones and mortar that has gone into this wall, there won’t half be a row if it does fall down.

Apart from that, this morning I was on the computer – not doing the web site but doing the radio programmes. I’m way behind with them after yesterday and I need to catch up.

And while I was typing this, another bat flew into my attic – teach me to leave the doors and windows open, won’t it? Luckily this one I managed to move on intact, not like the one from last year.

Makes a change from the bats in the belfry – they are always there as you know.

-4

Sunday 19th August 2012 – THERE WAS SO MUCH …

… that I wanted to do today but I ended up doing nothing at all this afternoon;

And I mean nothing except spending most of my time sitting with a damp tea towel on my head.

The reason for that was that the temperature today reached an astonishing – unheard-of 44.7°C outside, and that must be a world record by anyone’s standards. In my attic it reached almost 36°C and that is unsupportable.

I ended up sitting on a chair downstairs amid the rubble. at least it was a cool, balmy 33°C down there. But this really is ridiculous and it can’t keep on going like this.

Mind you, I understand now why they have four-hour siestas in mid-afternoon in Spain, and why many people from around the equator are said to be indolent.

Well, I certainly was indolent today and if it carries on like this, then tomorrow I’ll be even more indolent. No-one can work in conditions like these.

This morning though Marianne and I were out for the pot d’acceuil at Le Quartier.

It’s the turn today of that village to have the pleasure of our company on this series of rotating exhibitions.

We had the jazz band – the fanfare – from Pionsat playing the music today and Lieneke was there with her flute. They played outside too but their sort of instruments are not the sort that blow away in the wind like poor old Rick’s cello did in Bussières.

There was quite a large crowd there too this morning, sheltering in the shade ‘neath the spreading chestnut tree, or whatever kind of trees they might be, out of the sun.

It was nice to see so many too, and that makes a change from some of the more recent pots d’acceuil.

However, chatting to some of the visitors, it appears that some had turned up by accident – just passing through and seeing the crowds.

it looks as if the mayor of his committee had not let everyone know that the do was on today. None of my friends from Le Quartier (Bill, François, to name just two) had made it to the occasion and I was looking forward to seeing them.

Now, here’s something of note.

I haven’t had a coffee at all today. 29°C in my attic when I woke up and that’s definitely NOT coffee weather.

And that’s quite a change for me, isn’t it?

-5

Saturday 18th August 2012 – THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

Well after midnight and it’s 32°C up here in my attic.

It reached 33.8°C in here at sometime during the day, and outside the temperature reached 40.1°C

There was a pile of radio programmes to do for our next recording session and so I spent this morning up here doing the music ones. And that made me melt, I can tell you.

After lunch I nipped into St Eloy-les-Mines for some shopping and that was painfully hot too. But there’s something going on at LIDL – fewer and fewer articles in the shop, bigger and bigger gaps. I don’t like the look of this one little bit.

Once the shopping was completed I nipped round to Rosemary’s and we spent a couple of hours having a really good chat and a coffee. It made quite a pleasant end to the afternoon

On the way back, I took the short cut through Menat and Teilhet.

And you can tell that despite the boiling weather it will soon be Christmas. Everything at the turkey farm is going berserk.

The noise, the dust and the stench, you could feel all of that from miles away and thee were thousands of the little perishers all running around.

THey won’t be running around for much longer though. Christmas will soon be here, right enough.

Back here, the water in the solar heat exchanger at 20:35 was 34°C and so even at that time, in the dusk, I had a lovely solar shower. That’s the kind of thing that maks me feel so much better.

So now I have to try my best to go to sleep. But how, in 32°C I really do not know. And to think that it was only 3 weeks ago that we were complaining about the cold.

40.1°C – I ask you …

-3

EPIC HALL

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