Saturday 14th January 2012 – SATURDAY IS SHOPPING DAY.

And so it was today.

But in a dramatic change to my usual habits, shopping day was a quick one-hour thrash down to St Eloy les Mines late in the afternoon just as it was starting to go dark.

Yes, I woke up this morning (-ish) to a beautiful bright blue clear sky and that meant “sod everything else – up on the roof!”.

I wasn’t intending to miss this unexpected stroke of fortune, even if it was freezing cold and everywhere was covered in ice that started to melt and soaked me to the skin again.

In not all that much time, comparatively speaking, I had another 6 rows of tiles on the roof. They aren’t particularly pretty but they are on, and that’s the bit that’s important. The weather was far too good to miss.

But do you like the IKEA bags? Very useful they are, for all kinds of purposes. And I have one fastened to the top of each ladder and they are used for holding the slates and nails so that I don’t have to keep on going down to the scaffolding.

And two ladders? The scaffolding is in two bays and each ladder is tied to the handrail of each bay. The difference with the metal planks that I have bought compared to the wooden planks of the other scaffolding is that the ladders don’t dig in – they slide across the metal.

So you need to tie them onto the scaffolding to stop them sliding off and of course if they are tied, then they can’t be moved from one bay to the next.

The other ladder hanging off the scaffolding is part of the side of the decorator’s platform that I have in the house. That came in useful when I was working lower down the roof – I could hook it over the uprights and work off the top but now I’m out of reach of it.

On the way to the shops I realised what a good buy this LIDL quilted overall was. In order to leave here I had to switch on the wipers on Caliburn in order to to clear the screen because they were frozen on to it – that was how cold it had been during rhe day, but I hadn’t noticed because I was curled up as snug as a bug in a rug in the quilted overall.

I’m well-impressed with that as well – almost impressed as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin in fact

But by the time that I was finished I was absolutely whacked and aching everywhere.

To such an extent that on the way back, when I noticed way across the valley that the floodlights were switched on at AS Marcillat’s football ground indicating that there was a match on tonight and that would ordinarily have been the signal for me to go over and watch, seeing as there was nothing on at FC Pionsat St Hilaire tonight, I was aching far too much to even consider it.

Instead, I just came in here and crashed out.

That’s a rare event too.

But then again, I said that I would pay for the effort that I’m putting in on this roof, so it’s not unexpected.

But now there are just three or so rows left to do, and they’ll be for the morning of the next working day.

-3

Friday 13th January 2012 – I DIDN’T DO …

… so well today.

But there again, I did mention yesterday that this was likely. Only 5 rows of the Aspire recycled plastic slates went on the roof today.

First reason was that we had something of a … errrr … late start. Not so much that I didn’t wake up, but more of a case that each time I moved my joints and muscles crackled like a pan of chips. I’m not as young as I used to be.

Second reason was the weather. That hanging cloud was there, and it stayed here all day. As well as that we had a frost and as it melted and streamed down the slates that I had already put on, and little by little I was getting soaked to the skin.

The more I worked, the colder, wetter and more miserable I became.

It was however very pleasant to see the water draining off the plastic sheet onto the tiles and then off the roof .

This large overhang that I mentioned the other day keeps the water well away from the base of the lean-to and stops the damp soaking up the walls. That’s what it’s supposed to do, and that’s why I’ve built it like that.

It’s also good to be able to walk inside and see everywhere and everything bone-dry inside there – that’s something that I’ve been waiting for years to see. I can’t wait to finish it and then start to get everything organised for in there. That’ll be a bonus for sure.

The third reason was the fact that I needed to reorganise the scaffolding, fit a new strut and a couple of planks, and then track down a third ladder to help me climb up to where I’m working.

And once I finally got into a rhythm I was pushing along quite quickly. Problem there then was the light and with the hanging cloud the light went early. And you’ll be able to tell which was the row that I finished off in the dark.

Still, it has to be done and I’m lucky to have done this much at this time of the year. I never expected this.

-1

Thursday 12th January 2012 – WHAT A GORGEOUS DAY …

… it was today!

Well, up until about 16:00 anyway.

A heavy frost overnight followed by a glorious alpine blue sky and so much charge in the batteries that I ran the electric heater up here for an hour or so this afternoon.

I never managed that last winter.

First thing that I did, seeing as how the nice weather was, was to dash outside and take a photo of where I finished in the dark last night.

It’s a highly significant photograph as it shows the first row of recycled plastic slates that I put on there. It’s significant because regular readers of this rubbish will recall all of the vicissitudes that we have had over the last 10 years to reach this point.

This is the climax of the work that I’ve been doing for the last 6 months or so since I was wondering what to do with that left-over bucket of cement in the mixer when we were doing Lieneke’s roof in the summer.

But returning to our moutons, as they say around here, up on the roof I managed another 7 rows today – that means that I’m about a third of the way up.

But it’ll be slow going from here onwards. It gets harder the higher up you go, as the actress once famously said to the bishop.

Up to now I could manage by leaning on the scaffolding. As of tomorrow I have to do it off a couple of ladders and that’s not easy. But nevertheless, it’s all looking good on the roof.

And so it was until about 16:00, when the temperature plummeted and we had a hanging cloud. It looks like winter has finally arrived and we shall have to see what the weather holds for us now. The weather is going to be deciding where I’m working and what I’m going.

In other news, the 1200-watt digital inverter that I ordered a few weeks ago – that’s finally arrived. I’ve not had time to play with it but I’m quite looking forward to the possibility.

That’s something else I’ll be doing when the weather changes for the worse.

-1

Wednesday 11th January 2012 – GOSH, IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… just as I predicted.

but that’s enough about my personal life. Let’s talk about me trying to get out of bed.

And that was hard too.

And I now know what it means in these old novels when they say that “so-and-so walked gingerly to the door” because that’s just how I was moving this morning.

So to change the subject, here’s another photo of the lean-to and its roof.

What you can’t see in this photo are any slates. And that’s a shame – I’ll have to buy an infra-red lens for that because by the time that I had knocked off work (18:10 if you are wondering) the first row was already in place.

And in the dark too, so I shudder to think what it might look like in the cold light of day, but I was determined to put the first row on, no matter what.

What else you can’t see are the three cut pieces of plywood to make the final length, and the screws that are holding down the roof sheets onto the chevrons, because it’s all now covered by a plastic membrane – the type that stops water passing through but allows water vapour to escape.

Yes, it’s all looking good on the lean-to roof and it can chuck it down now for all I care because at least it’s all weathertight.

It’ll be even better when all of the slates are on, whenever that might be. I can’t count on the weather holding off indefinitely – it did well to hold off for these last three days while I managed to do this much. Not like the Auvergne at all, is it?

I’m impressed by the way with the Ryobi one-plus drill that I’ve been using to screw the roof sheets on. Twice now it’s fallen off the roof all the way to the ground and when I’ve picked it up each time, it’s worked fine and carried on fixing the screws.

I reckon that if I had fallen off the roof twice, all the way to the ground, I wouldn’t be able to carry on screwing, that’s for sure.

Tuesday 10th January 2012 – I THOUGHT THAT …

.. I would start today by showing you where I got up to last night.

Three sheets of plywood in position and tacked down ready to be properly fastened. to the chevrons

So first job this morning was to remove the rest of the temporary roofing, put two more chevrons on the roof and fit another sheet of plywood. Then I had to fit two chevrons at the near end either side of the wall, and fill in between them with concrete.

“Concrete in early January in the Auvergne?” I hear you say.

Yes indeed – you can see what the weather was like, and I was sweating while I was doing it too.

While the concrete was setting, I cut down the chevrons to 3650mm with my new saw which is ever so impressive – almost as impressive in fact as my galvanised steel dustbin.

I’m fed up of having nothing but rubbish around here so in the UK the other week I bought an expensive thick-bladed rough-cut saw and it went through those chevrons like a knife through butter. Should have bought one like this ages ago.

And why 3650mm of chevrons?

Well, the width of the lean-to on the slant is 3400, the sheets are 2440 by 1220 and so one sheet lengthways and one sheet sideways makes 3660 – enough to cover the lean-to with sufficient overhang without having to cut anything (and wielding a circular saw up a ladder is not an ideal solution for anything).

There’s sufficient room to put a barge board and fascia panel and to fit some guttering.

A good overhang is important too because they don’t do damp course around here. if the base of the wall is too exposed, the rain that falls at its foot will soak up in the stone and mortar. Apart from the issues of damp, there will be cracking the former and dislodging the latter from its position in winter by the “freeze-thaw” process. When water freezes, its volume is greater so water soaked up into the pores of stone or cement expands in the cold and cracks the stone or forces the cement. the force is so powerful that it was recognised as an established stone-breaking process thousands of years ago

Anyway, when the chevrons had been cut I mauled up another sheet (and they aren’t half heavy doing it like that) and manoeuvred it into position sideways across the ends of the far two sheets that are on there lengthwise, and then screwed it down.

After lunch I had to move the old scaffolding that was there (the one that I’d liberated from a skip in the dechetterie at Commentry in 2000), and seeing as how it had been there since 2001 that wasn’t easy either. It involved cutting down a few trees that had grown into the way (so there’s the firewood for next winter and isn’t this new saw really good?), clearing the ground away and removing all kinds of bits and pieces.

Once I’d done that, I then had to erect the new kwikstage scaffolding that I had brought back from the UK the other week.

That took ages, and I don’t know why, and then I just about had enough time to lift up another sheet of plywood and screw it across the bottom of the other two sheets before it went dark.

And you can see where my concreting from this morning went.

18:10 when I finished and I was shattered. But it wasn’t being shattered that stopped me – it was the losss of light. I’d still be there now if there was light enough to work.

But I have a feeling that I’m going to pay for all of this tomorrow. I’m not as young as I was.

And so tomorrow I need to cut three pieces to make the covering for the final part of the roof, climb all over the roof screwing all the sheets down properly, and then cover it with a layer or two that breathable plastic membrane to keep out the damp (a good buy, that industrial hammer-stapler).

If I can get that done tomorrow that will be where I want to be. And then I can start nailing down the plastic slates.

Monday 9th January 2012 – THERE’S NO POINT …

… in having an early night and going to bed early (well, 00:15 is early for me anyway) if you wake up again at 4:45 and can’t go back to sleep.

Mind you as day started to dawn and I knew that it was soon time to get up, I managed to fall asleep again, and it was 10:15 when I finally woke up. So much for my good resolutions for New Year.

First thing that I did after breakfast was to sort out a design fault on the electric board that I had made the other day. The wires to the inverter were bent at an unnatural angle and the live was touching the earth tag. I had to tape over the ends to insulate them and then drill a hole in the board to run the wires round to the back so that they are lying straight and parallel.

Once I’d organised that I stripped off some of the temporary roof on the lean-to, put some scaffolding up there and put a ladder up from there to the top of the wind turbine mast.

There I turned round the bracket that we had turned when we raised the mast last month and straightened out all of the guys.

I drilled into the wall, fitted a wall anchor with an eye, attached a turnbuckle and then fastened a guy to it all and wound it up to take the tension so that the last is held firm in that direction. That’s one out of the four guy wires sorted out.

After lunch I made a major advance – I started to put the plywood on the roof of the lean-to. It was flaming difficult too – it’s not easy pulling those sheets up on my own, I’ll tell you that, but I have three now fastened into position.

I’m being careful with the supporting chevrons, having learned my lesson from elsewhere where I’ve been working. I’m putting the sheets into position and then fitting the chevrons underneath them so that the sheets are supported in the middle and that the edges of each adjacent sheet meet up over a chevron.

I recall all kinds of bouncing sheets when I was nailing the tiles on when I did it in other places. I don’t want to do that here.

But starting to put the roof on the lean-to. Isn’t this progress?

-1

Sunday 8th January 2012 – SUNDAY IS …

… a Day Of Rest.

And quite right too. After my exertions of the last week or so, and with many more exertions to come in the very near future, I reckoned that I needed one.

So a lie-in until I don’t know what time, and I can’t even remember if I’ve set foot outdoors – it’s been one of those days today. No football, nowhere else to go, but ask me if I care.

I’ve sat by the fire, did some stuff on my presentation about the Trans Labrador Highway, read a book, watched a film or two, and that’s really about my lot.

I cooked a pizza in the oven in the woodstove, and the more I use it the more I realise what a good plan that was to buy it. €297 is about the equivalent of 15 bottles of gas at current prices and as my wood costs me nothing, I reckon that I will have paid for this in a matter of two years, not to mention avoiding the inconvenience of going downstairs to cook in the lean-to in minus 9°C.

In fact, all kinds of thoughts are running through my head right now.

So now it’s an early night, I reckon. I want to be on form for the week to come.

Saturday 7th January 2012 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again.

And it’s not as if I have too much to spend either, but there you go.

In Carrefour in St Eloy les Mines I spent a mere €12 or so, most of which went on a jar of coffee seeing as I seem to be rather down on that at the moment, and won’t that be a catastrophe if I run out?

In LIDL I spent €25 or something – with nothing much to show for it except some wire brushes for the angle grinder. I’ll always pick up a few packs of those when I see them.

But there I met a couple of people whom I knew – some friends of Bill’s whom I had met at one of his soirées, and Jasper and his mum (who have featured previously in these pages) were also there.

But then went to Cheze – the hardware shop where the Intermarché used to be when I first came here.

The bread box was trashed in the hurricane so I need to make something new, and Cheze was the likeliest place to find some bits. I didn’t find what I wanted but I still spent €52 in there.

Yes, it was sale time there and even more importantly, a clearance sale. There was a big bucket of hardware like door knobs, adjustible feet, special bolts and so on, at 50 centimes a pack. I had tons of stuff out of there.

There was also a LED spotlight with a dusk-dawn sensor, powered by a solar panel, reduced to €8:00. That will make a handy work light or torch for when I’m down the garden late at night.

Pride of place though went to this beautiful machine – a chop saw.

I’ve been after a low-powered one of those for ages and I’ve hunted high and low but without success. But here at Cheze were three or four end-of-range chop saws, quite small and all rated at 1200 watts, all for the price of €34 each.

At that price I just had to have one, especially as there’s a 1200-watt inverter winging its way to me in the post even as we speak. After all the time I spend chopping wood by hand, and how easy it was doing the tongue-and-grooving back at Expo when I had the battery-powered one.

The width of the blade and the instability of the machines means that they aren’t ideal for precision work, but where precision cutting isn’t 100% essential, this wil ldo just fine, so I hope that it does what it says that it will do.

BUt I didn’t stay out long. It’s rained non-stop today, all grey and drizzly and depressing. I took advantage of the morning by writing the additional text for the radio programmes we shall be recording at the end of the month, and I’ve watched the odd film or two.

Tomorrow I’m going to start my presentation for the Trans-Labrador Highway.

I have to do that on Feb 24th, so no time like the present to get going.

-1

Friday 6th January 2012 – IT’S BEEN …

… an exciting day today

Having been pondering over the battery situation here – to whit, the house batteries are losing charge when there’s no current and I had ample proof of that yesterday as I attached a little voltmeter to the battery bank and watched it go down and down – I decided to have a butchers at the battery bank.

I reckoned that there might be one battery that was overheating but I was wrong – there were in fact two of them all swollen up. No wonder the batteries were gently emptying themselves.

So I pulled those two out and I’m now down to just 8 batteries.

I’ve been suspecting that these 90 amp-hour batteries are just too small to handle a surge of about 50 amps on a regular basis and this seems to be confirming things. There’s four now that I’ve had to change, and it’s always been the one in the centre of the bank.

You may recall that I went to Paris to the supplier just before Christmas and they had some 200-amp-hour batteries on special offer and so I bought 8 of those. That will be a battery bank and a half.

Ideally I need even-bigger ones but an issue presents it self with that in that these 200-amp-hour batteries weigh 58kgs. While I can pick them up and walk with them, I can’t go far very quickly. Imagine twice the weight.

You might be wondering why I didn’t go the whole hog and fit them today. Believe me, it was my intention. But the battery cables that I have – 225mm – aren’t long enough. I’ve had to order some 375mm cables and they won’t be here until Thursday next week.

This afternoon, tired of manipulating inverters, timers and the like around, I made myself a plug-in electric board.

We start off with a two-pin American plug with 6mm cable wired into it. This goes to a 300-watt inverter screwed to the board. From there it’s into an electric meter and from there into one of the hour meters I bought in the UK.

Finally it ends up in a 13-amp UK socket.

All I need to do now when I’m carrying out some work somewhere around out of range of the main inverters is to take my little board with me and plug it into the 12-volt circuit.

After that I went to the bank to pay in a cheque, reorder my bread and then go for coffee and a chat with Marianne to catch up on the gossip.

It’s her birthday tomorrow, and that set me thinking about all the other people I know whose birthday it is in January. Krys, Marianne, Marianne from Brussels, Mandy. Those names spring straight away to mind and I bet there are loads more as well (so apologies if I have forgotten you).

It really is astonishing.

-5

Thursday 5th January 2012 – I THOUGHT …

…that you might like to see my Christmas present from Liz and Terry, before I started hacking it about.

Yes, it’s nice to have good friends, especially when they make you nice things for Christmas, like this absolutely gorgeous vegan Christmas Cake, isn’t it?

Anyway, today started off with the howling winds and gales and rain – that put the kybosh on any plans I had for working outside. I’m not going up a ladder in this weather.

So after a leisurely start and watching one of my films, I went about tidying up the attic. And what I’ve done is to change things around a little.

The bed is now on the other side of the room now by the books and music, which is much more logical, and I can actually see the fire in the wood stove from where I’m now sitting.

The wardrobe and a couple of chests of drawers have been moved around too. It looks like there’s more room up here now although that’s an optical illusion.

That took ages to do and so by 18:00 I knocked off and had a coffee – and tucked into slice 1 of the Christmas cake. It was well worth waiting for as well. Absolutely gorgeous. I can see me enjoying that for the next few weeks to come, and quite right too.

-2

Wednesday 4th January 2012 – TODAY DIDN’T WORK …

… out as I had wanted it to do.

Forgetting to switch off one of the alarm clocks didn’t help much, for a start.

But nevertheless it was about 10:00 when I finally surfaced.

As part one of the plan, I watched one of the the films that Marianne had bought for me for Christmas. I’m a big fan of Louis de Funes and have a great many of his films, which I can watch time and time again.

But I’ve had loads of difficulty trying to track down one of his films that, to my mind, is by far and away the best film that he has ever made – La Folie Des Grandeurs.

It concerns de Funes as a Spanish nobleman who runs foul of the Queen of Spain. Apart from the legendary “towel in the bath” scene, it also contains the immortal lines –
de Funes – “tell me some little flatteries”
Valet – “senor is the greatest Spaniard who ever lived”
de Funes – “that’s not flattery – that’s the truth. Try again!”
Valet – “errr … senor is very very handsome”
de Funes “that’s better!”

Anyway, Marianne tracked down a copy for which I am extremely grateful, and I sat and watched it. and I’ll be watching it again … "and again and again" – ed.

But at lunchtime, Terry rang up. He and Rob were working somewhere and they had run out of concrete. So that involved digging out the Sankey trailer and setting off for the quarry. He just had the sand/stone mix and so we had to go to St Eloy les Mines as well, and that took most of the afternoon.

So much for my plans to tidy up and do some paperwork.

But the tyres on the Sankey are thoroughly perished and they need to be changed before it goes anywhere else. You can’t haul a tonne or two of sand and gravel on tyres like those.

So this evening was quiet – I read a book. And that’s really it.

But going back to Marianne’s I do remember one evening sitting down to watch La Grande Vadrouille, another de Funes film in which he stars with Terry-Thomas. It’s another one of my favourites and Marianne had bought that for me as well.

And as I was getting the film ready to watch, Marianne was idly surfing through the channels and what should be on the TV but La Grande Vadrouille?

Coincidence or what?

-2

Tuesday 3rd January 2012 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about one thing.

And that was the flaming weather.

Howling gale and pouring rain all night that kept me awake for much of the night. And when I eventually awoke, it was even worse.

It was a good job that I had abandoned my leisurely plan to drift homewards via a few of the interesting sites, because I wouldn’t have seen anything interesting today, that’s for sure.

So I left my little hidey-hole on the road to Chalons-en-Champagne and pressed on homewards in the cold, miserable and wet weather, stopping off the fuel up on the way back and do a little shopping.

Despite the weather, the way back didn’t present any specific problems so I was back reasonably quickly – to sunshine would you believe. But I had brought the miserable weather back with me and the rain and wind wasn’t far behind.

So now I’m installed in my nice warm attic where the wood stove is blazing nicely and I’m not moving.

The plan is that I’m going to be taking it very easy tomorrow. And if I crash out for a while, I couldn’t care less.

I’ve had enough exertion and hard work over the last 10 days or so. I deserve a rest.

Monday 2nd January 2012 – I’M BACK …

… on the road again. My stay with Marianne in Brussels is over.

I’m presently holed up in a concealed fold in the ground in a parking space I know somewhere between Rethel and Chalons-sur-Marne, or Chalons en Champagne, or whatever they call the place these days. We’ve stayed here before as you know.

The plan was that I was going to have a slow amble back over a few days, looking at all of the places that I’ve driven past and never visited during all of the time that I’ve been travelling up and down the road, but the weather put paid to that.

It’s broken at last as you might expect, and we had a howling hurricane and pitch darkness all the way down to here. And so I pressed on rather than hanging around, and took shelter here.

I’m not anticipating it being any better tomorrow, so I’ll be going home instead.

As for today, a few more hours on the book and then after lunch we nipped out. Today is the start of the January sales so our first port of call was the sales at IKEA.

But of course Brain of Britain strikes again, doesn’t he? They don’t start until the Tuesday.

We had a bit of a laugh too at her apartment.

One of her best friends is a strange woman who belongs to one of these weird sects, and the idea that anyone should put temptation of sin in their way by being in the close proximity of a person of the opposite sex is a devastating one, from her point of view.

Consequently, I’ve been having to keep a low profile, but the aforementioned friend called round today. The machinations that we had to go through in order not to offend this woman were … errr … quite amusing, I’ll tell you.

But it’s all good fun, isn’t it?

So two poems in French (and several more, I notice, as I glance further ahead) translated into English (straightforward), then rendered as poems (nothing like as easy) with certain crucial words remaining in the same place (almost impossible).

I ended up spending all my time thinking in rhyme, in order to try to get into the swing of it.

And translating several anagrams into English to the satisfaction of Marianne and keeping to the gist of the story – it’s been hard work.

But it was worth it in the end.

-2

Sunday 1st January 2012 – HAPPY NEW YEAR …

… to all of my readers, but seeing as how we’ve already done the “Crewe Bus Station” story, I’ll not mention it again.

Except to say that limbo dancing was invented by a Scotsman trying to get into the toilets there without paying.

So having had a little Sunday lie-in, and a quick breakfast, our first stop was the church at the Abbaye de la Cambre again. Marianne is a practising Catholic so I keep on telling her that if she keeps on practising like this, one day she will be perfect.

She certainly deserves a sainthood or whatever it is that they give to heroes in the church, seeing as how she’s brave enough to risk all kinds of thunderbolts to drag me along. Organised religion is not my thing as you know, but when in Rome and all of that.

We had a nice walk in the Bois de la Cambre this afternoon and ended up going for a coffee. But I’ve also done another couple of hours on this book. With all of the practising that I’ve been doing on it, I ought to be perfect now too.

Later this evening, we went out.

There’s an Egyptian restaurant (I had actually thought that it was a Lebanese one) in the neighbourhood that does vegan food so I had booked a table there. No point last night because of what Marianne wanted to see on the TV of course.

That made quite a pleasant change – we had a very pleasant time and it does us good to break our routine up like this.

So tomorrow is my final day. A long way from being finished but I suppose that much of the time has been spent socialising.I don’t see enough of people as you know, and you lot are always telling me that I should get out more often.

I like Marianne very much but living here in Brussels and working this 09:00 – 18:00 routine is definitely not for me.

Saturday 31st December 2011 – HAPPY NEW YEAR …

… or, at least, it will be in a bit.

This morning I was attacking Marianne’s book yet again. I’ve unearthed several more poems, at least two of which need certain crucial words placed in the right position
and poetry’s not my strong point
I’ll be glad to leave this joint.
Cos poetry is real hard work
And I can’t do it
What a berk!
so how I’m going to do all of that – I am as yet … errr … undecided.

Another anagram has reared its ugly head too (and I think that there are a couple more) with certain words put into a precise order and harry hid is vest.

So you can see – no chance of doing this by Monday evening.

I went out to lunch. It’s been a while since I met Mike – one of my cohorts from the OUSA – Open University Students Association – days here in Brussels. We had a very good chat for a couple of hours and raised a glass to absent friends, Liz Ayers especially. Nearly three years since she left us.

Mike is looking quite well and I wished him all the best. But I couldn’t hang around because Marianne and I had shopping to do. I keep forgetting that these days I’m having to think about the routines of others rather than just my own.

We’ve had tea and Marianne is settling down to watch the Pope and the religious services for the New Year. Me, I’m sitting here idly reading a book (not about poetry) on the internet.

I wish you all well – see you next year.

EPIC HALL

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