Friday 30th December 2011 – I STILL HAVEN’T …

… solved this anagram issue yet, despite having given the matter considerable thought.

But I’ve moved on, leaving that behind me to reflect upon at a later date, and I’ve now run aground elsewhere.

Another recurring theme in this book is a poem, and this requires me not only to translate, but to translate in rhyme. And that’s not easy either because
I’m not a poet
And don’t I know it!

But I’m struggling on all the same. Never let it said that I’m going to be defeated.

marianne orban strawberry mooseAnd while I was busy working, others were of course relaxing and I notice that once again His Nibs has taken advantage of my preoccupation to arrange a photo shoot

There’s really no stopping him when there’s a camera and a floozie floating about in the vicinity, is there?

I don’t know what I pay him for half of the time, I really don’t.

We’ve done the usual domestic stuff here today but we are taking a break tomorrow for a few hours. There’s shopping to be done for the weekend of course and I have an appointment in town to see someone – catch up with old friends and chat about old times.

So having had tea we’re going to settle down now and watch a film. And I can’t even remember which film it is that we’ve decided to watch.

It’s getting to me, all of this.

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Thursday 29th December 2011 – MARIANNE AND I …

… have had a disagreement.

But it’s not anything to do with our personal life at all – it’s to do with this book. And the only reason really that I mention it is to illustrate the difficulties under which this translation is proceeding.

And it’s no wonder that no commercial translator would undertake the job. Having this done for the weekend is impossible and I realised that a while ago.

Part of the plot hinges around an anagram, and without this anagram the story can’t proceed.

And it’s all very well doing a translation, but to keep the translation down some kind of narrow pathway to represent the author’s literary channels and literary thought is complicated enough, but when there’s a key anagram to be thrown in at a crucial point, it’s snot, aye.

So after much binding in the marsh, I came up with an absolutely belting anagram for the English translation of my phrase, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite correspond with the literary sense that Marianne is trying to convey.

I’ve spent all morning trying to find an appropriate phrase (which is required to be used in a considerable part of this book) just so that its anagram would be a powerful one. But it’s not suitable, and that’s that.

So it’s back to the drawing board, Cecil.

Yes, I hadn’t realised what I was letting myself in for when I volunteered for this task. It’s certainly … errr … challenging.

And I suppose that it’s that in itself that is doing me good.

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Wednesday 28th December 2011 – DAY THREE …

… of our megathon continues apace.

And we had some excitement today.

The plan this evening was for us to be sitting down in the lounge after tea to watch La Grande Vadrouille, another de Funes film in which he stars with Terry-Thomas and Bourvil.

It’s another one of my favourites and Marianne had bought that for me as well. I’d been a lucky boy this Christmas

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

Coincidence or what?

Apart from that, it’s been the usual routine today – breakfast, work, coffee, work, lunch, and then the cycle continuing in the afternoon.

I thought that I had left the 09:00 – 18:00 cycle behind, yet here I am deep in it again. I’m not used to this kind of routine and I don’t think that I ever will be.

And sleeping here in the city with all of the noise doesn’t help.

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Tuesday 27th December 2011 – DAY TWO …

… of my mega-workathon, and Marianne is a hard taskmaster. She makes sure that I’m always hard at it, as well as working overtime on her book.

I’ve stopped for the occasional coffee, and stopped for lunch too, but I’ve put in a good crack at this book. And I think that having it finished in a week or so is being optimistic, to say the least, despite all of the preparation that I did at home before I came away.

After tea, we went for a walk in the park down the road for a breath of fresh air and that did us good. It was a fairly reasonable day for the time of year as it happens.

And then we settled down to watch another film that Marianne had bought me for Christmas. Le Petit Baigneur, another film of Louis de Funès.

It’s another one of those films that I can watch time and time again, and with a couple of scenes – the “church” scene and the running gag of the “launching of the Incrèvable (‘Unbreakable’)” scenes, I won’t ever tire of seeing those.

So now it’s bed time and an early night (if the noise in the street will let me). I need to be on top form if I’m going to do this work.

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Monday 26th December 2011 – BOXING DAY …

… and despite, for me, it being a traditional Day of Rest, no such luck unfortunately. I have plenty of work to do.

I’m not sure if you know why I’m here, but basically my friend Marianne has written a book. It’s called Les Secrets du Moine, a mystery thriller involving buried treasure and an Abbey.

It’s written in French of course, and she would like it translated. But it isn’t easy because there’s such a lot in there that can’t be translated literally or it will lose the sense. And there are all kinds of stuff in there that needs a lot of careful thought.

When I had been here in July Marianne had given me a copy to read on the ‘plane over to Canada. And on my return she asked me what I had thought of it.

I told her that I enjoyed it tremendously (which is true) and so she asked me if I would like to translate it.

And so I had done some research on what it was that I was expected to know, and here I am – ready to set to work.

And this will be my task for the next week or so – to thrash out a whole plan with Marianne and to discuss the technical issues involving the plot of the book (I don’t pretend to understand it all).

So I’d better stop blogging and get working, hadn’t I?

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Sunday 25th December 2011 – A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers.

I didn’t get that line from a Christmas Cracker or from an Annual, but from off the back of the door of the Public Lavatory on Crewe Bus Station. That was a good source of reading material for a spotty young teenager and I certainly learned a good deal about anatomy there.

In fact, I reckon that it was thanks to there that I passed my Biology ‘O’ Level with the best result I ever had.

This morning we had a lie-in and so it was about 10:00 when we finally struggled into the kitchen. Breakfast was flapjacks made with flour, soya milk and a little sugar, and then we went to the church at the Abbaye de la Cambre.

I have issues with churches, though.

Someone once tried to drown me in a church, and the next time I went there someone stuck this woman in my hand. I swore that they next time anyone of my acquaintance went to a church it would be over my dead body.

All in all, I’m surprised that I wasn’t struck down by a thunderbolt

I made Christmas dinner as well. We had seitan slices in onions and gravy, boiled and roast potatoes, sprouts (well, we ARE in Brussels) and mixed vegetables, followed by Christmas pudding and custard.

And even though I say it myself, it all tasted very nice.

This afternoon though, we listened to our Christmas Radio Programme on Radio Arverne, watched “Dr No” and that was that really – just chilled out.

But tomorrow we are starting work in earnest. after all, that’s why I’m here.

-3

Saturday 24th December 2011 – I DIDN’T FEEL …

… much like getting up this morning.

I can’t sleep in Brussels and it’s pretty pointless trying, if you ask me. And so when the alarm went off at 08:30 I was already alive and kicking.

Having fallen off the end of the bed three times during the night doesn’t help much either and so I turned the bed round in the middle of the night. And so tonight it will be my feet that will fall out.

This morning we went shopping at the Shanti – the health food supermarket over the road in the Avenue Adolphe Buyl. Start as we mean to go on, I suppose.

After that I made a start on the work that we had to do. I’m not here merely to pass the time of day or to sit and put my feet up – I have plenty of work to do.

Another shopping trip, this time to the Carrefour at Waterloo (or, rather, Mont St Jean) for the stuff we couldn’t find at the health food shop was on the cards for later and after a coffee, we went to Chi Chi’s, the Tex-Mex restaurant down the road from there, for a Christmas Eve meal.

We arrived much earlier than anticipated for our booking, but there was a table free and so we didn’t have to wait around.

Back here later, we watched the Chronicles of Narnia II – Prince Caspian, which isn’t a patch on the first one unfortunately, and that was Christmas Eve.

And now I’m off to bed. I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what Santa has bought me.

-2

Friday 23rd December 2011 – I HATE BRUSSELS

Especially when I am trying to sleep and there are trams clanging past, police cars racing by, doors slamming, people shouting.

And here is me, having once complained about being awoken by an owl screeching. I can’t wait to return home and I promise that I won’t ever complain again.

And so this morning Marianne and I went shopping. I was a-hunting for a pair of boots seeing as the ones that I bought in Canada in 2010 have split right across the sole.

But having seen the prices in Brussels, I’ll limp around with soggy feet for the rest of my life. Extortionate isn’t the word.

Better news at IKEA though where I bought one of my “plank-trolley” specials – a trolley loaded up with odds and ends of doors.

This one has a set of bed laths (which was what I wanted), 2 other sets, a baby’s cot, a load of wood that will do for shelving, some heat-treated glass shelves, all kinds of useful and exciting things – and all for €10 too. That was money well-spent as well.

The interesting bit was trying to manoeuvre … "PERSONoeuvre" – ed … the trolley around the other piles of trolleys in the way while several members of staff stood and watched, the idle ghits, and manoeuvring … "PERSONoeuvring" – ed … Caliburn into the loading bay (waiting permitted for 5 minutes only) between the van containing the guy surfing the internet on his laptop and the other van with the guy eating his sandwiches.

Yes, waiting only for 5 minutes, while the staff stood and watched. I hate Belgian shop assistants. Totally unhelpful and thick as slurry.

This evening we went to see “The Untouchables” – I’ve seen worse films than this to be sure but to be honest it’s nothing more than “The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain“, but with Attitude.

Anyway tomorrow promises to be a little more exciting, and so I’m off to bed. Although whether or not I’ll have sweet dreams is another thing entirely.

-2

Thursday 22nd December 2011 – NOW HERE’S A THING!

And this isn’t something that happens every day, is it? And it was so astonishing that it deserves to be reported.

As Caliburn and I roared up the steep winding hills around Clamecy in the early morning mist and rain, a French lorry actually pulled over into a lay-by to let us fly past. That has never happened before and it won’t ever happen again

I was right about the night though. It was most uncomfortable and I tossed and turned for practically all of it. I don’t think that I had much in the way of sleep at all.

It was probably well that I made an early start because I wasn’t going to be doing much else. And the coffee in the flask from yesterday was barely warm. That kind of thing won’t put me in the best of humours either.

On we shot to Brussels, and apart from our lorry-driver friend, the trip was fairly uneventful – that is, until I reached Charleroi.

I’m now in Brussels with a hiccupy Caliburn because, having been distracted for a few moments, I ended up putting a few litres of petrol into him by mistake in Charleroi before I realised.

It’s the ethanol-based fuel that has the yellow handle, not the diesel fuel in Belgium so I hope he won’t have too many ill effects.

Arriving at Marianne’s, I had a steaming mug of coffee thrust into my freezing cold mitt and that made me feel a lot better.

-3

Wednesday 21st December 2011 – I DIDN’T GET …

… my rice pudding for tea.

In fact, I was far too busy.

We had 25.5mm of rain throughout the day and during that time I was refitting the temporary roof back on the lean-to. I had intended to start to fit the new roof – the next project around here – but with no let-up in the rain, it was a case of doing what I could before I was soaked to the skin.

That took until about 14:00 when the waterproof overall became waterlogged that I couldn’t move in it (and me with a streaming head cold too). And so that was it – I called it a day.

There’s only so much you can do in weather like that if you don’t want to die of pleurisy.

The rest of the stuff from the UK was emptied out of Caliburn and then he was loaded up with the stuff I was taking to Brussels. As you know, I’ve been invited to spend this Christmas away from home and I need to take some stuff with me.

And having organised all of that, to the best of my ability, I came in here, dried off and warmed up in front of the nice hot wood stove until it was time to go.

Luckily I’d fuelled up at the Carrefour in Riom yesterday because I had no intention of leaving Caliburn’s cab in this kind of weather. The rain streamed down all the way without a break.

I made it as far as Varzy where I flaked out at the side of the road. I have a feeling that this is going to be a very uncomfortable night.

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Tuesday 20th December 2011 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… lovely tea tonight.

Baked potatoes and tortilla wraps with spicy beans. And once again it was cooked in the oven on the new fire, and once again it did an excellent job.

So much so that tomorrow night I’m going to go for a rice pudding and see what happens about that.

This morning I awoke well on time thanks to this new alarm clock that I have. It has a projector light that flashes the time across the room and makes enough noise to awaken the dead.

But printing off the paperwork for the radio station didn’t work – the new computer doesn’t recognise the printer and I can’t upload the drivers. I’ll have to see if I can do that by downloading them (which I can’t because all of Epson’s European sites don’t work).

So Radio Tartasse was done and then we set off through the driving rain to Gerzat. And as we drove over the Combrailles I joked to Liz that everyone in Riom would be basking in the sun in shirt sleeves.

They weren’t, as it happens, but the sun was there, and some blue sky too.

At Radio Arverne I had a premonition about the music we were to play and sure enough, in what could only be a gazillion-to-one chance, we had both picked a track with the same title. How bizarre!

We did the programmes for January and then recorded our Christmas special. That was a bundle of laughs, and what we did for the carols – well, you’ll find out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Home into the hills and into the driving rain again. I lit the fire in here and that was that. I had no intentions of moving and so I didn’t.

But tea was nice 😉

-2

Monday 19th December 2011 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… tea tonight.

I made myself a pizza.

And what was so exciting about that was the fact that I cooked it in the little oven on the top of my new fire.

With me having been in the house almost all of the day I’ve had the fire on all day. And I’ve only used three logs as well but the temperature reached 26°C, and that was what made me try out the oven seeing as how it was so hot.

it took an age to cook but nevertheless it all worked and I was impressed with that.

So this morning I was awake at 04:30 and reading a book. But eventually I was back under the quilt where I stayed until about 10:30 – I had no plans whatsoever to get up and fight the snow which was falling quite heavily.

but anyway now I have my new analogue electricity meter installed, as well as the hour meter that I bought in Radio Spares the other day – to see how long the inverter has been running. I’ve been looking forward to trying these

This afternoon I finished off the radio programme – just as well seeing as how we are recording it tomorrow, read a couple of books and that was that.

And not to mention being rung up God Knows how many times on the phone.

But I am quite impressed with this oven. I shall have to try some further experiments

-2

Sunday 18th December 2011 – I’VE BEEN CHANGING …

… the habits of a lifetime.

It all started this morning when I was up and about at 08:15 and that was without an alarm clock or a phone call as well – and on a Sunday too, the day after coming back from a long journey!

And so having lit a fire up here in the attic to warm myself up, I spent the morning writing the additional notes for the radio programme on Tuesday

Later on, I was out working, and that’s a rare event for a Sunday too!

I started to unload Caliburn but that really didn’t make much headway as there are space issues. But all of the scaffolding is off and stacked and much of the heavy stuff has been removed.

The weather clouded over too, and so I took advantage of what light there was to change Caliburn’s front tyres and now he has his winter boots on. And I’m glad I did too as the ones that were on there were rather thin to say the least.

Off to Terry and Liz’s next to drop off a load of stuff and you have no idea how much better Caliburn was handling with his winter tyres. And I’m glad that I fitted them too, because once I got to about Gouttieres it started to snow and it was snowing heavily by the time that I was back home

Now I’m going to bed as I still have this streaming head cold that I picked up in the UK and an early night cuddled up in this warm room (and aren’t I impressed with my new fire?) under the quilt will do me the world of good.

-2

Saturday 17th December 2011 – NEXT TIME …

… that I do this crossing, I shall book a couchette.

I enjoyed the trip – easily one of the best crossings that I have ever had and I’ll be doing it again. But it’s so uncomfortable to curl up in a corner – there just aren’t any corners in which to curl up.

And when I discovered that a couchette would set me back a mere £20:00 if booked in advance (they were all sold out on this trip – I did check), well, it’s a foregone conclusion.

This journey saves me a couple of hours and about 10 litres of fuel over driving to Calais, and it puts me in a much better position for going up to the Midlands and the north, missing out all of London and the M25.

A couchette would more-than pay for itself, I reckon.

We were decanted into Le Havre at dawn and at a leisurely pace, took me less than 8 hours to reach home. The roads are excellent, as are most French roads, but these were comparatively quiet. I even managed to fit a little shopping in on the way home.

I beat the snow home – but only just. A huge pile of it had followed me all the way from the coast. And it was taters in here. Absolutely freezing in my attic, although the wood stove soon sorted that out.

And while I had been away the place had been ravaged by 75 kph winds. That generated a few amps of electricity, I can tell you.

So I’m not doing much now. A bit of food – curled up by the fire, and here I’m staying to catch up with my beauty sleep.

-3

Friday 16th December 2011 – JULIE’S MUM …

loaded caliburn ford transit… said to me that I could fit a few extra things in Caliburn, because her son in law (Rob) had told her that it would be quite empty coming back.

Well, absolutely. As you can see.

Shall we run through all of the stuff that isn’t there? Like no scaffolding for a start? No rolls of insulation?

As Clare said when she saw the photograph “it’s a good job that I forgot to ask you about the three-piece suite”. Plenty of room for that.

I left my hotel fairly early and did another trip around the supermarkets and tool supply places like Screwfix and Toolstation, all for stuff that I had forgotten.

Another trip down to my storage box and collect the last of the stuff that I had ordered. And my luck was in again – I managed to source another Ford Transit wheel for Caliburn’s winter tyres.

Northampton was next, and Michael very kindly sorted out a 98-litre immersion heater for me from his plumbing supplies place. This is for the solar hot water at home.

Rosemary had asked me to call at a place in London for 7 rolls of this space-blanket roof insulation, and then back out to Luton for Rob and Julie’s stuff.

No wonder I was exhausted.

I made it down to Pompey – Portsmouth – with time to spare – which surprised me totally. Enough time in fact to go to the chippy for another huge dollop of beans and chips all smothered in malt vinegar, just like the evening that I arrived, which seemed like a year ago.

Now I’m sitting in the queue for the ferry, which leaves at 23:59. I hope that there’s a nice corner for me to curl up into. I’m exhausted!

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