Thursday 19th May 2011 – I’ve not been having a very good day today

I was up at a reasonable time (for a change just recently) and managed a good couple of hours on the Nova Scotia pages (yes, I’ve made it onto the Canadian mainland at last) but then I had to sort out a huge pile of photographs for this house that we visited the other week – the chairman of the local history society has been on to me about them.

This afternoon I finished scrubbing Caliburn’s dashboard and it all looks quite pretty there now, and then I tackled the wiring. And what a mess that was. In the end I ripped all of it out and completely redid it, but in a much-simplified form. I have the two fuse boxes properly fastened in and all of the connections are now inside a sealed plastic box to stop them being pulled out. And now the spare battery charges itself up with the solar panels and the split charge relay like it was supposed to.

I would have finished it too but at about 19:15 (I was still out there working then) we had a terrific thunderstorm, and 5mm of rain fell in minutes. and that was when I noticed that this water filter system STILL isn’t working, and I’ve no idea why. I’m going to strip it down as soon as I finish Caliburn, whenever that might be. And I think a battery is boiling up too judging by the smell. And that s depressing me too.

And in other news, I now have four governments to support .

Wednesday 18th May 2011- All I can say …

… is that if the sat-nav is still in Caliburn, then it is doing a pretty good impersonation of another piece of Caliburn’s equipment because all that there is in Caliburn’s cab right now is the passenger seat. Everything else is out.

I suppose that I shall have to write this one off to experience, I reckon. But it’s given me an opportunity to clear out the cab and I’m in the course of cleaning all of the plastic and the fascia and so on – or, at least, I was but I happened to notice the time – 19:24, long after knocking-off time, and so I’ll have to finish tomorrow.

Mind you, there’s a reason why I was still working at 19:24, and that was due in some small measure to the fact that I started at … errr … 11:05 this morning. Yes, I slept through all of the alarms again, but then again it was 03:45 when I went to bed – carried away on the web site again, that’s my excuse. Mind you, the night before it was 04:15 when I went to bed and so maybe that has something to do with it too.

And so tomorrow, assumimg that I wake up, I’ll finish off cleaning and reassembling Caliburn and then I need to check my auxiliary electrical system as that’s not working properly and I want to sort that out before I go to the UK.

I also have to find all the bits for the false floor and I’ve no idea where they might be. A lot has happened in the 2 years since I last went to the UK (apart from the day trip the other week of course).

Tuesday 17th May 2011 – I now have a new beichstuhl

and here’s a photo of it in ill its glory – minus the tongue-and-grooved cladding of course.

Did I mention that when I was at Les Bonnes Affaires the other day they had a couple of 20-litre aluminium casseroles? And just €9:99 too. I thought that I would try one because being a casserole it would be watertight, it has a tight-fitting lid and it shouldn’t be prone to rusting.

That so-called stainless steel bin that I bought from IKEA is rusty already and leaking, after less that a year and so it needed to be changed. At least this gives me an opportunity to redesign it.

It isn’t finished because I can’t find the hinges for the top part, and I can’t find the clips to hold the seat on, but they’ll turn up somewhere sometime.

Such delightful things that I talk about on my blog.

I started that after I’d been working on my voyage around Cape Breton Island, but I didn’t get a head start on it like I wanted. Another succession of cold canvassers, and the guy from Pionsat Patrimoine who doesn’t understand the meaning of the sentence “I’m busy and I don’t have time to deal with these photos right now” – mind you, the time it took him on the phone, I could have done it.

Tomorrow I’m going to strip out Caliburn, including removing the seats, and see what’s in there, and see if I can’t find that SatNav (although I’m not optimistic about that). I need to get ready to go to the UK.

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Monday 16th May 2011 – Well, it was a nice afternoon out.

Riom is quite pleasant at this time of the year and it was a nice drive too. And seeing as how what I had to do took nothing like as long as I was expecting, and with 2 hours to spare, I went for a swim in the baths there.

And the baths were delicious. New, clean, modern, light, airy, and plenty of room to move about. A few activities for the younger ones too. I really enjoyed that swim and the shower afterwards (… “what, was the OUSA EC there?” – ed …) was nice and warm. And so I am nice and clean and I’m even going to have clean bedding tonight.

At the Anglo-French group tonight we had a good chat about current events – Strauss-Kahn, Fukushima, that kind of thing. It’s nice to be with pleasant company.

And on the web pages I’m now on Cape Breton Island and taking the Englishtown Ferry over to the Cabot Trail. I’ve been there before, in 2003 of course, but I was quite ill then and I really wasn’t enjoying my journey. 2010 was a much different kettle of fish – 5 years since I’d been on a decent adventure, when I went off to South Carolina and I was all fuelled up for it.

“And Newfoundland?” I hear you ask. That’s all done and dusted and it’s on line. You can read it here.

Sunday 15th May 2011 – I’ve hardly been …

… outside today. Just once to take the lid off the cloche, and once to put it back on again and to take the stats. And that was that.

For the rest of the time I’ve stayed up here – catching up on tons of outstanding correspondence and so on, and there’s still tons to do but I haven’t done it.

But even in the confines of my comfy little corner I can still stir up a whirlwind, so I’m told. There’s one of these industrial walks next Saturday – I don’t know if you remember last year the one where we visited all of the old coal mines and quarries – and this year its to look at a few bits and pieces and to visit a Roman gold mine. So of course Yours Truly sent a message to the contacts group to inform them of the walk, with a little light-hearted comment such as “and we are going gold-prospecting, so bring your own shovel and pan”. And to cut a long story short “thank God” – ed my message has appeared word for word in the local newspaper.

Of course the organisers are furious but then again what can I do about it? I didn’t report it to the newspapers and the local reporter who covers the area – she didn’t report it either as it was she who told me about it. So who did?

Ahh well.

Anyway, back at work tomorrow. And I need to go to Riom in the afternoon. High time I was a little more pro-active.

Saturday 14th May 2011 – Wonders will never cease

At the football tonight, Biollet St Maurice put two past Pionsat’s 3rd XI tonight as you might expect, but rather astonishingly, Pionsat replied with FIVE (or was it 6? I lost count). That doesn’t happen very often, does it?

Mind you, Pionsat were bolstered by Cedric and Sebastien from the 1st XI, playing their first competitive matches for many, many months following long injuries.

Rusty and short of match fitness they may well have been, but they made something of a small difference to the team. The others on the pitch somehow picked up their game and were doing things that they don’t usually do.

But that’s the difference between “being beaten before they start” and “having loads of encouragement and support from the other two teams”. The first and second XIs ought to help out the 3rd XI whenever they can – something that I’ve been saying for years.

And there’s no football anywhere tomorrow – not even in the Allier. It’s cup final day, so it seems. What am I going to do?

This morning that solar panel guy came to see me, and he stayed for about 5 minutes. That suits me. I have no sympathy for canvassers and cold callers.

This afternoon I went to Commentry for the shopping and apart from the usual stuff I made some puchases for the water filters. Chatting to the guys in Bricomarche they had some fibreglass flyscreen stuff at €7:50 per square metre – much better for making a sand filter than a nylon stocking. The Centrakor came up with a pair of those anti-spatter frying pan covers that will be ideal for cutting down and also some stainess steel conical tea strainers, fine for conical puzzolane-filter housings that I’m building.

The Bonnes Affaires came up with some aluminium mesh gutter covers that they use for keeping leaves out. I can make good use of them too, especially at the reduced rate of €1 for a packet ot 0.8 square metres (I bought three). They also had some big casserole saucepans – 12-litre or thereabouts in aluminium for €9.99. I bought one of them to see if it’s any good for making an enclosed composting toilet.

And remember my posting of a few weeks ago about some interesting or exciting news that might be happening? Well, can tell you something but instead I’ll leave you to stew for a few more days.

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Friday 13th May 2011 – It’s been a long time …

.. since I’ve had one of these. It was one of those rare nights that they call a nuit blanche around here where I didn’t go to sleep at all. And I’m not quite sure why either, because I had a busy day yesterday too.

And so I sat in the window, reading a book to pass the time and at approximately 04:45 the sun started to come up, so I took a photo of the breaking dawn. I then went back to reading until breakfast time.

It’s been absolutely years since I’ve had one of those.

Today I’ve spent most of the afternoon on the phone. Katherine has sent a parcel back from Canada and it’s gone missing. The Canadian Postal Service’s website is useless and the telephone system is one of those digitalised ones where it is not possible to speak to a human, and it tells you nothing that the website doesn’t tell you.

Of course, I’m not one to take that kind of thing lying down and after many struggles I ended up speaking to the Personal Assistant of Rob Merrifield, who is the Canadian Government Minister for Posts and Telecommunications. We had a lengthy chat and this evening I’ve received a mail from her to say that someone from the Canadian Postal Service will be in touch with me.

We shall see, of course, because I have heard all of this before, but the only way to deal with incompetence and obfuscation is to go to the top. Once a few Government ministers have had their ears bent by a few dissatisfied customers, things might change.

Mind you, I’m not holding my breath. It’s not like the time that the lavatory attendants closed the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station, to the inconvenience of everyone. But I didn’t take it lying down – I stood up and went over their heads.

Now that I’ve been to the sawmill at St Gervais d’Auvergne I can crack on with the balloon frame greenhouse and I spent the rest of the day cutting the wood ready for assembling the framework.

It’s coming on quite nicely now, and the net job will be to give it a couple of coats of the LIDL wood treatment, but that’s not for today.

So after finishing off the framework for the greenhouse I came in and started tidying up. I have a caller tomorrow – someone who wants to sell me some solar panels so that I can sell electricity to the EDF. I hate these canvassers.

Thursday 12th May 2011 – How long is it…

… since I featured an old vehicle on my blog? I can’t remember now but it may well have been about a year ago, and it might have been a Citroen lorry. And so here’s another old Citroen lorry that I saw on Thursday.

Now despite the fact that it’s a rare-enough lorry as it is, this vehicle is practically unique and there probably won’t be another one quite like this anywhere that would be still running on the road.

Do you see what looks like a boiler at the side behind the cab? That had me puzzled for quite a while and I thought at first that it was a tar-spreader.

I ruled that out though because the jets are in front of the truck, meaning that to do its spreading it would have to travel in reverse while it was working and that wouldn’t be very likely.

And then the penny dropped. We are at a sawmill, aren’t we? Yes, and what this is is a lorry that runs on wood-gas – like they did in the war when there was no petrol. And he was here to fuel up with his wood chippings because, astonishingly as it might seem, he still runs it on wood-gas.

The owner had gone off to chat with his friends otherwise I probably would have been still there now chatting to him. But it’s a good job that I had to go out – I would have missed this lorry otherwise.

After the customary couple of hours on the web pages I went out and carried on with the framework for the greenhouse, but I didn’t have enough chevrons. In fact, doing a considerable bit of mix-and-match, I was just 10 cms short.

So after lunch I had a good root around here, sorted out a pile of stuff for the dechetterie at Pionsat (there were four dustbins full of tin cans), went down there to dispose of it, and then went to the sawmill at St Gervais for some wood.

And it was at the sawmill that I saw the lorry.

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Wednesday 11th May 2011 – That blasted hornet …

… flew into my attic at 06:45 this morning. GRRRRRRR. I’m not standing for that and after a while when it settled on the floor I dropped an atlas on top of it. After a few minutes it staggered into the air a nd staggered out ouf the window, which I then closed and went back to bed. And I’ll close them again tonight when I go to bed. I’m not having this again.

And after being on the computer I went to hunt down some old demi-chevrons that I had lying around and made one of the sides of the greenhouse. This is how it will look, but with some diagonal sloping facings from back to front.

You’ll see that it’s divided into a front and back section. The front sction is for a window and the rear will have a door in it.

Building the four sides like this, fitting them together and then installing the windows is how I intend to do it, but if you imagine that instead of fitting windows I were to clad it with OSB and then put overlapping thin planks horizontally over the OSB, then that’s how you build a North American balloon-framed house.

Once you master the technique you can build anything out of it. I started off by building the beichstuhl as a balloon-frame and then graduated to building the verandah. After the greenhouse, I’m going to build a garden shed and then I might even graduate onto a double garage. You never know.

Late this afternoon we had clouds – and this evening there was some rain. I thought at first that we might even have an amount of rain worth collecting but it didn’t last long. I’ve given up worrying about the rain anyway – things will just have to take care of themselves.

Tuesday 10th May 2011- I’ve moved the Ford Cortina 2000E estate …

… and you can see it in its new home. That’s where it will be staying for the foreseeable future.

Mind you, it wasn’t easy to get it in there though. The manual chain winch was one thing – the big trolley jack to pick up the rear end and pivot it round in a tight enclosed space was something else completely.

Not to mention the time I had to spend in sweeping out the barn just there. Two dustbin-loads of rubbish and dust and whatever else might be in there. I’ll have to have an hour or so to sift it through.

The old caravan body is gone too now. That disappeared into the flames at some point during the afternoon so that’s another job well-done.

And unfortunately, that’s not the only thing that has gone too, as you can see. A 4-metre length of plastic guttering off the barn and two plastic dustbins went as well. And some of the plastic off the offcuts of barn roof, all of that has gone too.

The heat off a burning caravan body is ferocious and took me completely by surprise. Aluminium melts at 660°C and judging by the holes in the caravan roof we had more than that in some parts of the conflagration.

The wisdom of having a fire like that in the middle of a drought like this is something for which I should have bargained. I’m glad that nothing actually took hold or I would have been having problems

Anyway I was still working at 19:40 putting the Cortina away. It shows you how much I was enjoying myself, losing track of time like this.

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Monday 9th May 2011 – I WAS CHASED …

… around the bedroom this morning.

And not by Percy Penguin (who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves) either, but by a blasted hornet.

And at 07:3 too. Does it have no respect?

Yes, the blasted thing found its way in all right, but could it heck find its way out. And so it decided to awaken me. And by a few of the things that I said to it, you’ll understand the definition of “a rude awakening”.

So having had an early start, I was able to have a good crack at things in here and be out in the garden as early as 11:15. That’s not something that happens every day either.

I managed a really good day in there too and accomplished quite a lot. I even managed to have a little shower too – and it would have been a big one had the water not run out – Brain of Britain having forgotten to fill it the last time.

So a nice, reasonably-clean me headed off to the Anglo-French group.

Back here though, my blog host is down for maintenance. So you age going to have to wait until tomorrow to read this rubbish, aren’t you?

Sunday 8th May 2011 – And just for a change …

… seeing as it was Sunday, I was up and breakfasted by 08:30. These days I can’t even manage that usually on a weekday when I’m supposed to be working, never mind a Sunday when I didn’t go to bed until 03:45.

Anyway, after watching a film on the DVD I set about attacking the huge pile of paperwork that’s been accumulating here for the past two years or so. Half of it has gone into the bin, most of the other half has been put tidily for now, and (most importantly) all of the bank statements that I can find for now have beeh filed away. One plan that I have is to spend 15 minutes each day on the Central France Paperwork Mountain until it’s all filed away. Mind you, with an average lifespan of just about 18 years left to me, I’m not sure that there will be enough time left.

All of that took me to, would you believe, 14:00 and so I had enough time to grab a butty before going off to St Marcel for the match against Beaune D’Allier. And having seen yesterday the world’s smallest centre-half, today I had the privilege of seeing the world’s narrowest football pitch. St Marcel were comprehensively beaten 4-2, but the standard of play (for a 1st Division match at level 7 of the French pyramid) was absolutely woeful. Pionsat’s 3rd XI, more renowned for their enthusiasm than their skill, could have spanked both these teams with plenty to spare.

And I manage to keep up my record of one moment of skill each year from the touchline. Another high chandelle – or “up-and-under” to the uninitiated, right over where I’m standing, and finding myself right underneath it, I wait until it’s dropped right down and then head it back into play. Three years running now that I’ve done that.

On the way home I have a little hunt around St Fargeol for the old railway station there but I’m not able to find it, and back home, with the solar water at 39°C (the sun now clearing the trees) I have a gorgeous solar shower. I quite enjoyed that.

With a coffee and a film I sit down on my room but the exertions of the day, particularly the late finish and early start, mean that the next thing that I know is that it’s 22:20 – yes, I’ve crashed out again, and I had so much to do this evening. Ahh well.

Saturday 7th May 2011 – Well, I’ve been a busy little bee today.

Yes, and I don’t normally do all that much on a Saturday either.

We started off at this meeting at the Maison Ducros-Maymat that is threatened with demolition. The mayor turned up to meet us as promised, but only 50 minutes late. He told us about the reasons for its demolition, which was sound logic as far as it went, but once we began to push back the barriers, his logic became more and more shaky. What was so funny about this was that one of my arguments is that all of the civic and social functions of the town ought to be regrouped around a focal point, like the town square. Dispersing them is really dispersing the soul of the town. Just at that moment two people, clearly out of breath, came up to us and asked “where is this restaurant – the Queue de Milan?” And so we explained that it was another 500 metres outside the town opposite the old railway station. It rather proved my point.

After that I headed out to St Julien la Geneste to the formal opening of this Gite. It was an old house that the Commune bought and has modernised into holiday accommodation.

It’s been excellently done, that’s for sure. And I was talking to the manager of the place and he was telling me that they need a web-site doing. So I’ll give him a quote and see what happens.

On the way back, Marianne and I went for a good drive around.

The first place that we visited was a little chapel situated on one of the highest points in the area. It’s the Eglise de Notre Dame des Blés – the Church of Our Lady of the Meadows and it was built as recently as 1959 as a site of pilgrimage.

There is, apparently a religious procession up here once a year, although I’ve not been able to tag along quite yet – I’ll add it onto my list of things to do.

But never mind the chapel for a moment – just look at the view!

It’s a shame that the weather wasn’t clearer because had there not been all of this haze the view right across to the Puy de Sancy would have been stunning. It’s not too bad as it is.

This is certainly one of the most spectacular viewpoints in the whole area without a doubt and I’ll have to come back another time.

You’ll know that I have an interest in abandoned railway lines and I’ve featured on these pages quite a bit about the abandoned Paris-Orleans railway extension between Montlucon and Gouttieres that opened as late as 1932 and closed as early as 1939.

We’d walked up to the Tunnel des Bouchards from the Pionsat direction a while ago, and so today we went to try to find our way up to the tunnel from the other direction.

That wasn’t at all possible given the time and the conditions. We need much more time to do this and to come back in February or March when there is no vegetation.

Back home again, Marianne and I had an informal meeting to plan our next line of attack about the Maison Ducros, and then went out to one of the other members of the Pionsat Patrimoine who was having internet issues – for which I diagnosed a new cable (which now works).

I managed 10 minutes to do a quick bit of shopping at the Intermarche and then it was off to Marcillat to watch their 1st XI take on Breuil, 2nd in the division. And much to my surprise, and that of everyone else in the crowd, Marcillat wom 3-1 even though they were under the cosh for much of the game. Mind you, this was a game at level 6 of the French pyramid – 1 level higher than Pionsat (although in a different part of the pyramid) but believe me, Pionsat’s 1st XI could have played both these teams at the same time and won the match with some to spare. The level of football in the Allier is way below that in the Puy-de-Dome.

Tomorrow, still no footy at Pionsat (what a waste of a weekend this is!) but according to Franck, the Pionsat trainer who was at the match this evening, there’s a match at St Marcel, about 5 miles from Pionsat (but in the Allier), kick-off at 15:00. I don’t recall ever having been to St Marcel 😉

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Friday 6th May 2011 – Some of the things …

… that I have to do around here! It’s not very easy. In fact it was quite a pantomime to drag the old caravan body out of the barn as I expected it might be. And as I also expected that it might, it did come out in bits as well, eventually.

Mind you it took some moving, with a hand-winch, a rope and a couple of stout chains and my estimate of having the Ford Cortina 2000E estate in there by knocking-off time – well, knocking-off time on Tuesday, maybe. We shall see.

Liz asked me the other day “are you lonely?” Too right, when you have a job like this to do. Wives and girlfriends do have their place occasionally, and had one such been here, then the Cortina would have been moved and the caravan body dragged out and the Cortina put in there by the close of play yesterday.

But then again, which wife or girlfriend would give up what she has for half of what I have? And in any case, as I know from bitter experience, he who travels fastest travels alone and it’s better to be on your own that be badly-accompanied. Had I still been living in a state of Holy Matrimony, I would still be driving a taxi or a bus around Crewe. I’ve come an awfully long way in the last 18 years, and I wouldn’t have got here in a taxi or a bus.

Anyway, enough of me reminiscing. The caravan body is out and it’s ready to be burned. Tomorrow I’m out at this house that they want to demolish (first I knew of this was a letter from the Mayor of Pionsat saying that the President of Pionsat-Patrimoine had nominated me ….. – pity he hadn’t told me about it) and then off to some fete or other that Marianne, the journalist from La Montagne, wants me to photograph. That’s followed at 19:00 (just for a change) by Marcillat’s 1st XI being thrashed by Breuil – there’s no match at Pionsat this weekend.

Sunday I’m busy, Monday I’m out in the evening so I can’t leave a fire unattended, and so it’s Tuesday for my fire and for putting the Cortina in the barn. That’s 3 full days for someone to come up with a major change of plan.

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Thursday 5th May 2011 – Considering that it’s only …

… the 5th of May today and there’s about 6 or 7 weeks to the apex of the year, I am proud to announce that nevertheless I’ve set a new record today for solar energy. In the house, bank one received 173 amp-hours and bank two received 166 amp-hours. That’s over 4 KwH of solar power and whichever way you look at it, that’s impressive for just 780 watts of generating capacity.

And so you can tell the kind of day that we had. Beautiful blue skies and not a cloud anywhere. The kind of day that you would expect the solar water heater to give me enough heat to have a shower, a shave and a coffee as well. But it isn’t to be because I’ve made some kind of error in my calculations. Looking for a place to install it in a hurry while I demolished the beichstuhl, I fastened upon a nice spot out of the way and in full sun, but shaded by the fence so that I can shower there in peace. But what I didn’t take into my calculations is that while in the spring the sun has no problem heating the water, we are having issues with leaf shading from the trees and the water is struggling to heat up to a respectable temperature.

There is a way round this. The heat eschanger is really hot – 50°C is no big deal at all – and so I could run the water in the solar heater through the heat exchanger so that the water would heat up through there, and I even have a suitable pump to do it. But I can’t get electricity down there to power the pump and Terry can’t find the hole saw that he has for cutting through the stone walls so that I can run a cable through. I’ll have to think of a plan B. Such as tipping some hot water out of the electric immersion heater into the solar tank.

Today was a paperwork day. I worked on the website first and then caught up with some paperwork that needed doing. I had a delivery from FEDEX and the contents of that required my attention too. I ended up having to go into Pionsat to the Post and to the Bank, and I’ve had to spend a shed-load of money today – errrr about €7,000 in fact. But it’s all going to be worth it in the long run.

Back from the town, it wasn’t worth starting in the barn and so I planted the tomato and aubergine plants that I bought 10 days ago, and thoroughly watered the garden. And despite having had 7mm of rain two days ago it was as dry as a bone and I used about 175 litres out of the dirty water butt that takes the rainfall off the barn roof. And if there had been more water there I would have used that too. It’s hard to believe just how dry the soil is.

Anyway tomorrow I’ll move the caravan body from the barn and burn it if I can, and then move the Ford Cortina 2000E estate and the Ford Escort van. I’ll be glad to have them in a secure place.

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EPIC HALL

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