Wednesday 4th May 2011 – I hope that you all …

… had a Happy Star Wars Day. Yes, May the Fourth be with you.

For me, it started early and I’ve no idea why but I was awake long before the alarm clock, and after a bad night as well where I didn’t sleep too much (teach me to crash out in the early evening). And after breakfast I spent some more time on the computer and my Newfoundland web pages.

Following that I went to move all of the stuff that’s on the edge of the public highway. The ancient rotavator and the Honda Melody scooter, those I moved with no trouble. The old cement mixer – the wheels on that were seized thanks to Claude tipping a load of cement all over them and not cleaning it off. And so in the end I had both wheels off, cleaned them up, greased the spindles and reassembled everything. And now it moves around quite easily.

After lunch I went to move the ride-on lawnmower but that was stuck in drive and there was no way to free it all off. In the end I dismantled all of the drive train and now that moves freely as well.

So with all of that out of the way it was time to move the Ford Cortina 2000E estate. After many trials and tribulations I managed to start it, but this blasted clutch won’t free off. In the end I chained the car to a tree and started it in gear to see if the sudden jolt would free the clutch. I considered two possibilities – that the subframe would rip out of the chassis mounts, or that the sudden jolt would pull down the tree.

Of course, I didn’t count upon the chain snapping, did I?

In the end I moved the car by hand-winching it about 50 yards and at 4 feet per pull it took forever – it was just before 19:00 when I knocked off.

Tomorrow I need to go to the bank in Pionsat and so when that is done I’ll be in a position to winch the old caravan body out of the barn. If I can get it round the corner and down the hill on my own I shall burn it and then I can get the Cortina inside and put the Ford Escort van across the doorway where I can dismantle it at my leisure.

-4

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 – What was so strange …

… about my posting last night was that the moment I pressed “send” there was a tremendous thunderclap outside and we had a storm – and I didn’t have any idea at all that one was brewing. We ended up with 7mm of rain and that’s about 80 litres of water in the water butts. I’m glad now that I worked on my day off.

And so this morning I needed to print off the papers for the radio programme and some other papers that I needed. Terry needed me to accompany him to the quarry for some intense negotiations, and that was effectively the morning sorted out.

At the radio station, they weren’t expecting us. According to the engineer, SMADC (the Societe Mixte pour l’Amenagedment et Developpement des Combrailles) are now not co-operating with the radio station. Nothing new there – the SMADC ceased to co-operate with us a long time ago – but I suspect some developments in this field in early course.

Back home I crashed out for a couple of hours yet again. I’m going to have to do something about this.

-2

Monday 2nd May 2011 – It was a bank holiday today …

… well, actually it wasn’t. But seeing as the Bank Holiday was Sunday I normally take the next day off. But not today though – I was busy.

After the usual couple of hours on the computer I made a start on the water butts again and they are finished for now – until the next revision. You can see the taps at the back of each of the butts and the drainage tap in the middle in case I need to drain the back one for cleaning purposes. But I’m not at all impressed with the quality of the Brico Depot tap connector – you can see how much it has kinked with just a simple tightening. I’m going to have to change that for something decent.

At the moment I have it switched so that it will just fill the rear tank. Then I can chack that for leaks, then switch it into the connecting system to check that for leaks, and then let it into the front tank.

I also made a new settling chamber and a puzzolane and sand filter chamber and they are in position screwed to the side of the verandah. The settling chamber is about 6 time bigger than the last one and uses 100mm pipe rather than 80mm and so there should be enough room in there even in a heavy rain to store the water as it percolates through the filter.

And in a departure from tradition, I’ve taken out the plastic bowl filter from inside the tank and replaced it with another internal settling chamber made of 100mm pipe. It is of course inside the rear tanks and sealed at the top and bottom, with a 40mm pipe from the filter that goes inside it. The water that passes through the filter falls into the internal settling chamber where any particle that manages to get that far can simply fall to the bottom, and the water will rise up inside the chamber and eventually overflow it into the tank.

What I shall do eventually, when I find my missing steel mesh (which could be anywhere) is to fill that full of sand and use it as a sand filter. It’s all complicated stuff.

But I wasn’t alone when I was working on the tanks – I had company.

I’ve no idea what it is as I’m useless at flora and fauna, but it lives in a burrow at the side of the barn and kept on popping its head out to eat some clover and so on.

If you have any ideas what it might be, let me know. But it was interesting anyway, and it wasn’t all that scared of a human presence.

It wasn’t the only bit of wildlife that I saw today either. The fox that loiters about around here was out and about hunting in the field next door. He’s a beautiful creature – I don’t know how it is that people can hunt animals like that. It really beats me.

Anyway, tomorrow we are recording, and I’m hoping that it rains so that I can try out the new tank system.

-2

Sunday 1st May 2011 – I forgot to mention yesterday …

… that it pays to study my website, and study it in depth too. And I’m not joking either. Long-term readers will recall that back in 2002 I went to Cheyenne in Wyoming. While I was there I went for a wander around a xeriscape project, and I told you all about it.

Anyway , while I was in the Auchan on Saturday it was the gardeners’ fair and they were having all kinds of spot-quizzes. And one of the questions was “what kind of plant is a xeriphile?” Of course, having been to a xeriscape site, Yours Truly knew the answer to this – he was the only one in the hypermarket who did, and he won a tray of 12 marigolds. And so don’t let anyone tell you that what I write about is a waste of time and effort. You might win a tray of 12 marigolds too.

Meanwhile, Sunday is a day of rest – or so it ought to be if you dodn’t get these stupid “you have just received an important message – please ring …”. If I ever find out who is behind that kind of message they won’t ever play football again, that’s for sure.

And so eventually I had breakfast, and then finished off the auto-entrepreneur sessions for the radio – which took me up to lunchtime. And then, with the water temperature on 50°C, a nice windy afternoon with bright sunshine, that was the cue for a load of washing. And I’m glad I did it too because now the two water butts are empty again. That means that tomorrow I can install the new improved system of connections and not have to worry too much about wasting any water, although with just about 50 litres in store I’m going to be struggling if it doesn’t rain by the weekend.

In the evening I went round to Terry and Liz’s to return the trailer, pick up my roof ladder, get Liz to show me how to change the ink cartridges in the printer (which is flaming complicated for such a simple task) and run through Tuesday’s radio programmes. But it’s not easy seeing as it’s the final day of Liz’s grandson being there – he and his mum and dad go home tomorrow.

So with a working printer and a roofing ladder I’m now back home. But for some reason I’m having that feeling – you know – the one that you have when you put your foot on a step and it isn’t there.

-2

Saturday 30th April 2011 – Well, it was all go at the footy tonight.

Firstly, Pionsat’s 3rd XI had a most unlikely 3-1 victory against a team much higher than them in the league. I’ve no idea what happened though as I wasn’t there to see it. I was there though in time to see the 2nd XI brushed aside 4-1. They are, I fear, doomed for relegation. Short of ideas up front, the defence was woeful – even more so than usual. The defence always was suspect but when they had a lightning-quick attack it usually compensated for it. But with illness, injury and suspension the attack has long gone.

I wasn’t at Pionsat for the 3rd XI game because I was at St Eloy to see the 1st XI take on Nord Combraille, and just for a change, thrash them 7-2 which is always very pleasant to stuff one of our local neighbours. It adds spice to some of these local derbies.

The Miners could only put out 10 players, which is astonishing for a 1st Division match, and while their attack was quite useful, the defence was way beyond woeful and at times passed into the comical.

In one four-minute spell (I counted it) we had –

a Pionsat cross from the by-line driven into the area to no-one in particular (there was no Pionsat player forward) cannon off a St Eloy defender tracking back and go into his own goal.
A high Pionsat cross from the by-line into the area to no-one in particular, and the keeper palmed it into his own net
A long high ball forward from Pionsat to no-one in particular- the keeper shouts “to me” to his centre half – the centre-half heads it backwards but with nothing like enough power – the keeper has to dive miles forward to gather it up, but he spills it – his forward momentum carries the ball quite some distance forward to an unmarked Nico who simply sidefoots it into an empty net.

All of that in four minutes!

I was in Montlucon this afternoon buying stuff for the water system. It cost me €100 more-or-less but it’s all good-quality stuff and that should keep it all in good condition and done up properly, with taps between the two tanks to isolate them, and a central tap to drain them.

But I had a brainwave. I was going to join them up using some pipe connectors and some transparent pipe, but fot the same money I bought one of those stainless steel flexible tap connectors That’s much more like it.

Yes, Brico Depot now selling bulkhead connectors make a whole load of things much more possible.

And now I’m off to bed. Nice clean clothes and nice clean bedding too – I was at the swimming baths this afternoon too.

-3

Friday 29th April 2011 – I finally got onto the greenhouse today.

Just for a change, the weather this afternoon was quite reasonable (well, mostly), and so after the customary couple of hours on the Newfoundland website I went and hunted down some wood.

The big thing though is that I don’t have enough. I’m building the front and back out of chevrons, and the two sides out of demi-chevrons. I need about 10 of each but I only have 6 chevrons and 4 demi-chevrons so I’ll have to go to the sawmill next week.

But with 5 of the chevrons I made the back of the greenhouse. It’s going to consist of two uprights 2m40 high and 3 cross-pieces 3m20 long. The cross-pieces will be let into the uprights at ground level and at 1m95- That makes about 1m88 for the windows, which are 1m875 tall.

The third cross-piece will be let in at the top and this leaves a run of about 38cms the whole length. I’ll be dividing that into 4 pieces (72×38) and buying some cheap glass to fit into there.

But making it out of chevrons is going to make it heavy so I’m going to have to take the pieces down to the greenhouse base and assemble it in situ. I don’t fancy my chances of assembling it and then having to carry it down there.

But learning from when I made the verandah, I need to prepare the uprights and then pre-drill them before I assemble the thing. Trying to manoeuvre it all into position and then drill it will be almost impossible. It was bad enough with the verandah and that was smaller as well as being made with just demi-chevrons. I’ll be joining the front, the sides and the back all together with stud iron (or threaded rod as they call it these days) as I doubt that there will be coach bolts long enough.

And tomorrow it’s shopping.

-4

Thursday 28th April 2011 – Well, today didn’t get off to a very good start.

No indeed. I heard all of the alarms go off at 08:00, but then the next thing that I remembered was looking at the time on the clock and it was 10:35. Ahh well.

But I didn’t miss anything though. We are back in the hanging clouds again and it’s just like winter with low clouds and damp and so on everywhere. It’s perked up the rainwater but that’s about all. I even had to turn the fridge off.

And due to the miserable wet weather I was back in the barn again after lunch. I’ve almost finished tidying up the parking place in there and I reckon that with about another hour’s work I could drag the caravan body out. But it won’t be moving soon as I need to move the Ford Cortina 2000E estate and to do that I need to move the trailer. But it’s nice to think that I can now see the wood rather than the trees.

It’s also nice to be able to get at my huge toolbox and find all my mechanics’ tools. Just like old friends they are. I’m looking forward to getting the Cortina into the barn so that I can make a start on it.

What was surprising though was the things that I found – loads of things I’d forgotten about, including the drawers with all the important Cortina bits – and I’ve not seen that since I dismantled my workshop in Crewe in April 1989. There was also an electric screwdriver from that era or maybe a little later – and it was still holding a charge, which astonished me.

I’m slowly making progress, slowly being the operative word. But I’ll get there in the end. Tomorrow it’s the Royal Wedding and so in keeping with the general contents of the event I’ve set aside the day to deal with the contents of the composting toilet. I think that it’s quite appropriate.

-3

Wednesday 27th April 2011 – The best-laid plans and all that …

… yes, I didn’t get very far with the greenhouse today.

This morning I dd the usual couple of hours on the website and then went outside to do battle. I’ve measured up everything and done my design, so I know how I’m going to build it, but the weather, which was pretty fair this morning, gradually deteriorated and by lunchtime we were having the showers, and I’m not talking about anything to do with OUSA either.

After lunch thr showers were persistent and it was clear that working outside was impossible and so I retired to the barn, where I spent all of the afternoon tidying up in there and making more room to store stuff. And it’s amazing what I found in there as well – tons of stuff. I also went through a couple of cardboard boxes from the garage at the old apartment and I’ve found all of my old songs that I wrote in the days when I used to be a rock star, and wasn’t that a long time ago?
“33 years” … ed

I also made another startling discovery in there, and that’s going to take someone by surprise. 1973 was a long time ago!

It’s still raining now, but I’m not worried. It will fill up the water butts and it’s not as if there isn’t anything else to do. Tomorrow’s programme depends on the weather.

-2

Tuesday 26th April 2011 – SO NOW …

… that we have the internet up and running again, I can tell you all about today’s little events, such as they are.

We’re back at work again now and I spent the first while working on the computer – carrying on with the Newfoundland web pages.

This is the kind of thing that will go on for ever, I imagine.

Later, I set about the garden. I’ve done more planting, some weeding and hoeing and I’ve also put the two raspberry bushes in – those that I bought two weeks ago.

But I don’t like the look of them. If I get anything at all from them I’ll really be lucky. But they stand more chance in the soil than they do if they aren’t in there, so let them have a go.

Tonorrow I’m going to make a start on building the greenhouse.

That’s the cue for a thunderstorm, isn’t it?

-2

Monday 25th April 2011 – DID YOU MISS …

… me last night when you were waiting for this entry to come on line?

If you did, you’ll have to improve your aim.

But seriously, we had a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon just as I sat down to read my e-mails. And the first flash of lightning, and that was that.

Rob came round a little later – “has your internet gone too?” It seems that the very first flash of lightning got the village’s internet relay box. How about that for a shot?

Anyway, we had to wait until Tuesday evening for it to come back on line.

Mind you, it isn’t as if you missed anything. With it being a Bank Holiday I had a day off and so I did nothing except read a book or two, watch a film or two, and work on the Newfoundland web pages.

But we had rain, all 4.5mm of it and now there’s about 100 litres of water in the water butts.

I’ve used too much cleaner in there though and so it’s rather more soapy than I would like. But I have 30 litres of clean water that I saved and so I can use that for cooking, and meanwhile keep on drawing off the water in the butt to use for washing, washing up and so on.

I started by drawing 30 litres out and saving it in a different container. That’s reduced the water in the butts of course and so as more rain falls (if it ever does) it has a good start on diluting the cleaner that remains.

It’s all trial and error around here.

I’m quite a trial and there’s error a-plenty!

Sunday 24th April 2011 – It has finally rained

We had 0.5mm of rain during the last 24 hours. Not a lot, but the first rain of significance for 20 days. The garden was pleased to see it, but the water butts weren’t. With all of the messing and mauling about, the plastic connections on the line that joins the two butts together has worked itself loose and the water leaked off out of the sides.

And so this morning instead of having my day off I had the butts stripped down yet again and sealing all of the plastic joints. And now there don’t seem to be any leaks, but I’m not vert happy with this. So what I’m going to do is to go to Montlucon on Tuesday, buy some more bulkhead fittings and connections, and couple them up with brass fastenings and proper reinforced plastic pipe. I’m also going to put a tap in between the two butts so I can switch off the connection and drain the tanks individually if I need to. That’s much more like it. The plastic joining kits are fine for water butts for watering plants and so on but for domestic use I need something much more solid.

And so once that was done I came back up here and watched a film – Our Man Flint, one of the films that I bought just recently.

I’ve not been out either. There’s been no footy and so I haven’t had any reason and I may as well stay here and relax for a change. It is a Bank Holiday after all

-2

Saturday 23rd April 2011 – I haven’t done much more today either…

… although I have made an important discovery. Acting on information received (from Henri at Radio Tartasse as it happens) I managed to track down the railway station for the ligne economique, otherwise known as the tacot, at Durdat – Larequille about eight or so miles from where I live.

And here it is, with grateful thanks to the owner who gave me permission to photograph it.

For those of you who haven’t been following my blog for all that long, you probably won’t know that back at the turn of the 20th Century the Département of the Allier was honeycombed with railway tracks belong to the Lignes Economiques, a system of metre-gauge railways that ran all over the place.

I say that they “ran all over the place” and that isn’t an exaggeration because they very rarely ran anywhere near the villages that they were supposed to serve and the one here at Durdat is well over a mile from the village. In fact one early commentator described the railway stations as “seeming to have the purpose of just adding decoration to the countryside“. The engines wheezed and coughed and spluttered around the countryside, gaining the nickname Tacot, which is French for an “old banger” or “rattletrap” and by 1950 or so they had been all swept away by road transport.

You can see, if you look carefully, the outline of the railway trackbed just in front of the station building.

The line, which ran from the lime kilns at Marcillat to the steel mill at Commentry, was the first to go – being abandoned in 1932 when the standard gauge line from Montlucon to Gouttieres arrived at Marcillat.

And, ironically, the main line was closed in 1939 due to wartime circumstances and never reopened for passengers, meaning that Marcillat was isolated as far as passengers were concerned long before the rest of the ligne economique system was abandoned.

I’ve found most of the stations and some traces of the line but the station at Durdat-Larequille was always elusive, until Henri told me where it was.

All of this came about because I was in Montlucon shopping today. I’ve stocked up with food and all kinds of things, as well as almost everything to finish the water butts (Brico Depot is hopeless) including the nylon stockings for making my sand filters. Why ever didn’t I think of Noz before?

A swim at Neris on the way back, fit the new tap onto the water butts, and that was me, done. But there I am saying tat Brico Depot is hopeless – here they are after all this time of me harassing them and here they are now stocking BULKHEAD FITTINGS – the hollow threaded tube that you pass through the sides of water tanks. I’ve been nagging them about these for ages and now they finally carry them. This will make my life so much easier.

But in Montlucon I had two interesting encounters. A guy at LIDL stopped me and asked me “is that your van outside?” and so we had a long chat about wind turbines and solar panels and he’s coming to see me next week.

There has been a lot of discussion just recently about advertising and people have different opinions about different things, but for me, having corporate colours and a corporate logo, and having clothes that match the van for the colours and the logo – that seems to work for me.

And then on the Brico Depot car park, Julie and Rob came over for a chat and to tell me that they want me to go over and chat to a friend about solar panels. Having a vehicle that is a distinctive shape, a distinctive size and a distinctive colour – that seems to work too.

People can see me coming a long way off, and at the very least it gives them plenty of time to hide.

-4

Friday 22nd April 2011 – I haven’t done a tap today.

Well, it’s Easter (Good Friday to be precise) and I don’t work on Bank Holidays, as you know. I’m entitled to some time off anyway.

And so a lie-in until 10:00, a leisurely breakfast, watching a couple of films, working on my voyage around Newfoundland (I’ve arrived at Cape Race just now) and that’s my lot. I’ve not even cooked tea tonight and I’m off to bed in a minute.

We’ve not had any rain today either – that shower we were promised never arrived. And so I’m off to Montlucon tomorrow to buy the bits to redo these water butts. I may as well make the most of this good weather.

But there’s no footy this weekend – nowhere in fact. Whatever am I going to do?

-3

Thursday 21st April 2011 – I’ve dealt with the question of the water butts today.

>But it isn’t how I want it, and I’m going to have to do it again.

I took down the guttering on the verandah, scrubbed it all out because it was filthy, reset the supports and then rehung it all, nice and clean. I then ripped out the old piping to the butts to deal with all of that.

You’ll notice that I’ve put back the sump – just in front of the verandah window. That was my first idea and I replaced it because the first of the grey bulges in the pipework, that is in fact a sump, and the idea was that every few months I’d dismantle the filters, empty and clean them, and put them back. But that never happened and there was all kinds of stuff in there. And so the sump went back in. Just unscrewing the blanking plug at the end will empty that out.

Next task was to clean out the water butts. Using all of the 4 kettles, a saucepan and two 25-litre containers, I managed to save all of the water. There wasn’t much in it. But the water containers are out of the way in the dark to keep them fresh and I’ll be drawing on them for now. The butts needed cleaning as you might expect – it’s been a couple of years since they were last done – but the home-made puzzolane filter (the second grey bulge) is surprisingly effective. You can tell that by looking at the inside of the pipe in (a muddy brown) and the inside of the pipe out (a dusty light grey) and I’m glad that it works fine. But one major surprise is that the IKEA “stainless steel” mesh from an old strainer – it isn’t stainless at all and all the mesh filters that I made from that have rusted. That’s a disappointment.

From here on in it was just a list of problems. I can’t find the bits that I put on one side to make the replacement sump and the replacement filter. I searched as much as I could but no luck – not that it is surprising around here of course. I can’t find anything. And so I’ve had to put the old ones back.

But at least I can get to them. The new tap that I was going to fit in the butt to replace the broken plastic one – that isn’t going to work. And after ages of scratching around I’ve found an old one and some bulkhead fitting that might do the job. The hole needed to be filled after all. I’ll have to organise another tap at the weekend and hope that it isn’t too late.

I say too late because now that everything is clean and proper and ready, all I need is a torrential rainstorm. And I hope that it comes soon.

-3

Wednesday 20th April 2011 – I’m blogging early tonight …

… because I’m thoroughly whacked and I’m going to bed in a minute.

I’ve been working hard on the site for the greenhouse and now I have all of the breeze blocks in place. But it wasn’t half a maul, digging up tree roots, tree stumps and all that kind of thing. It took me ages.

It’s hard work, all of this manual labouring in the garden. And tomorrow I need to start on building the framework for the greenhouse. That is going be exciting too.

This morning though I carried on with my Newfoundland pages and I’ve now arrived at the Avalon Peninsula. There’s still a long way to go though and it’s going to take me quite a while to finish this lot off.

And this afternoon I took some time off from digging the trenches. Now I know that I said that I don’t have much water left but notwithstanding, I did another load of washing and now all of that is up to date. But there’s a reason for this. I haven’t cleaned out the water butts for well over a year and there’s some sediment at the bottom of the tanks. Added to that, the tap has broken and so it needs to be replaced and for once I actually have handy a tap that would do the job

It makes sense therefore to empty the water butts (I have 2×203-litre tanks) while the water is low, putting the rest of the water into some clean containers, and then giving the tanks a good scrub and clean out and then replacing the tap, before the weather breaks (which is supposed to be Friday, so we are told). I can change the puzzolane filter too and also fit a sand filter if I can find someone who has an old pair of tights. I need to reorganise this water system a little.

-3

EPIC HALL

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