Sunday 20th March 2011 – There can be no better example …

… of the phrase “what goes around comes around” than what happened this afternoon at Chanat.

You may remember from yesterday evening that Pionsat’s 3rd XI won the game by a penalty which although a clear foul, happened (at least by my reckoning) about 3 yards outside the area.

Today, Pionsat’s 1st XI lost the game by a penalty which was even more dubious and despite the best efforts of Francois in goal.

Handball indeed it was, and inside the area too. But the ball was kicked in at the Pionsat player from point-blank range, hit his boot, ricocheted up to his hand and then away. There was no question of anyone “playing the ball with the hand or arm” as provided by the law, and no question of “depriving the attacking team of an advantage” as provided by another law – the ball was nowhere near goal and nowhere near another Chanat player. It was such an obvious “ball to hand” incident that no-one on the Chanat side (and believe me, it was a hotly-contested affair) made any appeal at all and they were just as bewildered as the Pionsat players and everyone in the crowd (and it was at Chanat too and there was a large crowd in attendance).

If you are going to give a penalty for that, then all of the leaning ins, the holding backs, the holding downs, the feet up by the keepers – all of these are penalties too and you may as well give up playing football and let the 11 players take a penalty kick each in order to decide the outcome.

Even Franck, the stoic and silent Pionsat trainer who managed to be the only one in the stadium to keep his cool during the famous “St Gervais foul” last April, had more than just a few words with the referee after the final whistle.

But it was a gorgeous day with over 260 amp-hours of solar energy (the best of the year so far and I even ran the fridge) and the drive out to Chanat, situated in the hills right behind Cebazat, was superb. What a day for going out.

But it didn’t look like that this morning. I forgot to switch the alarm off and so despite going to bed again at 04:00 I was wide awake at 08:00. And then after drifting back to sleep again Liz rang me at 11:00. Mind you, it’s a good job that she did because heaven alone knows what time I would have woken up otherwise.

But that was my first Sunday at home since mid-January. And nice it was too. So back to work tomorrow.

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Friday 19th March 2011 – I didn’t get my early night last night after all.

I was just on the point of going to bed when someone who I hadn’t spoken to for a while came on line. We had quite a bit to talk about and what with one thing and another it was almost 04:00 when I went to bed.

And so I crawled out of my pit at 08:00 feeling like death, and went to Montlucon. It was a big mistake to get my windows fron Lapeyre. I need an empty van for when I go back to Brussels, and while we got these windows in, getting them out on my own without breaking them – that will be something else.

It was gardening day at LIDL and so I have 6 more fruit trees for the Liz Ayers Memorial Orchard, a pile of seeds, and some onion sets, seed potatoes and seed shallots. I shan’t abandon the garden entirely this year. At Noz I spent a fortune, mostly on DVDs and I now have 5 or the 6 Don Camillo films, starring Fernandel. I really enjoyed the books when I was at school and I saw one of the films once and that was just as good.

At Brico Depot I set a new world record by buying nothing at all, but I was in tears nevertheless. Door Strips in Brico in Belgium €10.73 – same one in Brico Depot here €3:49. White Spirit there €3:89 – here €2:09. And it was all like that. I don’t know how they can get away with it in Belgium, I really don’t.

But I’ve made a conscious decision that now that I’m a little more financially sound, first thing that I’m going to be doing is to improve my diet. And to that end I bought a few things that I wouldn’t normally buy such as half a kilo of grapes (which I munched on the way home) and a little packet of sugar-free sweets.

I didn’t go swimming – I was too early and in any case I was whacked. So back here to crash out for a couple of hours. And it was a mistake to eat the grapes and the sugar-free sweets so quickly as I was in … errr … some discomfort for a while.

I went to the footy too this evening. Pionsat’s 3rd XI playing the league leaders so you would normally expect a hammering, but the 2nd XI have no game tomorrow and so there were several … errr … discrete changes to the team line-up, And although they had yet another makeshift goalkeeper (who did really well and I was surprised by that) they had a 2nd XI centre-half playing and it was amazing how much it stiffened the defence.

Pionsat actually won 2-1, with two disputed goals. One was scored by three players cantering off down the pitch while everyone else was waiting for the offside flag. I was in no position to judge but one of their spectators thought that the ref got it right.

I’ve been saying all along that there isn’t much wrong with Pionsat’s 3rd XI that a real goalie and a couple of decent players in key positions can’t put right, and it was proved right tonight.

p>Pionsat’s second goal was a penalty – a clear foul, no mistake about that, but as to whether it was in the area, all I can say is that I was almost level with the area and the Bromont players had some of my sympathy. After that, the match became a little naughty and we had a running feud down each touchline for a while.

Still Bromont should have buried the game and they only have themselves to blame for losing it. Clean through on goal three or four times and one shot round the post, one off the bar, and two straight at Stephane (and didn’t he do well to hang on to them with forwards charging in and he’s never played a real match in goal before?)

But now I’ve had a doze this afternoon, it’s 04:00 and I can’t sleep at all. Crazy.

Friday 18th March 2011 – I’m having another early night tonight.

Yes, I can’t last the pace these days.

I was awake again long before the alarm clock, and I was up, dressed, breakfasted and out working by 09:00. Caliburn is now emptied completely and everything is stacked in the lean-to. Some of those boxes were heavy and it wasn’t half a struggle as well. But there’s plenty of room in there ready for more stuff.

Once that had been done I had to pick up a pile of stuff that had fallen all over the floor in where the living room will be (so that’s what the crash was when I was in bed) and then I brought all of the clothes up here. And that wasn’t easy either.

I had a rest for a few hours after that and did more work on my web site. It won’t be long before the Trans-Labrador Highway pages go on line.

Finally I started to tidy up in the barn so that I can start to move the stuff that came from Brussels in February. You may recall that I had to come back twice and each time I brought a load of stuff back. I need to get that ready as soon as possible so that I can rescue the stuff round at Terry and Liz’s. And then go back to Brussels for the Minerva and some more stuff.

But it’s wearing me out, all of this. I dunno how many consecutive early nights this will be but I’m sure that it will be a record.

Thursday 17th March 2011 – It all depends on if you are an optimist or a pessimist …

…as to whether you would say that Caliburn is half-empty or half-full. And so seeing as I am in the process of unloading him, I’ll say that he is half-empty.

So after my incredibly early start this morning, I managed to get the Ford Cortina 2000E estate off the trailer and parked up at the side of the lane. That was quite interesting too but I took the HT lead off to make sure that the engine didn’t fire up while I was bumping it off the trailer with the starter. We’ve had enough issues with unexpected firings-up of engines while manoeuvring around tight corners on the starter motor just recently – we don’t want any more.

And once I started up the engine it promptly ran out of fuel. But some nice clean new petrol doesn’t half make it run easier.

Once the 2000E was safely parked up I dismantled the room in which I lived for 2 years – the little lean-to. The fitted bed and shelves have all gone and once it was empty it had a good brush and a clean.

After lunch I had to go into Pionsat for a few things and on my return I started on the emptying of Caliburn. The boxes will be stacked in the little lean-to that I have just cleaned and which will eventually be transformed into the office.

Next plan once I’ve emptied Caliburn is to sort out the barn, tow the old caravan body outside and burn it (I was going to keep it but I need the space now) and put the furniture from the Brussels apartment in there until I can move it into the house.

I’m going to have my work cut out.

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Wednesday 16th March 2011 – Ohhh ‘eck

Errr .. yes, It’s almost 06:00 and I’ve been awake for a couple of hours.

What usually happens is that when I come back from a long drive I go for a kip for an hour or two in the early afternoon but today I wasn’t feeling tired. That’s a surprise because I didn’t have much of a sleep by the roadside last night. The dawn woke me up and I was back here by 08:30.

And so I pottered around for a bit doing not very much at all. At about 16:00 I went out to Caliburn and emptied the cab, and gave it a good brush, a sweep-out and a tidy up.

Back up here round about 18:00 that was when I started to feel a little tired. And so I reckoned I would have a couple of hours on the divan before tea. And that was that.

In other news, I see that the UK is up to its old tricks. The police are called to a local park by a local councillor for a most heinous crime – a couple of little girls are …….. wait for it …… picking the flowers.

Clearly the local councillor is too afraid to go to speak to the girls himself, the hero, and so two coppers come along, spend 20 minutes watching the kids picking the flowers, and then go over and caution them and their parents. Heavy stuff, hey? Whatever would the Kray Twins have said?

And so that’s two coppers hiding behind bushes watching little girls for 20 minutes (Garry Glitter got 18 months in prison for doing that) becuse a Councillor is too afraid to carry out his civic duties, and all the while crime is rampant on the streets of Poole in Dorset.

You can’t make up a story like this, can you?

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Tuesday 15th March 2011 – Well, I’m off!

Yes, and in news that will surprise, if not stagger, every single (and even the married) readers of this blog, yesterday I was up, breakfasted and working long before the alarm went off. And by choice as well!

We took the sofa and the mattress downstairs to Caliburn and they went off to the tip. Terry came to help so it didn’t take long. And after fuelling up at the garage where the old man moans like hell if you spill any diesel, we came home and carried on emptying.

The Estate Agent came and spent an hour poking around. She fell in love with the kitchen, which I knew she would, after all Marianne who chose it for me has excellent taste. And I mean – what with Liz whose taste is just as good, who can possibly go wrong?

Once that was done we loaded both vans, thoroughly cleaned up, hitched up the trailer to Caliburn and then fought our way through the rush-hour traffic to the motorway (well, it was 17:20 when we set off). Terry and Liz went home at their own pace while Caliburn and I pulled the 2000E on the trailer over the Ardennes and then over the Monts de la Bourgogne, so it was a long night for us.

But having towed all kinds of trailers with all kinds of cars on them, this trailer that Terry bought to move his tractor and the scaffolding is the best that I have ever used and it is well-worth the money. I’m seriously impressed with that.

I had a few hours sleep on the N7 between Nevers and Moulins as I didn’t want to arrive here in the dark. Reversing the trailer in the pitch-black with no marker lights is not my idea of fun.

But talking of crashing, the concierge of the apartments came over to chat to me while we were loading the van.
“While you were taking your old car out of the garage downstairs, you didn’t see anyone trying to break into the garage opposite? There’s a huge dent in the door as if someone has driven right into it trying to break it down“
“To be honest, Mme Rascar, while Terry and I were down there getting the car out, we didn’t see anyone else at all“
Isn’t that bizarre?

What is even more bizarre though is that in the past, if anything in the building had gone slightly wrong, people would always come round to blame me for it, even if I hadn’t been there for a month. But they can’t say anything to me right now because they know what to expect. After the issues about my LDV being parked there for a while and the fuss that they made about it, there are two vehicles even more abandoned than the LDV parked there right now. And the first word that anyone says to me about anything and they know exactly what response they will receive.

Monday 14th March 2011 – After all that happened yesterday …

… I was out like a light until 07:30.

My swollen face has gone down quite a bit today which is just as well as I had to go out shopping for more supplies.

But almost everything is done, a good deal of the furniture and so on is downstairs ready for loading, and the Cortina is now on the trailer. That was exciting, moving that, and I’ll tell you more about it at a later date when all of the fuss has died down.

The good news though is that it may well be that with the Estate Agent coming tomorrow and valuing the place, and then finishing off and tidying up, we might even be away by tomorrow night if we are lucky. That would be exciting if it happens. Otherwise it will be Wednesday when we set sail for home.

And not before time either. The hotel plan has fallen through because with everything that we’ve been doing, the place is clean and tidy enough and we can simply retreat out of the apartment dragging the vacuum cleaner behind us. That will save us a good day or two anyway and I can’t say that I’m sorry.

Sunday 13th March 2011 – The things I do …

…to get out of working on a Sunday!

The toothache kept me awake all through Saturday night and so in the end I tracked down the Dentiste du Garde and booked an appointment. Earliest that I could get was 10:00. Ahh well! When Liz came into the kitchen she took one look at my face and burst out laughing – the left side had swollen up like a balloon.

Anyway, off to the dentist’s I went. All the way to the back of Ixelles. I was there by 09:40 (no traffic on the roads) and I was out at 10:00. He cut open the tooth (no anaesthetic but it made no difference as the tooth is thoroughly dead and I didn’t feel a thing), pulled out the infected root, and that was that. Of course, with the emergency dentists there is no finesse or subtlety – it’s pretty much production-line dentistry but it was better than nothing.

Back home and with no pain at all, relatively speaking, I crashed out for an hour or two while Terry and Liz painted the woodwork in the new bedroom. I woke up at about 14:00 and pottered around to help out for a couple of hours, and then crashed out again. 20:00 that was,

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Saturday 12th March 2011 – I’ve had the raging toothache all day

And I’m probably going to have it all night too, which is a shame. But never mind, at least it’s Sunday so when I do eventually go to sleep I don’t have to wake up so early.

But today for just a change we worked a full day. The bedroom ceiling that we painted looked really good and it has come out well. And so then I did the back wall of the rear terrace and that’s good too. Terry busied himself by starting to move the furniture out, and that’s a good sign.

After Liz and I had painted the bedroom walls and let it dry, we did a quick inspection. And that’s pretty good too and ordinarily we would have knocked off then and there. But with the bedroom looking so good we took an executive decision and decided to paint the woodwork in there too. And that was where the time went.

Tonight the staff clamoured for a pizza and so we went to La Carrettera in Jette. I could only manage a pasta in home-made garlic sauce as I’m having a bit of difficulty chewing things right now. I hope I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be a day of rest but I have a sneaky feeling that Liz will want to put the second coat of gloss onto the woodwork in the bedroom.

Ahhh well.

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Friday 11th March 2011 – I’m going to be having an early night this evening.

And I’m not the only one either. Terry and Liz are quite exhausted too, and I’m not surprised as we’ve been working really hard again.

I emptied out my bedroom and then Terry and I tidied the garage downstairs so that we could move all of the stuff down there. We also loaded Caliburn with some stuff for the dechetterie, whenever it will be that we will go there. But that’s not going to be for a few days yet as most of the furniture that remains will be going with it.

I came back upstairs and put the second coat of paint on the door frame and the first coat of paint on the wall of the back terrace while Terry finished the walls in the hall. During all of this, Liz was cleaning the bedroom.

While Terry redid the walls in the hall, Liz and I set about the bedroom. What with Liz on the paintbrush and me on the roller we had two coats on the ceiling and one on the wall in no time flat. We even took the radiator off (that’s all of the radiators that have been off now) to do behind it.

We then went out onto the front terrace and scrubbed down the guard rails and the new tiles, and that is looking quite pretty now. And while I went off to buy more paint (we are getting through that rather quickly) Terry and Liz finished off cleaning and waxing the floor in the living room.

No wonder we are all exhausted.

So the plan now is –

tomorrow the second coats of paint on the back terrace wall and in the bedroom, and cleaning and waxing the floor in the hall.
Monday will be doing everything else that we have forgotten.
Tuesday morning will be emptying the apartment of absolutely everything and me going to the dechetterie. But I have to be back at 11:00 as that is when the estate agent is coming.
Once he has gone we will be taking up residence in a hotel for two nights and using Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday to clean the place from top to bottom, and then loading up the two vans.
Thursday morning will see the Cortina on the trailer and then it’s off back home. I’ve decided to take the Cortina regardless and come back for the Minerva. It’s easier to do it that way round.

But back home on Thursday?

Can I remember the way?

Thursday 10th March 2011 – I have to go to rescue my Minerva.

If you are fairly new to these pages I bet you don’t know that I own a Minerva. It’s something I bought years ago while I was on the lookout for an old Land Rover for hauling logs around the farm. Ever since then it’s been in storage near Antwerp but I received an e-mail today to say that the storage facilities are closing down and I need to move it.

Luckily we are here with Terry’s big trailer, and I reckon that the Minerva will fit on it. It’s rather a shame in a way because I was hoping to be able to move the Cortina 2000E estate and get that down to the farm, but it will still be nice to recover the Minerva after all these years. Ahhh well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ve painted the door frame to the apartment and I’ve also prepared the wall at the back of the terrace. But when I went out to paint that, the wind blew me back inside again. It was rough out there, and so that will have to wait until another day.

This afternoon I cleaned all of the paintwork in the hall and then painted the ceiling in there.

Terry carried on with the odd jobs such as repapering part of the kitchen and fixing a few electrical items while Liz carried on with her marathon floor-waxing, with the help of Terry once the little jobs were finished. Once the floor was something like, we moved the living room back into where it ought to be and I’ve moved my bed and computer into this room while Terry and Liz started to paint the walls in the hallway.

Tomorrow I have to empty out my room of what is left there and then give it a good clean, put the second coat of paint on the door frame and paint the terrace wall if the wind will let me. Terry and Liz will finish the walls in the hallway and then paint my bedroom. The second coat for the hall and bedroom is planned for Saturday morning, and then all that will remain will be touching up in the blue bedroom where Terry and Liz are sleeping.

And that, dear reader, will be that. We’ll empty the place on Monday morning, have an estate agent round on Monday afternoon and then adjourn to a hotel for a couple of days so that the place will be completely empty so that we can do the touching up.

Such is the plan. And so you just watch something happen to upset it all.

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Wednesday 9th March 2011 – The situation here now is …

that Terry and I have started on the odd jobs. It seems that major tasks for the two of us have finished.

I didn’t paint my doors today for the simple reason that the paint that I bought is nothing like the correct colour and so we decided that just the one coat (that which I put on yesterday) would be enough. And so I spent all morning scrubbing the floor in the cupboard and then mopping it out.

This afternoon I scrubbed the wall at the back of the terrace at the back of the apartment. It’s come up really clean and ready for a nice coat of white stone paint. Just the thing to set off the black tiles that we put on the floor. To finish off the day, I sanded down the doorframe of the front door – outside in the hallway. That will have a coat of gleaming white gloss first thing tomorrow – it’ll be the first thing that prospective purchasers will see so it needs to look good.

Terry was busy too, doing all kinds of things around and about. He’s also hung the curtains in the living room, taken another huge pile of stuff down to the garage, and been moving stuff around in the living room.

Liz though has been extremely busy. She’s been scrubbing the parquet floor in the living room, sanding it down with an electric sander, spreading about some liquid wax that I found in the garage, and then polishing it up with Terry’s electric car polisher. And do you know what? The results are quite impressive. It’s flaming hard work though and she was exhausted afterwards and so to save everyone’s energy I took everyone to the fritkot for tea. The food there is really quite good and I thoroughly recommend it.

In other news, I’ve posted on the internet a trial page of my Trans-Labrador Highway tour from last autumn. It’s the page where I visit Red Bay, the site of the 16th Century Basque whaling station. Have a read of it and let me know what you think as I have a cunning plan involving this page and so it needs to be good.

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Tuesday 8th March 2011 – I’m going to have another early night this evening as well.

It’s hard work at the moment doing all of this. Terry has been grouting the tiles on the terraces and then sealing all of the concrete, followed by painting the metal guard rails out there. Liz has been painting the ceiling and the woodwork in the living room, and I have been rubbing down the rest of the doors in the hall and then putting on the first coat of paint.

But I’ve run out of paint and so that called for a shopping expedition to Brico, only to discover that the paint that I’ve been using and which I bought in about 2004, has been discontinued. I’ve found some that looks near enough but I hope it’s going to be okay. I don’t want to repaint all of the woodwork in the hall. There are seven doors for a start.

We had some excitement coming back from Brico this evening. I pulled past a parking space, put Caliburn into reverse, the reversing lights came on brightly (as it was pitch dark outside) and as I set off backwards, some kid on a pushbike decided to cycle behind the van. I almost got him as well, and if he tries a stupid stunt like that next time, I’ll flaming well get him too and shan’t spare a moment of regret about it either.

What with crazy kids on pushbikes, old women with dogs tearing down our safety barrier to take the short cut to the grass while we are manoeuvring large, thick and heavy tiles six stories directly above their heads, I’m convinced that everyone here is totally off their heads. I’m not going to be sorry to get back home

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Monday 7th March 2011 – I’m going to have an early night just now.

I didn’t sleep very well last night and so I’m hopefully going to make up for it. And I deserve it as well as we’ve had yet another day of hard work. What is even more exciting is that we seem to be on the downhill slope.

While Liz carried on painting the woodwork in the living room and I carried on painting the cupboard, Terry started to empty the place of all of the tiling gear and the tools and material that we won’t be using again. Now that is major progress without a doubt, beginning to empty the place.

And when the cupboard was finished I dismantled all of the shelving in my office. Terry took it downstairs while I joined Liz in the living room and put the second coat of paint on the wall. And once that was done we tidied up the plastic sheets protecting the floor and had a good sweep up.

Liz carried on with the woodwork afterwards and Terry grouted the main terrace but I’ve made a start in the hall sticking down the loose wallpaper and scrubbing the outside of the front door to clean it. Yes, cleaning and tidying – these are all positive signs.

Tomorrow I have to sand down the outside of the bathroom door and the outside of the living room door and then I can paint those along with the outside of the cupboard door. Liz will have finished the woodwork by then and Terry the grouting on the back terrace, and then we can get on with the cleaning and tidying and touching up.

It’s all looking a lot more positive here now.

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Sunday 6th March 2011 – Today was exciting.

Manure Knighted were well and truly stuffed by the Bin Dippers this afternoon. Seeing them have a good stuffing is something that always cheers me up and I always feel better afterwards. Even if it is Sunday and I’ve had a decent sleep for a change.

And so a leisurely morning listening to Terry cheering on the Barmy Army also made quite a change.

Later on Liz and I went round to Marianne’s and ended up going for a walk in the park. We took the ferry over to the island (cost €1:00 – no wonder the Flemish are good swimmers) where I had the coldest cup of coffee I have ever had in a restaurant while Marianne and Liz had the poorest excuse for a cappuccino that I have ever seen.

And all for €8:50 as well, plus the fare on the ferry to cross over to the island. It’s not been a very good afternoon from that point of view.

Marianne came back to the apartment where Liz cooked another one of her specialities – spicy Shepherd’s Pie (made with real shepherds, so I am assured) and then I ran Marianne home again.

In other news, in writing up my epic voyage around Canada I am just about to have my first glimpse of the sea and of Newfoundland. It’s getting to the climax and the tension is unbearable. I need to make quicker progress as the suspense is killing me. I must know what happens next.

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EPIC HALL

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