Saturday 10th July 2010 – There was no mistake this morning …

… about the weather. I awoke quite early to the sound of what was without question a driving rainstorm. And when I went out a little later we had had about 4.5mm of rainfall through the night.

That may not sound like a lot and over a surface area of 6.5 square metres (the verandah) where about 155mm of rainfall would make 1000 litres, then the 30 litres of rain from today is pretty small beer.

But off just one side of the barn roof, which has a footprint of about 16m x 3.5m, or 56 square metres, then almost ten times that is quite a lot.

You’ll see the impromptu drainage system that I’ve rigged up (don’t worry that it is neither straight nor square – this is just a temporary lash-up) and if you look closely at the 203-litre water butt, you’ll see that it’s overflowing. And quite right too!

So much so in fact that I’m going to change some of the drainage around on the house so that the drainage on the lean-to (all 8 square metres of it plus the part of the house roof that falls onto there) will drain into the water butts at the verandah.

Terry has found me some puzzolane and I’ve also thought of yet another amelioration to the water supply and so I reckon that next week I’ll have a good go at this.

Lieneke woke me up this morning. She needed to talk to Terry and so I gave her all of his contact details. It involves The Folding Stuff so it’s pretty important. And after computing for a while I did a couple of odd jobs. I now have a bracket for holding the ramps onto the towing dolly and I’ve also done something with the guttering on the far side of the barn.

I haven’t shown you anything of the solar shower yet. I spent some time this afternoon working on it and now that it is sort-of finished for the moment, all can be revealed.

We’ve started off with a black IKEA storage box, of which I have more than a few lying around here. I’ve drilled a hole in the bottom and fitted a connection with a tap. And then we have a simple shower pipe and head from my old place in Brussels.

But that’s not the most exciting part of it. I’ve erected a metal framework using an old set of shelving units and put the storage box onto the top, covering it with an old caravan window. It’s nothing exciting, but it all seems to work.

I’ve an idea about filling it too but that calls for yet more engineering, but seeing as it was 19:15 when I knocked off (and I still managed to find the time to fit in a solar shower from the old system) I called it a day instead.

But I’m intrigued to see how this new siting of the solar water will fit in with the temperature readings that I have been keeping. It’ll attract the sun much earlier in the day for a start, that’s for sure.

And in other news, my brassica have now been attacked by the Cabbage White Butterfly and four times a day I’m engaged with stripping the caterpillars off the plants before they strip the plants. So far it’s a draw but it’s hard work.

And in other other news, it seems that I was rather careless when potting up some seeds. I now have a huge tomato plant growing in the middle of the greenhouse.

-2

Friday 9th July 2010 – As I have said before ….

… if you are the kind of person who is always in a hurry or rushing around for appointments and the like then you don’t want to be living around here.

Not with leviathans like this roaming around the lanes round here anyway.

I encountered these two beasts on my way back from Commentry. The other side of Ronnet it was, and it wasn’t until we reached the Abbey of Bellaigues that they took the high road and I took the low road. About 6 miles of 25kph with nowhere to pass them. Ahhh well!

This morning I was awoken at 06:04 by a storm – howling winds and all that kind of thing. I was half-expecting torrential rain but when I finally crawled out of my stinking pit (09:40 – I was having a lie-in after my efforts on the roof) there wan’t a trace of anything.I surely can’t have dreamt it all?

So a couple of hours catching up on the computer and then off to Commentry for shopping. And nothing really interesting at all. But even more interesting – I’m trying to set up my water filters and can I elephants find any puzzolane. I asked inter alia at the local builders’ merchants and he had to look up in his catalogue before telling me that he didn’t have any. In case you are wondering what puzzolane is, it’s a certain type of volcanic lava – lightweight, porous and made of carbon and it’s a superb natural water filter.

In the Puy de Dome there are over 80 dormant volcanoes all of which have produced puzzolane, and not for nothing is this region littered with commercialised natural springs – Volvic being the prime example but there are many others. All the ground water is filtered through the natural puzzolane layers. So why can’t I get hold of any?

Back at Pooh Corner, having unloaded Caliburn, I made a desultory start on tidying up. But the weather clouded over and it looked like rain so grabbing hold of a few offcuts and odds-and-ends I’ve rigged up a kind of downspout system for one of my spare 203-litre water butts to catch the rain that might fall on the barn roof.

And badger me if, when I came in and read my messages, that Krys hadn’t written to me to suggest that I think about a way of collecting the rainwater that falls on the roof. Great Minds or Fools, Ms Stephenson?

And now it’s 00:30 – 7 hours after I fixed this downspout – and it’s rumbling away with thunder and flashing away with lightning and not a drop of rain has fallen. All my plants and I could do with a heavy downpour, especially through the night. I can’t wait to see the water cascade off the barn roof and into the water butt.

And another solar shower this evening. That’s 6 consecutive days. I was never this clean when I lived in my apartment in Brussels!

-3

Thursday 8th July 2010 – Wahey!

Yes, I now have a barn roof duly completed, complete with ridge tiles and guttering, all cut nicely to shape.

We started off this morning by bending the ridge tiles to fit before we took them up and in 45 minutes with no worries and no panic they were all fitted. I wouldn’t say “nicely” but they are all on and firmly fixed and cover up the ridge of the roof.

And then the fun began.

We coupled up an inverter to power the jigsaw for cutting the sheets but the inverter burnt out. So after some messing around we went on a tour of the local shops in Youx, Montaigut en Combraille and St Eloy les Mines for a decent heavy-duty metal saw but without luck. We then tried another inverter and the Scorpion saw but that was no better. In the end we had a brainwave – and the Ryobi circular saw came to the rescue. It badgered up the blade well and truly but it did an excellent job.

But then we realised that the roof had been cut too long and the blade was too badly damaged for another cut, so Terry fetched his huge battery-powered saw and as luck would have it the blade off my 650-watt mains saw fitted right on.

All that remained was to fix the guttering. We did as much of that as we could but we didn’t have an angled joint for the bend, and it was too sharp to wrap the guttering around. I can do that at a later date, or else I’ll have to invent something.

I also need to re-position one of the brackets at the end of the roof but that can be a ladder job too.

Once all of that had been done, we needed to take down the scaffolding. No reason to leave that up against the barn when it can be doing other things.

But before we did that I climbed up on the roof to seize the opportunity to take a photo of the house and the solar panels. I haven’t had a good shot of those yet. And it looks as if I’ll have to fix the guttering on the house roof before I’m much older, doesn’t it?

Now the scaffolding is down and Terry has gone and it’s all absolutely superb. I’m really impressed and a major thanks to Terry for giving me so much help and getting me organised.

Krys asked me what I intend to do in the barn when it’s finished. In fact it’s going to be for storage, a workshop for joinery and engineering projects, and a garage workshop for my collection of old cars that I can now go and rescue.

Tomorrow will be a day off as I’m whacked. And I sincerely hope it rains buckets because I’ll go outside and watch it.

And yet another solar shower this evening. I’ve abandoned (for the moment) the LIDL garden shower and am using a hand-held shower head.

-3

Wednesday 7th July 2010 – We’ve almost finished this roof

We started off by changing many of the chevrons and fitting the laths. All of this lot, in fact. But despite what it looked like, it didn’t take long at all and it was finished before midday, even with the little alterations we needed to make.

But I now know why there was a very large overhang on the other side. The two sides of the barn roof are different length and we’ve put the sheets on the wrong side of the roof. Hence we were struggling for space here and I had to cut the ends off some of the chevrons on this side.

>But after an early lunch we started to put the sheets on and by 16:00 we were finished.

All that remained for today was the fitting of the ridge sheets but that was another story. I managed to fit half of one and that took half an hour. It was no fun mauling them over the apex of a hot tin roof in a scorching sunlight. They wouldn’t bend where they were supposed to and when they did the screws weren’t long enough to fasten them down.

There was no point getting frustrated and so in the end we called it an early day. We’ll have another go tomorrow and use some longer stainless steel screws, some silicone washers and a couple of speed clamps. And if that doesn’t work we’ll use a pilot drill and some pop rivets. But I’ll get them on somehow.

Once they are done, there’s just trimming the sheets, fixing the guttering and then dismantling the scaffolding and that will be that. And I won’t half be relieved. I was so knackered that after Terry went I sat in a chair and crashed out until 18:00. But another solar shower (the fourth consecutive one) brought me round.

And that’s Friday’s job – working on the solar shower.

-3

Tuesday 6th July 2010 – Simon came …

… round this morning to see what we were up to and he was soon enlisted in the struggle. Between the three of us we had the scaffolding up in no time. As we found last year when Dave Boustead came for a couple of days, an extra pair of hands can make a considerable difference to the speed at which you can work.

Just one row of scaffolding (3 metres height) was sufficient to reach the roof on this side of the barn

Once the scaffolding was up, we all set to work and had a really good go at stripping all of the tiles off the roof. They didn’t need much, it has to be said, and thanks to Simon who stayed around for a while, we had that job finished well before lunch.

We discovered all kinds of things in these roof spaces, including the most beautiful birds’ nest wedged into the woodwork of the place. Someone had taken ages to build that.

There were also the usual suspects – a mouse nest and some ant nests – sheltering in the roof under the tiles but Terry struck gold yet again. This time he disturbed a sleeping bat. Simon also found wasps nest, the inhabitants of which took a great exception to being ejected from their home and Simon was forced onto the defensive.

And that wasn’t all either. There were also several trees growing in the barn roof and a couple of those were impressive. They looked as if they had been there for years

Once the tiles were off we took off all of the laths. We were of course planning to change the chevrons too but they look in really good condition for the most part. One or two are perished, one has dry rot and one or two ends have gone but the rest are very good. One or two look like they are just out of the sawmill.

A few ends have been cut and replaced too and so we reckon that this side of the roof has been repaired once in the past.

Tomorrow we’ll be fitting the laths and starting on fitting the sheets.

This evening I was speaking at a meeting on eco-construction. There were only 10 or so people there but as usual it’s quality not quantity. One or two people were very interested in my project and they may well be coming to visit me next week. I shall have to get moving.

-3

Monday 5th July 2010 – Today was an important day …

… in the story of the barn roof for if you look closely at the image just here you will see that all of the roofing sheets are fitted and the kwikstage scaffolding has been taken down.

And not only that either but although you can’t see it clearly we have guttering all down the side of the roof too. No downpipes as yet but that’s not an issue as I still haven’t solved the question of the evacuation of the water. Nevertheless this is progress.

In the previous photo you could make out the wind turbine. In this photo you can see it much better now that it’s in its permanent home at the other end of the barn.

We are also well-advanced in the fabrication of the framework to mount the solar panels down there too. We were well on our way to doing that but we came to a shuddering halt as we couldn’t find the three T-brackets that I used to mount the solar panel on the garden fence back in 2007 when Liz came here and that was annoying.

But a discovery I did make was the little mains angle-grinder that I bought a while ago. The cordless Ryobi is good enough but you’ll be amazed at how quickly it drains the battery. Cutting the pipe with the little mains grinder was no problem.

But now that the scaffolding is down we are going to erect it on the other side of the barn tomorrow and take off the tiles from there. Because of the way that the land slopes around here the other side of the roof is nothing like as high so we don’t need as much scaffolding and what we do need will be erected pretty quickly.

Who knows? We may even have this roof done by the weekend.

-2

Sunday 4th July 2010 – Even though it was Sunday today …

… I’ve been working today. Yes, it does occasionally happen.

In this photo you can see the huge stack of wood that I treated with xylophene wood treatment – the stuff that kills all of the nasty beasties.

In fact it didn’t take all that long to do – not if you line all the bits up adjacent to each other and attack them with a paint roller soaked in the stuff (that’s what the black container is for). All you do is to whallop the stuff on, turn the wood on its side and do the next side and then keep on going until all of the sides and all of the pieces are done.

Before that I was up a ladder repositioning a gutter mounting bracket and then taking down the mast for the wind turbine – that’s going to be mounted elsewhere as you know. And I took the opportunity to hunt down a spare blade (and that wasn’t easy either) to replace the one that broke a while ago.

Lieneke came around for a chat too – she’s going to talk to Terry about some work. And once she had gone it was shower-time, and we aren’t talking about the Open University Students Association either. 36°C the water was at 18;20 when I knocked off and so I took full advantage. After all, I missed the swimming baths yesterday.

This morning though I didn’t do too much. After all it is Sunday. 2 telephone calls one after the other summoned me from my reverie at some ungodly hour … “you mean 10:10” – ed … and after breakfast I entered the stats onto the computer, something I hadn’t done since March and there was a lot of catching up to do.

And talking of stats, on the 1st of July I started a new record book as the old one is now full. August 2007 I started keeping records and there were just four items that I recorded. Today there are about 35 entries that I need to make each evening. But filling the first book is definitely progress.

-4

Saturday 3rd July 2010 – Today was really decided for me.

You may remember that last night I was undecided about what to do today and so while musing over the problem with a coffee this morning, the phone rang. Nada had been wanting to come round and see Pooh Corner for a while and could she come this afternoon?

I told her to come this evening instead and I legged it into Commentry where I bought all of the stuff I needed to finish off the guttering, the stuff I needed to make the puzzolane water filter (except the puzzolane), a pile of stuff from the cheapo shop (including a load of those clip-together storage bins at €1 for 3) and then back here and a quick tidy up.

While the tidying up was in progress we had a huge thunderstorm that presented us with 5mm of rain and flattened my potatoes (but at least it soaked all of the plants which is a good thing) and then Nada came round for her visit.

This evening was the annual walk around Virlet to get to know the commune and Nada came with me for the walk – it turns out that she knows the Mayor’s wife. Going for a tramp in the woods was out of the question due to the thunderstorm and the fact that we wouldn’t have caught him anyway

Instead, we visited the highlights of the village – namely the church that blew down in the hurricane in 1999, the old house that is on the point of falling down, and the cemetery which is of course right in the dead centre of the village.

Virlet is of course a very healthy village – so much so that they employ a man to go round the cemetery at closing time to tell the deceased to go back to sleep. It’s a huge cemetery for such a small village and an American tourist said “do people die here often then?”
The cemetery keeper replied “no – just the once like everywhere else”
The wall is quite high too and our American visitor wanted to know why they bothered to put a wall around it. The keeper replied that it was because people were dying to get in.
And I was impressed with the cemetery keeper. He told me that his job carried a great deal of responsibility – he had 500 people under him.
One thing that he did try to tell me was to reserve my plot. There were no English people buried in there (not that I am English but let’s not spoil this story by introducing facts into it). He did say that there was a Scots grave in the cemetery. So I wandered off to have a look, and there it was – “Here lies Jock MacTavish, a loyal father and a devoted husband”. Now isn’t that just like the Scots to bury three men in one grave?

One of the issues with burials here is the cost – it isn’t cheap. You can now get burials done on the instalment plan – they bury your left arm the first month, the right arm the second month et cetera. And I did ask the keeper what happens if you miss an instalment. “Well”, he replied “we simply dig them up”.

On leaving the cemetery this old guy was struggling his best to catch up with us.
“How old are you?” asked the cemetery keeper
“I’m 102 years old” he replied
“Well, it’s hardly worth your while going home then, is it?”

Because of the inclement weather, they decided to abandon the idea of lighting up the bonfire. Instead, we all went into the village hall for drinks and cakes and to have a good chat. It’s just a shame that there weren’t more of us.

You can’t have a village fête without inviting Strawberry Moose. He is very popular and took advantage of the occasion to have a photo opportunity with some more new friends. He’s always up for that.

A little later we decided that regardless of the weather we would indeed all go outside and have a go at lighting the bonfire after all. Perhaps the wine played something of a part in this decision.

I tried to encourage the deputy mayoress to play the leading role in my new production of “Joan of Arc” but she wasn’t having it. Shame. Everyone else thought that it would be a good idea.

We had a good time talking and telling jokes, all that kind of thing. It really was a nice friendly gathering and represents the best of French village life – something that you probably won’t understand if you have never taken part in it. And at midnight, with dogs and children all long-since asleep we all called it a night.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to make up for this by painting the wood for next week and doing the gutttering. I shall have to get my finger out.

-3

Friday 2nd July 2010 – Up until about 21:00 this evening …

… the weather was magnificent. In fact it was far too magnificent to work.

This morning we put up a small scaffolding at the southern end of the barn and while Terry was drilling and screwing into the wall for the mounting brackets I was sawing and cutting scaffolding pipe to make a framework to mount the solar panels that are on the roof of the Luton Transit.

I’ll be fitting them permanently onto this end of the barn along with the wind turbine that we took down from the north end of the barn.

But we were defeated by that most unusual phenomenon – overheating batteries. When they went flat in the Hitachi SDS drill (and what a good purchase that was!) they were too hot to take a charge. Mind you, it was only 37°C today – the hottest of the year.

Not to be outdone however we started on the guttering of the barn as you can see. I told Terry that there are four classes of people in France

the peasants – the ones with the leaky roofs
the lower class – the ones with roofs that don’t leak
the middle class – the ones with guttering on their barn …

“What’s the fourth class?” asked Terry

“The ones with drains to take away the water!”

But having seen how dry the house walls have become since I put guttering up, then my barn will have it too. I’m sick and tired of being up to my neck in mud. But I’ll have to wait a bit for the drains though.

The chevrons are much too short for the roofing (I went for a long overhang) and so a fascia board is out of the question but they did have at Brico Depot yesterday some galvanised straps with the facility for a sliding attachment. If you bend the straps so that the sliders are at about 60° there’s still a good 9 inches or so on the straps and they fit nicely onto the chevrons and you can bolt the gutter mounts to them and they are then perfectly vertical.

We did what we could bearing in mind that we had no joints (moving the scaffolding out to give us clearance was fun) but by 15:00 it was no longer possible to work up there. The combination of a searing hot metal roof, blinding sunlight and tools too hot to touch made us call it a day.

I did a little some while later and then history was made by my not only having a solar shower (and this LIDL garden shower thing needs some attention) but a solar shave as well. And no surprise – the water temperature was a phenomenal 46°C

We had a barbecue round at Clare’s tonight. Esther hosted it and very kindly invited me, and of course Strawberry Moose met some of his admirers. James and Julianna drew some good pictures of him too.

But by 21:00 we were having thunder and lightning and we even had some rain. But nothing like as much as we need. And right now the sky is a clear cloudless starry night promising much more sun for tomorrow. I have to go to Commentry to look for joints and downpipe and then it’s a toss-up as to whether I come back to do the guttering or go for a swim.

We shall see.

-7

Thursday 1st July 2010 – I mentioned yesterday …

… that one side of the barn roof is finished. And so, here’s a pic that I took this morning not long after I woke up.

It’s quite impressive this roofing stuff isn’t it?

I’ve been quite busy today, although it might not seem much like it. I started off with a little gardening and then went into Pionsat for 11:00 to meet Max the secretary of Pionsat’s football club who had to sign a document or two for me.

Then it was back to gardening again and everything that is going to be planted this year is now planted and that is that.

That took me until 13:10 when I went chaud-pied into Montlucon. First stop was LIDL as they were selling some more 12-volt LEDs and at €3.99 too – I bought a pile of them. And then to Brico Depot for the guttering, the nails and stuff. No downpipes and no joints (it’s a rather familiar lament isn’t it?) but tons of other stuff, including a pile of drawers (not THAT kind of drawers, Rhys!). Yes, here I am planning to build myself a fitted wardrobe and a fitted kitchen and there they were with some end-of-range drawer kit – deep 40mm ones at €3.50 (you can’t even buy the sliders for that) and deep 60mm ones at €5.00. I now have 8 of each which is impressive.

Following that was my test d’effort. They put me on a running walkway thing for 7 minutes and attached a load of electrodes to me. I ran about 2.5km in that time (and in that heat too – it’s been glorious today) and the verdict is “very good condition for his age”. I sound like a horse or an old Ford Cortina.

I’d missed the post by then and so I had to drive all the way to Clermont Ferrand to deliver my file to the Referees’ Association, taking in a visit to the Auchan on the way. And I can’t find my satnav now – another thing I’ve mislaid.

But the highlight of the day had to be in the doctor’s this afternoon. He was helping me fill in the medical form –
“Sex?” he asked
“Put down ‘yes’ for that” I replied.
“Errrr … I think they wan’t you to put down ‘M’ or ‘F’ there” said the doctor.
“Okay – put down ‘M’ then” I said. “It’s been years since I’ve had an ‘F'”.

-2

Wednesday 30th June 2010 – We talked the other day …

… about a malfunctioning shower (and we aren’t talking about people from the Open University Students Association either) so I thought that you might like to see a pic of the current shower installation.

It’s an intake pipe wedged into a hollow brick (which acts as a weight when I throw it into the solar tank) and which is connected to the intake of an old caravan footpump that is fastened onto an old pallet.

The outlet is connected to a garden hose and that was what I used to shower myself with tonight. The water was a lovely 37°C too and it didn’t half feel good.

But as to why there’s a garden hose attachment on the outlet pipe is because a couple of weeks ago LIDL was having one of its usual sales and on offer was a garden shower that you connect to a hosepipe. Bill picked up one of those for me and I’m going to hunt it down tomorrow so I shall be all set up.

It really is nice having a decent shower, and I needed it too. Terry and I finished the roofing on the one side in record time. It’s amazing how quickly you can do things like that when you find a rhythm. It looks really good on the barn too, this metal sheeting. And now we have started to dismantle the scaffolding ready to put it up on the other side. That’s always a dirty job dismantling the scaffolding – there’s always tons of accumulated muck and dust that falls off it

And Grandma Parisian came for a nosey this evening – she couldn’t stop herself. “Blimey – you aren’t half courageux” she said. That’s the first time she’s spoken to me for years.

In other news, the US Government has banned interaction with its enemies – such as the Taliban etc. And you might be wondering why this is significant.

Astute readers with long memories will recall the Casablanca Conference of 1943, in which Roosevelt (an American again – isn’t this a surprise?) suddenly sprang on the world (and on his own allies with whom he had never discussed it) that the United Nations would not negotiate with the Axis powers and would only accept “Unconditional Surrender”.

What happened then of course was that a whole host of German resistants (or insurgents as we call them these days) who had been working hard from within to bring down the Nazis decided that seeing as the United Nations wouldn’t talk to them either if they took power, they gave up their struggle. This prolonged World War II by a couple of years – just because the Septics wouldn’t negotiate.

And here they are, doing the same thing in Afghanistan. If the Taliban (called the Mujahadeen when they were our friends fighting the Soviets) now decide that they want to talk peace terms they can’t because the Septics have outlawed any negotiations.

So they will still keep on fighting and prolong the war and the casualties.

You really can’t believe the Yanks. It was said of the Bourbon Kings of France that “they learnt nothing but forgot nothing” and you can say the same about the Americans. And we are only talking from 1943.

How can a nation be so totally stupid?

-6

Tuesday 29th June 2010 – No photo tonight, folks.

I haven’t really done anything to warrant one.

This morning with Terry having gone to mow a meadow, I profited by doing a big load of washing (this little tabletop washing machine that I bought in a brocante is proving its worth), watering all of the plants and doing some desultory tidying in the verandah.

This afternoon was in the Sauna or Black Hole of Calcutta otherwise known as Radio Arverne in Gerzat where we melted away while recording our programmes. And not just that – we had to record a trailer in French and I also had to translate part of the website into English. All for free, of course. No chance of turning our new-found popularity (we are being described, apparently, as “our favourite Anglophones”) into any of the Folding Stuff.

In other news, I see that an art exhibition in the Tate Gallery is hitting the headlines. This exhibition concerns a couple of means of transport being stripped of useful parts and lain on their sides for people to walk around and stare at. Now those of you that have been to visit me around here and other places in which I have lived will know that in my garden and my field I have several other means of transport stripped of useful parts and lying on their sides for people to walk around. And they have been called many different things by many different people, but “works of art” was never one of them.

And as my unmade bed on a bad day can match the best that Tracy Eminem can turn out, I’m getting rather fed up of my clearly well-developed artistic talents going unnoticed or being subjected to ridicule.

But seriously, I remember Whistler suing the art critic John Ruskin for saying that one of Whistler’s latest works was “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”. But if you look at these aeroplanes on their sides, or look at Tracy Eminen’s unmade bed, or look at anything that Richard Serra has ever churned out, then who is kidding whom? If anyone living in the Combrailles feels the urge to visit a gallery of Modern Art then they are quite welcome to come for a visit here.

And if they do, then perhaps they can explain to me the difference between what is on display and described as Modern Art in some of these high-ranking tourist traps, and all of the rubbish and junk that I have lying around here?

-7

Monday 28th June 2010 – Today’s pic …

… features the work that we have managed to do today. All of the horizontal laths are on and we have done about one quarter of the roof covering.

We could have done so much more too but we were beset by a whole series of interruptions.

Firstly I had to go to Pionsat just before lunchtime to have a document signed. “Come at about 11:45 and the notaire will fit you in between two clients”. So there I was at 11:45 and I was seen at 12:30! And the notaire took his time to witness my signature – clearly going for his money’s worth.

Back at the ranch Lieneke came round for a chat and a gossip. She brought us some fruit too. She needs some work doing on her house but her husband is getting to the age where he feels unsafe on a roof – hence Terry’s involvement.

Then we needed to sort out the sheets. They are in two sizes – one for each side – and of course the ones that we wanted were on the bottom as you might expect so we had to move all of the others.

Once we had got the sheets round to this side of the barn then they were not strong enough to support their own weight when hauling them up the scaffolding. After giving it much consideration, talking about making cradles and the like, I hit upon the idea of sliding them up a ladder (one of us can walk up in front pulling and the other walk up behind pushing as the sheet slides up the stringers), Terry added the idea of a sling and then we were in business.

The sheet sit quite nicely on the framework and the special screws with silicon washers do a good job. All in all it’s a good fitting but you struggle with the weight and height when there are just two of you.

It was 17:00 when we knocked off. The sky had greyed over and we were exhausted. And not long after Terry had left, Claude and Francoise came round!! They have indeed moved down south. Apparently their daughter had found a small house for them and so they rang up a furniture removal firm in that area. And it just so happened that there was an empty lorry in the region travelling light back home. A good deal was arranged and that was that.

I also had a quick flashback to yesterday evening when I was leaving Terry’s – he accompanied me to the door.

“are you being polite or are you making sure that I’ve gone?” I queried
“Well actually” said Terry “I’m making sure that you don’t nick anything on your way out”.

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Sunday 27th June 2010 – I had a little fun this evening.

I was up on my favourite photography spot – the birdwatching centre or centre ornithologique near St Gervais d’Auvergne – as night was falling, with the new Nikon D5000 camera and the tripod, taking some photos of the surrounding area.

You’ve heard me say on numerous occasions that it is one of the best views in France – away across the Gorge de la Sioule over to the Puy de Dome (on the extreme right) and you’ve seen plenty of photos taken from this spot before.

But every photographer has his favourite spot where he can take photos for comparing different light conditions and also (it has to be said) different cameras and lenses.

The result is that I’m reasonably impressed with what the Nikon managed to do under these conditions. That’s part of the Gorge de la Sioule down there and you can just about see the mist rising as the evening cools down.

But the couple of long-range photos I took after dark with the tripod on a long exposure didn’t turn out so well. They are far too blurred and that was a disappointment. Late at night a light comes on at the top of the Puy and I was hoping for a decent image.

I reckon that it is when I press the button on the camera that the tripod shakes and I need to overcome that. I’ll have to see if I can find a remote switch for the camera to operate it without touching the camera.

I was down at that end of the area because Liz and I were working on our radio programme today. We are discussing motoring for the next month and it’s amazing just how much you learn. You’ll all have to listen in as it is extremely interesting. And if I could remember the link I would post it.

While we were down there Terry was watching Ingerlund get thrashed by the Krauts. he isn’t impressed by Capello’s new defensive tactics. I did explain to Terry that it was what is known as “The Lego Defence”
“What’s that?” he asked
“It all comes apart in the box”.

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Saturday 26th June 2010 – It was Karl and Lou’s chantier today …

… so Strawberry Moose and I went along to Lapeyrouse to see what was happening and to lend a hand.

Once again there weren’t all that many people there. The novelty of the idea is clearly wearing off as peoples’ own chantiers are completed. Liz and Terry, Clotilde, Francois, Jean, Hein (whom I met briefly for the first time at Kate’s the other day) and Yours Truly were the only attendees, and I was late arriving.

Hein’s wife and kids turned up later and of course Strawberry made a new friend. Good old Strawberry!

The girls (Lou, Liz and Clotilde) occupied themselves with painting 30 panels of OSB to put on the walls of the attic, while Jean and I put some guttering up to the side of the garage and connected a downpipe to the drain. I like working with Jean – he’s an old guy but very fit for his age and has a keen interest in woodwork and that kind of thing. We’ve done quite a few jobs together at various chantiers.

Terry, Francois and Hein spent the day working on the door to the barn. The previous owners had nailed it shut as the bottom had rotted off and the huge hinge had broken away, leading to a risk that the door might fall across the lane.

They unfastened it, removed it from the doorframe and lowered it onto some trestles. Once it was there they cut off the bottom part, screwed some new wood onto the frame, reinforced the frame, replaced the ironwork and then we all lifted it back into position.

In the photo just here you can see the work receiving close attention from the assembled multitudes. From left to right we have Karl, Jean (who is hiding Francois) Hein and Terry. Here they were refitting the stone that had the pivot hole for the lower hinge.

Back here the temperature in my room was an astonishing 30°C. But I am prepared for this kind of thing. I bought a heavy-duty in-car fan for just €3.99 the other day and I took off the cigarette lighter plug and replaced it with an American 110-volt plug (that’s what I use for my 12-volt circuits). It’s noisy but it doesn’t half blow the cool air around when you clip it into the frame of the open window.

A good move that!

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EPIC HALL

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