Thursday 25th February 2010 – When I took the rain measurements just now …

… there was 1.5mm in the rain gauge. And if I had taken the measurements 10 minutes later it would have been completely different as we had the most terrific thunderstorm. Lightning, thunder, hailstorms, torrents of rain – you name it, we had it.

But I dunno what happened today but I was feeling quite enthusiastic – I haven’t felt like this for a while. I was up early and after breakfast I sorted out the seeds for this year’s garden. I’m throwing away all of the older stuff and starting afresh. I took the opportunity to plant a few lettuce seeds seeing as the weather has improved. I improvised a hot bed – a container in the verandah right over where I cook so the heat will keep the container warm.

So after that it was outside shifting piles of things around – like pallets, bags of gravel, that kind of thing. I’ve laid some corrugated iron roofing sheets down and I’m using one for storing the grave and some others for the rubble inside the house, starting with what used to be the bedroom wall. That led to some more pulling up of brambles and some cutting of wood. And that got me started on the wood and all of the remains of the trees thatI demolished last year and left lying where I’m hoping Bernard is going to flatten – I’ve started to cut them up into sies that will fit my stove up here.

After lunch I nipped down to the quarry to enquire about roadstone and delivery and so on for when Bernard comes to dig out, and then back here cutting wood until the rain drove me inside. I hadn’t finished then – in fact I carried on insulating the back wall until it grew dark. Working until 18:30! Whatever next!

All in all it’s been an impressive day and I’ve no idea how come.

-8

Wednesday 24th February 2010 – Happy birthday to me!

Yes but at my age you don’t count the years you’ve had you count those that you have left. Liz and Terry kindly invited me around for tea and Liz made me a vegan chocolate cake. There were candles on it too and I went to blow them out but I was driven back by the heat.

Best present though was from Amazon. Many of you know about the Amazon waiting lists where you add your name and your offer of a price to a list of any out-of-stock item you want and then some retailer does his best to match the stock. Now back in 1976 Hawkwind did an album entitled “Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music” and Jackie Marshall liberated a copy from Nantwich Library for me to tape. It’s totally worn out now as it’s had plenty of airtime due primarily to “Reefer Madness” and “Steppenwolf” – the latter of which was my “theme tune” for a number of years and still is I suppose. Unfortunately Dave Brock didn’t like the album (and I really can’t think why) and so when it was released on CD back in 1986 he quickly suppressed it. It’s as rare as hens’ teeth and second-hand copies have changed hands for over a hundred quid. But yesterday morning a copy appeared in my mailbox for just £12:50. I’m ever so impressed.

The neighbour was at work again down the lane and so I’ve been reflecting about the situation. And what I’ve decided to do is to enlist Terry and Liz to help me clear some of the waste land around here one day early next week and put the Passat and the Escort onto it so that they are out of the way. And then enlist Bernard from the football club with his digger to dig out the patch I was always going to dig out, put some stones onto it and use that to park Caliburn and the trailers.

Sometimes you need something of an incentive to get you motivated.

-6

Tuesday 23rd February 2010 – I once knew a girl ….

…. called Summer (she had a sister called Sky – you have to feel sorry for kids with parents like that) and she had a boyfriend who was absolutely devoted to her. They used to have their own private little moments and like all teenagers they would get up to no good – in one particular way that pleased the young gentleman greatly.

After a while Summer moved on to pastures new and the young gentleman (whose name I forget) was devastated. No subsequent girlfriend that he found could make up for what he had lost. One day he confided in a girlfriend exactly what it was that made his relationship with Summer so special.
“That’s no big deal” she replied. “i have no inhibitions about that”
So a short while later, right after one of these private moments, she turned to him and said
“Has that helped you rekindle some of your enthusiasm for life?”
“Well” he replied, “one swallow doesn’t make a Summer”.

And that’s really the story of what has happened here this last few days. The temperature has warmed up dramatically and it’s feeling warm. I told you the other day about the temperature in the verandah. Yesterday it reached 30.6 degrees which is the highest total since October 30th.

Today though was not so impressive. The morning was fine and I finished round by Claude’s at 13:45. It’s sad to see the fruits of their 46 years of married life end up like this but age and ill-health catch up with everyone sooner or later. I got back the two huge armoured cupboards that I gave him back in 2002. He also gave me two kitchen unit bases – the 600mm size – and I’m going to put them upstairs in the barn with a plank or two across the top to make a joinery bench, using the two large cupboards to store my tools, nails, screws and the like. I’m glad I put a trapdoor in the barn floor when I redid it, so that I can lift stuff up and down.

This afternoon I carried on in the garden but the torrential rain that fell later on drove me inside. I continued with the insulation on the bedroom wall for a while until the light went – this torrential rainfall (we had 9mm in minutes) plotted everything out.

And the Parisian is nosing around the ruined house by here and hacking away at the undergrowth. He’s up to something, my nasty suspicious little mind tells me, and I wonder what it is. He had a whinge about the Passat and the Escort blocking the track. He’s right but there’s nothing much I can do about this until the local Mayor pulls his finger out and does something about my proposition about buying the communal land round here. I suppose I’d better go and have a chat to him on Saturday.

-5

Monday 22 February 2010 – Only one more day …

…and this furniture removal will be over. And I can’t say that I’m sorry either. Today we took the final two loads to the new flat in St Eloy and then afterwards the first of the loads to the dechetterie. And just for a change the guy who was working there was extremely helpful and did his best to sort us out, including getting his own hands dirty.

But amongst the rubble set aside for the next visit to the tip (the first one of tomorrow) was an incredible find. Long-term readers of my ramblings will recall the discovery at the Montaigut brocante in the summer of 2008 of a parabolic heater attachment for the 920 series of Camping Gas bottles, together with an almost-full bottle. In the rubbish for the tip was a cooker attachment for the 920 series of bottles, complete with an almost-full bottle. I have issues about standardisation when I’m living in Caliburn and I’ve been trying to settle on a heater and cooker system that uses the same gas bottles. I’ve had to resort to those tube canister things with a stove and heater but they aren’t all that satisfactory. But with this find to go with the heater, I’m now set up exactly as I want.

Lieneke is here too and I went for a chat with her after I finished with Claude. It’s nice to see her again and we had a good old chinwag. after that I came home and lit the fire in the woodstove and got a nice roaring blaze after many tribulations. But then someone called me on the phone and kept me chatting for ages and the blasted thing went out.

-6

Sunday 21st February 2010 – Today got off to a really bad start.

Yes – someone rang me up this morning – at 09:41 would you believe. And what is worse is that this certain someone had already been told twice about ringing or trying to ring me on a Sunday morning while I’m having my beauty sleep – and with a face like mine I need as much beauty sleep as I can get.

The answer to this is of course simple – you transmit your message to the offender by beating it into his skull in morse code with a pickaxe handle. I have never known that to fail and it may well come to that of it happens again.

It was a gorgeous day today as well though – at least in the morning. So much so that I had the heater on in here and I also did a load of washing. But I have this magnificent way of summoning up the rain. Never mind your rain dances, or seeding clouds or whatever I just hang some washing up and down comes the rain. But not before we had 26.1 degrees in the verandah – the highest total since 21st November of our Indian Summer. Spring can’t be all that far away.

I caught up with the mailing that has been outstanding for a week and I also sent out the circular for the Anglo_French Conversation Group. And one person sent me a mail back saying “please take my name off your list”. This person is the webmaster for the Reseau Rurale – the organisation that co-ordinates the activities of the Alternative Community around here.

As you know I don’t see eye-to-eye with the Reseau following the events that I have described earlier surrounding the legendary Goatherd of Teilhet – so much so that they are refusing to e-mail me the details of their events so that I can broadcast them on my radio show (you’ve no idea how far some people will carry a vendetta – cutting their noses off to spite their faces is nothing compared to the activities of this lot).

But this takes the biscuit.

Readers of my outpourings in its previous guise will recall the events of September/October 2008 when the webmaster’s car broke down. I was out one night until after midnight trying to fix it for him and then when it was diagnosed as being irrepairable it was “run me here” “take me there” “fetch me this” “carry me that” every blasted five minutes. Not that I minded, of course – we foreigners out here are all in it together – but the moment he bought a car (and it was me who found it for him and made the appropriate enquiries about it) that was that and he hasn’t spoken to me since! That’s gratitude for you!

The answer to this though is of course “power”. You give some henpecked, downtrodden person a little bit of power and they can’t resist using it to the fullest, most extreme limits possible … and this blog is?” – ed … so really you ought to feel just a little sorry for people like that. But it makes you wonder what else goes on in their lives that they feel the need to behave like this. Still, I don’t care. I’m fed up of trying to “understand” people and “making allowances” for them – no-one does it for me after all. I think that at the end of the day the only answer is the pickaxe handle and the message in morse code.

-10

Saturday 20th February 2010 – I went to Montlucon today

It wasn’t part of the plan but Terrry and Liz were going and there was a spare seat in their van so I hitched a ride. We went to order some made-to-measure windows for the back of their house and I saw a beautiful Caliburn-coloured kitchen. But beautiful though it might have been, the standard footprint was all of €1900 so it’ll have to stay in the shop.

After that it was off to Brico Depot and exchanging some stuff for Terry. I got enough to keep me going for a week or so – I can’t buy too much as I don’t want to fill Caliburn with Claude’s removal still pending. So it’s mostly insulation and a pile of proper plasterboard screws seeing as they were on special offer. And at Brico Depot they are now starting to sell sliding door kits – just what I want for the wardrobe in the bedroom. I could be on to something here.

Pierre was in there working this afternoon. I asked him if he was playing tonight but he replied that all of the football matches are postponed this weekend. Another weekend with no footy. Whatever am I going to do?

But it makes a whole mockery of this clamour for a winter break in British football. When would you have it? And what guarantee would there be that it would be at the right time of the year for the bad weather?

-6

Friday 19th February 2010 -This furniture removal is wearing me out.

I’m clearly not as young as I was. Today was the heavy stuff, and heavy it certainly was. And I’m not sure what is worse, running up and down the stairs a few dozen times with a pile of loaded cardboard boxes, or struggling up and down stairs half a dozen times with some enormous and heavy furniture. I broke both my knees in a motorbike accident when I was 17 and today I was feeling every single one of the splinters.

view montlucon abbaye bellaigues les guis virlet puy de dome franceAt least the weather was fine and the view was spectacular out towards the north.

Later this afternoon I came back and crashed out. It’s clearly getting to me and I shan’t be sorry when it’s finished.

I’ve discovered the secret of why grandfather’s chair is following her around in all of her many removals. Apparently her grandfather and her father both died in it. I told Claude that if ever Francoise tells him to sit in it then he knows his days are numbered.

-4

Thursday 18th February 2010 – I got back into the swing of working today.

batten bedroom wall insulation les guis virlet puy de dome france
I’ve started to put the framing on the wall and I’ve attached the first row of insulation to the back wall. That’s the north side of the house so it needs a good cladding. Not for nothing will I be installing the wardrobe across that back wall either.

Mind you I think that the weather had something to do with it. For the first time in weeks it was warm in the verandah this morning and when you can eat your breakfast in the warmth and the calm it makes for a good start to the day.

Brilliant sunshine for most of the day too and I ran the heater up here for almost three hours to use up the surplus electricity.

So having lined part of the wall I needed to remove a pile of rubble to get at the rest. That involved fetching a sheet of corrugated iron from the garage and that involved tidying up a bit in there. And once I’d found a space to lay down the sheet it involved fetching bucket loads of rubble downstairs. But I didn’t do too many for the ground where I’m going to put my new raised beds had all dried out already even though the thaw is only about 24 hours on. So I set a big fire and spent the rest of the afternoon weeding.

With it being light until later I was still out working until 18:15 and I was quite enjoying myself.

There’s no doubt that good weather all helps to cheer you up.

In other news, seeing as I have nothing to lose I’ve written a stinking letter to Pentax. I’m thoroughly p155ed off with their after-sales service.

-3

Tuesday 16th February 2010 – Radio Stars!

eric hall liz messenger radio anglais arverne gerzat puy de dome france
Well, we made it onto tape, and next week we’ll be on the airwaves! After all of the hard work that Liz and I have put into our efforts we went down to Radio Arverne’s offices in Gerzat along with Julie, our special guest for the month of March.

No-one had told us how it was to be presented so we worked out our own system of presentation and production which would have done the trick – to record the five weekly “what’s on” sessions and then do firstly the chat with Julie about her experiences in the French hospital system followed by the chat about building permits and then chop the chats up into chunks to fit around the “what’s on” bits in order to make five programmes of equal lengths.

So having worked that out, as we were all grouped around the mikes ready to go they then decided that what they wanted was for the programmes to be recorded in their sequence of events. Now how on earth can you do that when you don’t know what people are going to say in advance and you have to watch your papers, watch your guests and watch a clock at the same time?

We managed to record three programmes and we have to go back on March 9th to do the other two (March is a 5-week month). And after our recording efforts we still had to do some editing so it really defeated the purpose of what we were trying to do and they could just as well have edited it from our proposal which would have been quicker to record. Ahhh well!

We listened to some of it afterwards and it sounds terribly amateurish but in actual fact we ought to be proud of what we did. We were three people effectively just off the street with no formal training and with very little “previous” in this kind of thing and we were given no guidance at all yet between the three of us we managed to get something like three half-decent radio shows on the very first take. You can’t ask for more than that.

And I was wrong about the temperature last night. We had a mere minus 9.7 degrees. Round at Liz’s she saw minus 17. This morning in the verandah it was 1.2 when I went down for breakfast but in the 20 minutes that I took to eat it the temperature rose to 5.2. The sun was such that I even ran the electric heater up here this morning.

I’t’s 1.2 degrees outside now and everything is melting. I don’t reckon the winter is over yet though.

-4

Monday 15th February 2010 – Well, the Pentax is Kaput!

Or rather, no it isn’t but it very soon will be because I’ve just had the bill for repairing it. FIVE HUNDRED AND TEN EUROS. That’s about as much as it cost new and a new body only in the USA I can buy for FIVE HUNDRED AND FIVE DOLLARS – or less than €400.

Totally ridiculous – and why Pentax couldn’t have pointed this out to me and made me an offer on a new body I just do not know.

But in any case there’s a major sale on in a leading camera supplier in the USA and there is a Canon EOS with lens on offer at $499 (plus VAT when it gets over here) and I’m wondering if that might be the route to go down. They use lithium battery packs instead of AA batteries (and AA batteries was a major selling point) but if I buy a spare and keep it charged up that might be another consideration.

I can then flog all my Pentax gear and use the dosh to buy a decent lens.

The RRP of the Canon is $799 – Body only by the way so this looks like a good price to me

I’m giving this some serious thought.

It was absolutely taters this morning – I dont think that it’s ever been so cold at 09:15 so after breakfast I came back up here and warmed up.

Once I had reached a decent ambient temperature I dressed up – not in fishnets and stockings, basque and high heels Rhys – but in two pairs of trousers, two fleeces, two pairs of socks, my overalls and a coat and then went to seal off the fireplace downstairs so that I can run the woodstove up here.

I had a piece of leftover plasterboard that was a good size and so I trotted off to find the silicone sealant. And you might or might not believe it but it was frozen solid! In a tight-fitting plastic tube. It took ages for it to thaw out.

But it seems to have worked because the small fire that I lit in the stove burnt away to nothing in minutes without the slightest trace of a smell around the house.

I’m going to track down a sack of compressed wood pellets now and see how they burn.

This afternoon I carried on with the battening of the rear wall in the bedroom but the batteries in the power tools kept on going flat so I gave it up in the end. But with the sun shining gloriously and the day warming up (it reached 6.5 degrees in the verandah) and with fully-charged batteries in the house and barn I felt much better.

But once the dusk gathered the temperature plummeted and as I set off for the Anglo-French group it was already minus 4. But still – 18:40 and it was still daylight. So the days are lengthening considerably. It wasn’t so long ago that I was packing up at 16:30.

The roads were gruesome and the return journey was even more gruesome as the temperature has dropped to minus 8. A clear blue sky with thousands of stars and a strong easterly wind. The moment the wind drops the temperature will fall through the floor.

We could well be on course for the coldest night of the year.

And tomorrow we shall all be radio stars!

-4

Sunday 14th February 2010 – We’ve still got tons of snow …

… even if nothing much has fallen within the last 24 hours. I only had to breathe on the solar panels and the light scattering of snow blew away. Hot stuff am I, what?

So after a … errr … leisurely breakfast I came back up here and swotted up on French building permits and so on. I can tell you everything that there is to know about it – including the fact that I can erect a statue of 11.99 metres height and 39.99 cubic metres volume in my garden without planning permission! Dunno about you but my imagination is working overtime. Just think of it – Turdi de Hatred, Caligula and Her Horse, Pol Pot’s Sibling, Andy Pandy and Aunt Ada Doom (and whatsisname that she saw in the woodshed) 11.99 metres high and right next to the beichstuhl! I could have hours of endless fun with all of that.

Works of art are also covered by that exemption and that gives me enormous scope. When you think of Tracey Eminem’s unmade bed being exhibited at the Hate Gallery I’m sure that my verandah and its contents would be covered by this. And when you think that the disorder that I can create even in an empty room, well just imagine it – “no, this object 11.99 metres high and 39.99 cubic metres volume is not a new house – it’s next year’s hot favourite for the Turnip Prize!” In any case, anything that I ever build is certainly a work of art and people come from miles around to gaze in bewilderment at my efforts.

This afternoon I went down to Liz and Terry’s to discuss this programme. Julie should have come with me (she’s our first guest) but she’s snowed (or rather iced) in. This is one of the perils that you have to risk when you buy a house by a bridge alongside a river – the only way out is upwards and with the gorges around here being so steep, if they don’t grit the roads then you are stuck.

So I went on my own instead – but not that I minded, it just meant more vegan fruit cake for me! Down to Pionsat was … errr … interesting but the D227 between Pionsat and St Gervais was clear even over the Font Nanaud. From St Gervais to Liz and Terry’s was also exciting.

So having done what we could I came back. And that was even more exciting as it was trying to snow down there. But I encountered two snowplough-gritters so they are taking it seriously for Monday morning’s commuter traffic. It’s also forecast bright sunny weather too for tomorrow but as you know I have my suspicions about that kind of thing.

And Claude’s removal is postponed again. His son never came up and so nothing has been packed. They’ll be running out of time at this rate.

-4

Saturday 13th February 2010 – I must have been tired last night.

Crashing out for a couple of hours and then going to bed early and then sleeping through the cacophony that is my series of alarm clocks and not waking up until 10:24. At least I’m feeling better though today. I think it must be all of these bad nights of sleep catching up on me.

This morning that strange gold thing put in a brief appearance up in the sky so I quickly climbed up onto the roof and brushed off the solar panels. I caught a few amp-hours of sun before the heavens clouded over again. But I also dug Caliburn out of his snowdrift and went for a spin up the lane to see if I could get out. Good job I have my new snow tyres because I did manage to make the public highway with a little bit of luck and perseverence. A wise decision to get these tyres, I’ll tell you.

So with a little tidying up I came up here and carried on reading my book. It’s called The 91 before Lindberghand it details all of the successful Transatlantic air crossings before “The Flying Fool”. It’s a fascinating book, especially for me, because as you know I have quite an interest in historic aviation and on one occasion while poking around on an old industrial estate on Long Island I came across a replica of the “Spirit of St Louis” and I had the extreme pleasure of being able to sit at the controls.

Furthermore the book recounts the early airship developments for Transatlantic flight that took place at Atlantic City in New Jersey – another place that I have visited – and then goes on to talk about the legendary near-miss between an airship and a four-masted schooner at Barnegat Lighthouse, yet another one of my haunts.

After that, seeing as there was a gap in the snowfall I went into St Eloy to do some shopping and pick up some gas. I was going to say “nip” into St Eloy but in third gear at 25mph all the way then “nip” it was not. It was an awkward drive but I managed okay and I’m now stocked well up for whatever else this weather can throw at us.

In other news, it’s the 25th anniversary round about now of an event that could have got Nerina and yours truly five years inside without the option. We’d seen a house that we liked and so we put Gainsborough Road on sale and priced it for a quick conclusion. Unfortunately the owners of our dream house wouldn’t reduce the price by very much and the only offers we were getting for Gainsborough Road would have left us with a shortfall.

Now you might think that a mortgage or a bank loan would be the answer but we were both self-employed running my taxi business. And with taxi businesses being what they call “cash businesses” the cash had a tendency to … errr … evaporate long before it made its way into the accounts so the accounts only bore what might be described as “a passing resemblance” to the true state of affairs of our business. We could easily afford the kind of loan that we needed but the accounts didn’t seem to bear it out.

So what we did was that we scratched around for work – any kind of work at any price and it didn’t matter at all if we were never ever going to be paid to do it as long as it looked good on paper – and heaved it into the accounts of the taxi business. It vastly inflated our “recorded” turnover and made everything look so impressive. So much so that the Bank loved our figures and started to heave huge wads of cash at us.

Luckily – and I mean luckily – the chain collapsed. The house we were interested in was taken off the market and so we took mine off and handed the cash back. And why “luckily”? For the simple reason that going to dubious, if not spurious means to inflate your company’s turnover for the purpose of getting an additional loan from a bank or a building society almost inevitably guarantees you a one-way ticket to Shrewsbury nick (or in Nerina’s case, Styal) because sooner or later your little fraud and deception will be uncovered.

Running my taxi business for eight years taught me an awful lot and many of the things that I learnt I would have been better off not knowing. But then again what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I had a few incredibly lucky escapes. When I realised all of the risks that I had been running it completely spoiled my appetite for nefarious activities and I certainly wouldn’t do it again. It’s not something that I would advise anyone else to do. If you need to go to these lengths to support your lifestyle then you need to change your lifestyle to one that you can support and if you can’t do that on your own then you need to find professional help.

-6

Friday 12th February 2010 – I’ve not been feeling myself today

plasterboard stud wall bedroom stair cupboard les guis virlet puy de dome france
“Quite right too – filthy habit” – ed. I woke up with a headache and couldn’t get out of bed. And when I finally got up I couldn’t get my breath – even climbing the stairs left me quite exhausted. After breakfast I started on some more plasterboarding but it couldnt make much progress as it was wearing me out.

By 13:30 I had to call it a day and go and lie down. In fact I crashed out for a couple of hours. Liz rang me up to see how I was and Terry battled his way here through the snow (it’s carried on snowing non-stop and I’m up to my waist in it) to pick up some Ford Transit snowchains that are lying around here.

But I’m not moving. I fact I didn’t make myself any tea tonight. I’m going to just stay here and sleep it off.

In other news this webhosting thing isn’t going to die down any time soon and more correspondence has been received.

And as I said elsewhere –
1) having had an “encounter” with this webhosting service my own experience is that despite the manager’s verbal belligerence the truth is somewhat different and it was interesting to see how quickly the manager caved in when OUSA banged the big stick back in April last year. No question about legality, no question about defending customers’ rights and the privilege of free comment despite all of the previous hype from several years ago, OUSA banged the big stick and the manager jumped. And jumped by deleting files from the server, of course, without even notifying the owner of the files that they had been deleted. Now how illegal is that?
Now just imagine the situation where all of the OUSA branch files are in one place on one web server managed by one manager who has “previous” of caving in to OUSA. Any time someone posts something critical of The Powers That Be, all TPTB need to do is to wave the big stick at the manager and the manager is likely to simply remove the files with no warning if past experience is anything to go by. No court order necessary, no solicitors consulted, no right of appeal. Signing up to this offer is effectively giving OUSA the green light to censor all of your websites with no right of appeal. Editorial control of all of your websites in the hands of a OUSA Executive Committee sycophant – it’s an Executive-Committee dream come true.

2) I’ve also been told the price of this contract. It’s a commercial rate of £120. Now I reckon that there are over 200 sites likely to be affected by this – and all for £120. As you can imagine, its something that isn’t sustainable at that price. It won’t even cover the cost of the hard drive let alone the cost of the server and the administration. I give it four weeks at that price.
But on the other hand it could be £120 per site. And that’s not a commercial rate at all! My four sites cost me a total of £178 and two of them, as you know, are huge with tons of traffic. Hostgator will do you a website hosting for $4.95 per month – or about £40 per annum. When I managed OUSA Belgium’s website it was hosted on Bravenet for ZERO pounds per annum if you didn’t mind the odd pop-up every now and again. I don’t call £120 per site a commercial deal by any stretch of the imagination.
But do the maths – about 200 sites each paying £120 – that’s a turnover from OUSA funds of £24000, which is an awful lot of money when your organisation is struggling for cash to the extent of trying to ban disabled people from attending the annual Conference. It’s also a very healthy turnover for any company to show in its books and accounts, even if at the end of the accounting year it plans to hand it all back.

It makes you wonder what the purpose of it all is supposed to be.

-2

Thursday 11th February 2010 – One of the major problems …

heavy snow les guis virlet puy de dome france… with doors that open outwards is that when there is a heavy snowfall you can’t open the door. And so with the …gulp…18 cms that fell through the night I ended up having to use the front door in order to visit the beichstuhl this morning.

Then it was to shin up onto the roof and shovel the snow off the solar panels again (and in fact I did that a couple of times throughout the day).

heavy snow les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut the temperature was against me again. Last night it dropped to minus 9.1 and this morning it was minus 6 outside. In the verandah it was minus 5.4 and in the house it was minus 4.8. You can’t work in these conditions so I came up here, put the fire on and read a book for a while. By about 1100 it had warmed up sufficiently for me to continue putting the plasterboard on the false wall but I could only keep it up for a while before my hands froze on the metal tools.

heavy snow les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhat is interesting is that before I insulated the floor in here, a temperature of minus 9 outside caused the temperature in my room to drop to 2.8 degrees. After doing the floor a similar temperature outside would lead to about 6.8 degrees in here. With starting to tongue-and-groove the downstairs ceiling it was 9.4 degrees in here this morning. So the sooner I can do the entire ceiling the better. And, of course, if all of the insulation is keeping the heat inside the attic then it will also keep the external heat out and thats encouraging for when I start to heat up the inside of the house.

Doing the stats tonight I noticed that the total snow that fell today was 28 cms and that’s a record for a single day. I’m properly snowed in now and I can’t see me going anywhere for a while.

In other news I’ve been sent a … errr …. document (or copy thereof) about this webhosting thing that I told you about yesterday. The document is dated 4-6 December 2009, which is some seven weeks after I received an e-mail from the same webhost saying “We are yet again moving servers. This time for the last time as we are getting out of the hosting business …..The move will take place in November (2009)”. And so OUSA is somehow being asked to go into some kind of partnership with a company to provide a service that the company abandoned a couple of weeks previously. And, of course, money is to change hands in this respect.

Now leaving aside the self-expressed lack of technical capability to deal satisfactorily with the issues that arise and which I described yesterday, just what the hell is going on?
1) If the company is still conducting its business of webhosting, why is its manager telling me that it isn’t?
2) And if it is to restart its webhostiong business after having ceased (very unlikely as the last communication that I had with this company – in January 2010 – was to the effect that the cession was definitive), do the successors to the previous business know about this?
3) And what were the terms of the cession to trade which resulted in existing customers being passed over to the successor company? Will the webhost be hit with some kind of legal complication that could see each individual OUSA website being hit with a demand for more money under a service agreement with the successor company in respect of a “restraint of trade following cessation”? In other words, a sale of goodwill?
4) And given the self-expressed lack of technical competence and my own experience with this company, how will all of these OUSA webmasters react if all of THEIR files, e-mails and contacts lists were to disappear into cyberpsace?
5) And if the web host gives assurances that this won’t ever happen again, and I remind them that I received the same promise TWICE – a promise that was filled with empty air – how much weight will the webmasters attach to it?
6) And if the webhost does manage to fulfil its promises to provide an uninterrupted service, what reasons could the webhost advance that it couldn’t do it for me over the last couple of years and thoroughly messed up my service through a mixture of incompetence and petty vindictiveness?

And I note from the document that I have in my possession that the amount to be charged is “the current commercial rate and will be renegotiated annually when the 12 month contract expires”. I wonder if anyone would like to hazard a guess about what is likely to happen at the end of the 12 months, and how many websites and associated files are still going to be intact next January?

I smell one big, enormous rat in all of this. There’s something clearly not kosher about the events surrounding this company over the last couple of months. Kicking all its existing clients off, telling them that it’s closing down while at the same time negotiating a completely new deal with a whole new raft of clients.

Yes, sign the contract at your peril.

You have been warned.

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