Tuesday 26th January 2010 – I’ve been on the piste today …

… for the first time since 1996 too. We (that is, five of us) went to Super Besse for the day. However it wasn’t as exciting as you might imagine, the reason being that despite the weatherman telling us that it was going to be the best day of the year so far, we had the typical Auvergnat hanging cloud on the mountain. This meant that firstly you could hardly see your hand in front of your face (so don’t expect any photos) and secondly all of the high runs were closed off and so everyone was concentrated on just two or three runs.

And I mean everyone too. There were several coach parties of schoolkids, a party of Asian students, loads of business-type folk in matching ski suits and so on. And of course you might expect that I made myself persona non grata with some folk. As Terry reached the bottom of one of the runs a party of schoolchildren stretched out across his path. And Terry, much to my surprise, shuddered to a halt.
“You missed out there Terry” I yelled. “You would have got 100 points for that lot, you know!”
“What?” asked a British person standing in the queue next to me (there were quite a few Brits there today)
“You know” I replied. “10-pin bowling. They line up the kids in formation across the piste and the inexperienced skiers see how many kids they can get. A whole ski class counts for 100 points!”
The monitor of the ski class clearly understood more English than she was letting on to, and she gave me a glance that would have curdled milk at half a mile and made a derogatory comment. Mind you, I know a few of those myself, as she discovered.

What was surprising was that after one or two runs up the baby slope I remembered all my technique. And even more surprising was that I could still fit into my Makro Man ski suit, which I discarded for use as a winter overall back in 1994 when I bought my “Bulgaria ski school” ski suit (which is with my skis and boots back in Brussels and which I will be rescuing).

But at 16:00 it was impossible to continue. It was freezing cold and you couldn’t see who you were ploughing into. But it’s whetted my appetite and rekindled my desire for skiing after all this time.

Banff here I come!

The drive back to Liz and Terry’s was difficult, and the drive back to here was worse. I had to hack lumps of ice off Caliburn’s windscreen and then inch my way home as the freezing rain that had fallen had transformed the roads into a skating rink.

But at least I got home, which is more than someone did. There’s a dark green Peugeot saloon on its side in the ditch near Gouttieres.

-6

Monday 25th January 2010 – I had my first garden fire of the year today

ford transit garden fire jungle les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs you know if you’ve been following my outpourings for a while, I have enormous difficulty getting a fire to burn when I really try. When I don’t try, like while I’m welding up a car or something, I can summon up a raging inferno in no time at all. But Liz, whom I spoke to on the phone this morning , gave me a few tips and I had quite a nice little fire burning. I was happily pulling up the brambles and chucking them on the fire and watching them burn.

But fires need careful watching in order to keep them burning and so it was no surprise at all that the phone rang immediately after this shot. It was the lady from Luxembourg who lives up the road and she was in the mood for a good chat. And of course by the time the phonecall finished, the fire was out.

This morning I wanted to get the wood off the roof of Caliburn but to do that I needed the ladder. And that was underneath the insulation which was stuck at the side of the plasterboard. So I ended up emptying Caliburn anyway and then I unloaded the wood. The ladder on Caliburn, when it’s on the roofrack, is held on by a patent clamp that I made. But the stud iron (or threaded rod as it is called these days) is quite long and useful for a multitude of sins and so takes a while to fasten down. So I found another bracket and made a made-to-measure bracket for the ladder that now fastens on in seconds.

And after lunch it was the garden.

This evening I went to Montaigut for this meal with Antoine. And it was what you call an “interactive” meal, involving the employees of the restaurant and some of the other customers. I’d never experienced anything quite like it. But it was a nice pizza restaurant and I’ll go there again. It’s good to know that there’s somewhere respectable to take my guests, if ever I have any. Although they might not let me in another time.

And tomorrow with a bit of luck I’ll be on the piste.

-7

Sunday 24th January 2010 – Well, I got my go in a chopper.

chopper helicopter flight intermarche pionsat puy de dome franceLiz, Terry and I turned up at just before 11 in the rain and after waiting for a while we brandished our passes and that was that.

The weather wan’t much good though and the seating positions for a good photo opportunity were hopeless but it was still an experience even though we were thoroughly deafened by the noise.

No danger of me missing the flight either, for Antoine telephoned me – at 09:35 on a SUNDAY! That time simply doesn’t exist for me on a Sunday.

chopper helicopter flight pionsat puy de dome franceAfter the flight we went for a coffee. I invited Liz and Terry back here but they voted for the “Queue de Milan” instead. And that tells you two things. The Queue de Milan, under new management, was actually open. There were about 7 people in the bar as well, and if each one spent 2Euros on a beer or a coffee then with the mark-up being about 75% at least then in the half-hour that we were there the new owners cleared over 10 Euros in gross profit. Perhaps the previous owners might have done better at the place if they had been more business-orientated and actually opened their doors to clients.

The second thing that it tells you is that my coffee is so awful that people would rather pay good money to someone else to make it. Hmmmmm – I’ll need to improve on my coffee-making technique.

But on the subject of the Queue de Milan, the owners are on the lookout for an au-pair girl to look after their two kids. Anyone interested let me know and I shall come round and give a personal vetting of the prosepctive applicants. If she has an “aaauuuuuuu” pair then that will do for starters. But the one trouble with being at my age is that I have these memory issues. I can’t remember whether I’m going to the doctors to be vetted or going to the vets to be doctored.

-9

Saturday 23rd January 2010 – I didn’t sleep through the alarm this morning.

I had all three going off in close proximity and that’s enough to awaken the dead – such as the OUSA Executive Committee. It’s well-known that they spend most of their meetings sitting round a table holding hands and trying to contact the living. So much so in fact that Caligula and her horse’s predecessor was once heard to say
“Is there anybody there? Knock once for yes – and twice for no“

So after I heaved myself from my stinking pit I made a coffee and went chaud-pied round to the Intermarche to find out why they hadn’t rung me (or Liz, for that matter) about this famous flight in a chopper.
“We didn’t have time to ring everybody” the manager wailed. And me, having amongst my many and varied talents the ability to read upside-down, noticed that in general all of the people with a French name had been contacted, and none of the people with a foreign name had been contacted.

So we just turn up a l’improviste tomorrow. well, we’ll see.

Then it was off to Montlucon and shopping. Apart from the usual items I bought a pile of plasterboard, a load of wood and some more insulation. I’ll be starting on the cupboard on the first floor next week if it’s too bad to work outside. And learning from the work in the attic, I won’t be wallpapering it. In one of the cheap shops (the VIMA) they were selling indoor crepi (that’s the cement-based paint for brick and stone walls and looks a bit like fine pebble-dash) for €9:00 for 15 litres so I’ll be covering the plasterboard in that.

I also bought 12 x 3-metre lengths of shuttering for concrete. That’s 175mm by 25mm rough-cut and cheap. I’ll be making my raised beds for the new vegetable plots with that. The current raised beds are 1.33 square – these will be 1.50 square and I have enought wood to make 6 of them. I can salvage the others in due course. I like raised-bed gardening.

In the other cheap shop (the NOZ) they were having a DVD clearout with titles as low as €0.78. I spend €20 in there on seven or eight DVDs, including a copy of “the Definitive Barclay James Harvest”.

Now see if you can guess what the first track of this DVD is? Yes, you’re right. It’s “Mockingbird”. Barclay James Harvest is another one of these 1970s groups that lost its way after the first 4 or 5 albums and the early stuff is incredibly good. But no matter how good the group might be, it will always be remembered for “Mockingbird” and that’s one of these tracks a bit like “Hotel California”, “Freebird” , “Stairway to Heaven” and a couple of others. A reasonable example of a group’s output but by no means the best, and totally ruined and spoiled by being played and played and played to death.

BJH has done much better stuff that “Mockingbird” and thankfully “Medicine Man” is on the album. But where is “Galadriel” ? And where is “For No-one”? And about half a dozen others that I can think of? This is going to be some “definitive Barclay James Harvest” but at least it only cost me €1:99.

On the way back I noticed that is was 17:00 just as I was passing through Neris-les-Bains. So I went for an hour in the swimming baths. Twice in 8 days! I’ll wash myself away at this rate.

-14

Friday 22nd January 2010 – all the charging circuits shut down today.

batteries fully charged charging circuit shut down les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhat happens is that the solar (or wind) charge during the day gradually increases the charge in the battery from the overnight figure (about 12.4-12.5 volts is a good figure) up to about 14.1 volts if it’s a good day.

Once it’s at that figure it maintains the charge for a short while to give the batteries a chance to warm up inside and to shake loose any oxides that have accumulated, and then it goes into PWM mode, which is where it distributes the charge equally over all of the batteries and balances the incoming charge against the outgoing load.

When it’s happy with all of that it goes into FLOAT mode where the circuits close down until the charge in the battery drops to about 13.4 volts, and then it all starts up again and we repeat the cycle.

So today was the first day since October (I think) that we all went into FLOAT mode, even with the fridge running throughout the day. Three good days of solar charge has done wonders for my system.

This morning I was woken up by Antoine ringing me. Mind you, it was almost 10:00. I’d slept through all of the alarms again. I’ll have to do something about that. Then Antoine phoned me again, Claude came round for a chat, Liz phoned me twice and Francois phoned me once. I’m still in demand as you can see. I’ve never been so popular.

old ford transit hedge tree jungle garden les guis virlet puy de dome franceToday I made a start on the garden. I’m resiting my vegetable plot as you know and so I need to clear a place to move the old Ford Transit, the Merc and the British Salt Cortina because it’s under where they are currently that the vegetable garden will be. Back in 2002 all of this was cleared out but all these years of neglect has seen bushes, shrubs, brambles and trees grow right around everything. First job was to cut down a tree that was about 15 feet high and about 2 inches in diameter. That’s grown since 2002!

I could get at the back of the old Transit then and so I took off the towbar. I’m going to let Terry have it to fit on his new van. His is a 2005 model and rear wheel drive so it should fit okay and the tow bar is doing no good at all to anyone, rusting down a field. Older readers of my blog will remember the old Transit. I was on my way to a ferry at Caen to go to the UK for my OU science lab work when I had a puncture. You know that I prefer steel-belted radial tyres to textile belted ones. I’d been travelling at high-speed for hours and so the tyres were quite hot, and the blow-out occurred with such force that it blew the tread and the belting off the tyre. The steel belting spun round like a flail and ripped out the side of the van and the nearside wheel-arch and floor. Mind you, the van was 16 years old and it had seen much better days but it was still a mess and not fit to be driven on the highway after that.

But it’s going to be a lot of work to do this garden. I’ll have to start making the borders for my raised beds.

In other news, the UK is getting weirder and weirder. Some woman has been given a suspended prison sentence for breaching an Anti-Social Behaviour Order. And the Anti-Social Behaviour Order she has breached? Well, her moans and groans during lovemaking are too loud for her neighbours, and they played a tape of it in the courtroom. Personally, I cannot imagine anything so pathetic. I reckon that what it is is that the neighbours are just thoroughly jealous. I remember telling Nerina that it would be nice if she would moan while we were making love. And sure enough, half-way through the next performance she said “when are you going to paint this ceiling? It’s been like this for 5 years. And the walls need papering too …“

Mind you, I did once live next door to a couple whose lovemaking was exceptionally noisy. But never mind the ASBO – I always wanted to give them a round of applause when they finished. But you know how it is – you can’t clap with just one hand.

-8

Thursday 21st January 2010 – I’ve finished the verticals for the studded wall…

upright stud wall first floor les guis virlet puy de dome france… between the bedroom and the rest of the first floor. And you can get some kind of idea how the bathroom is going to look.

The end three verticals are going to be for the bathroom bit, and the gap between the third and the fourth (ie the first from the left) will be the door into the bedroom. From the third vertical across to the vertical by the shower base – that will be the door into the bathroom and the shower base will be between there and the wall. You can just about make out the sink – that will be on the diagonal in the angle in the bathroom and there will be another sink in the angle in the bedroom. The toilet is in the far corner underneath the window.

This afternoon Terry Liz and I went to see some houses. We’d heard of three cottages for sale at €27,000 for the three in a village near St Maurice and it was worth a look. Money in the bank is fetching nothing right now and three cottages in a small village have the potential to be three income-generating holiday homes. We don’t mind the hard work in repairing them and so on and realistically for the price we weren’t expecting much, but these three were right at the limit of what was achievable. Furthermore there was no land to go with them – not an inch – and there was no view. They really were right in the middle of a village.

The estate agent took advantage of our presence to show us a few more houses and there is one of them that has got us talking, but we’re going a-hunting over the next few days to see what else we can turn up. It’s all about income generation at the moment and cash in the bank with almost-negative interest rates and inflation at 3% isn’t working right now.

-6

Wednesday 20th January 2010 – I see that some kind of wiser counsels have prevailed.

One of the “High Wycombe Two” has been released on appeal. He’s had his sentence reduced to 12 months (which is still 12 months too long) but suspended for two years, which is two years too long too. His brother is still inside though, but his absolutely ridiculous 39 months has been reduced to a just-as-absurd two years.

But the final (at least in the short-term) words must go to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. Now as you know if you have been following my outpourings for any length of time, there is no love lost between me and the Met, but I think that Stephenson’s words deserve full attention. He said that “people who put themselves in danger to tackle criminals should be celebrated as heroes. Courageous members of the public make our society worthwhile“. Now that statement is giving out a clear message to three groups of people – firstly the victims, who now seem (in Greater London anyway) to have some sort of licence from the police to beat villains to a pulp, secondly to the villains, that the victims are likely to beat them to a pulp with police encouragement, but thirdly, and most importantly, to the Judges. “Up yours, m’lud”.

In other news, I turned the place upside down this morning and found one of the missing papers. And so I went chaud-pied down to Pionsat to post my parcels of unwanted electrical goods. They are doing no good around here and I might shame the various suppliers into replacing them. It’s worth a try.

When I got back Liz called me and we had a mega-discussion about our forthcoming radio programmes. While she was on the phone Terry turned up – he’d been to Brico-Depot – and we had a chat about our future income-generating projects. And as I am in the middle of a culinary crisis (I’ve run out of vegan christmas cake) I tried my best to stimulate him into needing a helping hand round at his house. You never know – Liz might be baking!

Terry had also developed a flat tyre on his van so we had a tyre-changing session. He has 16″ wheels (Caliburn’s are 15″) and you’ve no idea how heavy they are. And I dunno who fastened his wheels on last time but I wouldn’t like to meet him up a dark alley late at night – it took a power bar and a long length of pipe to free the nuts off.

After Terry had gone I started work on the last bits of the studding for the false wall in the bedroom. And when it got too dark to work up there any more I glanced at the time – 17:58. Yes, the days are definitely lengthening.

And following my crowing about the weather last night, I was woken up at 04:00 this morning by a torrential rainstorm. Serve me right! But today was another good solar day and my batteries are fully-charged.

-7

Tuesday 19th January 2010 – This weather forecaster is absolutely astonishing!

Yes, he promised us rain today – a 90% chance with 14mm in the daytime and 10mm through the night. The current forecast however for this evening has changed slightly and we now have a 50% chance of rain and an estimated 3mm

And so what was the weather like today then? Why, it was glorious non-stop sunshine of course. So much so that the batteries are fully-charged again and I did a huge load of washing this morning. And while it was a-doing I started to look around the verandah for a paper that I’ve lost. That progressed into a full-scale tidy up and reorganisation in there that has lasted all day and still is nowhere near finished. Even so, there’s quite an improvement, even though the casual observer might not think so. And of course, I haven’t found the paper I was looking for that started all of this off. I need to find it as I have to go into Pionsat and I can’t go without this paper (well, I can but it makes the journey rather pointless).

And this evening’s weather? A brilliantly clear sky with thousands of stars.

And in other news, Rhys and I are well-known for our fundamental differences of opinion on American politics and the bearing of arms and the like, and we have long-since agreed to differ about this. But every now and again we find ourselves surprisingly arranged on the same side. And it’s with this in mind that I want to draw your attention to a legal case that has been hitting the news in the UK. A family comes home from their mosque and finds three men burgling their home. The family is captured and tied up while the burglary continues. As the burgalrs leave, the father of the family breaks free and grabs hold of his brother and the two of them chase the three villains. They catch up with one of them and hit him with a cricket bat to incapacitate him.

The burglar is tried and convicted and given a two-year supervision order. The two brothers, one of whom remember was tied up by the burglars and was forced to watch his family tied up, well they get prison sentences. And not just any ordinary prison sentences either but 30 and 39 months respectively.

Now that is not the part of the procedure that is obscene. The worst part of the whole affair is the judge’s comments. The burglars have committed a “serious and wicked offence” – and the sentence for that crime is probation. The judge goes on to say that “If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting justice take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are the hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.“

So let’s talk about that. How many of the THREE offenders have been brought to justice? The answer is “jusr one”. And which one was it that was brought to justice? Why, the one that the victims hit with a cricket bat. If the victims had not hit him with a cricket bat it is likely that he would have made his getaway with his two colleagues and would never have been brought to justice at all.

And seeing as he was brought before justice, how come justice did not prevail upon him to disclose the names of his partners in crime? I suppose that this is justice in the UK taking its course. If I had been in charge of the trial it wouldn’t have been two years supervision it would have been five years inside. Three times five years is fifteen years and the criminal who had been captured would have to serve the lot if he wouldn’t disclose the names of his colleagues. Soon put a stop to the vow of Omerta, that would.

Of course, the irony of his comments seems to have sailed right over the head of the trial judge. Maybe someone should hit him with a cricket bat and knock some sense into him. But I feel that it would take more than that to knock some sense into the UK right now. I’m glad I don’t live there any more.

-3

Monday 18th January 2010 – You can tell what today’s weather has been like …

… simply by looking at a few stats.

Firstly, outside the temperature made it up to 7 degrees, but in the verandah it was as much as 16. Secondly, while bank 2 of the solar panels on the house registered 29 amp-hours, bank 1 registered 89!!!

We’ve finally had the day I’ve been waiting for, with brilliant sunshine all day, the highest solar energy since 18th November and now the batteries are fully-charged. So much so in fact that I ran the fridge for an hour or so.

This morning I had an “office”day. I managed to get the printer to work so I sat down and wrote a few letters. I did the CV for this taxi company and then I had to write a letter to Pentax as I need to send my camera away for repair. For the past few months it seems like the battery life has been getting less and less but when I put the “empty” batteries into something else they work fine. Fiddling around with the batteries in the battery holder sometimes gets the camera to work again so its clearly a bad contact somewhere.

And that got me thinking. There’s a few things that I’ve bought that don’t work and are just hanging around here doing nothing much. I’m going to pack them up and send them back to the vendors with a letter of dismay and see what happens. Someone might decide to do something.

This afternoon was the drive down to Gerzat. The guy from SMADC and his sidekick sat in the front of the car and totally ignored me in the back all the way there and all the way back. At the radio station I worked out a format for the programme with the presenter. Basically it will be a cafe scenario with people popping in for a chat, talking about forthcomng events, new legislation and problems with French administration. We’ll record an hour’s worth of programme one day per month and they will edit it into four 5-minute slots. Blast-off is said to be the 1st of March and so we go into studio in mid-February.

If this isn’t going to get my name in lights, shameful self-publicist that I am, then nothing will!

-1

Sunday 17th January 2010 – There’s been a major change in the weather today.

I don’t just mean that it’s not rained, or that the sun came out, but a significant shift.

The temperature in my room was in double figures this morning when I woke up – the first time for weeks – and it actually felt warm. Outside the sun was doing its best to break through the clouds and on bank 1 there was almost 40 amp-hours of solar energy and on bank 2 about 26. And that’s significant. The charge controller on bank 2 is set to disconnect at a lower voltage figure (14.1 volts) than bank 2 (14.2 volts) and so the difference in amp-hours indicates that the charging circuit has been getting close to full charge, and that’s the first time since mid November.

It also stayed light after 18:00 and that’s the first time since November. Of course, spring is a long way off and we’ll have much more snow before then but at least it seems that the cold spell we’ve had for 6 or 7 weeks has gone away for now. It makes me feel much more enthusiastic.

I’ve done nothing at all today. It’s Sunday and my traditional day of rest and it’s been a long time since I’ve sat around and relaxed. But then again I think I’ve deserved it. I’m going to have an early night too. I have to get myself fighting fit ready for this interview thingy with this French radio station.

-1

Saturday 16th January 2010 – I dunno where this morning went.

The alarm went off as usual and I lay semi-somnolent in bed for a while waiting for the second call. And it became apparent that I wasn’t going to get a second call – when I looked at the clock closely it was 09:54. I must have slept through the first call and heard the second one.

But that wasn’t the best of it. Something had clearly happened through the night such as the clock switching itself off and back on. And it’s a radio-controlled clock so it sets its own time but for some reason its time zone is set to GMT-2 so it was in actual fact 10:54.

So I steam-cleaned part of the kitchen (and it needed it) and then went off to Commentry for shopping. There was absolutely nothing of interest although I did create some mild amusement in one of the shops. The cashier gave my €20 note a thorough inspection before accepting it, so I couldn’t resist the temptation.
“It is ok?” I asked
“yes, it’s fine” she replied.
“Good. I’ll make some more like that tonight“.
But as Alfred Hitchcock once said to Kenneth Williams, “it’s a total waste of time telling jokes to foreigners!”

After that it was off to Neris and the swimming baths. And don’t know why I bothered. They’ve had a price increase and it’s now €3:00 to go in. Water at 30 degrees and the interior at 17 degrees. They should have specified that it was fahrenheit and not centigrade though – I froze in there.

And now I’m clean I’ll change the bedding and my nightie tonight. Yes, I change my sheets and pillowcases once a year – whether they need it or not.

-3

Friday 15th January 2010 – Liz rang me up this morning for a chat.

intermarche pionst puy de dome franceThe new Intermarche at Pionsat opened its doors on Wednesday and yesterday Liz went there for a look round. She was ever so excited – they had some kind of prize draw there, and she had won a flight in a helicopter!

Anyway, I reckoned that seeing as how I had to go into Pionsat yesterday anyway, I’d go and have a nosey around in there. First thing I did was have a go at the prize draw but of course my usual luck held out and I won b*gg*r all.

Never mind, I went for a wander around and I was quite impressed. They are clearly “mindful” of the large “Alternative” community that exists round here. Tons of pulses, dried herbs, infusions, all that kind of thing (and at a price too, though, it has to be said) and a really good “bio” selection. They are also just as clearly “mindful” of the large British community living round here. Heinz Baked Beans and Typhoo tea bags were just two of the dozens of traditional British products on sale. They even had Hartley’s Jelly, something that I have never ever seen anywhere this side of the Channel.

And of course that reminds me. I worked in Brussels for several years and one day one of my Belgian colleagues came up to me. “What do you call that dessert that you Brits eat and it goes ‘brrrrrrrr’ when a lorry drives past?“

Another exciting thing about the Intermarche was some publicity from the local taxi company offfering some kind of limited stage carriage service from the local area into Pionsat and from Pionsat to Clermont Ferrand and Montlucon. They even advertised a shopping service – you phone up the shop and place your order, they go round and pick it up and bring it to you, for €5:00. It’s not quite “Tesco at Home” but it’s still some kind of gesture to the 21st Century.

And seeing that advert prompted me to do something that I vowed that I would never ever do even if I was dying of hunger and the bailiffs were hammering at the door, having spent 25 years of my life doing it. I went round to the taxi company’s office and, mindful of the fact that they were advertising a whole host of new services, I suggested to them that they might feel the need to engage extra drivers and if so I was available on an occasional basis. So I now have to fill in a CV and a letter of motivation and we’ll see what happens.

I must be off my head.

But the most exciting thing occurred as I was wandering around the Intermarche. The woman from Luxembourg who lives up the road a way from here and uses my e-mail address when she needs to order anything – she was in there and she came over to me saying “here – have this!” And it was A RIDE IN A HELICOPTER. She had won it and she had absolutely no intention of doing anything that involved taking more than one foot off the ground. All in favour of terra firma – the more firma, the less terra. I was ever so impressed, and ever so grateful.

And I’m still in great demand here. Apart from Liz on the phone I had one of these cold calling canvassers. By the time we finished our call I had the latter cursing and swearing at me down the telephone. Serve them right – I hate them. And not only that I had a visit from the mayor’s office. Firstly about the census and would I like to participate by filling in a form. And secondly it was a fact-finding mission as there appears to be some confusion about the land that I want to buy from the commune. One of the councillors wanted to see precisely what it was that I was wanting.

With all of that, I haven’t done much here. I have an “outside wall” in the stairwell where I wasn’t able to put any insulation to stop the heat leaving the attic. I found some thick corrugated cardboard boxes and flattened them out to use. If homeless people can live in them then they must be some good at insulating and it does seem to work. It’s quite cosy in here even without the heating on.

But I did fit the vertical that I cut yesterday. I also trimmed it to take the horizontal battens that will support the plasterboards. And I’ve made a start on the next one. While I was looking for a suitable chevron I came across some stuff such as guitar leads that I’d been looking for for a while.

All in all, on balance I’ve had a really good day today.

-14

Thursday January 14th 2010 – I notice that the weather is now back to normal.

Yes, dark grey skies, miserable windy wet rainy weather and not a trace of the sun anywhere. It’s just like old times.

So this morning, even though I had an early night I don’t know how I managed to sleep through both alarm clocks and it was 09:40 when I woke up. And you can tell that the weather has changed as it was warmer in here. And also a full 9.5 degrees warmer than downstairs so this insulating lark is definitely working. In fact, even as I write, there’s no heating on in this room.

This morning I fitted another vertical on the first floor. That’s the last of the free-standing ones. The afternoon saw me commence the first one of the ones that will be up against the wall. That needs to be planned carefully as the fitted wardrobe in the bedroom will start here.

But I didn’t get much done as once again I was held in conversation on the phone, firstly by the guy who is sorting out my webhosting and secondly by a guy with a 30 year-old Ford Transit. I noticed it on the car park at Brico Depot the other day and happened to see that its tyres were somewhat the worse for wear. The Luton Transit is the same model as his, and I have two almost-new spare tyres that would be worth a fair bit of dosh for someone, as well as all of the other bits when I start to break it. So I left a note under his windscreen wipers with my telephone number. He’s interested in the tyres and a few other bits and he might come round on Sunday.

It was almost pitch-black by 17:00 and so I knocked off early and came upstairs. If I’m going to have the light on I may as well have the light on up here in comfort.

-4

Wednesday 13th January 2010 – It’s back up again.

Well, erichall.eu is, anyway. Lesguis.com is going to have to wait a while longer. So anyone who sent me a mail that bounced – you can resend it now and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

Mind you, once more, my address book, research subfolder and the like have disappeared into the ether. That’s a real pain in the aspidistra and what’s worse, it’s not the first time that this has happened either. You’d think that I would learn.

In other news, that weatherman we have is still up to his tricks, having wild and unpredictable guesses that fall hopelessly short of the mark. He promised us overcast and cloudy conditions with rainfall, but yon golden object was in the sky for the whole day more-or-less and I’ve had another reasonable solar day. Still not earth-shatteringly marvellous but it’ll do for now. I’ve also been cracking on with the insulation but I’ve come to a stop, on the grounds that I’ve now run out of insulation. But at least I can move. I dug Caliburn out of a snowdrift and went for a run up the lane so I reckon that this weekend I’ll go and do a mega-shop in Montlucon and have a shower at Neris.

Talking of showers, I hear that the OUSA Executive committee are to go “on the road” and “visit the regions”. The East Midlands is the first port of call and the Derby/Nottingham area has been suggested for the location. Of course, someone has suggested that they stay in the town of Clowne – after all, it’s midway between the two and somehow quite appropriate.

This afternoon I cut my hair, had a wash and shave, and changed my clothes. Well, it was 8 degrees in the verandah. In fact it was quite a major operation and I hed to tell the water board that it was on its way. But I must admit – I am looking forward to a good swim and a good shower, and I’m not talki …. “you’ve done that” … ed.

I’ve also been in great demand today. Firstly, the girl who came round here with Francois the other day – she phoned me up to talk about this and that. There’s an eco-fair in Clermont Ferrand next weekend and she’s going with Francois. There’s a spare seat in the car and she asked me if I wanted to go. Most people who read this blog are of the opinion that I ought to get out more often and so I’ve decided to go. It’ll do me good.

Next it was the turn of Terry who wanted a chat about one of our long-term projects. It’s nice to hear from him and Liz and have a good natter.

Thirdly, the guy from SMADC (the Society for the Mutual Aid and Development of the Combrailles) called. We are supposed to be having a meeting with a producer from a French radio station, and it’s now been arranged for Monday afternoon. This is looking uncomfortably like it might happen, this idea of an English-language radio programme on French radio.

Finally (at least up to now) Antoine called. He has an idea for a business opportunity for himself now that he’s taken early retirement and wanted a chat about it.

Meanwhile, in other other news, the McCann Media Circus is back on the road, suing anyone and everyone who says naughty things about them. It’s becoming a right money-spinner for someone – this disappearing daughter – and it’s spawned countless imitations right across the globe with kids hidden in settees, kids being dragged away by weather balloons and the like. But the McCanns are really starting to take the mickey now. Over a million quid they want now for their hurt feelings. The money will of course be paid to the “Find Madeleine” campaign, which might well fund further trips to exotic corners of the globe to visit more law courts to sue more people to get more money to pay to the “Find Madeleine” campaign that might well fund further …. “that’s enough of that” – ed.

What the McCanns don’t realise is just how lucky they are. If Mrs McCann had been a single mother and black-skinned, leaving a baby home alone to face a tragedy would have got her 7 and a half years in prison without any trips to any exotic corners of the globe – let alone any charitable funds and any sympathy from a gullible public.

It’s high time someone put a stop to all of this.

-8

Tuesday 12th January 2010 – Well, the weather man got it right today.

It was bound to happen sooner or later – the law of averages is bound to match a wild guess with an actuality sooner or later.

In fact I couldn’t believe it – at first I thought that he had mixed up today with yesterday as the morning was magnificent – a proper Alpine winter day and the solar controllers were ticking over the charge like nobody’s business. I carried on insulating the floor this morning. And it seems to be working too. The early morning average difference between in here and in the lean-to is usually about 7 degrees. Today it was almost 10 degrees. That can’t be coincidence.

I didn’t get much of a chance to do much work though – I had a phone call that involved me doing quite a few other things instead. And seeing as it was a nice morning I had the computer on and started to catch up with a whole pile of messages that have been outstanding. I must have sent out about 30 e-mails to people and they are all going to get a surprise when they try to reply to me, as my web site is down again.

It appears that my web host has closed its doors rather … errr …. suddenly. Not that I’m surprised about this as a phrase involving booze-ups and breweries springs to mind whenever I think of this organisation. What with crashed servers that they couldn’t fix, lost data in e-mail accounts, disappearing files due to fits of pique, a whole host of other things as well that regular readers of these pages will be well aware, I’m surprised that they managed to stagger on to this extent before finally rolling over. There’s a lot more to running a professional and ethical organisation involving hi-tec equipment than you will ever learn by studying an Open University course. But then again most normal people would realise that.

And there you are, trying to be loyal and supportive of people that you like and people who are making an effort to carve out a living for themselves against all the odds and all the rubbish that life has heaped upon them, and it all falls to pieces anyway. “There’s no sentiment in business” I keep on being told, and it’s high time I learnt the lesson. Trying to be nice to people and giving them a helping hand just causes me more problems than it’s worth. I should have been much more ruthless and kicked this shambles into touch the first time they let me down.

I’ve been approached by a “successor” who wants to have my business and we are trying to salvage what we can from the wreckage of dazzling incompetence.
“I’ll match the terms and conditions that my predecessors offered” he announced. So I told him what the terms and conditions were – and his jaw hit the floor.
“They told me you paid …(almost twice as much)” he stuttered
“Well I have the invoice, the bank statement and the cancelled cheque here if you would like to see them“
Someone is speaking with forked tongue, and I know that it isn’t me. And as for the motives – well, just lets say that “it’s fun to speculate”.

Meanwhile, if you want to mail me and the e-mail bounces, wait for a couple of days and resend it.

So after all of these shenanigans, the weather dramatically warmed up and we had a torrential downpour. And about 10 tonnes of snow slid of the roof just three or four feet above my head, and crashed to the ground with the roar of an express train. It put the wind up me for a minute. Rather like the man who gave his pitbull terrier a bicycle pump. “That’ll put the wind up the postman!”.

I was talking to Alexi on a chat program earlier. We were discussing cars and driving tests and she was telling me about hers – which she took in Zambia, where she was living at the time. She had to reverse between two bollards and then drive the examiner to the post office – and that was that. I told her about the Libyan driving test where you have to reverse between two palm trees -which are about 5 miles apart.

And I did hear about a driving test in the Spanish Sahara or the Central African Republic or somewhere like that. The pupil was involved in quite a serious collision in which the examiner was killed. As they pulled him from the wreckage the pupil shouted “did I pass? Did I pass?”
“Wait a minute” shouted one of the policemen at the scene. “We haven’t found the examiner’s clipboard yet!”

-7