I’ll post Friday’s pic.

There I was, fiddling around with this perishing beading that never seems to want to go on where I want to put it, and suddenly I had a horrible thought.

Next weekend is, I reckon, the last weekend in October. And the clocks go back and although I gain an extra hour in bed, I lose an hour’s light. And it’s already getting dark far too early for my liking. Time to cut my losses and go with what I’ve got and get myself in there.

So b*****ks to the beading and I’ve started on the definitive wiring. On the back wall is, from left to right, a British 13-amp double socket (for mains voltage – I prefer them as the plugs are fused), an American 110-volt double socket (which I use for my 12-volt circuits as they are designed for hefty cable) and a British 5-amp single socket – which I’ll be using for a small 6-volt circuit seeing as I have a pile of 6-volt stuff.

Round the corner are the light switches – one bank of 2 for the 12-volt lights and a single one for the 230-volt lights, then another bank of American and British sockets, and a telephone socket. I now have 12-volt power into the room and if you look carefully you can see the mp3 player that is my hi-fi (connected to a pair of powered computer speakers) and a table lamp that’s actually working.

So downstairs and put my feet up, and no perishing internet. And no telephone either. The whole circuit is down. So use the mobile phone to dial up the repair service and “sorry, you cannot access this number from a mobile phone. Please use your landline to report the fault, or consult our website”. Someone should tell them that this is France, not Ireland!

So I dashed down to the local hotel-cum-bar-cum-restaurant-cum-meeting place …“that’s a lot of cum” – ed … to find out that it doesn’t open on Friday nights, Saturdays or Sundays. It’s also closed for holidays during August – what kind of way is that to run a business? But that’s another story.

In the end Liz very kindly reported the fault (it’s a general collapse of the Virlet exchange and everyone is cut off) and she posted a note on the blog to calm my eager readers. And consequently my mailbox is swamped with mails of goodwill, which is extremely nice.

There’s even a mail from a member of the OUSA Executive Committee – who shall remain nameless as reading my blog is punishable by death. “Hurry up and get back on line. We look forward to your pithy comments. All we have to read at the moment is this circular from Turdi de Hatred. Your postings are like shafts of wit. Hers are .. errr …. well, quite!”

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