… last night when I should have been posting my blog entry on-line?
The answer was that I wasn’t here.
I was probably fast asleep on a Motorway Service Area somewhere on the edge of Paris.
Now that my stay here is going to be permanent (well, it always has been since 2007 but having sold my big apartment in Brussels in the summer, I now have no choice) I need to upgrade my electricity system.
The solar panels are of course permanent but things like the inverter, the batteries, the cabling and so on have been “job lots” picked up here and there and while they might be okay for a casual arrangement, things have changed.
I’ve ordered some additional panels and a new inverter, and … gulp … 8 200-zmp-hour sealed gel batteries, each one of which weighs about 60 kg, from my suppliers. And the delivery costs are astronomical, to say the least.
It works out to be far cheaper for me to travel there and collect them, so that was what I decided to do.
And I had a good drive there too. The Transport Cafe near Gien was open and so I even managed a shower, so I’m nice and clean, which makes quite a change for just recently.
But parts of the drive were exciting. At some small town round near Nemours somewhere, there are five or six traffic lights in sequence on the road through the place and they are always against you. And when I stopped at the first one the car behind me overtook me and drove slowly through the lights.
And did that all the way up to light number 5.
At number 6 you do have to stop as it’s a major road and I caught up with him there just as that turned to green – so I was past him again and back in front.
So now I’m settling down for a good sleep and I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow.
