Tag Archives: st eloy les mines

Saturday 30th January 2010 – I found today quite moving….

…in more than one sense of the word.

I woke up this morning and the first thing that needed to be done was to shovel snow. The blizzard that was down the south side of the Font Nanaud last night had made it over the crest of the range and had deposited three inches of snow chez nous.

And once I had cleared the snow away from off the solar panels and off Caliburn I went round to Claude’s. And this is where the moving came in. Dunno if you remember a few weeks back when I told you that someone had had some good news and I couldn’t say any more at the time but now I can and it’s that Claude has sold his house and he’s moving. His house is bigger than mine with a nicer plot of land and with a small extra house as well and he’s been slowly renovating it whenever funds have allowed. But last summer he had to have open-heart surgery and that has put paid to his plans for good. So he put his house up for sale and he sold it – and for the asking price too with no reduction. The only downside of that is that the purchasers wanted occupation as quickly as possible and so he hasn’t had time to find anywhere permanent. He’s come across an old empty apartment on top of an industrial premises in St Eloy and that’s where we’ve started to move him into.

Much as I’m pleased for his good fortune in selling his house at top price, I shall nevertheless miss him. He’s been a very good friend and neighbour and he’s helped me out loads of times, especially when I was taken ill down here in October 2003. That’s something I shan’t quickly forget.

We should have been footying tonight – the second half of the season getting under way after the winter break – but there was no chance of that. At about 16:00 it started to snow heavily again and we’ve had about 4 or 5 inches so far. It’s going to be more like ice hockey down the road in Pionsat if anyone bothered to turn up. But you can’t do anything in this weather except stay in. I’m supposed to be moving more stuff for Claude tomorrow but the weather is going to have a big say in the likelihood of that.

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Wednesday 27th January 2010 – I haven’t done much today.

I crawled out of bed this morning on time for a change and after a quick breakfast I piddled off to St Eloy to meet Liz and Terry for stage 2 of our househunting. First estate agent was on the phone all the time we were there and so we went to the second. Three people inside the office, two chatting to each other and the third on the phone.
“Ohh, she’ll see you. She won’t be a minute” said one of the chatting colleagues, indicating the one who was on the phone. So we waited and waited and waited while she carried on talking on the phone and the others carried on chatting to each other. 10 minutes of this and we piddled off elsewhere. Yes, don’t sell your property with ORPI of St Eloy – total waste of time and treat the customers with contempt.

At the third the estate agent selected three properties for us to have a look at and we wandered off to look at them. One was out of the question – although you can make 7 or 8 apartments in it, it’s expensive and needs a lot of money throwing at it. And there’s no way you could just do up one or two for starters – it all has to be done together. The other two are distinct possibilities and one particularly has fired our collective imaginations.

But why oh why is it that estate agents over here are so disorganised. When we looked around Pionsat the other day the estate agent forgot the keys and had to run back to the office to find them and here today the estate agent had “issues” with the keys. No sense of organisation, let alone “customer service”.

This afternoon I did even less. I’ve had a whole run of bad nights where I’ve had problems sleeping and it caught up with me this afternoon and I crashed out. But it’s no surprise. Minus 273 degrees C, or zero on the Kelvin scale, is when all molecular activity ceases. And while it hasn’t got that low yet it’s …. gulp …. minus 9 outside and my molecular activity has ceased. And I shan’t be doing much tomorrow if it doesn’t warm up any.

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Saturday 2nd January 2010 – Well…

…I’ve finally had the day that I have been waiting for – a long cold Arctic sunny day. There were still plenty of clouds around but I managed 135 amp-hours of electricity in the house and 37.4 in the barn. That figure for the house – it’s the highest since 20th November and it’s cheered me up a little.

So this morning I had a really good clean and tidy up. I threw out tons of stuff and there’s another huge pile for burning. I may well do that tomorrow and cook some potatoes while I’m at it, to eat tomorrow night with the pizza. I’ve found some more pine shelving and I took that upstairs and now that’s all full of folders documents and magazines. The place looks pretty impressive and that’s just as well for Terry and Liz came round this evening. And that reminds me – I must fix up a proper doorbell now that I’m more likely to have visitors. I can’t have my guests banging on the door for ages while I have the music going full-tilt.

This afternoon I went into Pionsat to swap a bottle of gas at the garage. I like to support local commerces if it’s just for this kind of thing. It’s cheaper than going to St Eloy even if the gas is cheaper there – 10kms instead of 35 and much less chance of being sidetracked by LIDL. But despite the garage having a notice saying “Ferme les dimanche ainsi que les jours feries” it was closed, despite it being neither a Sunday nor a Public Holiday. I don’t know what’s the matter with these places in Pionsat – they don’t want to earn any money and I had to go to St Eloy instead. Yes, the long-range weather forecast warns us of MINUS 13 on Tuesday night, MINUS 14 on Thursday night and MINUS 6 during Friday DAYTIME. I don’t want to be stuck without heating in these conditions.

And I’m having serious second thoughts about my kitchen. I have to bring the water pipe all the way across the house to the far corner of the attic and then drop the water down below to the bathroom but run a hot water pipe right the way back across the house to the lean-to where I’ll be putting the kitchen. Meanwhile directly under the stairs on the ground floor and right underneath the bathroom will be a load of dead space. And today I’ve been thinking about putting an open kitchen there. It’ll narrow the room quite a bit (from 5.2 metres to about 3.6) and the kitchen will be quite small but then again I’m not using half of this attic and there is only me to think about. It’ll make the plumbing so much easier too.

What do you think? All comments hints and suggestions are welcome.

-7

Monday 21st December 2009 – Temperature inversion is a wonderful thing

When I got back from the Anglo-French meeting tonight, the warmest place was … errr … outside. 7.5 degrees, a whopping 2 degrees warmer than in the verandah, a massive 7 degrees warmer than in the kitchen, and 3 degrees warmer than in my attic.

Yes, we’ve had a sudden thaw. My attention was drawn to it at about 13:00 when I heard a noise that sounded like a railway train passing overhead. I turned round and saw a huge sheet of snow slide off the roof. So I went outside, and it was WARM – the first time it’s been warm for over a week. I was humming and hawing about going out tonight but the thaw decided it – off to the shops before they close and stock up on things that I might need if I get snowed in again.But as things stand I am more likely to sink into the swamp that has been created outside.

And today is the first day in about 100 years that we haven’t had any precipitation. I suppose that that is something to celebrate. But that is truly astonishing for with the temperature inversion we have heavy grey clouds and so sod all solar energy.

Mind you, just now there isn’t a cloud in the sky and it’s totally clear. But of course that’s because it’s night-time. It won’t be like this in the daylight, that’s for certain. I’m convinced that the sun is never going to shine again.

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Thursday 17th December 2009 – "In the bleak midwinter frosty winds made moan ….

severe winter 2009 les guis virlet puy de dome france…. earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone”
You know, I had no idea that Christina Rossetti lived here in the Combrailles. Last night the temperature outside dropped to -7.1 and in the heat exchanger it plummeted to -10. Consequently in order to get through the ice in my water butts so that I could have some water, I went in search of the pickaxe.

Now that a wind has sprung up blowing the snow everywhere the temperature has warmed up to a balmy -1.5. It might even struggle up above freezing point tomorrow if we are lucky – the first time since Sunday afternoon.

This morning I actually managed to hear the alarm and so I was up and about comparatively early. I went straight into St Eloy to purchase my Christmas present at LIDL and luckily they still had some in stock. Of course I can’t tell you what it is as I don’t open my presents until Christmas morning. On my way to St Eloy that weird golden thing put in an appearance for 10 or 15 minutes and then it was back to the snow again.

From there I went round to Pionsat to speak to the new owners of the “Queue de Milan” where our group meets on the first Monday of every month. It turns out that the previous owners had forgotten to mention us to him.
“Do you eat here then?” he asked
so I explained to him about our group and how, as it happens, he might be able to do something for us for our Christmas meal.
The conversation then turned to other matters and one of the subjects we discussed was the football and how they were discouraged by the previous owners. With the ground being right next to the hotel I reckoned he should do his best to talk to them.
“Will they eat here after the match then?”
Ahhhhh – right. Not a hotelier, not a bar keeper, just a restauranteur.
Pionsat is a typical small Auvergnat town of maybe 1200 people if it’s lucky. It’s true that there’s no other restaurant for a good few miles but then again the place is hardly heaving with people. A place like the “Queue de Milan” should be the focal point of the area with its hotel, its bar, its little salle de fetes and, yes, its restaurant. It should be all of those things. The previous owners tried to run it as just a restaurant, closing down the bar as the football ground turfed out and things like that, but that of course went tits-up. So if the new owners are trying to follow the pattern then it will end in its own logical conclusion.

Which of course reminds me – the “Queue de Milan” being the hotel-restaurant for the area. Many people are now getting into the detailed planning for Christmas and looking for places to eat out over the festive season. Many ex-pats such as myself live in deplorable circumstances in the middle of house renovations and the like. This is the time that family and friends like to be together and if you don’t have the facilities to lodge your guests you stick ’em up in the local hotel.

So it’s no surprise to anyone for me to tell you that the “Queue de Milan” is closing down tomorrow and reopening on the 4th January once the festive season has ended. And they complain that the business isn’t paying. It beggars belief.

After that I went round to Claude’s. He’s finished with my acrows (he’s only had them for 8 years) and he’s also found the rotavator attachment for my brushcutter, the three-wheeled lawnmower and a few other things. So Caliburn and I went round to pick them up. And what a surprise! He’s been tidying up and found in the pigsty his reserve stock of metal window shutters. They are now surplus to requirements and so he heaved them into the back of Caliburn. That was really nice of him!

So having got the morning out of the way this afternoon I fitted the vertical that I was trying to fit in the dark yesterday – it’s amazing just how easy everything is in the daylight when you can see what you are doing. I followed that by cutting and shaping another vertical which I then installed. And that then split up the vertical length by a good foot. Luckily it’s split outward from the joint so that the weight is still being taken by the unsplit part. I drilled and screwed it to keep it together but I’m fed up of this awful crappy wood from Brico Depot. This is the second one that’s split on me. Someone ought to take the quality control manager outside and shoot him.

Tomorrow I’ll be cutting and fitting the three last beams and once they are in position I can do the remainder of the stairs. I also have some floor to fix as well – I narrowed the stairwells as you might remember so the part between the old beam and the new beam needs to be floored over. That has to be done before I fit the second half of the stairs.

And I also have to go to Glastonbury in the very near future. Someone had seriously annoyed me and they and their entourage are going to be on the receiving end of a really good kicking.

-7

Saturday 12th December 2009 – Never mind the …

first snow 2009 les guis virlet puy de dome france… snows of winter covering our land,, I have the first snows of winter covering my water butts. Not very much, I agree, but snow just the same. And more is forecasted for tonight and tomorrow. I’m stocked up with wood and gas and food so I don’t care.

This morning was another morning where I only vaguely heard the alarm and I woke up properly at 09:21. Mind you I was having a very exciting dream – I’d killed two people and I was having everyone in a house sleeping on Ford Cortina rear seats while I was off to Chester to look for an ex-girlfriend. I tell you what – my dreams are much more exciting than real life.

Shopping today wasn’t very exciting though and LIDL didn’t have anything special, although I bumped into Robert the drummer and his wife. I remembered to go to the library though and ascertained everything that I needed to know about joining. They have a reasonable selection of books on the area and I reckon that I might spend my Saturday afternoons after shopping in the library making notes on things in the area so I can update my website.

Rhys and I were talking about this the other nigbt – there’s tons of stuff on the web about all kinds of things but firstly much of its authenticity is sometimes doubtful, and there’s a considerable volume of knowledge that hasn’t made it to the net. I regularly search for old and obsolete history and travel books to glean facts about places that I’ve visited so I can add things to my travel web pages. For some reason there doesn’t seem to be a big market in second-hand books of that nature in France.

fcpsh football club de foot ,pionsat st hilaire bromont lamotheTonight I was at the footy. There were two matches, the 2nd XI against Biollet St Maurice and the 1st XI against Bromont Lamothe. As well as goals we had all sorts of other things that really have no place on a football field. Both Bromont and Pionsat’s 1st XI finished with 10 on the pitch – Pionsat’s 11th player being carried off and Bromont’s 11th player being ordered off and had there been an official referee for the Biollet game, Biollet would have been lucky to have finished with anyone on the pitch.

But I’ve been invited to attend the football club’s annual dinner, which is very nice of them and I appreciate the gesture. I can bring a friend too – I just wish that I had one 🙁

-14

Friday 11th December 2009 – I now have three stairs …

stairway to heaven stairs les guis virlet puy de dome france…into my attic – It’s becoming a veritable Stairway to Heaven, isn’t it?

You can see the additional step and its cantilever outriggers. And seeing as there was 1m92 headroom over the head of the stairs to the ground floor once I had fitted the step, I decided to extend it so that it now makes a handy shelf for storage.

The step itself is at a nice height to step off the step ladder There’s none of the mauling and messing around like I had to do on the ladder. So I’m totally puzzled as to how I managed to spill a load of coffee on the step when I have been safely manoeuvring a full mug of coffee up a ladder for the last month or so.

So having done that, I set out to measure up for the rest of the stairs. Now I don’t know if you can recall any ancient legal documents – before the days of computers – where amendments had to be made manually. And different coloured inks were used to amend the amendments and so on. Well on the pillar where I was making the measurements I have red blue and black ink and pencil markings. But now I’ve decided on where I want everything and if my visitors don’t mind steps of 29cms then it takes just 10 steps to get into my room with a footprint (minus the angle of the turn) of just 54.5 cms, which is pretty impressive!

So this afternoon I’ve been cutting pillars and beams and on Monday I’ll be installing the first two. Well, I won’t – Terry needs a hand and I owe him plenty of favours so on Monday afternoon I’ll be tootling off there. I’ve heard a rumour that Liz might be baking.

Im other news, I had a couple of shocks this morning. Firstly I do vaguely recall hearing the alarm go off at some point but it usually does this at 5-minute intervals throughout an hour starting at 08:00 with another alarm clock joining in at certain moments. It’s not at the first crack that I haul myself out of bed – I usually have to wait for a while to wake up so I didn’t pay much attention to the alarm at first. The next thing that I remember was that it was 9:24. Did I really sleep right through 2 alarms for a whole hour?

And there was this strange golden thing in the sky and the sky around it was all blue instead of the traditional grey. That was surprising. I was disappointed that my prediction last night was all wrong. But as the morning developed I realised that it was all a question of a sense of timing and by lunchtime we were all properly overcast.

Tomorrow is St Eloy shopping. I wonder if I’ll find anything exciting there. I forgot to check the special offers at LIDL

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Monday 7th December 2009 – I’ve fitted one of my verticals

stud wall bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see it in the photo – dead centre of the image up against the wall. Only one vertical though.

I woke up this morning to hear the rain lashing down on the roof again just like the other day. And just like the other day, even though I’m working inside, it’s not very encouraging. I’m wondering when we might have a dry day.

So when I eventually got out of bed and had my breakfast and went up to the first floor where I’m working, it was so perishing dark that I couldn’t actually see anything.

That prompted me hurling out of the window all of the old pallets that were in the pile against the wall and which you may well have seen in other photos. Some were broken, but others survived the fall and so I extended the pallet path that I laid 2 years ago. What with the marsh that’s developing outside, it seemed like a good idea.

So that was the morning accounted for, and in the afternoon I cut and fitted the vertical. It takes hours to do them as they need to be millimetre-perfect and so that involves cutting the lets slightly undersize and then filing them out to fit.

Tonight at the Anglo-French group we had a couple of new arrivals joining in – a French woman and an Austrian woman. They are Buddhists and have come here to be close to the Buddhist monastery in the area. Those of you who remember my blog in its previous home will remember my visit there one Sunday afternoon. And Marianne, the local journalist who sometimes comes to the meetings – she liked my pic from last night and intends to use it to illustrate an article on the village. Not that there’s any dosh in it but if it’s in the paper the villagers will see it and they might be interested in having a copy for themselves. It’s worth a go.

The proprietors of the Hotel in Pionsat where we meet have announced that they are leaving imminently – where to, they don’t know. You need a special kind of mentality to run a place like that and you can’t do it if you have small children and want a family life. Someone is taking over so our continuity is assured. But not so at St Eloy. You may remember that we were locked out of our venue the other week. It seems that the tenants (they were only tenants, not owners) have fled, leaving behind something of a financial muddle. We’ll have to find somewhere else in St Eloy now. Antoine is on the case.

And tomorrow I’ll be carrying on with the verticals if I can trouble myself to climb out of bed. The weather forecast is “no change”.

-9

Thursday 26th November 2009 – "This is the song of a girl and goatherd….

…. lay oh dalayee oh da layeeeeeeooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh”
sang Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”. And I should know. Having a stagestruck mother whose own mother (my grandmother) was a Zeigfield Folly on Broadway in the 1920s I had as a child to sit through every single musical that ever came out and I know the script and the lyrics of each one off by heart. And I don’t ever want to see another musical for as long as I live.

But Julie Andrews didn’t know the story about one particular goatherd who lived just down the road here in Teilhet. He had rented some land for his goats – land that had been “promised” to other people. And one night all his goats were killed. And another night his barn was burnt down. And then he received threatening letters.

A group of people around here felt that the police were dragging their heels and that it was the locals, having been “promised” the land, who were behind all of the shenanigans. This group organised all kinds of demonstrations aimed at confronting the police, trying to provoke some kind of retaliation by the authorities into the locals and their affairs – generally stirring up the community and the like. I was asked to join in the action too, but I stepped back and urged the others to think before they went too far. I usually like to hear both sides of the story before I leap into anything.

This didn’t go down too well at all with some of the others and when a most offensive petition aimed at the local community was drafted in the name of an organisation of which I happened to be a member, I withdrew my support. I received a barrage of e-mails the contents of which would have been out of place in the fo’c’sle of The Good Ship Venus. Accusing me of “being just as guilty as those who are behind the violence” was the least of the criticisms.

Meanwhile, about 100 miles away from here in a village called Tarnac, there is “The Tarnac affair”. Persons unknown placed some railway sleepers across the main TGV line in an attempt to derail a train. Luckily no major damage was done. A short while later a group of young persons in Tarnac was rounded up by the police in respect of this sabotage and were charged, not under “civil” legislation such as criminal damage and the like, but special “terrorism” legislation. It was claimed that this group of persons had contacts with other international groups aimed at disrupting civil society and that sort of thing.

One person whose evidence was instrumental in this case was the famous “witness X”, whose identity was kept secret to avoid “repercussions” due to the nature of his evidence.

And today, the identity of “witness X” has been announced. And who do you think that it is?

Yes, you’re right. None other than our local goatherd.

Now of course there is no evidence to suggest that this group of terrorists or any supporters thereof are behind the attacks on this guy’s farm and his goats (graphologists attached to the French Government say that the writing on the letters matches his own handwriting but he denies this) but it’s a story that is at least as plausible as that of the outraged locals undertaking the attacks. And you can see why the authorities have been thought to be dragging their feet in this affair – the ramifications of the goatherd’s involvement with the “terrorists” of the Tarnac affair stretch across all kinds of international boundaries and go way beyond an ordinary village feud.

Pretty soon, I’ll be seeing some of the people involved in this sorry affair. I’m not expecting an apology for the vilification and the ostracism to which I have been subjected over the past 12 months, but I’ll be intrigued to see how many of them come up to me and admit that I had a very valid point.

In other news, Terry came round today and we went and shovelled some sand into some sacks. 1.4 tonnes of it. We had some good luck too at the quarry, but in the interests of discretion (you never know who reads this blog) I can’t say anything about it.

Afterwards I did some washing, including my really comfy “Hawkshead” boots that a slug had made a home in and as I couldn’t settle down afterwards I went into St Eloy and did my shopping. I met Francois from the Anglo-French group in LIDL and we had a chat.

Yes, shopping today. That’s unusual. But I’m busy all day Saturday. Terry and Liz are having a chantier at their house and that might mean vegan chocolate cake.

-8

Monday 16th November 2009 – This evening I had to go into Montaigut en Combraille …

church montaigut en combraille… to return a guitar lead to Robert the drummer. I’d borrowed one from him to try out this Carlsbro combo that I bought. Where he lives is just 20 yards from the town church, and it was looking so nice bathed in the orange lamps of the square that I reckoned it was worth a photo.

Montaigut is a deceptive town, there’s a main road that runs right through the middle of it and that road carries a great deal of heavy traffic – it’s the N144, the main road between Montlucon and Clermont Ferrand. It looks dirty and dingy and full of abandoned shops and houses.

But the main road was only built through it in the 1920s. Prior to that all of the traffic passed through the real centre of the town, the centre that most people don’t even know exists. It was formerly a mediaeval walled city complete with castle (now long-demolished) and narrow winding mediaeval streets that are difficult to walk through, never mind drive through.

This morning I set the alarm – for the first time in 12 days – but it was still difficult to crawl out of my stinking pit. And I started on a desultory tidying-up. I’ve found some more scaffolding buried in the undergrowth and all kinds of bits and pieces. I’m busy sorting out the wood that we ripped off the roof, seeing what is salveable and what is just fit for burning.

I’ve also added another compost bin – we have a black plastic dustbin with an old caravan window over the top. You might be wondering what I’m doing with this but it concerns the beichstuhl arrangements. I shan’t go into the gory details as you are probably eating but if you remember back a few weeks ago, it involves a plant pot, a load of biodegradable bin liners and the fact that I’m a vegan. Keeping the soil fertility going is quite important.

Tonight is the 3rd Monday of the month and that’s when we meet at the hotel at St Eloy. A sign on the door said “back at 19:00” but by 19:40 we were fed up of waiting and so we went to the bar down the road instead. It seems that Mark is something of an expert at pointing stonework using chalk. Terry has asked him to give him some lessons so Mark is going round there on Thursday morning. I’m always keen to learn whatever I can at times like this so I’m going round there too. After all, my place is in need of a good pointing too and so I’ll make a point of learning all I can.

-6

Saturday 14th November 2009 – I’ve just got back …

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire condat giat voingt… from the footy tonight. And for a change both sides won. Pionsat’s 2nd XI beat Condat Giat 1-0 and after that the 1st XI beat St Priest 3-1. What is even more astonishing is that following those results both of the clubs top their respective leagues. And who would have thought that after the mauling the 2nd XI received in the first game of the season against Pontaumur?

But at least the injury crisis is easing. Cedric reappeared up front for the 1st XI (and marked his reappearance with a goal) – the first time that he has played this season. And Michael was back in goal for the 2nd XI which means that with Matthieu not being on duty this weekend he’ll be keeping goal for the 3rd XI at Combronde tomorrow – the first time that they will have had a proper keeper for ages. I’m even told that they have a full complement of 14 (11 plus 3 subs) for the 3rd XI too and I haven’t seen that for months.

But we were lucky to get football today. This morning it was absolutely p155ing down at an incredible rate of knots and I was of the opinion that had it carried on, the games would have been off. But it brightened up a little in the afternoon while I was at the shops.

Talking of shopping, and talking of footy, I’m going to make another revision to my shopping schedule. Normally I go once a month to Montlucon for a mega-shop and the other Saturdays I just go into St Eloy. But Commentry (half-way between here and Montlucon) has some decent shops too – better than those in St Eloy but it’s farther away. Howver, some Saturdays there are two footy matches down the road – one at 18:30 and the other at 20:30 and I’m always in a rush for the first one of those but on the Saturdays when there is just one match the kickoff is at 20:00 and there’s plenty of time for that. So on those days, why don’t I go and do my shopping in Commentry in the early afternoon and then go the extra 10km to Neris-les-Bains and go for a swim and a shower? A good swim and a shower every fortnight will keep me clean and healthy.

And talking of footy again, I see that the Yellow Cowdenbeath stuffed Ingerlund tonight. Ha ha ha ha!

-6

Saturday 31st October 2009 – I had another working day today.

This morning I masked off everywhere in the room and then went off to St Eloy for the shopping. I spent up in LIDL – they were having a musical day so I bought a couple of guitar stands and a guitar tuner.

Also buying a guitar stand was Michael – I haven’t seen him in ages.
“Do you play?” he asked me
“Yes – bass guitar” I replied.
“I’ve started to play electric guitar” he said

So we had quite a chat about guitars and music and other exciting stuff. I told him I was planning to get back on the road, and it turns out that he knows a drummer that lives near to him. He’s going to put me in touch with him
“You can come and join in too” I suggested
“I don’t know enough chords” he replied
“Look – Status Quo toured for 30 years and they only knew three chords!“
“I see what you mean“
I might be on to something here.

At Carrefour my favourite shop assistant (she’s the spitting image of a girl I used to work with) was there. But she’s had her hair cut!
“Who cut it for you?” I asked
“The coiffeur at St Pourcain” she replied
“Doesn’t he like you then?“

Back at home I spent the afternoonpainting attic walls painting, as you can see. Half of the room is done, and I’ve used half of the paint. So it isn’t going to get a second coat any time soon. I’ve brushed it on too rather than rollered it – to make it go farther.

Krys’ suggestion of cream would have been an excellent choice but it’s a bit too late now. Blue will have to do. It’ll get the rest tomorrow and if I run out I can do one of the walls in white.

And while I was up on the ladder doing a complicated bit the blasted phone rang. I scrambled down, lowered the ladder down again and climbed down to the phone but just as I got there the perishing thing stopped ringing.

Once I’d finished the first tub of paint I cleaned myself up a bit and set off for Clotilde’s, who was having a farewell evening before she goes into hibernation at Annemasse. But I must have driven around Lapeize about three times and I couldn’t see her house. Nowhere with plenty of cars parked outside. Even some local yokel couldn’t set me right for her house so after gnashing my teeth I came back home again.

As you know I don’t do “social stuff”. It takes me a whole load of effort to get out of my house but it’s one of the things I need to do so I force myself. But it’s twice now I’ve been to some social event like this where the directions have been … errr …. rather vague and I’ve ended up not going. maybe it’s fate trying to tell me something.

In other news, LIDL has been having a British week and selling loads of traditional British stuff, most of which I imagine has never done anything more British than watch an episode of Coronation Street on satellite TV in some factory in South Korea. One of the things that they have on offer are boxes of Jelly Babies.
And do you know how you can tell which of a box of Jelly Babies are the illegitimate ones/
The answer is really easy.
If you turn the box upside down, all the b@$t@rd$ fall out.

-6

Monday 21st September 2009 – I WAS QUITE HAPPILY …

… working away upstairs when I happened to glance it the time.

Blimmin’ ‘eck – 18:40. And I have to be in St Eloy all dressed up and looking pretty by 19;30.

Of course, as you know already if you have been following my blog, the days when superheroes such as myself could whizz into a telephone box in our day clothes, do a quick twirl and whizz out again dressed as our alter egoes have long gone thanks to the technological revolution that has seen the rise of the portable telephone and the consequent fall of the public telephone box.

Hence we have to get washed, shaved and dressed like you mere mortals and that takes time. Better get my skates on.

wall insulation counter battens attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo what had I been doing that had taken all of the time?

First thing was to bring a whole pile of battens upstairs into the attic. The way I’m progressing I won’t any longer be able to bring 4-metre lengths of wood upstairs via the stairs. That took a while too.

Then I put battens on the wall where my desk is going to be, and xylophened them. I’m making it a kind of policy to xylophene any wood that is coming into contact with any of the wood that is already up there.

That took me to lunchtime.

After lunch I fitted the insulation and then fitted the three floor panels in that corner. I’ll be needing an offcut too to fill a small width.

fitting door into stud wall attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceFrom here it starts to get exciting – I brought the door upstairs.

A cheap British B&Q glass door that I bought in a sale ages ago. You can see where it’s going to fit when it’s installed (it’s just leaning against the post right now). The stairs are going to turn away from the door at 90 degrees, go halfway down and then do a U turn. To the right of the door is where my desk and office stuff will be, and underneath the office space is where the shower room will be.

Once I had put the door into the position where I want it, I measured up the floor so that I know where the left-hand upright will go, and then measured the floor so I know where to fit the two traverse beams that will support the floor that people will walk on as they enter the room via the door.

And it was doing that when I happened to notice the time.

At St Eloy we were 8, if I remember correctly, and our task for this evening was to look at faces and write down what we imagined were the lifestyles of the people depicted. And then we had a very congenial session in the bar afterwards.

Participating in the Anglo-French group is as much about socialising with congenial people as it is practising and improving our “second” language.

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Thursday 27th August 2009 – WORK ON THE ATTIC …

fitting of chimney tube into wall les guis virlet puy de dome france… has started in earnest this morning. And in fact if I had been able to find my heavy bolster chisel when I started to look for it instead of having to search for two (yes, two) hours to find it, I would have started this morning.

I’ve whacked a huge hole in the wall that took me through into the chimney, and I’ve passed in a piece of enamel piping 125mm in diameter. This is the outlet for the woodstove that I will be putting up here for the winter to keep me warm memo – buy a woodstove.

I then mixed a huge bucket full of cement and cemented up the hole around the pipe and filled in the cracks that were in the wall. when I finished that, it was 18:00 to the second, so I knocked off. Not like last night where I was so carried away by enthusiasm that I was still working at 19:15 when I noticed the time.

You can always tell when I’m absorbed in an interesting job by how late it is when I knock off.

12 volt LED lightbulbs les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis morning I went chaud-pied to St Eloy to get the LED lights. And, major disappointment, they only had 7 GU10s, 7 MR16s and 6 E14s.

Needless to say, after I had left they didn’t have any at all.

They also had a few cans of the wood treatment that I like (albeit increased in price to 8.99 instead of 7.99) and they are two tins lighter of that stuff now too. It’s very good stuff, this LIDL wood treatment.

I went to Pionsat afterwards to pick up my new bank card and to empty the chemical toilet when I get the time, get the new improved beichstuhl up and running.

While I was emptying the toilet, a woman came in to use the facilities. She made about half a pace in, grabbed her nose, said “God, it stinks in here” and piddled off, giving me a huge grimace. And that took me completely by surprise – I had thought my chemical toilet was known the whole world over by now.

And back home, while looking for the bolster chisel I measured up everything that I’m going to need to do my room. It’s going to stretch my budget considerably but then again, comfort has its price but it is its own reward.

And talking of cracks, an ugly crack appeared on the wall of the OUSA office the other day. But Als Ryan had it papered over before Turdi de Hatred could read it.

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Saturday 22nd August 2009 – THIS IS ABSOLUTELY ASTONISHING!

solar energy record amp-hours les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe solar panels on the roof of the Luton Transit that feed the power to the barn (and originally to here with some very dodgy wiring) have been there since August 2007 and the most solar energy that they have ever received is 90.8 amp-hours, back on 22 April 2009.

Bearing in mind that fact that was some 2 months before the optimal date for capturing solar energy, you would expect that figure to be broken some time in midsummer but as yet it’s not quite managed it.

By contrast, the 3 panels on the roof of the house that are currently wired in capture a theoretical 21 watts more and although they are not angled optimally into the sun, they are situated in a much better location for catching the sun, so I had high hopes for these panels. But not 120.6 amp-hours worth.

That’s a pretty astonishing figure from just 390 watts, and with another 390 watts to come from the second bank of panels, you can understand why I’m optimistic about this set-up if I can generate these kinds of figures. This would represent just under 3KwH of electricity (1 KwH is about 88 amp-hours or so) being generated today on both banks of panels.

This morning I was awake long before the alarm went off and spent the morning tidying up, sowing some lettuce seed into a container in the verandah and rescuing some oregano and mint (with not having the time to do any gardening just now the whole place is going to pot!).

Lunchtime saw me in St Eloy shopping (or trying to shop if there was anything to buy – the place is rapidly going downhill) and when the DiY shop opened I went to get my polystyrene sheets for the battery box.
“We don’t carry that” said the owner. “You need to go to the builders’ merchants”
“Ok” I replied, heading for the door
“But it’s a waste of time going now. They are closed!”
This blasted country gets me down at times. The concept of customer service is getting to be as bad as the UK’s. Builders’ merchants closed on Saturdays when everyone has the weekend to do DiY, hotels that close for the summer holidays when they should be open for summer holidaymakers, restaurants “closed for lunch” (I’ve seen that!). No perishing idea.

If someone were to open a decent DiY in St Eloy they would clean up. And if Screwfix or Toolstation got their acts together and started to operate here they too would hit the jackpot.

So I piddled off the 40km to Commentry and the Bricomarche. Not only were they open (and that’s a surprise) and not only did they have my polystyrene (and what a price too! I needed oxygen after that!), they also had the missing bits for the guttering as well as the bits that I need to make a sump in my rainwater collection plan.

So …gulp … 68 Euros the lighter, I returned home, fitted the sump into the rainwater collection circuit (I’ll post a pic of it one of these days) and fitted the polystyrene into the battery box.

I put the other 6 batteries in there and I’ll remove away from the front door the 4 I’m currently using, and put them in the box. But that’s for tomorrow.

And while I was sitting drinking a coffee, an old beat-up little white Citroen pulled up at the back of the house. A couple had a look at the back of the house, had a good chat and then drove away. I wonder what that’s all about.

I suppose I’ll soon find out. But it’s been all go today, hasn’t it?

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