Tag Archives: radio anglais

Monday 26th May 2014 – THIS IS ASTONISHING …

… but here I am at 22:15 on a Monday evening and in a minute I’ll be off to bed.

Clearly something’s up, although I’m not quite sure what, and I did have a little something of a late night last night but nevertheless …

And the weather doesn’t help at all. It’s been raining for almost all of the day and this afternoon we’ve had some terrific rainstorms – coming back between Gouttieres and Pionsat I could hardly see the road.

So this morning I was up early and in Marcillat-en-Combraille for the Radio Tartasse version of Radio Anglais. And we had the usual shambolic performance that is becoming something of a trademark these days and it’s a good job that I’m engineering my own rock music programmes, for Heaven alone knows what they might be like.

Terry’s big Ifor Williams trailer was in Pionsat at Simon’s so I had to pick that up on the way back and drop it off on Terry, and then Liz and I made our way down to Gerzat for the Radio Arverne sessions.

Bernard for some reason wasn’t there and Philippe, the young apprentice, was there waiting for someone else (it seems that they had forgotten about us). But the someone else didn’t turn up so Philippe did the engineering for us. It took ages as he didn’t really know how our shows work but eventually it finished, only for Philippe to find out that the studio calendar was on the wrong page and we were indeed expected after all.

So what happened there I really don’t know.

So braving the rainstorms, I’m back home and I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough for today.

-1

Sunday 25th May 2014 – THIS BLASTED WEATHER!

When I finally awoke this morning (at … errr … 12:37 this afternoon – I must have been tired) it was absolutely beautiful. But I didn’t have much chance to enjoy it as I had a lot to do (much of which didn’t get done).

I left early for the football (as Pionsat were playing the Goatslayers at Teilhet) as I went via Cecile’s to check her mail, check on the house and do a load of waxhing. and the lawn is completely overgrown – I’ll have to cut that again pretty soon.

Pionsat lost 2-1 at the Goatslayers which is hardly a suprise as they only had 9 players out. Christophe, Julien and Jerome are injured and Kevin was unavailable, and after the maximum effort last night no-one was available from the 1st XI. But the weather broke. We had a thunderstorm and torrential, driving rain enought to chill anyone’s ardour.

I was round at Liz and Terry’s later to rehearse our radio shows, and Liz cooked a vegan lasagne which was excellent as usual. And then I made my way home, picking up the washing on the way back.

-2

Saturday 24th May 2014 – PHEW! THAT WAS CLOSE!

Pionsat are not totally safe from relegation but this evening’s result means that St Priest must win tomorrow by 13 clear goals if they are going to escape.

A desperate struggle on the field against the runaway champions this evening. In the opening 20 minutes, Lempdes missed two absolute sitters in from of goal and immediately afterwards, Pionsat stormed up the field and took the lead. A long clearance by Matthieu was misheaded across the defence by one of the central defenders. It fell on the feet of a fellow defender but Nico was by far the quickest, whippingit off the defender’s feet and smashing it in past the unprepared goalkeeper.

Lemdes pulled one back near to the end when Pionsat were caught stranded upfield when they lost possession, and in the closing seconds, had two goals disallowed for offside much to their dismay. Pionsat were dug in on the edge of their own penalty area for the last 10 minutes or so, and when the final whistle was blown, an audible sigh of relief could be heard all around the ground.

This all looked most unlikely three matches ago. Pionsat’s final 3 games were – team 2nd, away; team 3rd in the table, away; champions at home. You couldn’t have a final three games much tougher than this and yet we had a draw, a very unlikely win and then a draw – 5 points out of 9.

All of Pionsat’s goals in those matches have been goals of sheer opportunism and we have had some desperate last-ditch defending with balls being kicked upfield or out of play without any ceremony at all, with the team captain bellowing out orders to his team-mates.

This is just how football at this level should be played and the irony of it all is that if Pionsat had played like this for the rest of the season, they would have been challenging for promotion, never mind battling desperately against relegation.

Apart from that, I’ve spent the morning and some of the afternoon writing stuff for Radio Anglais, been to the shops in St Eloy where I bought a vine to plant at the front of the house, and then crashed out for an hour this afternoon.

And Thursday, so I’ve found out, is a Bank Holiday. I’m going to have an unexpected day off work.

-4

Sunday 18th May 2014 – WHAT ON EARTH WAS I DOING …

… being awake at 07:35 this morning? And a Sunday too? This kind of thing is unheard-of.

And not only that, I’d had a late night too and I’d been on my travels during the night (don’t ask me where – I fogot as soon as I woke up) as well. So I dunno what was going on.

Anyway, I had the whole morning on the computer with Audacity and it now does what I want it to do. Having seen (and heard) the shambolic mixing that Radio Tartasse does of my live concert rock shows, I’m now going to be doing my own. I had a fiddle around with the next one and I now have 58 minutes of perfect continuous sound stream with no interruptions or pauses or clicks. It’s properly balanced too.

Not only that, I’ve found on the internet a couple of websites that have classic radio shows so I’ve been downloading a few streams of programmes and editing out some suitable soundbites to use on the radio. I always like to have special guests on my programmes and have little conversations with them.

The football wasn’t quite as successful this afternoon. Having given it maximum effort last night, it was a very thin team that went out this afternoon – no substitutes available and in the heat, a couple of players wilted and the team ended with just 9 players.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire as charensat puy de dome ligue division 4 france dimanche 18 mai 2014Charensat had packed their team with a couple of first-teamers (not that anyone can complain – Pionsat would have done the same in similar circumstances) and in the end the score was 2-2. Kevin was in goal and played a blinder, making a couple of excellent saves at vital moments and I really don’t understand why he won’t play in goal more often.

Matthieu was hurt in a tackle and limped from the field in the final minute and from the free kick, his brother Vincent, from 45 yards out emulated his brother by blasting the ball through the wall and through the keeper into the net for the equaliser.

So this evening I did a little tidying up with the green boxes that I bought from IKEA in Brussels. However, I can’t see the difference and I dunno why.

Anyway, back to work tomorrow.

-4

Friday 16th May 2014 – AT 04:00 AM THIS MORNING …

… I was thinking about doing the washing up. Yes, I’d had my first coffee for several days, hadn’t I?

Even more surprisingly, I was wide awake at 08:30 and even now, at 01:20 the following morning. Ahh well.

So what did I do today?

The answer to that is “not very much” – although that’s not true. I’ve been hard at it all day working on the next round of Radio Anglais programmes and I’ve done a great deal too. Not only that, I’ve finally managed to make Audacity work like I would like it to (but I would still prefer to have “Polderbits”), dealt with a pile of correspondence, handled a notional complaint from a descendant of a historical with whom I’m at odds, and helped someone out over a prehistoric Timothy Hackworth boiler.

And if that isn’t “not much”, then nothing is.

-2

Monday 28th April 2014 – WE’VE BEEN RADIOING …

… today.

First off was to record the rock music shows that I do, which means that I needed to be in Marcillat by 09:30 this morning. Liz came to join me at 10:00 to record a month’s work of the Radio Anglais information programmes.

We went round to Liz’s for lunch – some of the left-over aubergine and spaghetti casserole from Saturday, and went down to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais sessions for Radio Arverne.

While we were in Gerzat we had to track down a parcel that had not been delivered. We tracked down the depot where it was kept, and they tracked down the parcel. It seems that the address on the parcel was incorrect, hence the non-delivery, so we’ll let them off this time.

But it was nice and sunny down there and what was so ironic was that we could see the thick black clouds over the Combrailles from there.
“I bet that those clouds are right over our houses” said Liz, and she was right too. Torrential rain up here.

The parcel was the towbar for Terry’s new Jeep and so once he had checked it over and was satisfied, he said “have you got half an hour?”. So while Liz was sorting out some surplus strawberry and raspberry plants for my soft fruits bed in exchange for me having driven her in search of this parcel, Terry and I fitted the towbar.

Liz cooked a tea for us, which was always very welcome, and then I came home.

And now I have more gardening to do for tomorrow.

0

Saturday 26th April 2014 – HE’S DONE IT AGAIN!

Two weeks ago, you may remember, Matthieu scored a stunning goal from a free kick miles out from goal – a shot that went through the wall and through the keeper into the net.

Last week, you may remember, he scored a goal directly from a lay-off from the kick-off – standing on the half-way line.

matthieu malnar free kick goal fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot montel villosanges puy de dome league division 4 saturday 26 april 2014 franceTonight, he took a free kick from about 45 yards out. It sailed right over the defensive wall, right over the flailing arms of a despairing keeper and right into the top corner of the net.

He took another free kick a short while later from even further out, and that didn’t clear the bar by much. And then we were treated to the astonishing spectacle of the Chimps (because it was Montel-Villosanges that Pionsat were playing this evening) lining up a defensive wall in Pionsat’s own half when Matthieu took a free kick from deep in his own territory.


Pionsat’s second goal (because they beat the Chimps 2-0 ha ha ha!) was even more bizarre. Didier broke through the defence into space in the Chimps penalty area and was pushed off the ball flat on his back.

The game came to a standstill with everyone awaiting the obvious penalty whistle, but it never came. Consequently Didier poked out his leg while still flat on his back and kicked the ball through the Chimps’ goalkeeper’s legs and into the net.

As for the rest of the game, I’m not going to say a thing at all. I shall simply remember the wise words of Ron Atkinson, who famously said “I make it a rule never to comment on referees and I’m not going to change my rule for that tûsser”.

And it’s also the first time that I’ve ever been threatened by a footballer that he would come into the stands and sort me out. Mind you, when I went to look for him after the final whistle to discuss his bad attitude, he had fled into the dressing room. Obviously the tremedous rainstorm that we had near the end had calmed him down.

But life is so sweet when you have properly stuffed the Chimps, especially when there was so much controversy.

Apart from that, I was round at Liz and Terry’s this afternoon, rehearsing our radio programmes. Normally we do that on Sunday but Liz isn’t available tomorrow. And we had a nice tea too.

I had planned to go to Montlucon today too but with having to do the radio today, I needed to check everything over, and so it was simple shopping at St Eloy, with no frills.

But there was a tragedy in LIDL. Some woman doing her shopping didn’t have enough money on her card to pay for her bill. She was obliged therefore to return one of her bottles of whisky. I was eagerly anticipating her returning some of the food instead but, apparently, wiser councils prevailed. But it does sum up St Eloy pretty much.

-1

Sunday 30th March 2014 – THAT’S MUCH BETTER …

… from Pionsat today. the 2nd XI went down the road to play Le Quartier’s 2nd XI and won 3-1 without really breaking into a sweat either. And Apart from the three goals, they also missed a penalty and had countless shots cleared off the line too.

The irony of it all was that they were playing without an attack either. Up front were Michael the Ist XI reserve centre-half who was available today because he didn’t play last night, and Michael who played in goal for the 2nd XI until he broke his shoulder three or four years ago.

I don’t remember about the first goal now, but the second goal was a driven cross by Michael the 1st XI centre-half that hit Jerome on the knee and went straight in the goal without anyone being aware of what had happened.

The third goal was a peach. Michael the 1st XI centre-half again, this time laying off a ball about 25 yards out to Bertrand who was rushing in like a steam train. He hit it plumb on the volley and normally these go into the field behind the goal, or else into the garden at the side of the pitch, but this one, just for a change, kept low and hard right into the far corner with the keeper a very distant second.

Talking of the keeper however, a more-miserable bad-tempered keeper I have never seen. He started at the first attack, throwing the ball into the back of Michael the 1st XI centre-half. Of course Pionsat were playing away and it’s the home side that supplies the referee in Division 4, so we didn’t even have a penalty, let alone a sending-off. And then every time there was a 50-50 ball the goalkeeper would physically threaten the opposing player, and the referee would intervene to punish the attacker.

Home-town referee, as you can guess. This kind of thing is totally shameful and does no credit to Le Quartier’s football club.

But of course Pionsat’s players are far too naive for even this level of football. They need to learn more about the judicious use of the elbow during high balls into the area from corners. That would have kept the goalkeeper under control.

As for Pionsat’s defence, they were up to their usual antics but Le Quartier had nothing to offer up front. Nevertheless they scored a goal near the end when a sleeping Pionsat defence allowed an attacker through and he scored a goal with a delightful lob over the advancing Christophe.

Apart from that, the change to Summer Time didn’t bother me at all. I was up and about as usual by about 10:15 new time. And I spent a few hours writing up more for the web site.

After the football (which had a 13:00 kick-off) I emptied Caliburn as we have a furniture removal to do this week, and then wrote a pile of stuff for the Radio Anglais programmes.

A chat to Cecile and her mum rounded off the day and that was that.

Back to work tomorrow.

-4

Saturday 29th March 2014 – JUST HOW UNLUCKY CAN YOU BE?

Jerome Brunet has the ball about 15 yards out and whacks the ball goalwards with everything that he has got. It hits the knee of a defender, cannons right out of the area and back all the way over the halfway line to where a lone Beauregard l’Eveque forward is standing. And he has the simplest of tasks with a one-on-one with Michael, while everyone in the stadium looks on, open-mouthed.

Back in the early 70s I once saw Albert Kinsey, playing for Crewe Alexandra, hit the bar with such force that the rebound cleared the halfway line before it bounced, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

So FC Pionsat St Hilaire lost again, 5-3 this time, to this goal and two of the most controversial offside decisions that I have ever seen, each one of which resulted in a Beauregard goal. And Pionsat should have had this team dead and buried. Hit the bar, hit the post twice, kicked off the line three times, and in the dying minutes they had 6 consecutive corners to add to the 25 that they had had during the rest of the match. But to lose a game in this fashion leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Add to that the fact that Michael bravely took his place in goal after his bad injury two weeks ago, but lasted just 45 minutes. Young Frédéric took ovee for the second half and looked the part, but he let two goals in and you really can’t do much about that. Everyone was doing his best today.

But it does have to be said – that breakaway goal, no matter how unlucky, wouldn’t have been scored had Pionsat’s defence been concentrating. Those two offsides – how many times do I have to spell it out – you don’t hang around with your hand up waiting for the referee’s whistle, no matter how clear-cut it might be. You play the ball and let the whistle take care of itself.

The fourth goal – the defence being out of place when the team loses possession and the midfield slowly ambling back instead of having any sense of urgency at all. Consequently the defence is caught short-handed.

And the fifth goal – Pionsat messing about in defence again – failing to clear the ball upfield or out for a throw-in but showing off on the edge of the penalty area and losing possession.

It’s all simple schoolboy errors, this is, and it’s been the same ever since I’ve been following the club, and probably before as well. The problem is that there is no leadership out there in the team – no-one who can take command.

So apart from that, having had a day off yesterday, I worked today. Until 12;00 I was working on the laptop – not on the website but writing the notes for the rock music programmes that we do on Radio Anglais.

Later, I went out and dug over another raised bed. This is the one where the shuttering has collapsed and so I used those red bricks that I was telling you about. However it hasn’t worked – that isn’t going to be very successful unfortunately as the bricks are too low and so I can’t dig them in properly. In fact it looks something of a mess. I shall need to think again.

I did manage a bit of work on the website once I had finished the raised bed. It is Saturday after all and there’s no point in killing myself by starting on another one.

And we had another day of high winds. More wind energy today than we have had in the last three or four weeks combined. I wish that it was like this every day.

-4

Monday 24th March 2014 – THAT SNOW THAT WE HAD …

… didn’t last very long. It was already melting rapidly when I awoke (early, for once) and it had soon all gone.

Which was just as well, for we were radioing today. I recorded the rock music programme at Marcillat at 09:30 and then Liz and I did the current affairs programmes. From there we went round to Liz’s for lunch (and if you remember the car in the ditch from a couple of months ago, it now seems to have become a rather permanent feature of the landscape).

After lunch we went to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Arverne and, having stopped to fuel up Caliburn on the way back, we were back at Liz’s for 17:00.

Just by way of a change, I spent some time helping Liz create a spredsheet and I showed her a few formulae. Long-term readers of this rubbish will recall that it was inter alia due to what I knew about spreadsheets that I had that job working for that weird American company in Brussels.

Back here it was freezing and so, seeing as I had a pizza to cook, I lit a fire – the first since February and cooked iton the woodstove. And now having eaten my fill, I’mm off for an early night.

See you tomorrow.

-5

Sunday 23rd March 2014 – IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE …

… that last Sunday at Menetrol, at half-time during the footy, we were all lounging around on the grass sunbathing. If I had been to the football today, we would have spent half-time shovelling the snow off the pitch and building snowmen … "snowPERSONS" – ed.

Coming back from Liz at Terry’s tonight, it was snowing like crazy and the road between St Gervais and Gouttières, and over the Font Nanaud, was becoming difficult. Yes, I changed Caliburn’s snow tyres for his summer tyres the other day, didn’t I?

So with an early(ish) night last night I was wide awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 09:20 and so even with it being Sunday, I had an early breakfast. But the morning was so depressing – rain, hail, sleet, and probably plagues of locusts and the like too. Pionsat were playing the Chimps at Villosanges but
1) kick-off was at 13:00
2) the weather was positively atrocious
3) it’s a 90-km round trip
4) I wouldn’t be back til after 16:00, I was expected at Liz’s at 17:30 and I still had wome work to do on the radio stuff.
For those reasons I stayed behind and carried on working.

But the weather really is dreadful and (apparently) it’s going to be like this for all of next week. And we have a lot of travelling to do with the radio programmes tomorrow.

BRRRRRR!

-5

Saturday 15th March 2014 – ONLY THIS MORNING I WAS PONDERING …

… about how I’m going to extract all of this dust and the like from the house as it is getting on my nerves. And I was still pondering when I entered LIDL this afternoon.

500 watt fireplace vacuum cleaner LIDL st eloy les mines puy de dome franceBut not now, anyway. In LIDL today they were selling some 500-watt fireplace cleaners. I had a good look at one and from what I saw, with a few small modifications here and there, it will make quite a useful cylinder vacuum cleaner.

And 500 watts will run fine off my system for 10 minutes here and there, you know. So at just €26:00 it had to be worth a gamble.


Thatwasn’t all the exciting stuff in the shops at St Eloy this afternoon. Carrefour had something of a plant sale. Most of the stuff was rubbish but I managed to make up a tray of lettuce and a tray of green cabbage. I need to put the potager into order and this will hopefully help me make a start. I did nothing last year as you know and baby lettuce plants seem to do fine here.

This morning I dashed off 2500 words for Radio Anglais. It started off on something about the communes of France but it now seems to be something of a geography/history/politics lesson, and there’s plenty more to come as well. A real pot-boiler you might say.

At the football tonight … well … I was going to say that I’m speechless but I’ve seen this happen so many times that I ought to be used to it by now.

Pionsat had only 10 players out there tonight but of those 10, 4 of them were 1st Xi players and another one or two had featured for the 1st XI too.

jerome brunet scores fc pionsat st hilaire st angel puy de dome france
By half-time that had a comfortable 2-0 lead and looked like they were getting ready to run out of sight. I’d lost count of the number of shots on goal that they had had. But then they simply switched off.

St Angel pulled one back out of a defensive error from nothing, something that took me by no surprise at all given the previous 10 minutes, and I had this uneasy feeling running down the back of my spine that I’ve had so many times before.


jerome brunet scores fc pionsat st hilaire st angel puy de dome france
However Jerome, who I haven’t seen for ages at the club, roared back up the field and scored a third goal before anyone had drawn breath so it was ok, I suppose. But then, the whole team went back to sleep.

And in two ridiculous moments of madness the team gave away two of the silliest goals that I have ever seen. I couldn’t believe it, and neither did anyone else.


But if that’s not bad enough, just as the team galvanised itself into action and laid siege to the St Angel goal, the referee blew for full time – by my reckoning a good 10 minutes short. Yes, we kicked off at 20:00 on the dot, played 45 minutes of fist half (plus stoppages), had a 15 minute break at half-time, and then played another 45 minutes (plus stoppages) and I was back in Caliburn at 21:38 on the clock. No, that doesn’t add up at all.

But then it shouldn’t really have mattered. Pionsat should have been down the road and out of sight, having fielded the strongest side that they’ll ever field for a hundred years.

-4

Saturday 22nd February 2014 – THERE’S NO FOOTY TONIGHT …

… either and so you can imagine just how p155ed off I am today. The season is miles behind already and it doesn’t look as if we’ll ever catch up. We’ll still be playing this season’s matches at rhe start of next season.

With having my little hour or two yesterday at the end of the afternoon, it was again gone 03:00 before I went to sleep. Therefore a 07:30 start this morning was … errr … facultatif, as the French say. But once I did rejoin the land of the living and had eaten my breakfast, I sat down and did the next Rock programmes and the Additional Notes for the next set of information programmes. If I can make good progress then so much the better.

With having been to the Intermarché at Pionsat yesterday there was no need for me to go to the shops today and so I stayed in. I’ve been running an Anti-virus scan on the computer seeing as how it seems that for some reason the program was switched off for a while. And so far, after 13 hours and 7 minutes, it’s done about 55%. That’s depressing, right enough.

I actually went out of the house three times today. Twice to fill the kettle for coffee and once to take the stats. Apart from that, I haven’t moved from in front of here. And I don’t intend to either.

I will however have to take the stats downstairs, which I shall do in about 10 minutes. And then I’m off to bed. An early night for a change – or, at least, what passes for an early night for me.

-3

Friday 21st February 2014 – I WAS WATCHING …

… Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince last night. And so consequently all through the night I was running around at Hogwarts.

Yes, three bad nights of sleep in succession – no surprise that I crashed out for a couple of hours when I returned home late this afternoon.

But as for Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, that’s a perplexing film. It’s full of holes, more like a succession of scenes with no interlacing connection rather than being a continuous film.

Scenes start off at random in the middle of action, so you don’t know how the actors arrived at the situations and emotions that they are expressing.

I realise that you can’t cram 700 pages of novel into just 151 minutes of film, otherwise you’ll end up with something like One Eyed Jacks, where the original director’s cut ran to well over 5 hours, but nevertheless there was tons of stuff that was irrelevant that could have been left out, just as there was tons of stuff that was relevant that should have been included.

But two things came to mind during this film –

  1. If Professor Dumbledore were to put on the market the magic wand that he used to tidy up Professor Slughorn’s house, he would … errrr … clean up. I would give all that I had, and more, to own something like that where a simple flick of the wrist would finish the repairs here and have the place all spick and span.
  2. Ginny Weasley is ordinary, banal, boring even. Whyever didn’t Rowling develop a romance between Harry Potter and Luna? She has much more character and personality than poor Ginny and would have been an ideal foil for Harry to bounce his ideas around. She’s definitely my favourite character in the films and, ironically, when there was one of these apps on a social networking site to “answer 30 questions to find out which Rowling character you are”, I came up with Luna. No – I’m convinced – Rowling got it all wrong. The ideal partner for Harry Potter should have been Luna.

So once I had woken up and crawled rather unwillingly out of my stinking pit, I crawled even more unwillingly off to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record the rock programme for Radio Tartasse, and when Liz arrived we recorded the English-language information programmes.

From there, we went on to Liz and Terry’s fir an early lunch (and that car was still in the ditch after all this time) and then on to Gerzat and Radio Arverne for the other lot of programmes.

By this time I was about flaked out and so I didn’t even stop at Liz and Terry’s for a coffee on the way back. I managed a stop at the Intermarché to do my weekens shopping (save me going anywhere tomorrow) and that was about that.

But I need to find a proper sleep rhythm from somewhere.

-10

Monday 17th February 2014 – I SEEM TO BE COLLECTING …

car in ditch n227 st gervais d'auvergne pionsat road les guis virlet puy de dome france… photographs of cars in ditches these days. On my way to Liz and Terry’s this evening, there was another one on its side in a ditch just outside St Gervais d’Auvergne. And judging by the state of it, it had slid along the ground on the other side for quite some distance too. No idea what had happened there.

But yes, we’re in the studios on Friday recording the bext instalments of Radio Anglais and so we were rehearsing this evening. A little later than usual as I had to show someone around Cécile’s house at 17:30. And if any proof were needed of how small the world is these days, then this will surely count for something. As soon as the guy stepped out of the car, I said “But I know you, don’t I?” And indeed I did as well – he’s a footballer from Miremont, a club that plays in Division 3 of the Puy-de-Dome league and a regular opponent of Pionsat’s 2nd XI up to last season.

I picked up Cécile’s post too (she had 2 letters) and while I was there I took advantage of her washing machine.

But as for today – totally astonishing. Up until about 15:00 there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I had an excess of 184 amp-hours, pretty much a record for all time, never mind just February. It took the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater to 61°C which, from a standing start, is pretty impressive too. In fact, if I had had the shower cabinet which I keep on meaning to build, I would have gone for a shower this afternoon.

As for the work on the house, there is nothing more soul-destroying to be working on a plank of a stair tread for an hour, cutting it in 11 different ways so that it fits to perfection exactly where it’s supposed to go, and then finding that you’ve cut it upside-down. Doing that once, the other day, was bad enough. But doing it a second time, like this morning, well, that’s just inexcusable.

But now I have 6 treads and 5 risers installed, and just one more of each will be enough for now as that brings me round to the bottom corner. From here downwards involves heavy engineering such as replacing the floor, but what I need to do, the whole purpose of this, is to put the plasterboard onto the wall of the sairwell, and I can do that when I’ve done my final step.

-8