Tag Archives: gardening

Thursday 25th February 2010 – When I took the rain measurements just now …

… there was 1.5mm in the rain gauge. And if I had taken the measurements 10 minutes later it would have been completely different as we had the most terrific thunderstorm. Lightning, thunder, hailstorms, torrents of rain – you name it, we had it.

But I dunno what happened today but I was feeling quite enthusiastic – I haven’t felt like this for a while. I was up early and after breakfast I sorted out the seeds for this year’s garden. I’m throwing away all of the older stuff and starting afresh. I took the opportunity to plant a few lettuce seeds seeing as the weather has improved. I improvised a hot bed – a container in the verandah right over where I cook so the heat will keep the container warm.

So after that it was outside shifting piles of things around – like pallets, bags of gravel, that kind of thing. I’ve laid some corrugated iron roofing sheets down and I’m using one for storing the grave and some others for the rubble inside the house, starting with what used to be the bedroom wall. That led to some more pulling up of brambles and some cutting of wood. And that got me started on the wood and all of the remains of the trees thatI demolished last year and left lying where I’m hoping Bernard is going to flatten – I’ve started to cut them up into sies that will fit my stove up here.

After lunch I nipped down to the quarry to enquire about roadstone and delivery and so on for when Bernard comes to dig out, and then back here cutting wood until the rain drove me inside. I hadn’t finished then – in fact I carried on insulating the back wall until it grew dark. Working until 18:30! Whatever next!

All in all it’s been an impressive day and I’ve no idea how come.

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Tuesday 23rd February 2010 – I once knew a girl ….

…. called Summer (she had a sister called Sky – you have to feel sorry for kids with parents like that) and she had a boyfriend who was absolutely devoted to her. They used to have their own private little moments and like all teenagers they would get up to no good – in one particular way that pleased the young gentleman greatly.

After a while Summer moved on to pastures new and the young gentleman (whose name I forget) was devastated. No subsequent girlfriend that he found could make up for what he had lost. One day he confided in a girlfriend exactly what it was that made his relationship with Summer so special.
“That’s no big deal” she replied. “i have no inhibitions about that”
So a short while later, right after one of these private moments, she turned to him and said
“Has that helped you rekindle some of your enthusiasm for life?”
“Well” he replied, “one swallow doesn’t make a Summer”.

And that’s really the story of what has happened here this last few days. The temperature has warmed up dramatically and it’s feeling warm. I told you the other day about the temperature in the verandah. Yesterday it reached 30.6 degrees which is the highest total since October 30th.

Today though was not so impressive. The morning was fine and I finished round by Claude’s at 13:45. It’s sad to see the fruits of their 46 years of married life end up like this but age and ill-health catch up with everyone sooner or later. I got back the two huge armoured cupboards that I gave him back in 2002. He also gave me two kitchen unit bases – the 600mm size – and I’m going to put them upstairs in the barn with a plank or two across the top to make a joinery bench, using the two large cupboards to store my tools, nails, screws and the like. I’m glad I put a trapdoor in the barn floor when I redid it, so that I can lift stuff up and down.

This afternoon I carried on in the garden but the torrential rain that fell later on drove me inside. I continued with the insulation on the bedroom wall for a while until the light went – this torrential rainfall (we had 9mm in minutes) plotted everything out.

And the Parisian is nosing around the ruined house by here and hacking away at the undergrowth. He’s up to something, my nasty suspicious little mind tells me, and I wonder what it is. He had a whinge about the Passat and the Escort blocking the track. He’s right but there’s nothing much I can do about this until the local Mayor pulls his finger out and does something about my proposition about buying the communal land round here. I suppose I’d better go and have a chat to him on Saturday.

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Friday 29th January 2010 – Today was another day …

…when I didn’t do a lot. Sleeping through the alarms and waking up at 10:15 didn’t help for a start!

But then it was bright outside (well, whatever light was passing through the clouds) and nothing registering on the charge meters so first job was to shin up on the roof and clean off the solar panels. I can’t wait to get some trace heating wire up there so I can melt the snow rather than brushing it off.

And while I was up there Claude passed by. He wanted a good chat and he was here for ages so it was gone 12:00 before I could even begin to think about breakfast. But never mind – I started off again by doing some more weeding down the garden where my new vegetable plot will be. I couldn’t keep it up for long though because it was freezing outside – one of those damp biting colds that go right through you no matter what you are wearing.

After lunch I started on tidying out where I’m going to put this cupboard but Claude came back again to borrow the phone and for another chat, so I ended up doing not very much.

This evening I went round to Liz and Terry’s to take Liz to this meeting in St Priest. It was organised by the SMADC and the CREFAD, and there was someone from the BIRC (pronounced “BERK”) there, but no-one from the SPANC or the SMUT. It was to talk about tourist ideas and to discuss them with several practicioners and a few experts but like most of these meetings, everyone is there to promote his or her own venue. And of course, I’m no different than most of them. Networking is a vital part of community interaction.

But I’ll tell you something – if you were to program into a computer a list of all of the physical characteristics of my ideal woman and the girl (Katrine) who organised the meeting were to drop out of the slot at the bottom, I would not be disappointed in the least. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been struck in such a way. I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight now! I’m now wondering when CREFAD’s next meeting is!

On the way home there was a blinding blizzard of a snowstorm and I inched my way back at 25mph (40kph) – that is, until I crossed the Font Nanaud, the pass through the mountains about 5km south of Pionsat. Once I was over there the snow dramatically stopped and there wasn’t a drop to be seen. It was astonishing.

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Thursday 28th January 2010 – Last night when I went to bed …

…there was a brilliantly clear sky with thousands of stars. And cold! – it reached almost minus 9 outside.

And so what was the weather like this morning? I had no idea as all of the windows were covered over with a layer of snow and you couldn’t see the sky through the heavy thick grey murky cloud that had stuck on the mountain.

And that was where it stayed all day. Alternating snow and low cloud and nothing in the way of solar energy. I shinned up on the roof a couple of times to clean off the snow from the solar panels but I was wasting my time.

It was freezing cold too – I’ve never known it so uncomfortable – so I decided that today would be an “office” day catching up on the paperwork and paying bills. And surprise surprise, even my solicitors in the UK who manage the letting of my house decided to join in the fun. So having written piles of letters went to print them – and the printer refused to work. Last time I had an office day I put a new cartridge in the printer because the old one had stopped working. But when I went to print everything out, the new cartridge refused to work and nothing I could do would get it to print. So I took the cartridge out and put the old one back in – and that worked perfectly. So what’s going on here?

Then it was down to the Post Office through the snow and ice (I’m so pleased I bought those tyres) and back up here where I crashed out again for a while.

I’ve been thinking about seeds to plant in my new vegetable plot for this year. As you know, I’m moving it to a new site as I’ll be putting hardcore down over the present plot and parking Caliburn on it once the commune agree to sell it to me. In any case the current one is suffering from a considerable lack of attention due to the work on the house that I did during the growing season. You can’t see anything at all due to weeds and so I can safely say that I have lost the plot completely. I’ve no idea what seeds I need to buy though. I’m hoping to have a chat with Liz and anyone else who might be interested in a combined order so that we can spread the costs and the postage out between us. It sounds like a right seedy deal to me.

In other news a British artist has summoned up a skip (or a dumpster for our Septic readers) into which he plans to heave some of the efforts of his colleagues and rivals. He’s inviting suggestions from his readers as to whose works of art can be heaved in there. Of course, that artist-cum-rapper Tracey Eminem has come to the forefront. But as long-term readers of these pages will recall, a “sculptor” named Richard Serra gets my vote every time. Modern “art” is not my thing at all and it isn’t the thing of all that many people either. My opinion of modern art is that the only way you can tell if a work is finished is to touch it and see if it is dry. If it’s hanging up on a wall it’s a painting and if you can walk around it then it’s a sculpture, and that’s about that. But I ought to stop being so negative about it all. If Tracey Eminem can sell her unmade bed for thousands then the contents of my barn and garage ought to set me up for the rest of my life.

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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

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

Tuesday 24th November 2009 – I lit a fire in my brassiere this evening.

home made brazier fireI started off by putting samples of all of the construction material that I had been using in the attic. And I’ll tell you – the effect is frightening. The plasterboard took the longest to burn but eventually it did. Everything else was gone in minutes.

No wonder there are so many conflagrations in domestic property. There won’t be much left of my place if it sets alight.

But the tidying up is progressing, and it’s looking quite impressive downstairs. Another day or so and it’ll be done. The pallets that formed the old floor in the attic, they will have to be chucked out of the window but I can’t move the broken slates yet. They are destined to be used for the footpaths between the raised beds in the new vegetable garden once make a start on that later this winter.

And once the tidying up is completed it will immediately become untidy again as I demolish the wall between the bedroom and the stairway. All the rubble will be used for making the steps outside up into the house.

Claude came round today for a chat and bought me some news. Someone has had a really good stroke of luck – an exceptional one in fact. It’s bad news for me as it happens but I suppose that if I stopped being selfish and looked at it from other people’s points of view I should really be pleased at their exceptional fortune.

I can’t say any more about it right now as there needs to be something of a proper announcement at the right time by the right people in the right places.

In other news, the public enquiry into the War to Steal Iraq’s Oil has got under way. Many people wonder why I call it that, but don’t take my word for it – take that of Australia’s Defence Minister Brendan Nelson.

But back to the plot. I was particularly impressed with the phrase “that Saddam had a “continuing intention” to acquire weapons of mass destruction, having used them in the past”. We all know by now that Saddam Hussein had Bacillus Anthracis, Clostridium Botulinum, Clostridium Perfringens, E coli, Histoplasma Capsulatum and Brucella Melitensis, and that he used them on Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war. And how do we know this? Because the USA sold them to him and then gave him the satellite photos of Iranian troop movements so that he knew where to aim the chemical weapons.

The other bit that drew my specific attention was that “the sanctions policy in place against Iraq since 1991 …was steadily breaking down”. Here’s one reason why it was breaking down. And here’s another one. And there are plenty more where those came from. No wonder the wheels fell off the sanctions policy when Western companies put greed before ethics and legality.

Another Western company implicated in the breach of sanctions was Matrix-Churchill. They were one of the companies, by the way, that were named and shamed by Michael Moore as having supplied chemical weapons to Iraq. And would their “breach of sanctions” have anything to do with Saddam’s “continuing intention to acquire weapons of mass destruction”? During the company’s trial in a British court for its alleged breach of sanctions, the directors of the company claimed that their breaches of sanctions had been guided by the British Intelligence (there’s an oxymoron) Services and the British Ministry of Defence.

This startling revelation so clearly shocked the Court that the British Minister for Trade, Alan Clark was summoned to give evidence and under oath he was obliged to admit that he had been “economical with the truth” in an earlier statement denying all knowledge of the affair. Of course, the trial collapsed and the directors were awarded compensation.

This entire Iraq affair stinks to high heaven.

-5

Monday 24th August 2009 – WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS?

strange vegetable fat cucumber les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve made a start on eating my cucumbers and I put my hand inside the cloche (well, a few lengths of old concrete shuttering made into a deep frame and covered by a caravan window). This is what I discovered.

Maybe it’s a melon, I dunno. There’s all kinds of things in the cloche. However it’s quite exciting to see it.

This morning the weather had clouded over and cooled down. With this threatened storm I fixed the guttering on the lean-to so that it’s all complete on there. I was going to do the house. I have 3 long ladders here but in a masterpiece of logistics I’ve managed to have half a section of each of the ladders attached to something semi-permanent, meaning I have 3 half-ladders ( and not a single whole one) available for climbing up the side of the house.

I dunno how I manage it.

When the “storm” arrived (ha-ha-ha) it was as I expected – no more than a handfull of raindrops. Not even anything resembling a shower ( and having served on the Open University Students’ Association’s Executive Committee in many capacities for as long as I did, I can recognise a shower all right). Not even 1cm of rain to fill my water butts (although even as I type, I can hear raindrops outside).

This afternoon I carried on with my control panel. Terry suggests I put all the wires into trunking and he’s quite right. In fact I’ve already planned for that.

But two things that I did do was firstly to run the permanent wires down to the back of the control panel and attach them to the bolts behind the panel so they won’t ever be disturbed (even though if they stay around me for long enough they’ll be disturbed all right) and secondly I put some plastic junction box thingies over the ends of the bolts that protrude through the control panel so that they will be protected against short circuits if ever I drop a spanner across the ends.

I’ve put fuses (1×100 amp for the inverter that is still in Pompey being repaired, 2×30-amp for the lighting circuits and 4×70-amp for the two power circuits ans two auxillary circuits) in the fuse box, wired up an American socket (I use American plugs and sockets for my 12-volt circuits as they are designed for heavy duty high-amperage cable) and started to wire the power cable in.

I use 6mm cable for the power circuits and 2.5mm cable for the lighting. No risk of voltage drop with me.

Tomorrow I’ll finish up the basic wiring and then connect the 4 batteries and the solar panels up to the system that I’ve been building. Then I can run a power circuit and a lighting circuit as well as a 230-volt circuit up to the attic and I can get started up there.

And not before time too.

-5

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?

-4

Thursday 6th August 2009 – ALL THE SCAFFOLDING …

scaffolding moved from front of house les guis virlet puy de dome france…has now gone from the front of the house Well, in the sense of it being erected, that is.

That’s good news in the sense that I can now put the roof back on the verandah and close the verandah door. It all helps keep me warm and dry

And warm it was, too. 37 degrees outside, the warmest of the year so far, even though it didn’t feel quite as hot as yesterday.

I’ve painted as much of the outside of the house as I can do right now. The rest will have to wait until I’ve tidied up whatever is lying about in the way. So don’t hold your breath. Regular readers of my mighty organ will know that tidying up is not my forte. In fact, it isn’t even my 39. But at least I can reach everything from ground level except for the little bit over the kitchen where I’ll have to invent something to help me reach.

And thinking on, I have to record that painting the outside is the first (I think) thing that I have done to the house for aesthetic rather than practical purposes.

In other news, I had a good tea tonight. Lentils and onions and spices, with garlic, beans and potatoes out of my garden. And nice they all were too, especially the garlic! Nice and strong, no wonder I’m not troubled by vampires.

Tomorrow I’m starting the pointing of the side of the house (the side you can’t see in the photo). That should be interesting as I’ve never done pointing before. But all the mortar there has dried out and is disintegrating and this is likely to be the only shot I’ll get at fixing it.

I’ve set myself until Monday to do it and then I can discuss with Terry Monday night about doing the lean-to roof over the kitchen and fitting the wind turbine.

-7

Sunday 2nd August 2009 – LOOK WHAT I’M HAVING FOR TEA!

new potatoes grown les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, new potatoes! And grown with my own fair hands too.

In fact there’s a story behind these potatoes. Readers of my blog in its previous incarnation will recall the sad passing-away of my good friend Liz.

On my way to her funeral I stopped off at a Pound Shop (Anyone who knew Liz would know that she would have appreciated that!) and one of the things that they had on offer was a pack of 12 well-advanced seed potatoes for a quid. So they duly found their way into my garden, and then into my oven.

And right delicious they were too. I’ve been having lettuce from my garden for a few days but today I’m starting on the spuds. Tomorrow it will also be the peas, beans and carrots, with courgettes planned for later in the week.

This morning I had a telehone call that disturbed me from my reverie. It was Francois who wanted to come and inspect the work. And at 10:00 too! On a Sunday! So I hauled myself out of my pit, breakfasted, and showed him round. He pointed out a few faults (he’s a professional roofing carpenter) and I had to agree with him.

Mind you, this is the first roof I’ve ever done and Terry has only ever done one before so it’s only to be expected. Francois also reminded me of the chantier at his house on Thursday – emptying the library before his house goes up for sale. But it’s doubtful that I’ll be there. I’ve far too much on right now.

Once he’d gone I slated the side of the rafters where I painted yesterday. That should keep the weather out nicely. And after lunch I started to cement under the eaves. My cementing is awful and I bet I dropped more on the floor that I stuck to the walls but after a bit of practice it started to hod together – which is a major advance for me. I’ll finish it off tomorrow night.

Once it’s dried off properly I can start to paint the front of the house and won’t that be progress?

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Sunday 26th July 2009 – TOMORROW THE WORLD!

courgette plant going berserk les guis virlet puy de dome franceI went into the greenhouse this evening to water the plants and this was what met me. Not a triffyd but a courgette plant making a desperate bid for freedom. It’s taken over all of the greenhouse and it’s heading for the door. This time next week it will have engulfed Claude’s house and by the end of the season it will have made it to Montlucon, judging by its present rate of growth.

My day of idleness got off to a good start at 07:45 when the alarm went off. I forgot to turn it off last night. Ahh well.

But I didn’t get up straight away and when I did come to my senses (not that this happens very often) I stayed in bed to do a lot of planning. It was 11:00 when I finally crawled out into daylight.

And as for my day of idleness, I spent it in a marathon tidying-up session. You can now walk round the garage where the Ebro is, the water room and the barn/workshop. I shifted tons of stuff and sorted out a whole lot more.

We’ll be able to find many more things this week when our adventures on the roof restart tomorrow morning.

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