Tag Archives: dave boustead

Wednesday 4th November 2009 – Well, folks – here it is!

attic finishedAnd about time too, I hear you say. One attic duly completed (more or less).

If you look very closely you can see that all of the skirting board is fitted, even in the little cupboard. And the room was emptied and brushed out by 18:15 too.

Tomorrow is going to be cleaning and tidying, and then moving in. And I’m going to have 10 days off and put my feet up to relax.

It goes without saying that a great big thanks is due to Terry, who came along, got me motivated and got me started on the roof back in July.

A big thanks too goes to Liz, who kept me going with supplies of vegan chocolate cake, to Dave who came to join in for a couple of days, and also to Rhys and Krys who kept me at it with loads of virtual cyber-support.

attic no roof no floorAnd we really put our backs into it too. It’s very hard to imagine that it was only on the 18th of July that the attic looked like this.

So here’s a little quiz to keep you all going until tomorrow.

I said that tomorrow I’m moving into the attic once I’ve cleaned it. The bed-settee, the desk and the coffee table are already up there. What you have to do is to guess which domestic item is going to be the first to be moved up there from anywhere else. An easy one if you know me – not so easy if you don’t.

As for this evening, we had an exciting jam session in a living room in Montaigut. I took the acoustic bass as I don’t have an amp and speaker for the Gibson but I needn’t have bothered – the living room was like something out of a who stage set, complete with soundproof room for the drums. Michael had only ever played once before with other people – I haven’t played with anyone else for about 30 years, but the drummer would have been out of my league even back in those days. His mane won’t mean anything to you but he was formerly the drummer in Gong – Daevid Allen and Pierre Malherbe’s group from the 1970s. Strangely enough, he’s interested in getting together again so when Michael comes back from the UK I’m going to teach him the basics of 12-bar blues and we’ll take it from there.

Meantime I need to talk to Trixi about some singing lessons. Last time I had to sing in a rock band Sue Willett gave me some lessons and some tips – but I’ve forgotten those.

What a day!

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Tuesday 20th October 2009 – And so, to make up for last night …

attic door hanging stud wall… you can have two images this evening.

The first image is of the door, which is now hanging where it is supposed to be.

And not without some effort either. Don’t look too closely at it as it’s a bit of a mess.

I told you that the door was too large for the opening that I made, and I cut the bottom of the door so that the height was perfect. One of the edges needed to be trimmed and as the doorframe is out of perpendicular (how on earth did that happen?) it needed to be cut in a slight diagonal. And I was halfway through the cut when I realised I was cutting it upside down so the diagonal was going the wrong way. So now we have an an inverted arrowhead-shaped door, a padded doorframe on the bottom half of one side and on the other side the hinges on the top have had to be shimmed with washers.

In fact, it’s quite a shambles from that point of view.

But on the other hand, I mortised the door latch and lock into the frame and I’m quite impressed with how that has come out. I’ve also chiselled out the door so that the hinges will sit flush to the surface, and that’s turned out quite well. It closes absolutely perfectly so all in all, with that part of it it’s turned out quite well.

wall tiling floor tiling concrete base attic wood stoveThat was the morning and some of the afternoon taken care of, and for the rest of the afternoon I tiled the concrete pad that I had laid on Saturday. That’s turned out quite well too, and when it’s finished off it will look quite nice. I’m going to get some small bricks and build a raised edge to it, to stop ashes and the like falling onto the floor. I was planning to get those on Monday in Montlucon but those people who wanted to talk to me about fitting solar panels – they never got back to me. A pity that, as I would have gone into Montlucon on Saturday instead of going to St Eloy.

Mond you, going to St Eloy on Saturday had two noteworthy items that were so noteworthy that I forgot to mention them.
Firstly, LIDL now has the Christmas goodies in, so I bought a couple of bars of marzipan. They also do some nice soggy gingerbread biscuity things covered in plain chocolate, and that’s this weekend’s Christmas purchase.
Secondly, I saw an Opel Ascona (Vauxhall Cavalier to the Brits reading this) on the Carrefour car park, and it had rotten sills. Now when was the last time you saw a car with rotten sills? Back in the 70s and 80s I was welding sills onto cars all of the time but how often do you see a rotten car now? When I had my taxis I was buying 8 year-old cars and having to weld them up. You don’t ever do that now. In fact the last time I had my welding stuff out was to patch the Passat exhaust and I was still living with Laurence and Roxanne, so that’s at least 10 years ago.

Tomorrow, I’ll be starting on the varnishing of the tongue and grooving. That’s what I call progress.

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Monday 19th October 2009 – No photo today, folks.

I was too busy.

I started off this morning with the door to the room. Now you may remember that I carefully measured the door, worked out exactly how large the door opening needed to be, and I constructed it perfectly. And badger me if the door, the contrary item that it is, hasn’t grown 1cm in height and 2cms in width since I measured it and constructed the opening!

Luckily the circular saw rose to the task and dealt with the bottom and just as I was getting ready to do the side, Dave stuck his head around the door. So we spent the rest of the morning discussing the plumbing arrangements for the house. He reckons he can get something sorted out for me and he’ll teach me how to do plumbing next spring when he’s over again.

That reminds me – listening to 2 advertising executives talking about a colleague
“I taught him all he knows”
“All he knows?”
“Yes, all he knows. Not all I know – just all HE knows”

In the afternoon Dave helped me get my bed up into the attic and then we discussed the old office desk I have in the barn. I used it as a workbench but seeing as I made a new workbench last year it’s been redundant. So why don’t we get it into the attic?

Famous last words, those. I don’t know if anyone remembers Bernard Cribbins and “Right Said Fred“? That’s how we were up all the stairs. But it dismantles much more than you might think when you look closely at it, especially when you have it stuck halfway up a ladder and you can neither take it up nor down. So after much exertion and a great deal of bad language I now have a desk up there.

In February he’s thinking of going down to Southern Spain for some sun. I saw a photo of Gibraltar harbour the other day and I must admit that it did look quite enticing, especially with Africa looming just across the straits. I might be tempted to tag along if I can find some dosh.

And talking of voyages, Danielle was talking at the Anglo-French group tonight about going to the USA when she retires, but she doesn’t want to go alone. Perhaps I ought to look into this kind of thing as some kind of alternative career – professional holidaymaker-cum-companion-cum-guide-cum-bodyguard
“That’s a lot of …..”
“You said that the other day!”

But I dunno about an alternative career, whether I might have time for one, for following on to my posting last night I have been asked by the local correspondent for the local rag if I might accompany her to the Potato Fair (we don’t half have some fun events round here) at La Cellette on Sunday. Now that’s an invitation I find very hard to turn down, and for more reasons than just one!

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Tuesday 6th October 2009 – Just by way of a change …

tongue and groove attic ceiling… here’s a photo of the other side of the roof in the attic. You can see that I’m now advancing with the tongue-and-groove down that side too.

But it’s killing me, working in that confined space under the eaves. And working in that direction I’m having to work left-handed and upside-down so my back has gone and so have my knees.

I’m going to have another hour or so under there first thing tomorrow and then get on the scaffolding to do the upper half to give my knees and back a rest, and keep on alternating. About 2 or so more days of t&g-ing, and then I can make a start on the poncing.

Louise, whom some of you might remember from this blog in its previous incarnation, has now caught up with us (so hello again to you) and so has Dave – but he won’t be on line for a week or so as he’s now over here again. We had a good lengthy chat tonight on the phone and he’s going to be giving me a hand with the plumbing in the spring. And talking of the phone I had a lengthy chat this morning with Bill from the Anglo-French group.

In other news, Amazon is having a sale of classic rock CDs. Exciting news, you might think, but it’s all kinds of Pelvis Risley stuff and that sort of thing. Not so exciting. But one album I noticed on sale was “The Eagles Greatest Hits2 – surely a candidate for the title of the world’s smallest CD.

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Saturday 5th September 2009 – LAST SATURDAY, FROM MY…

laminate click flooring plastic wall boarding les guis virlet puy de dome france… €400 budget for my attic, I spent €354

Mind you, that didn’t include the shower base that never made it as far as the cash desk so that’s about quits.

Today, out of my €400 budget, I spent …. er …. €578.

I did get the shower base though, so you can knock €38 off that total, but I also made an unexpected expenditure of €170 while I was at Brico Depot.

I’m intending to put down on the floor some of this tongue-and-grooved laminated flooring and I had my eye on some at €5.74 per square metre, of which I shall be wanting about 28. But today, in the clearance lot was some at €3.67 per square metre. And not a miserable 4mm thickness or even a decent 6mm, but a whacking great 7mm.

Now I don’t think much of the style or the colour but there’s absolutely no dispute about the quality of the stuff. And I have to do what I can to get my budget back under some sort of control, so I can live with the colour and style at this kind of price and this kind of quality. I wasn’t going to miss out.

I also have the bathroom to do eventually and I was planning on tiling it, which would cost an arm and a leg. So when I saw some of this plastic tongue-and-grooving on special offer – just enough to do the bathroom and for just €56, then again in the interests of expediency and budget I wasn’t going to miss out.

I don’t like the stuff, especially as it’s pink marble, and the bathroom will probably end up looking like a tart’s boudoir, but it’s not as if I’ll be spending much time in there and it will do the job as well as anything else, especially at that price.

I ended up with 18mm OSB for the attic floor. That was the thickest they had and they seem to think that it will be perfect for the job. The reason why I went for OSB over chipboard is because having done the barn floor in chipboard and remembering how heavy the 2.8 x 1.4 sheets were and how I’m going to have to maul them up a ladder, the smaller and lighter 1.7 x 0.65 sheets will be much easier to handle.

I made three trips around Brico Depot today – a record. On the third trip through the checkout the young girl on duty there asked me if I had a lorry.

They ask you for your postcode when you go through the checkout and while I agree with Dave that it’s an invasion of privacy, it it helps bring a branch of Brico Depot closer to me then I’m all for it. The checkout girl was quite cute and when she asked me for my postcose I told her that she could have my address as long as she came round to help me fit it all. Ahh well, I have to keep trying … “You’re certainly very trying” – ed.

When I finished loading up Caliburn I went back inside the shop to get a coffee. She saw me coming back and hid behind her till. Serve her right.

I also spent a few bob in LIDL. I popped into the one by the bridge over the Cher at Montlucon, and they still had 7 of the 12-volt LEDs. Not any more, they don’t.

And in other more ominous news, the temperature in the heat exchanger dropped to 3 degrees last night. Winter is acumen in.

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Saturday 25th JULY 2009 – I WAS GOING TO SHOW YOU ALL ….

kwikstage scaffolding plywood les guis virlet puy de dome france… a photo of the front of the house with the insulation on, but we didn’t have time to take a photo of it.

I was up early this morning and while waiting for Terry I did some tidying up in the barn. I have to record this as me tidying up in the barn is a pretty rare event,

First thing that Terry and I did after he arrived was to thread 4 strands of 6mm cable through a 25mm flexible conduit (for the two solar arrays that will be on the roof) and 2 strands of 6mm cable through some 25mm flexible conduit for the wind turbine that will be on the apex of the roof. Then we cut a channel through the wall, fastened the conduit in and cemented it down. So that’s the wiring organised.

Dave turned up some time through the performance and if two pairs of hands are a vast improvement on one, then three pairs of hands are an even greater improvement. We had the insulation on in no time and without stopping fastened down the battening and had half the plywood on by 17:00. That was some impressive work and we can be proud of what we accomplished today.

Tomorrow Terry is having a day off and taking Liz to the chainsaw-carving. We have to keep Liz happy as our supplies of food depend upon it and the food is too good to miss out on. I’m going to have one of those rare days where I’m going to sit around the house and do absolutely nothing at all. I think I’ve earned it.

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Friday 24th July 2009 – WE WERE LUCKY WITH THE WEATHER TODAY

kwikstage scaffolding aspire recycled slates les guis virlet puy de dome franceMostly cool and overcast, with just the occasional passing shower. A good day for working on the roof and so with no misadventures and without any excitement we finished the slating of the back of the roof.

By 16:00 it was all done and as it wasn’t worth starting anything fresh we called it a night.

We had plenty of visitors though. Liz passed by to check up on us, followed by Claude and then by Dave (or Mr Blobby as those of you who followed this blog over from its previous home will remember) who drove over from La Chatre to check up on us, and finally by Tijas.

Despite my reference earlier to “a passing shower”, no-one from the Open University Students Association Executive Committee came here.

Dave acompanied us, not to the police station but to Terry and Liz’s where he was introduced to Liz’s cooking and was then given a guided tour over the Viaduc des Fades.

I’m back at home for now as I have so much to do and in any case Terry and Liz deserve some peace and quiet.

Tomorrow we are starting on the front of the roof. This will be easier to do but we have to fit the two windows and the brackets for the solar panels so I doubt if it will be quicker.

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