Tag Archives: dechetterie

Monday 15th May 2017 – BY ‘ECK!

vegan mushroom curry granville manche normandy franceThat was a gorgeous tea!

We started off with some boiling water with turmeric and some drops of lemon juice. And then heaved in a cup of rice.

While that was doing, I chopped up a couple of segments of garlic.

When the rice was cooked, I tipped it into the sieve and rinsed it through with some cold water. Then I added a knob of soya margarine (Alpro as it happens) into the pan and melted it. When it was up to temperature, I heaved in the garlic and the rest of the tinned mushrooms that I hadn’t used yesterday on my pizza. And then some curry powder to taste.

Once that was all frying away nicely, I tipped into the pot a small tin of mixed peas and carrots – water and all – from the European Tinned Food Mountain and left it there to simmer. And when it was well away, I added two teaspoons full of gravy browning. Meantime, the rice was rinsed with boiling water from the kettle, put on a plate (yes, a plate! I’m stopping being uncouth and eating out of saucepans!) and stuck in the microwave.

And here you are – one quick mushroom curry with rice. And it was gorgeous.

“But why use a saucepan for frying?” I hear you ask. Well, that’s because Bane of Britain has done it again. The little portable halogen hob that I am using (and with which i’m almost as impressed as with my galvanised steel dustbin, Rhys) isn’t a halogen hob at all but an induction hob. Apparently you need special pans for it and most of the new ones that I bought the other week aren’t suitable and won’t work with it.

So yet more expense! Anyone want a brand-new wok, frying pan and saucepan? Never been used!

Last night I had a good night’s sleep. Right up to the alarm which was nice. And I’d been off on my travels too. I was preparing the accounts for a well-known media personality (and I’ve forgotten who it was now). He had two cars, both of which were mark 3 Cortinas – one grey and one purple – and I had to figure out a way of working them into the accounts so that the Tax authorities would agree to the expenditure. There was something about having to change over the ownership of the two vehicles at precisely midnight at the end of the accounting year so that there would be a smooth, seamless change. Anyway, I took the purple one for a drive and slid off the road into a stream somewhere. I could lift up the front end of the vehicle and swivel it round but I was still unable to move it so I needed to seek help – which was something that, for some reason or other, I was very reluctant to do.

After breakfast, I had a good relax for a while and then set to and moved the European Cardboard Mountain down to Caliburn. It took me about 10 trips to move it all downstairs and I was pretty exhausted afterwards. I had a spectator too – my mate from next door – so I went over and gave him a stroke. His name is Gribouille apparently and he’s either 4 or 5 – hi mummy couldn’t remember. We had quite a chat and I told his owner that if ever she needed a babysitter for him when she goes away, I would be the first to volunteer.

Back here I had a coffee and put my feet up until lunchtime – it had taken a lot out of me. Cardboard is heavier than you might think.

I know that I said that I would go to the dechetterie this afternoon, but I decided against it. No point in making a special journey out when I have to go out shopping on Saturday, if not before. It can wait until then.

And so instead I sorted out all of the rest of the rubbish, put the waste in the communal bin downstairs and all of the recycling into the recycling bins across the road. While I was there, I brought up the coolbox from Caliburn and put the contents in the fridge. I’ll wash the coolbox tomorrow.

Talking of washing, I washed one load of china that had come with me from the Auvergne. There’s quite a bit to do and I’m having logistic issues until I can buy a dresser. So it’s “bit by bit”. And then some more tidying up. Piles more stuff for the bin but I’ve also found some medical receipts for which I can enter a claim.

My post has caught up with me too, so there was a mountain of that to go through. But it looks as if I’ve been told the wrong address for the apartment, judging by the postman’s scrawl on the envelopes. I’ll need to check with him when I see him and confirm it.

So I’ve had tea, so it’s a quiet rest and read a book for a while before another early night. I have the Bank Revisited tomorrow.

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Saturday 13th May 2017 – I’M DESPERATELY DISAPPOINTED …

… about my hi-fi. 6 years in a cardboard box in a very damp and dusty environment hasn’t done it any good at all.

It’s a really expensive system too – cost me a small fortune back in the 1980s. All hi-quality Marantz stuff too. I connected it all up this afternoon and it’s crackling and popping and not doing too much in the way of sound.

I’m not sure what I can do about it. I’ll try to find some electrical contact cleaner to give everything a good going-over but I’m not too optimistic about this at all.

In other bad news, the new frying pan and small wok that I bought don’t seem to make sufficient contact on my halogen hob. It won’t detect them and so it won’t fire up. And I’m dismayed about that too.

Another thing is that the thing that I bought at IKEA to hang my curtains is the wrong thing and i’ll have to take it back.

But it’s not all bad news.

I’ve had a very productive – and successful – day. For a start, I’ve arranged for Caliburn’s Controle Technique for the end of the month.

And I enquired about a garage to service Caliburn and prepare him for his test. He told me of a place that he knew and could recommend so round there I went. I mentioned the little problem that I have with the front end and before I’d even finished describing it, he told me exactly what it was. Anyway, he’s booked in there and we’ll see if the garage proprietor can walk the walk as well as he can talk the talk.

On the way back into town, I noticed a shop that sells factory-reject and shop-soiled electrical equipment. And here I hit the jackpot. They had a new combined microwave/grill oven thing with no box and a missing grill support (but I can invent one of those anyway) for just €49:00 instead of €99:00 which it would have been had it been perfect. It didn’t take me many seconds to have it in the back of Caliburn.

It was a busy day shopping too. I now have a telephone so I might even be able receive calls if I’m not careful. As well as that, I have a nice oilcloth on top of my new table. A red strawberry and cherry design and it looks quite nice.

And while I was there I found exactly what I need for the curtains, and about a quarter of the price too. So I’ll have to measure up now and go back there next week for the stuff that I need.

still no vegan cheese in the Bio shop, but they did have vegan sausages and so for tea tonight I had a welcome variation to my diet. No tinned stuff and pasta today but microwaved potatoes, baked beans and vegan sausages. It certainly was nice too and thanks to Alison for buying me the beans when she went to the UK last winter.

And the carpet is down too. I fetched it up from Caliburn this evening and now there’s nothing left from IKEA in there (apart from the curtain rail that I intend to take back). I assembled the two chairs and finished off the big cupboard by the door too. So on Monday I can take all of the cardboard downstairs to Caliburn and take it to the dechetterie. And on the way back I can buy what I need for the curtains.

So I might have an early night tonight. It was a late night yet again last night what with one thing and another, but I did have a decent sleep – all the way right through until the alarm went off.

And tomorrow, it’s Sunday and there’s no alarm, so I might even have a lie-in just for a change.

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Thursday 11th May 2017 – I ENDED UP …

… not going to bed – or to sofa – very early at all. In fact, just as I was about to retire someone came on line and we ended up having a very long chat about all kinds of things – a chat that went on for a couple of hours. It was after 12:00 by the time that I retired, and that’s not something that’s happening too often these days as you know.

Nevertheless, I was awake quite early – long before the alarm – but it took me quite a while to summon up the energy to leave my stinking pit. It wasn’t easy, I promise you. and it took me ages to pluck up the courage to go down to the depot de pain for my baguette.

But once I was awake, I was off. And I’ve had another hard-working day today too. I now have two rather large bookcases, ready to bring some more books back from the Auvergne next time I’m there, whenever that might be, and I also now have another quite posh set of shelves.

And I bet that my LPs never ever thought that they would ever see the light of day again, but there they are on the shelves along with the DVDs and CDs that I brought with me (not all of them by a long way) and the Hi-Fi – first time that the Hi-Fi and the LPs, and the DVD and Video players, have seen the light of day since 2011 and how I have missed them … "you’ll need to improve your aim" – ed.

Although that might not sound like too much, what took the time was filling the shelves and rearranging everything. That was quite a work of art and now it can truly be said that the floor is quite reasonably tidy for me.

But it wasn’t like that at one point, because I was at a certain moment up to my knees in cardboard boxes. And I’m not joking either. But now, all of the cardboard has been gathered up from everywhere and there’s a big pile right by the side of the sofa. When the rest of the stuff is brought out of Caliburn (which might be tomorrow – you never know) I can move the empty cardboard down into Caliburn and head off to the dechetterie.

Rosemary rang me up later this afternoon for a chat – all of … errr … 1 hour and 11 minutes. I like talking to Rosemary and it’s good to talk to her, especially when we are putting the world to rights. And it seems to need it just now, doesn’t it?

So now, I’m going to have a shower. And there’s a good reason for this – namely that tonight I can finally go to sleep on my new bed. All new bedding, quilts and pillows too, and you have no idea just how much I’ve been looking forward to this. That’s why I’m going to pretty myself up and smell properly for a change.

It’s a shame to ruin the new bed, isn’t it?

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Wednesday 16th December 2015 – I WENT BACK …

… to my house this morning. And what’s more, Terry came with me.

Terry has no work on at the moment and I’m not in much of a state to do much right now, and so I made an executive decision (an executive decision being one in which if it all goes wrong, the person making the decision is executed) that perhaps we should go and do the tiling in my shower room. It’ll give Terry something to do, it’ll help me catch up with work at the house, and so on and so forth.

So that was what we did.

But it didn’t work out quite like that – for the simple reason that my shower room is very small. There wasn’t room in there for both of us and so after five minutes in which we had done nothing but get in each other’s way, I left Terry to it.

And we’ll go back tomorrow and do some more too because by about 16:00 it was far too dark do do anything.

But while Terry was tiling, I was tidying up on the ground floor. And you can now actually see the floor in there, a huge pile of stuff has gone out into the lean-to, I’ve sorted out most of the tools that are in there and so on, and now there’s actually a pile of room to move about. If I can do as well tomorrow as I did today, it will be quite impressive.

Of course, we’d parked the van in the little lane at the back of my house to unload it as there was so much to do, and so of course, not having seen the farmer for months and months, it’s today that he decides to bring his cows to the field, so we have to move the van. You could have bet your mortgage on that, couldn’t you?

On our way to my house this morning, we went into Pionsat. I have a huge pile of used needles from my twice-daily anti-coagulant injections and I need to dispose of them. The pharmacy seemed to be the best place to start, and he gave me a couple of boxes to put them in and take them … to the dechetterie.

And so we did. And there at the Council tip at Pionsat, a woman worker took the box off me and put it in a much bigger box of the same shape and colour, to join many other smaller boxes in there. Apparently, it’s what you do around here. We also went to the Intermarché for some bread for lunch, and I met Nada there. I haven’t seen her for ages.

But back to the shower room, I stuck my head in once or twice to pass Terry tiles, or trim something down with the angle grinder, but I haven’t had a really good look in. I’m saving that for tomorrow because although it will be far from finished, it’ll be good for me to be surprised – pleasantly, I hope. I’ll post a couple of photos too if I remember, but I won’t be posting a photo of the ground floor because it is rather a mess, even with it being tidied up. There’s still too much rubbish in there, although I’ve nowhere else to put it and I need to make some extra room somewhere – anywhere!

On the way back here, we were pursued down the lanes by Liz whose last lesson of the day at Montlucon was cancelled. She’d seen some nice Christmas trees and so after a coffee, she and Terry nipped back up to St Gervais to do the necessary. After all, with little people being around, a Christmas tree is essential.

So I’m off to bed for an early night. I have a blood test in the morning and I need to be on form. And I hope that my blood count holds up because if it doesn’t, I can see me in Montlucon on Friday having another blood transfusion and I’m becoming rather fed up of them.

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Tuesday 28th October 2014 – I HAD A SHOWER TODAY.

Well, it wasn’t actually too much of a shower but when I came back downstairs after lunch the temperature in the verandah was 24.2°C and the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that is the dump load for the overcharge on the solar panels had gone off the temperature scale ie over 70°C. Yes, over 100 amps of excess solar charge today.

I mixed 10 litres of water to 40°C and had a shower in the corner of the verandah. Nothing complicated – just a water jug and a large bucket of nice hot water but it didn’t half fetch me up nice and clean, just for a change, and in no time flat too.

And, yes, in the verandah too. Because this morning I was out there at 09:30 going through absolutely everything. I’ve made enormous headway in there, although it doesn’t look all that much different as you might expect. But the floor is clear now, hence the space to have a shower.

There is still a great deal to do in there however but the aim was to round up all of the loose paper that needs throwing out.

Having done that this morning, then this afternoon I went around the house and rounded up another pile of scrap paper, as well as all of the plastic bottles and tin cans as they can also go into the yellow sacks, according to the notice on the side of the sacks. This is an exciting discovery and saves me a journey down to the big dechetterie at St Eloy in the near future.

All in all, there are no less that 16 yellow sacks for me to take down to Pionsat tonight for the morning collection tomorrow and that’s really something. But it really doesn’t look much different here all the same.

Tomorrow, I’m going to start outside tomorrow, tidying up out there. I’ll have this place looking pretty even if it kills me, which it probably will.

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Monday 20th October 2014 – I’VE HAD SOME MORE …

… unexpected visitors today. I happened to glance out of the window this afternoon and there was an old woman and three kids, two aged about 8 and a girl aged about 13 or 14, staring at the house. Further enquiried revealed that the old lady used to live here years ago and she just happened to be passing.

She insisted on a guided tour, which was quite embarrassing given the state that the place is in, but I suppose that I couldn’t turn her down, and she went off quite happy. She says that she might have some photos of the house from 60 years ago, and she’ll let me have copies if she finds them.

It disrupted my afternoon considerably, but I know that had I turned up like this at somewhere where I had lived 60 years ago, I would have hated to have been turned away.

But I do wonder who is going to be the next person to turn up here.

This morning I was up and about comparatively early and after breakfast I dealt with a pile of paperwork and put a load of web pages on line. You can now quite happily follow my journey around the Saguenay.

I also wrote a couple of letters that needed doing. And after a good hour or so’s work, I finally have a working printer here. I’m not sure how long it will keep going because, as regular readers of this rubbish will remember, I get through printers here about every 3 months and I’ve no idea why.

I also loaded up Caliburn with all of the clothes that I’ve sorted out. I needed to go to the Post Office of course to post the letters so on the way back I went to the dechetterie in PIonsat to drop them off seeing as how they have a clothing skip there. I also picked up a couple of rolls of yellow sacks as there’s a waste paper collection in Pionsat next Wedneday.

Back here I attacked the waste paper mountain until I was interrupted, and once my visitors had left I carried on again until knocking off time.

You still can’t see much of a difference in here unfortunately, but I must be on the right lines somewhere with all of this stuff that’s being binned.

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Sunday 7th July 2013 – YES, IT IS …

… Sunday today and, as is usual for a Sunday, I’ve done next-to badger-all.

I say “next to” of course because in my effort to bring order out of chaos I’ve tidied up the kitchen table and given it a scrub, and I’ve also tidied up around the floor a little.

That’s not too bad considering that it was 10:00 before I heaved myself out of my stinking pit.

Not quite as bad as last week when it was 11:00 but it’s still good enough.

And I’ve made a startling discovery – I’m running out of water.

I know that that might be hard to believe after the weather we’ve had this year but remember that it’s at least 6 months since I cleaned the filters.

The volume of water that’s been cascading down the roof and into the pipework could easily have disturbed stuff in the settling tank and blocked the filters.

I’ll have to have a good look at that and lean the filters – it’s either that or there’s a split in the tank.

And Cécile came round with some more of my stuff from her house.

After much deliberation, she’s arrived at the logical decision which I had been expecting her to make, and it’s what I would have done too in the circumstances so I can’t say that I blame her.

She’s put Ice Station Zebra up for sale and she’s moving out on Thursday to take care of her mother full time on the Ile d’Yeu.

I’m going round on Wednesday to rescue the rest of my stuff and take a pile of her rubbish down to the dechetterie, and that will be that.

I don’t know when we shall meet again, but it will probably be at Philippi.

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Friday 12th October 2012 – A RIGHT PICKLE!

I’ve been pickling today, and it looks as if I shall be eating beetroot for the next 100 years, with the amount that Rosemary and I bottled today.

And that tarragon-flavoured white vinegar didn’t half smell nice. By the time that we had added all of the spices to the vinegar and boiled it up, Rosemary’s kitchen smelt like a Babylonian boozer’s bathroom.

Still, it’s all done now.

We also shelled all of the peas and beans and I ended up with two jars of those. A few of them have chitted and so I’m going to try them out as winter plants under one of my patented plastic-bottle cloches. It might be worth a try.

Another thing that we did was to sort out the garlic and onions. I have enough garlic to last me all my life, I reckon, but not as many onions as I wanted.

I’ve no idea what happened to the shallots though – I had plenty of those a few weeks ago but I couldn’t find any the other day.

So first thing in the morning I went off to St Eloy-les-Mines. Firstly, to buy a recharge for the mobile phone, but the Post Office is closed for renovations for a few weeks so that was that.

Secondly I went to the dechetterie to dump all of the rubbish, but they are on winter hours so the blasted place was closed this morning.

After doing the weekly shopping though (seeing as I’m out, I’ll stay out and it’ll save me a trip tomorrow) I nipped off to Rosemary’s for the pickling session.

On the way back this evening, I “picked up a hitcher, a prisoner on the white lines of the freeway” to quote Joni Mitchell.

Only from Menat to St Eloy-les-Mines, but in my youth I spent lots of time hitch-hiking around the UK and France and I was always grateful for the ride, and so it’s nice to repay the debts that I owe.

I made it to the dechetterie and emptied a van-load of rubbish, mostly papers and glass bottles, and enquiries revealed that it is indeed true – if you go to the dechetterie during opening hours but during office hours, you can indeed help yourself to compost, which is freely available

So Saturday I’ll be having a working day – doing the radio programmes. I’m not going out at all, especially as there is not footy anywhere at all around here tomorrow.

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Thursday 11th October 2012 – WHAT A DAY!

Someone told me that this was supposed to be the best day of the week.

Well, I suppose that if you were a duck, then they would have been right. It rained from morning until evening, with just two little breaks of about half an hour.

And did I say rain?

Yes, 11mm of rain has fallen today. It’s now been 5 consecutive days that it’s rained now.

This morning, I did the usual work on the website but before lunch went and dug up the beetroot and picked the beans and peas. They are all dry and rattling around in their pods after the summer that we had, and there are tons of beetroot too

After lunch, I did what I said that I would do, and emptied the verandah.

Well, I didn’t. I couldn’t face doing that, wuss that I am.

But all of the paper is out (and I needed the wheelbarrow to move it, there was so much that it was far too heavy to lift) and all of the glass jars, pots and the like have gone too.

Some jars and pots I’ve kept – others have gone into Caliburn to be dropped at the dechetterie tomorrow and once I take down the washing (if it ever will dry, of course) I’ll be able to move around in there.

That will be progress.

I also carried on moving stuff off the hard-standing.

It’s not like me to be out there in rain gear so close to knocking-off time but I wanted to sort out the glass before I go to the dechetterie tomorrow. There are tons of broken bits that need taking.

Looks as if I’ll be busy tomorrow then.

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Wednesday 10th October 2012 – AND SO AFTER …

… a really early night I was awoken at 05:00 by a torrential rainstorm.

Ahh well – I just can’t win.

Anyway we had more of the same this morning, but even so, I had a little job to do outside.

There are two banks of solar panels on the barn – one that keeps the good batteries in charge, powered by the solar panels on the end wall of the barn, and the other one which powers everything in there, powered by the solar panels on the roof of the Luton Transit.

That second bank uses some second-hand batteries that I bought in 2004 and which have done sterling service, but recently they have been sliding away into oblivion – not that I’m surprised. I don’t have a clue how old they are

I’ve bought some huge batteries for the house, and the plan is to move the ones currently in the house to replace those that are packing up.

Anyway, what with one thing and another I’m a long way from that point yet, and the batteries in the barn have now finally given up the ghost – they were showing 6.53 volts this morning.

However, there’s another lot of batteries around here – a job lot that I bought for peanuts in 2008 and which never seemed to do what they were supposed to do, and so I wrote them off.

But having a ferret around with a voltmeter, there were three that were still showing 10 volts, which, considering that they have had no charge at all since 2009, is pretty good going, I reckon.

Anyway, while 10 volts isn’t much to write home about, it’s far, far better than 6.53 volts so I changed the batteries over and I now have those three working the barn.

With the charge that they had received during the afternoon, I noticed tonight at 22:00 that the batteries were registering 10.55 volts. I’ll be curious to see what they drop down to in the early morning (the power meter has a “minimum volts” recorder).

I’ll be even more interested to see what they will be at tomorrow night after a full day’s charge.

Later on, I carried on clearing the hardstanding and doing a few running repairs on stuff that was on there and needing attention.

That went on until about 18:00 when we had the downpour to end all downpours (altogether, 10mm fell today) and so I decamped to the barn where, under the light of the LED strip lights, that function impressively well at 10.55 volts, I did some tidying up, just for a change.

Having tripped over something on the floor in the verandah this evening and dropped a load of rice everywhere, I’ve decided that tomorrow I’ll strip out the verandah.

Tons of stuff in there that I don’t need, and seeing as I’ll be on my travels on Friday I can sling it all in Caliburn tomorrow and drop it off at the dechetterie while I’m out.

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Tuesday 26th June 2012 – THIS PHOTO …

TIDY GARDEN LES GUIS VIRLET puy de dome france… probably won’t be all that significant to most of you but it certainly will be to Liz and Rosemary because they have seen the front of the house since I came back.

You have seen it too, in a general sort of way, and you would have seen how you couldn’t move out there, the weeds having grown so tall and so thick.

But anyway, there you are. I finished the weeding in front of the house this evening and I can actually see the pathway that I laid out all those years ago.

You can see the table and chair too, on the terrace thingy made of old pallets with an old tarpaulin underneath it. And wasn’t it lovely sitting on there to eat my butty at lunchtime, and even to eat my potato and lentil curry tonight?

All of the weeds, by the way, were pulled up by hand. Huge handfuls of the stuff. That was the hard bit

And can you see the herbs in their pots in front of the verandah? They really are going berserk and if I can have three or four days of dry weather I’ll cut them back and bring them up here to dry like I did last time.

That’s not all I’ve done either. I weeded the path that led down to the greenhouse and I’ve also weeded in front of the barn by the entrance to where the Ebro is stored.

I can now open and close the garage door.

As well as that, I’ve filled a few more bags of rubbish ready to go to the dechetterie at Pionsat tomorrow and while doing that I found the vertical-axis wind turbine that I bought a year ago and promptly forgot all about.

It’s currently stuck on the roof of Caliburn, held on by its magnetic mounting, but I will have to think of a more permanent way to attach it.

But it’s lovely being able to walk around in the garage part of the barn now, and I’ve not finished in there yet either. I’ve not found a roll of wire netting though, and I know that there’s one in there somewhere that I bought on my travels.

This morning I was up and about before the alarm and I spent 4 hours on the computer. I’m cracking on with these web pages but I’m only a couple of days from Québec and that’s something that will slow me down a little.

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Sunday 24th June 2012 – AND SO …

… after all of my exertions of the last few days, I’ve been taking it easy today. In fact I’ve hardly set foot outside the house, that’s for sure.

Much of the day has been spent watching a few films on the DVD player but in news that might come as quite a shock to most of the regular readers of this rubbish I’ve also been having a really good tidy out of my room.

I’ve thrown away a huge pile of stuff into the back of Caliburn to go down to the dechetterie in Pionsat next time that I’m passing, and not only that, I’ve dumped a lot of stuff downstairs to empty the place a bit.

Over the last coule of days I’ve been having a rather desultory go at dealing with some correspondence that has built up over the last while and today I reckoned that I’d finished.

A mere 9 letters, that’s all. It’s a long time since I’ve worked so hard.

It does actually look a little (yes, just a little) less cluttered right now although I’m sure that that won’t last very long. 

Pizza and garlic bread for tea (just for a change) and that’s your lot. I’m off for an early night all ready for the (af)fray tomorrow.

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Wednesday 20th June 2012 – AFTER THE USUAL …

… couple of hours on the laptop I went off to Rosemary’s for the afternoon.

On the way there thought I had a couple of interesting encounters, firstly with the German guy – Heidi’s husband or partner or something – who lives over the back here, and then with Francois Carriat who lives at Barrot.

Francois was full of energy as usual – “on your way back, drop in. I could do with a hand”.

memorial to the fallen nazi puy de dome franceOn my way around to Rosemary’s, I came across this memorial. I can’t think why I hadn’t noticed it before, because I’ve been up and down this road quite a bit.

Many people criticise what the perceive as the lack of resilience of the French population to the Germans in World War II.

Leaving aside the question that I don’t recall the British civilians of the Channel Island doing too much to resist the German occupying forces – even down to the extent of sitting on their hands in starvation conditions for 9 months after the war had passed them by, the real fact is that there was quite a considerable amount of French resistance!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the numerous plaques that we have seen scattered around the countryside honouring people who were fusilés – shot – or decapité – decapitated – by the Germans, and we’ve seen the cemeteries at Ixelles and Evere in Belgium.

I wonder how these critics would cope if they were running the risk of being shot or decapitated every day.

Round at Rosemary’s we made some space in her barn, put my door in there and loaded up Caliburn with the rubbish, as well as a few bits and pieces that she knew that I would like.

Then we had a coffee and a chat to put the world to rights as we usually do.

I brought the rubbish back here because I have some stuff here that needs throwing away …{thud] …[thud] and I can heave that into the back of Caliburn and make just one trip down to the dechetterie at Pionsat.

Francois certainly did need a hand too. He’s had a rotavator in his small field and turned it into some kind of market garden, and a friend offered him “some” tomato plants. This “some” turned out to be about 150 and they were about 10 inches high with flowers on them.

Anyway, to cut a long story short …”hooray” – ed … Francois did the planting and I followed on behind with the watering cans and we managed to plant most of them before it went dark.

For my trouble Francois gave me a dozen for which I am grateful, and also a chili plant.

Not only that, he fed and watered me too, and we had a good chat about all kinds of things. Including the fact that tomorrow there are four groups of musicians who will be roaming the Streets of Saint Gervais d’Auvergne playing in all of the bars.

Now that sounds like a fun evening and so I might just as well go out and see what’s going on.

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Tuesday 10th January 2012 – I THOUGHT THAT …

chevrons water resistant lean to roof les guis virlet plywood puy de dome france.. I would start today by showing you where I got up to last night.

Three sheets of plywood in position and tacked down ready to be properly fastened. to the chevrons

So first job this morning was to remove the rest of the temporary roofing, put two more chevrons on the roof and fit another sheet of plywood. Then I had to fit two chevrons at the near end either side of the wall, and fill in between them with concrete.

“Concrete in early January in the Auvergne?” I hear you say.

Yes indeed – you can see what the weather was like, and I was sweating while I was doing it too.

While the concrete was setting, I cut down the chevrons to 3650mm with my new saw which is ever so impressive – almost as impressive in fact as my galvanised steel dustbin.

I’m fed up of having nothing but rubbish around here so in the UK the other week I bought an expensive thick-bladed rough-cut saw and it went through those chevrons like a knife through butter. Should have bought one like this ages ago.

And why 3650mm of chevrons?

Well, the width of the lean-to on the slant is 3400, the sheets are 2440 by 1220 and so one sheet lengthways and one sheet sideways makes 3660 – enough to cover the lean-to with sufficient overhang without having to cut anything (and wielding a circular saw up a ladder is not an ideal solution for anything).

There’s sufficient room to put a barge board and fascia panel and to fit some guttering.

A good overhang is important too because they don’t do damp course around here. if the base of the wall is too exposed, the rain that falls at its foot will soak up in the stone and mortar. Apart from the issues of damp, there will be cracking the former and dislodging the latter from its position in winter by the “freeze-thaw” process. When water freezes, its volume is greater so water soaked up into the pores of stone or cement expands in the cold and cracks the stone or forces the cement. the force is so powerful that it was recognised as an established stone-breaking process thousands of years ago

Anyway, when the chevrons had been cut I mauled up another sheet (and they aren’t half heavy doing it like that) and manoeuvred it into position sideways across the ends of the far two sheets that are on there lengthwise, and then screwed it down.

After lunch I had to move the old scaffolding that was there (the one that I’d liberated from a skip in the dechetterie at Commentry in 2000), and seeing as how it had been there since 2001 that wasn’t easy either. It involved cutting down a few trees that had grown into the way (so there’s the firewood for next winter and isn’t this new saw really good?), clearing the ground away and removing all kinds of bits and pieces.

waterproof plywood lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce I’d done that, I then had to erect the new kwikstage scaffolding that I had brought back from the UK the other week.

That took ages, and I don’t know why, and then I just about had enough time to lift up another sheet of plywood and screw it across the bottom of the other two sheets before it went dark.

And you can see where my concreting from this morning went.

18:10 when I finished and I was shattered. But it wasn’t being shattered that stopped me – it was the losss of light. I’d still be there now if there was light enough to work.

But I have a feeling that I’m going to pay for all of this tomorrow. I’m not as young as I was.

And so tomorrow I need to cut three pieces to make the covering for the final part of the roof, climb all over the roof screwing all the sheets down properly, and then cover it with a layer or two that breathable plastic membrane to keep out the damp (a good buy, that industrial hammer-stapler).

If I can get that done tomorrow that will be where I want to be. And then I can start nailing down the plastic slates.

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Friday 29th July 2011 – AFTER THE EXERTIONS OF YESTERDAY …

… it will come as no surprise for you to learn that this morning I was up at … errr … 06:48.

However, that was to go for a gypsy’s. No way I was staying up at that time of the morning. 09:30 was a much more realistic time to haul myself out of my stinking pit.

After breakfast I was back on the computer with the website – to see how far I can get with that today.

Later I was outside working on the wiring in the barn – there were a few things I needed to do like install some crocodile clips for charging spare batteries and the like. And once I had accomplished that, I set too and emptied, cleaned and tidied Caliburn.

After that, I came up here for an early finish and watched a film. And I’m annoyed with myself now!

That’s because when I was emptying out the apartment in Brussels earlier this year I threw away a huge pile of videotapes with loads of good stuff on them, on the grounds that they were recorded in Long Play.

But remember that 12-volt TV/video player that I bought at that brocante a while back? I’ve just discovered this evening that it plays Long Play tapes.

Hardly any surprise that I’m upset!

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