Tag Archives: emptying caliburn

Monday 16th May 2016 – NOW, THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!

I crawled off to bed at something silly last night like 20:45 or thereabouts. I know that it was still light but I didn’t really care too much because all that I was intending to do was to listen to the radio programmes that I’ve downloaded onto my laptop.

Sometime shortly afterwards, I drifted off and apart from a couple of trips down the corridor during the night, I remember almost nothing until the alarm went off at 07:45. And I could have turned right over and gone back to sleep too. But that’s just the kind of sleep that I’ve been hoping to have for quite a while.

During the night, I was flying off to Canada too. A big wide-bodied jet and I was sitting in one of the seats in the middle,and next to me was quite an attractive lady with black hair and a black dress. She got up to use the facilities and a couple of minutes later, this big black dog (on an aeroplane!) came and sat on the empty seat next to me. I gave it a stroke but I was really hoping that it would go so that the woman would come back but the dog stayed and stayed, and that was that. On arrival in Canada we docked at gate 37, the very farthest gate away from the terminal, but we all ran to the immigration desk and found that we were the first people there. There were three desks, two of which had about 12 people each and the third which had just two or three. I was wondering about this – suppose that I went to the one with the fewest people there and found that it was reserved for something special and was turned away, I’d lose the benefit of having been one of the first to have arrived at the immigration desks.

I had a good day today too. It started off (and finished) by me cracking on with the blog. All of March 2011 is done, as is the bits of April 2011 that I seem to have missed at some time or other, and I’m well into May 2011. I’ll really be catching myself up soon at this rate.

I’ve also had a good go at Caliburn. The back has been emptied, tidied, a load of stuff consigned to the bin and then I’ve sorted out the stuff that I’m leaving behind and the stuff that I’m taking back. You might be wondering why I didn’t take the leaving stuff up to my house, but the answer to that is that it’s a Bank Holiday and there are other tasks that I need to perform that depend upon places being open so I’m combining all of the trips tomorrow.

But the amount of stuff that I’ve taken out of Caliburn means that he’ll go a good 5kph faster on the way back to Belgium on Saturday.

Another thing of note for recent times is that I managed not to crash out this afternoon. Despite the odd wave of fatigue I kept going for the whole day and so now I’m ready for a really early night. I’ll be listening to the radio again in bed until I fall asleep and then I’ll see where I end up tonight.

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Monday 14th December 2015 – WELL …

… that didn’t work out quite as planned, did it?

I told you that I was going back home this afternoon to have a tidy-up, but it didn’t really work out quite like that. I did make it home with no problems but the first job was to unload Caliburn. There was all of the tiles in the back, as well as three big sacks of tile cement and grouting, a pane of glass, some floorboarding and a pile of other stuff too.

But although I moved all of the heavy stuff out of Caliburn, and one or two other bits too, but that was my lot, I’m afraid. It rather finished me off. I did manage a little later to make a door handle of sorts for the front door though, so my afternoon wasn’t completely wasted.

I blame a lot of it myself on what was going on through the night. I’d had an early night and started to watch a film, and that’s almost always guaranteed to send me off to sleep, just like it did last night.

And then I was on my travels again. With a fitful night, I don’t remember too much about it. But what I do remember was exciting enough. It concerns something like a vampire on the prowl over London and some kind of surgeon being implicated as the perpetrator. Doctor Watson was leaning out of the living room window at 221B Baker Street whilst musing to Holmes and recounting the 31 departments (are there 31? There were last night anyway!) in a modern Victorian hospital to which a surgeon might be attached. But I was exploring another avenue, a thread that led past a group of teenagers. I somehow managed to filter a message down to them with just enough information to provoke them, so as to see if it might smoke someone out of their cover. And sure enough, some girl rang me to thank me for the information which had helped them greatly. I tried to engage her in conversation, as part of my plan, but the line went dead – either we had been cut off, or (more probably) she had hung up. But I do remember being in my bedroom (wherever this might have been) which was a total tip (as usual) in a bed on wheels so that I could paddle it about the room. And I’d woken up at the usual time despite having had a late night but it was now in mid-afternoon and I was still in bed, not sure how I was going to manage to go back to sleep and also thinking that in five minutes I could have this room looking really tidy, so why wasn’t I doing it?

But that’s enough of that. I crawled myself out of my stinking pit at just before 08:00 and it wasn’t long before the nurse came. I had my injection and also my blood sample (and he burst out laughing when I told them how many goes they had had at the hospital to find my blood) and then I spent the rest of the morning working on the notes for my trip to Canada.

Coming back from home this evening I bumped (well, not literally) into Nicolette. She was taking their new dog Snowy (a younger version of Siroy who is unfortunately no longer with us). We had quite a chat and then I came back here, with Caliburn storming up the Font Nanaud, clearly enjoying being a quarter of a tonne lighter.

So tonight I’m watching Leicester against Chelsea and then I’m off to bed. I have the hospital in Montlucon tomorrow.

-2

Tuesday 17th November 2015 – I’M FEELING A LITTLE …

… bit better today.

With having crashed out yesterday afternoon, it was gone 02:00 (more like 03:00, I reckon) when I went to bed. As for the alarm at 07:30, well, the least said about that the better. 09:30 it was when I crawled up here, and then I had to make some muesli as I’d run out yesterday

I had a good day on my course and astounded my tutor with an observation that I made about an Iron Age encampment in the vicinity of Hadrian’s Wall. But with the late start, it was after midday when I finished.

I crashed out again for an hour or so, but then found from somewhere the energy to go outside.

First thing that I did was to fit Caliburn with new windscreen wipers. The ones that were on it were the originals since 2007, so eight-and-a-half years is some going. They weren’t much good, in fact. but when I was at the Auchan the other day, they were having a sale of windscreen wipers and so I took advantage of it, ready for the winter which isn’t surely far away.

Apart from that, I’ve started to empty Caliburn. There was food in there (tins and stuff), some of which dates from before I went to Canada in August, as well as a pile of washing that Liz did for me. It can’t stay in there for ever so I made some space in the downhill lean-to and most of it is stacked in there. Some other stuff, including the washing, I dragged up here (and I do mean “dragged”).

Tomorrow, I’m going to be brave and carry on with the emptying, including the tiles and the tile cement. I may not be up to much at the moment, but tiling doesn’t take too much effort and with the old electric tile-cutter that I have, that doesn’t take too much electrical energy

-2

Monday 16th March 2015 – I’VE FINISHED …

… painting the walls of the bedroom today. At least, I’ve done all that I intend to do.

painted wallpaper bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe plasterboard joints wre still showing through the second coat that I did on Saturday morning, and so that called for a third coat. I had to put some more white paint into the mix to make sure that I had enough paint, and now the colour is too light. Not only that, it’s rather patchy too and, even worse, you can still see the plasterboard joints.

Ahhh well, never mind.

I had a phone call from Cecile and that ended up with me being sidetracked for half an hour or so. Nevertheless, I had finished the painting by 17:00 and that gave me time to start the emptying of Caliburn.

That took about an hour and a half and there’s still a plie of stuff left in there for which I can’t find room at the moment. But it’s a long time since Caliburn has been this empty.

And I was right about some tins of kidney beans. I distincly remember buying some but you will remember that I couldn’t find them. Anyway, once I’d emptied Caliburn I found an IKEA bag with the missing articles – together with some Soya desserts, dated 22 December 2014. They went in the bin.

I had another chat with Cecile afterwards and then sat down to watch a film. Tonight’s film was the whimsical John Wayne comedy McLintock!.

A delightful film, even if the picture quality is very poor – due to the fact that it’s out of copyright and so the original studio copies have long been lost. All that remain are second- and third-hand copies, and we are lucky to have those.

It’s another one of these John Wayne films where everyone is intent on having a good time, on screen as well as off-screen, and the fight scene is one of the inspirations for the fight in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.

It’s full of all kinds of memorable quotes, but you’ll need to buy the film to listen to them for yourself. Make sure you buy the full (122 minute) version and not the cut-down 90-minute TV edition, which cuts out half the plot, and don’t complain about the wretched quality because it’s all that is available.

For tea, I made another mega-curry of green pepper and lentils. There’s enough for three more days too which is good. It means that I don’t have to exert myself so much for the rest of the week.

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Wednesday 25th June 2014 – WHERE AM I?

Ohh yes – I’m in a parking space on the side of the road near Dole, 250 or so kms from home, busily making a list of things that I have forgotten to bring with me, such as all of the fresh fruit and the soya desserts in the fridge. The soya desserts will be out of date by the time I return, but seeing as how I’ve closed all of the windows in the attic (in the middle of summer) I shudder to think of what the fresh fruit will be like by the time that I return home.

So with the customary couple of hours on the computer, after lunch I emptied a ton of cememnt out of the back of Caliburn and gave him a good brush out. He’s still not very clean inside and so I laid some sheets of OSB and plywood on the floor – at least that is clean and so should keep me clean.

I then loaded him up and I brought the gas cooker even though I have no gas – I’ll try to find some en route as I travel around. For the bed, I’ve brought a foam-rubber folding chair thing that Marianne gave me a few years ago when she was cleaning out her cellar. I’ll have to see what that is like one day, so why not now? Roxanne had one in her room for when she had friends for sleepovers and no-one ever complained. Mind you, I can’t for the life of me remember how or why I forgot about the folding bed thing that I bought ages ago.

I’ve also disconnected the dump load. The cables are still running too hot for my liking and here in Midsummer and I’m not there, better to be safer than sorry. I really ought to fix this properly one of these days.

I’ve sorted out some clothes and some food (except the fresh fruit and the soya desserts) and drink, made myself a flask of hot coffee, put the Gibson, the Roland amp, the Carlsbro amp, microphone and stand into the van and then hit the road.

I played tag with a woman in a silver-grey Peugeot 206 estate all the way from Montmarault to about 20kms short of Montceau-les-Mines, and stopped at Montceau for tea. I found a Turkish kebab place that made me a gorgeous Oriental salad and chips, with bottled water, all for a very democratic €8:00 and we spent most of our time chatting about our experiences living in a foreign country.

So back on the road in the dusk and here I am

-2

Monday 16th June 2014 – WELL!

So Terry’s Transit and the Jeep have now been for their controle techniques. Both of them have failed but only on minor points, nothing that will prevent them from being driven on the road. There’s a 8-week period for correcting the faults.

Most surprisingly, the brakes on both vehicles passed with flying colours. After all of the work that I put in on them, especially with the handbrake on the Jeep, I was quite impressed and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t want to have to do that again.

Terry was of course preoccupied with the controle techniques today and so I was on my own here.

This new submersible pump that I bought the other day, that really did the business. I’ve 400 litres of water now in a pile of dustbins ready to use or cement, and the rest was pumped out and down the lane. It was all over in minutes and made a change from spending hours baling out with a can and bucket.

Caliburn is also emptied of his concrete pillar blocks and they are stacked. I’m leaving the cement in there for now though – the best place to keep it dry and out of the way.

Once I’d done all of that, I did some weeding in the garden for a change. The onion and potato beds are now clear of thistles.

This afternoon, I did what I should have done at the weekend and completed the Radio Anglais texts for the next recording session. I wish that I had done that on Saturday.

So now I’m off to bed. I have to be up at 07:00 as Terry and I are going to Riom to register the Jeep now that it has passed the controle technique. I’m glad about that – that’s one care less.

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Friday 6th June 2014 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… I was awake at 06:00 (and I don’t mean as in not gone to bed yet)? Anyway, so I was this morning, despite having been on my travels during the night.

And it was all to no avail as well because when I pulled into Brico Depot at 06:55, 5 minutes before opening time, there was already a packed car park and a queue of about 40 people at the door. And then at 07:00 they wheeled out the 4-wheel 1.5 tonne 4-wheeled close-coupled trailers for sand and gravel, that were on special offer at just €799. There was a total of 4 trailers and so that was that. I, and another 30-odd people, had had a wasted journey.

Not quite wasted though because I filled up Caliburn with everything that I might need for the next stage of the concreting (because there will be one) except for the 100mm breeze blocks, which I forgot. I also did a round of shopping, to save on going out tomorrow and at the Auchan I bumped into the Megemonts – a couple from Virlet. M Megemont is President of the Virlet Historical Society and mme Megemont is on the local council so I took the opportunity to ask her to send me anything that might be interesting for Radio Anglais.

I was back here for 15:00 for my butty and it’s clearly a case that Rosemary has a spy camera here as she phoned up the moment I set my foot in the door.

It was 20:00 when I went back outside to unload Caliburn. We had the hottest day of the year to daye and it was not possible to work outside. The temperature today reached 34.50C today.

So now I have the fan on here – the first time this year – and I’m off to bed in a minute. I hzve to start on the Radio Anglais programmes tomorrow.

-2

Thursday 13th March 2014 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve not been in too much of a hurry to leave my bed.

I put that down to still being awake at 03:45 this morning, and so getting up at … errr … 10:20 is not too unreasonable.

I’ve hardly done any work either – well – not that kind of work anyway. The house remains practically untouched. But noticing when I went downstairs that the batteries were aleady fully-charged, and at 12:30 there was 50.5 amps going into the dump load and the wires were pretty warm, that called for action. I plugged an extension cable into the overcharge circuit and wired the 12-volt fridge in. That calmed everything down a little. The water still got hot (68°C) but the wires stayed cool-ish and the fridge worked.

I’ll leave it like that until I fix up the new batteries that will replace the existing creaky ones and then I’ll wire in the fridge into the permanent circuit for the summer.

I threw out some food and veg peelings that I had forgotten to deal with before I left here (some of them could have walked to the compost bin on their own) and then unloaded part of Caliburn. For lunch I went to fetch the bread – to find that the boulanger had forgotten to come on Tuesday, and that was really the only reason why I had rushed home.

I had to go down the road to the Intermarché at Pionsat to buy a baguette.

GRRRR!

This afternoon I updated the Trois Rivieres pages of my Canada website

. I took a pile more photos of the town when I was there last year and so they needed to be added on and the commentary written. I’ve also reviewed a few subsequent pages of my drive down the Chemin du Roy

and that has spawned a couple of new pages too.

So I’ve not been idle.

But I do realise now why I try not to work on the computer between 19:00 and 21:00. I get so carried away with what I’m doing that I forget to make tea and I end up going hungry.

And it’s 5 years since my dear friend Liz departed. I can’t believe that it’s been so long. I hope that she is sleeping peacefully. My abiding memory is just before she went for her operation, she was making out a list of names.
“Are these the people that I need to contact to let them know your news?” I asked.
“Ohh no” she replied. “If it all goes wrong, this is a list of the people I’m going to come back to haunt”.

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Tuesday 18th February 2014 – I HAD AN AFTERNOON OUT …

… this afternoon. This involved moving a pile of stuff with Caliburn and so first job this morning was to empty Caliburn and then to put away everything that I had been storing in him. And that took a while, I can tell you.

I then swept him out too, and repaired one or two electrical bits and pieces that needed fixing. So at least he’s now clean and tidy in the back.

Next on the list was hanging out the washing, and then to clear out a space at the side of the existing compost bin and put there the one that I bought last year in this Government composting scheme. ONce I had done that, I could empty the beichstuhl, such pleasant jobs that I have around here.

So I picked up Marianne and then we went round to Bill’s to load up Caliburn and then went off to Montlucon and the salerooms. On the way we called at LIDL as they were having another LED light sale. This time it was the 1-watt lights that I use, and at €2:99 each now. They had 6 in stock, and now they have none at all.

We went to Brico Depot too where I bought some more wood and some heavy duty varnish for the stairs. You can tell that this is now becoming really serious.

Anyway, we ended up in the cafe at Leclerc having a coffee and a chat and then it was back home via the fresh veg shop. And I had to take in the washing as by now it had started to rain.

Yes, it’s all happening here now.

-5

Thursday 7th November 2013 – I’VE BEEN A BUSY BOY TODAY

Yes, high time I started work again around here. And even though I had something of a late-ish morning I still managed to do a good session before lunch.

First off, I repaired the woodshed. The corrugated iron sheets blew off while I wasn’t here and all of the wood is soaking wet. But I’ve rescued the sheets, nailed them down this time and used some bracing struts, and then covered it all over with an old tarp that was lying around not doing very much. That might hold it for a while until I can build the new one across the yard.

While I was outside I did some tidying up too and also a pile of weeding outside the house. It now looks as if someone is actually living here.

But that’s not all. The kitchen in the verandah was in a desperate condition and so I’ve tidied up in there and given it something of a superficial clean. At least the sink is empty now and unblocked which is a great improvement. Next task was the chest of drawers up here. There’s a screw retainer missing from one of the sides and so the drawers were dropping out of the runners. I emptied that, turned it upside-down to see what was needed and then fixed that.

After lunch, I emptied a couple of boxes out of Caliburn and dealt with those and seeing as I was in a good mood and having done a good day’s work I treated myself to a film. The Cannonball Run is 90 minutes of mindless mayhem but it’s a film that I can sit and watch time and time again, simply for the fact that it’s clear to see that the actors involved, and good actors too, are thoroughly enjoying themselves making it. As well as that, though, I keep a little database of film quotes and this film has contributed more one-liners to my database than any other film that I’ve ever seen. Who can forget immortal phrases such as “You wouldn’t last five minutes in a New York subway” or “It takes brilliance and years of hard work, and you wouldn’t understand any of that”.

Anyway, it’s beddie byes time now. See you all tomorrow

-4

Sunday 21 July 2013 – AND AM I ALL PACKED?

Am I ‘eck as like.

No surprise there, is there?

I had a lie-in until about 09:20 and by that time it was far too hot to do anything much. Records have tumbled today and I can’t think how often it is that I have had to put cold water into the solar shower to cool it down to an acceptable temperature of about 37°C.

For yes, I did have my first (and probably only) solar shower of the year this evening, and gorgeous it was too – well-worth waiting for.

Mind you I almost didn’t manage to take it – there sunning itself on the concrete pad right almost where I was planning to stand was a whacking great snake – the first real snake that I’ve seen at my house, although I’ve seen plenty elsewhere.

He p155ed off pretty sharp-ish when he saw me and disappeared into the woodpile, right next to where the ladder is. I got to thinking of myself that it was a shame that I didn’t have a couple of friends, some counters and a pair of dice.

And if you want to know what kind of snake he was, at the speed at which he disappeared, he was definitely a calculator. That’s right – a calculator is a very fast adder.

Still, Caliburn is emptied and there’s a pile of stuff in it.

Not all I need to take all of it but there’s a slight change of plan. I’m not leaving right after the radio shows. It’s going to be even hotter tomorrow so it’ll be wicked on the road. I’m coming back here and I’ll leave at about 19:00 when it cools down.

Trying to print off the radio stuff, and nothing worked. It’s not gathering in the paper and so I’ll need to strip it down and find out why. But I never have any luck with printers. There’s dozens round here that don’t function as they are supposed to do.

Luckily Liz came to the rescue with some stuff (and a nice tea and some ginger cake for which I am always grateful) when I was down there rehearsing the radio shows and I’ll have to get Radio Tartasse to do the rest tomorrow.

Now as you know, every now and again I write down my dreams on here.

Many years ago when I was at Uni I helped out as one of a few guinea-pigs for someone who was doing research into dreams. We had to record our dreams and submit them to this guy who was using them as material for his thesis.

Even though the project ended years ago I still keep it up to a certain degree because it was so interesting and now it’s become something of a habit.

I don’t record all of my dreams because without the equipment that we had, it’s difficult to do so, and so I only record the ones that I remember really well. And last night’s was a corker, it really was.

Back in the 1980s when I had my taxi business in Crewe I had a young girl working for me on Saturdays. She stayed for a couple of years and then left to go to college.

She kept in touch with Nerina and me and there was talk at one point that she might come to lodge with us for a while as home conditions were difficult.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … “Hooray” – ed … Nerina and I separated a few years later and I was preparing to emigrate, and I bumped into Nerina. She asked me how I was and we had a little chat about this and that.

One thing that she said quite surprised me. “I’m surprised that you didn’t get …. to move in with you”.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you must have known that she had a big crush on you”.
Rather like Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams in Carry On Loving“Surely you must have felt it?”
“Felt it? I never got anywhere near it”.
I didn’t, as it happened, and it was rather late in the day to tell me, I thought.

A good few years or so years later I did encounter … again – now separated from her husband and with a young baby in tow.

I was just about to go off New York for a holiday and, on a whim, I invited her along.  But it was far too short notice and it didn’t happen, and I always regard her as “the one that got away” – the lucky girl.

Anyway, last night, here she was. We were in Sydney, Australia, together as a couple, talking to someone about their cats, and a taxi driver stuck his head around the door and said that it was time to go. So we went outside to get into his taxi, a big modern silver Opel with a huge scrape all the way down the side and with a floor made of wooden pallets. He took us back to our home and when he dropped us off, I noticed that the letter box outside had been knocked off its pedestal and bent. So there I was fixing it and putting it back into position so I could post this huge pile of brown envelopes, but … told me that the postman had passed while I was fixing the letter box and it was now too late.

I’ve never had a dream as realistic as this – so realistic that in the middle of it and I had to get up to go for a Gypsy’s downstairs in the bathroom, when I returned to bed and went back to sleep, the dream carried on from where it left off.

It was totally astonishing and I would love to know what has been going on in the back of my mind somewhere that has made it come up with all of this. It’s quite unnerving for some reason and has put me right off my stroke. I shan’t be feeling myself for a good week or so …“and quite right too” – ed

Surreal was not the word.

..

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Saturday 13th July 2013 – THE BEST DAY …

… of the year so far.

And for a variety of reasons. Not least of which was the fact that I spent it in convivial company.

Up before the alarm clock, just by way of a change, I was washed, dressed and breakfasted and I’d done some more work on my web pages by the time 09:00 came round.

By 10:00 I had unloaded all the wood off Caliburn’s roof rack and I was on my way to the shops at St Eloy-les-Mines.

Although I didn’t spend anything more than usual, I called in at Cheze and bought some glue for the plasterboard so that I can fit that around the window, and also four tubes of sealant to seal the gap between the window and the wall.

dylan strawberry moose liz terry messenger sauret besserve puy de dome franceFrom St Eloy-les-Mines I round to Liz and Terry’s. Kate, Darren and the kids had arrived for a holiday and I’d been invited for lunch.

It gave me an opportunity to catch up with Strawberry Moose who had come down here for his holidays a few days ago.

I found him having a marvellous time playing on the trampoline and the slide with Dylan.

robyn strawberry moose liz terry messenger sauret besserve puy de dome franceThey very kindly asked me if I wanted to stay for tea and that was really nice. Then afterwards we sat on the terrace at the back.

That gave Strawberry Moose the opportunity to have a cuddle with Robyn, although I’m not quite sure who was cuddling who.

Terry also very kindly gave and lent me a few things to help me progress in the bathroom, not the least being the Ryobi Plus One mastic gun.

But he also gave me a present, which was really nice. Someone was selling some Ryobi Plus One hedge trimmers with lithium battery and charger, for less than the price of the battery and charger alone.

Consequently he bought two, and one of them was for me. I’m most impressed – thanks very much.

As the day faded out into the night, we watched the stars come out. There are thousands of them in the sky here – more than you’ll ever see at most places and that was one of the things that attracted me to the Auvergne.

All in all, it was a very civilised day.

But I was not so pleased when I returned home. It seems that someone has forced the door on my letter box.

Not sure if there’s anything missing though – I’ll need to talk to the Postie about that, but I’ll have to fetch the coppers in because you never know what it was that they might have been after

-3

Wednesday 10th July 2013 – OHH GOOD! COMPANY!

st gervais d'auvergne fire brigade la batisse puy de dome franceAnd how!

Yes, the pompiers – the fire brigade from St Gervais d’Auvergne came to call upon Cécile this evening. And at Cécile’s request too.

As I told you the other day, she’s put her house up for sale, but a group of squatters has other ideas.

st gervais d'auvergne fire brigade la batisse puy de dome franceA swarm of bees arrived and seem to have taken up residence in Cécile’s chimney.

She needs to encourage her visitors, not have them stung to death by bees.

No local apiarist was available and so she did the next-best thing, which was to call out the fire brigade.

st gervais d'auvergne fire brigade la batisse puy de dome franceIt’s amamzing, the things that you learn. I didn’t realise that this is a free service in the Auvergne, although one is expected to make a contribution to the Fireman’s Ball.

Apparently they hold a Fireman’s Ball every December in St Gervais d’Auvergne, and the fireman is becoming rather fed up of it.

Anyway, by about 22:00 the fire brigade had gone and Cécile and I carried on working.

This morning I was up as usual and after breakfast I didn’t hang about.

First job was to empty out Caliburn – I don’t know where all of the rubbish inside him comes from.

having done that I drove round to Cécile’s to pick up my stuff and to help her organise herself, although what good I might be at that I really don’t know.

While I was there, I ended up working on the Berlingo. This is Bill’s old car but Cécile has bought it as her Micra is creaking a little around the edges.

The Berlingo failed its controle technique on a couple of silly things, like a frayed seat belt where the Hound of the Baskervilles had had a go at it, so I was sorting all of that out.

Nan came round too to say goodbye to Cécile so we had a really good chat.

Nothing like a convivial evening among friends.

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Thursday 27th December 2012 – WELL, I WAS …

… going to start back to work today.

Honestly.

I admit that I had had something of a leisurely morning in a kind-of half-hearted working on my Quebec web pages and that I was gradually winding myself up to the idea of making a start – and then the telephone rang, and that was that.

Apparently, Cecile had just won a set of gates on eBay but on going to pick them up, she discovered that were too big to go in her car.

It’s a good job that I had spent half an hour or so emptying out Caliburn the other day, so like the true superheroes that we are, Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I dashed into the nearest telephone box to put our underpants on outside our trousers.

Having done that, we dashed to the rescue.

Perhaps it’s here that I should interject that my brother always used to wear his underpants outside his trousers. But that wasn’t because he was a superhero, it was because he was two sandwiches short of a picnic.

A drive out to Doyet (way the other side of Commentry) was reimbursed by the offer of an evening meal, for which I’m always grateful as you know.

And then, after another marathon session lighting her stove we ended up watching episodes of “The Twilight Zone” until quite late.

I shall just have to start work tomorrow now.

Won’t I?

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Sunday 23rd December 2012 – Sunday is a day of rest …

… although that wasn’t the case here today. I couldn’t even manage to lie in after 08:45.

After breakfast and some work on the computer I carried on tidying up in here. After all, I might be having visitors here in early course. And then, after a few hours of working on the Quebec website, I emptied Caliburn of all of the stuff bought in the UK the other week, and put it away. That was not as easy as it sounds, I’ll tell you.

However we finally had the day that I had been awaiting. Gorgeous, blue sky with scattered clouds and 70 amphours or so in each of the two solar banks on the house. That has cheered me up a little and it would be nice to see more of that for the next couple of days if possible. It’ll make the batteries look much more healthy.   

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