Tag Archives: fire

Sunday 29th March 2015 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST

But not for me it isn’t – at least, not today.

Mind you, it was the day of a lie-in and it was 11:00 (or 10:00 in real money because we put the clocks forward today) that I crawled out of my stinking pit.

After breakfast, I carried on with the tidying up. And it looks a little more respectable in here (only a little, though) and another pile of stuff was taken out. I’ll crack this place yet, even if it will take me a century to do it.

At the footy this afternoon, FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI were playing Sauret-Besserve. With a full side out, and even a substitute, the team was nevertheless rather imbalanced. Felix, the goalkeeper, was playing in attack and Vincent was in goal. That filled me full of foreboding as his only other match in goal had … well, not been a success.

I was proved right in the first 5 minutes. With a howling gale roaring down the pitch towards Pionsat’s goal, Sauret took the lead with a spectacular 40-yard punt that was picked up by the wind and sailed over the despairing Vincent’s hand into the top corner of the net. And in the first 40 minutes, I don’t think that Pionsat had managed to put the ball in the Sauret half.

Things changed as soon as the wind dropped slightly. FC Pionsat St Hilaire found a lull in the wind and soared upfield into the Sauret penalty area where a rather hopeful cross hit the arm of a Sauret defender. A cruel occurrence, but no-one can really complain about the award of a penalty. It may not have been intentional but it did deprive the attack of an advantage. Anyway, old Eric stepped up and calmly slotted home.

30 seconds later, Anthony did well on the right wing to hold up the play and then he hit another hopeful cross into the area. The Sauret keeper and the central defender both hesitated for a second as each one expected the other to come for the ball, and that gave Christophe just enough of a moment to slide his foot in and push it past the keeper into the net for the lead.

In the second half with the gale at their backs, Vincent (who has a huge kick for such a thin boy) was punting his clearances downfield well in front of his attackers. Nevetheless, Pionsat had three or four golden opportunities to bury the game, including one where Christophe sold a marvellous dummy to the Sauret defence, letting the ball go through his legs for Bertrand, running wide, to shoot across goal when surely it had to be easier to score.

And they might well have regretted that too, had it not been for Vincent in goal who made a couple of excellent saves that his big brother Matthieu would have been proud to make.

But with the game in its dying seconds, Felix (who had a good game up front for a goalkeeper) held up play on the edge of the penalty area, drew the entire defence onto him, and then just at the last minute slid the ball across the empty penalty area for Christophe to sidefoot into the empty net.

Yes, a good game, and a good result too. Pionsat’s team can be very proud of that.

Back here, I had a little fire tonight. Not that I really needed it, but it’s Sunday and pizza night. I may as well be comfortable while I’m cooking.

So tomorrow, back to work. And back to emptying the house.

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Thursday 26th March 2015 – ONE MORE COAT …

… of varnish on the floor and the varnishing will be finished. Every vertical surface has already had two coats of varnish, and every horizontal surface three, except of course the floor. And that will be done first thing tomorrow morning.

That new varnish from Mr Bricolage seems to be okay- it needs a really good mixing but then it spreads quite nicely. I’ll have to remember that varnish next time I’ll be varnishing.

That really is all that I’ve done today – as if that isn’t enough. You’ve absolutely no idea of just how much bare wood there was in that bedroom and it took ages to do. But it all looks so nice now and so it was well-worth the effort.

Tomorrow, once the varnish has dried, I’ll be fitting the skirtung board and then trying to install the glass over the door without dropping it. Putting the hanging rails in the wardrobe will be the final job and that bedroom will finally be finished. I can then move all of the clothes and the chests of drawers down there, and my attic will be so much emptier.

That’s not quite true. I need to sort out the lights in there. At the moment there are just some LED lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling and I’m not sure what I can do to make that look pretty. I have one or two ideas and I’ll have to see how they pan out.

I had yet another small fire in here tonight seeing as the temperature was just 14.9°C. That’s 2°C higher than my threshold temperature, but I made a huge pepper and chickpea curry tonight and that cooks nicely in the oven, so why not light the fire and be comfortable while i’m doing it? And it took the leftover wood from yesterday, a floorboard offcut and half a log. Talk about cheap cooking and heating.

Yes, this little wood fire with tiny oven is the best thing that i’ve ever purchased for here.

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Wednesday 25th March 2015 – I DID WELL …

… to light a little fire up here last night. I awoke to a relatively balmy 16.2°C and yet outside we had 5cms of snow. So much for Spring, hey?

And I’d been on my travels during the night too. I had aroused the antipathy of the factory bully who ended up chasing me around the factory brandishing an enormous club. He was intercepted by a few of his colleagues who persuaded him to use a slightly smaller club. But it all ended happily ever after as I ended up walking across the park towards some buildings in the distance, hand in hand (and later, arm round the waist) of a girl who, over the past two or three weeks, has appeared out of nowhere to accompany me on several of my nocturnal adventures. I’ve absolutely no idea at all what has prompted the strange inclusion of this unexpected companion, no matter how sweet many of the people in the park described the pair of us last night.

After breakfast I used up the rest of the cheap varnish on the window and the shelves in the wardrobe, and then I varnished the floor with the first coat. After that, I went off to Montlucon as I predicted.

First stop was Pionsat to sort out the boulangère. Sophie, the regular Friday livreuse, is off sick and so they’ve been taking on anyone that they can get. That explains all of the confusion about the delivery of Friday’s bread, and I hope that we’ve managed to sort it out.

At the LIDL I witnessed a very disagreeable incident of a young guy verbally abusing the young female cashier over the price of an article (but he cleared off before I could have a word in his shell-like) and then at the Auchan I stocked up with the next month’s major supply of food.

At Brico-Depot I managed to forget the floor-join and the brush for the bedroom door but I managed to fix myself up with some tackle to make a couple of Heath-Robinson hanging rails for the wardrobe, as well as a couple more 4-watt LED light bulbs. I also bumped into Pete Marsh and his friend, who were stocking up on supplies for their next contract.

I was disappointed though – the cheap but good varnish is no longer carried. It seems that the supplier has closed down. So to be on the safe side, I bought another large tin of the expensive stuff just in case. If I don’t use it, it’ll come in handy for the ground floor.

Problem solved though over the road at mr Bricolage. They had big tins of cheap clear varnish on offer so I bought one,as well as the glass that I need to do the window over the door. I’ve managed to bring that home in one piece – it’ll be interesting to see if I can manage to get it into the doorframe without dropping it.

NOZ came up with nothing so I came home, crashed out for an hour and then made myself a Heath-Robinson meal of a handful of pasta, sone peas, carrots and green beans, and some olive oil and mustard sauce. Cooked on the oven because I’ve had the fire on again tonight. The left-over wood from last night-s fire and a floorboard offcut and that was sufficient. It’s amazing what you can do with a good fire.

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Tuesday 24th March 2015 – SO WHAT …

… have I done today then?

First thing was to trim off a corner of the door that is catching on the floor. And having done that, it was then catching somewhere else. It seems that I have a warped floorboard and that is what is causing the door to catch.

The solution was therefore obvious – out came the big new belt sander and that soon dealt with that issue. There was a lot of vacuuming to do with the new vacuum cleaner, but that’s impressive too. There is however a design fault – a 90° bend in the pipe inside the machine that leads into the dust bag. That could easily be eliminated and so it should be, because it blocks up quite easily.

Next job was to fit the beading around the window and the framework for the sheet of glass that will be fitted above the door.

I had to sort out the issue of the flooring in the far corner. The walls are of course nothing like straight and there’s a gap that varies from about 15mm to 3mm. I tried to carve a piece to fit but gave up after half an hour. Instead I went into the barn and found a 4.5m length of 20mm x100mm left over from when we did the barn roof. I trimmed that down to 70mm using the desktop saw, and that will do to pad out the skirting board so that the gap is covered.

I then spent the rest of the morning vacuuming and cleaning up.

After lunch I masked off by the window and then started to varnish. I’ve done the window sill and insets and also the interior of the wardrobe and that took until all of 19:00. And I’ve had a bit of a shock in that I’m not going to have anything like enough varnish to do it all. A trip to Montlucon is therefore on the cards, well before my planned trip on Saturday.

I had a fire in here tonight. It wasn’t that it was that cold, but it was cold enough and it meant that I could cook my meal in comfort. It was left-over hot-pot from Sunday night – Liz gave me a doggy-bag. Not enough for a meal but with a handful or two of pasta thrown in, it made a lovely meal.

And now I’m off to bed – a nice early night.

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Sunday 22nd March 2015 – A STRANGE ROUND GOLDEN THING …

… appeared in the sky today. Only for a minute or so, but it was there nevertheless. I have a vague recollection of seeing some thing similar before, but it was so long ago now that I can’t be sure. but we did have rain and hailstones and probably the odd plague of locusts somewhere in the vicinity. I certainly didn’t want to leave my nice warm bed so it was no surprise that I didn’t crawl out until 10:30.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. I’d been talking with someone about a journey I was planning to take into Canada’s high Arctic and the map that I was showing to them was marked with various different routes. I then boarded a train that took me right up into the wilderness and there I was, clutching the giant pizza that I had brought with me as food supplies for the journey. However halfway along, we werre shuned into a spur line to let a freight train pass by heading south. I alighted to take a few photos of the freight train. My train suddenly took off without warning and I had to chase after it, scrambling aboard as best as I could. It took me ages to find my seat and when I did, I found that someone had eaten my pizza.

Back in the Land of the Living, I did some tidying up after breakfast. Not very much but some, and you can actually see the floor in one or two places now, which is astonishing around here, and then I did some editing of the radio programmes that we are going to record tomorrow. I had the fire on for an hour or so too – it was rather cold up here.

After a rather late lunch I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the programmes, and Liz cooked a lovely tea.

Back here, I’ve finally edited the Christmas Special that we recorded in December 2014 and you can hear it HERE.

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Saturday 14th March 2015 – WHAT? ME?

Working on the house on a Saturday morning?

Yes, make a note of this because it doesn’t happen every week, or every year come to that. But running behind, and having lost half a day on Thursday, I need to catch up otherwise i’m going to be here for ever.

But it wasn’t an early start by any means.

I woke up this morning to a crash on the roof as if the chimney had blown off. But what had happened was that a pile of snow had slid off the roof light onto the tiles. Yes, we had a pile of snow during the night and it was cold in here.

So that was enough for me. Never mind the alarm, I turned over and went back to sleep where I remained until 10:00.

painted bedroom wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter breakfast, I went downstairs and finished off the second coat of paint on the wall in the bedroom. And as I say it myself, it doesn’t look too bad at all, although a third coat would help matters greatly.

Cecile came round in the late afternoon and stayed for a good two hours while she sorted out a few things. And now I’m back up here with the fire on to keep warm. No footy tonight so I’m staying in.

Tomorrow, Pionsat’s 2nd XI are playing just down the road at le Quartier. I’ll have a run out around there.

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Thursday 30th October 2014 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… garden fire today. But to be honest, it was really the same one as yesterday, with a lot more fuel added to it.

Outside the house, the tidying up is done as much as I can do for the moment and it really is a great improvement on how it was before. That, at least, is noticeable. And where I couldn’t reach with the lawnmower or the brush cutter, I’ve poured a load of weedkiller over. That’s something that I’ve always been trying to avoid, of course, but sometimes it is necessary, especially as time is something of an issue right now.

Having dealt with that, I’ve been in the downhill lean-to. I’ve done some (but not too much) tidying up in there now and I can move around again. Dealing with that properly and comprehensively is another mediul-term goal of mine, and that depends upon what the winter this year is going to bring us.

This afternoon, I spent a considerable amount of time on the telephone. Firstly, I had to call the UK and my bank there to find out why a banking transaction hadn’t gone through. After what can best be called “a frank exchange of views”, this transaction might go through properly now, and there will be some news about this on these pages in early course if all goes according to plan.

The second call was to Canada and to my niece and her husband. This is something else that is going to involve a considerable financial outlay, but my best estimate is that it will pay for itself in just three voyages to North America, and I’m looking to reduce my outlay in this respect seeing as how it’s becoming a regular thing, these voyages. And there will be more of this anon too..

Once those were out of the way, I spent a delightful afternoon downstairs on the ground floor of the house tidying up all of that, and it’s now back to the pristine condition of how it was in the Spring. That left me just ebnough time to make a start on tidying the first floor where the bedroom will be.

As it went dark I had phone calls from Terry and from Rosemary. I’m exceedingly popular these days. I can’t be feeling myself these days.

And quite right too. It’s a disgusting habit.

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Tuesday 22nd April 2014 – SO WHAT’S HAPPENING …

fire pionsat 22 april 2014 puy de dome france … over there tben? There’s quite a fire burning for some reason or other and I wonder what’s going on.

I couldn’t hear the pompiers or any amulance or anything and so I don’t know how urgent that might be, but it certainly looks most unwelcome.

However, it’s not likely to burn for very long because we’ve had something of a torrential downpour this evening. There’s been the odd shower or two and we had a thunderstorm pass over at about 15:00 but it really meant business this evening.

Still, the first real rain for a couple of weeks and so we can’t complain too much.

The rain is my fault too, for I’ve been out gardening today. And I noticed that the three surviving strawberry plants have flowers now. But that’s by the way.

First job was to plant the Brussels Sprouts that I bought on Saturday. So I gave that bed a good hoeing over first, and carried on to weed a few more as well while I was at it. Then I planted the sprouts, followed by the 12 lettuce that I bought. 6 of them went in between the sprouts, and the other 6 went in between the cabbage that I planted the other week.

After lunch I sowed the new potatoes, and then I turned my attention to the seeds. Seems that I have some lettuce coming up, and there’s signs of life in the leeks too. But still nothing much coming up anywhere else.

Now though, I have some sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower seeds sown, as well as some organo and basli seeds. Tomorrow, though, i’ll need to push on.

At 17:45 I came to a halt as I had to go round to Cécile’s to show some househunters around – that was what I was on my way back from doing when I noticed the fire.

I made another mega-curry tonight. This one is a mushroom and green pepper one, and that will keep me going for a few days too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you tomorrow.

-5

Saturday 9th November 2013 – DUNNO IF YOU REMEMBER …

… a couple of years ago and I posted a photo of the local village shop in Ronnet which had caught fire and burnt out.

burnt out shop restaurant fire ronnet allier franceThe owners moved to other premises in the village with their shop and opened a little café-restaurant there too. But that’s not lasted too long, because this was what I discovered when I went through Ronnet at midday today.

We’ve had another fire and all of this seems to have gone for a Burton too. Even more importantly, when the first place caught fire they had a tarpaulin up and over it almost as soon as the flames were extinguished. Here though after the fire at their second premises, they seem to have abandoned everything to its fate and that seems to be that.

Yes, I was in Ronnet today, on my way to Commentry for shopping, and rather later than intended too. I’d heard the alarm go off but I decided that, seeing as how I’m still recovering from my exertions, I was going to have another morning of rest.

But what a beautiful morning it was though, not a cloud in the sky and the batteries were fully-charged by 10:45. I emptied some more stuff out of Caliburn and tidied up some more in here, slinging some filled rubbish bags into the van and then went off to Commentry, via Ronnet.

Christmas isn’t too far off and so I’ve started buying Christmas nibbles today. And nothing else of note or excitement, except that at Centrakor I picked up a couple of small pepper mills on special offer, to use for grinding my cardamon seeds and so on, and also some waxed table cloth. That was what I wanted, because I don’t want to ruin this new table when I use it as my kitchen worktop up here.

As the weather deteriorated, clouded over and started to rain, Neris was next, and the swimming baths. Ages since I’ve been there and it was freezing in the building. About 25 of us poor souls braving the extremes, but at least I’m clean for once.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceSo now that I’m back home I can return to my usual haunts and habits, FC Pionsat St Hilaire being one of them, and tonight the Ist XI were taking on Chatelguyon.

I had to get dressed for it too as it was freezing outside, although the rain had stopped. And it’s as well that I did for nothing that happened on the pitch served to warm me up at all.


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one francePIonsat started the stronger and were peppering the Chatelguyon goalmouth and it was no surprise that they took the lead. A beautiful cross across the goalmouth from Nico and Pavel, this new Polish striker, volleying in a superb shot at the far post.

In that opening spell wre had shots kicked off the line, shots pounded into the woodwork and shots put wide when it would have been easier to score and I can’t think how it was that they missed. Pionsat were threatening to run riot.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceThey were however living dangerously at the back and it was no surprise to anyone that Chatelguyon equalised – with just a few minutes to go before half-time.

A break down the left wing saw a Chatelguyon forward clean on with the ball and although Michael managed to get down and stop the shot he couldn’t hold on and as the ball ran free from his grasp, another Chatelguyon forward following up had a pretty simple tap-in and that, dear readers, was that.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceThe second half started just like the first half. Pionsat came out of the trap like a rocket and for the first five minutes had Chatelguyon pegged right back in their own half and under something of the cosh.

We had the Pionsat missed chances, the woodwork peppered with shots, the Chatelguyon keeper making some excellent saves, and then the unbelievable happened.


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceWell, it isn’t unbelievable if you have been following what I was writing about the matches three and four years ago. Back in those days Pionsat were struggling because they had a defence that had a tendency to switch off and gp to sleep at important moments, and this was exactly what we had here.

And it didn’t happen just once or even twice, but FOUR TIMES, would you believe, and what looked like a comfortable Pionsat victory turned into something of an absolute rout as they went on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceI felt sorry for Michael in the Pionsat goal. He’s not a goalkeeper but with injuries to everyone else he’s in there keeping goal and doing his best.

No one could fault him for any of the five goals that he conceded, but with two Pionsat centre-backs standing too far apart so that an attacker can go straight down though the middle for a one-on-one with him, what is he expected to do?


fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire chatelguyon puy de dome division one franceWe had two of those, one after the other, and that was followed up by two balls over the top of the defence when the Pionsat defence was pushing too far forward and not quick enough to get back. For the fifth goal we had Michael on his own against three Chatelguyon attackers and no-one can do much about that.

Back home, I was skyped by an old friend of mine, telling me that he’s moved house. He has, but his wife hasn’t, meaning of course that their marriage of some considerable number of years has come to an end. That’s really sad news as between them they made quite an impressive couple with many qualities. But I suppose that it’s none of my business except to dole out the sympathy.

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Monday 24th December 2012 – Merry Christmas everyone

I hope that Santa brings you everything that you deserve this morning.

As for me today though, I’ve had the best fire here this evening that I have ever had, and I’m so delighted. After the usual breakfast and bits and pieces I dismantled the stove pipes. I’ve ruined about three brushes and all kinds of things, but it was necessary as the pipes were totally choked with ash and tar and all kinds of stuff. Hardly an air passage in sight, no wonder that the fire wouldn’t draw.

Anyway, the pipes are now thoroughly cleaned, jointed and reinstalled exactly as they should be, and the fire this evening burnt beautifully, even demolishing a large log on the lowest air setting. Even more exciting was the fact that the glass in the window remained mostly clear with hardly a trace of soot. That’s a first.

Apart from that, I wrapped up the presents and toddled off to Marianne’s to deposit hers. We had quite a chat too for a couple of hours, and that was quite pleasant.

So that’s it. Tomorrow I’m supposed to be having a day off but that’s unlikely as, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be having visitors and so I’ll need to cook. That will be exciting.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all.

-3

Tuesday 30th October 2012 – I LIT THE FIRE …

… tonight too.

Not for any particular reason (it wasn’t all that cold and I wasn’t planning on cooking anything) but it just seemed like a plan.

And it was a glorious day today too – not a cloud in the sky all day.

First job, now that I’m on winter hours, is to cut wood. Some out of the lean-to and some from off this big pile that I’ve been moving around from one place to another.

That took a while, especially as I was interrupted by a phone call from Percy Penguin, who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves.

But now that I’m a little-better organised … &#34ahem;" – ed … I can spend the usual 15 minutes per day on the wood.

After that, one job I’ve not done for ages is to replace all of the batteries in the ancillary equipment. I put a pile of those on charge and then went round changing everything.

We now have tons of stuff working that wasn’t working before, even including the projector clock.

This afternoon saw me tidying up some stuff (yes, honestly!) and then working on the bank at the back of the hard-standing – pulling out the overhanging rocks.

As for all of the soil, I’ll shovel it into the back of Caliburn one of these days, and move it somewhere.

In the verandah later I made a mega pepper-and-lentil curry, which should keep me going for the next short while.

No more courgettes though – the frost has done for them.  

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Tuesday 20th March 2012 – I WAS BUSY TODAY

First thing, after breakfast, was to check all of this paperwork that I’ve been doing, and then take a few pieces down to the mairie to sign or countersign.

Back here then, I then had to photocopy everything, or scan it for reference.

Bill rang me up too – he was having computer issues and needed help sorting that out and so I told him that when I had done my errands I would go round to help.

Off to Pionsat, and first stop was the bank, to pay an outstanding bill. And talking of bills, there was Bill in front of me. He managed to make the woman at the cash desk crash her computer and so we all had an agonising wait while she tried to fix it.

So having sorted that problem, it was off to the Post Office. They have a guaranteed 2-day delivery service, which is what I need, but of course none of the special envelopes that you need to do it. She can order one, but it won’t get here until the morning.

At my insistence, she rang the St Gervais office. They had one in and the parcel lorry was there and so St Gervais sent it down in the lorry.

The postal clerk put my papers into it, and handed it to the parcels driver to send it on its way. At least I hope that she did – it’s what she told me that she would do and she better had as well, for I am working to a strict time limit here.

Down to the boulangerie. There was no delivery this morning and so I needed to buy the bread.

But woe is me – the boulangerie closes for lunch between … errr … 13:00 and 15:00. This meant a trip to the Intermarché for some bread, so I picked up a loaf and wandered over to the till.

A woman with a full-to-overloaded trolley saw me coming and … quickly put her purchases onto the conveyor belt. Aren’t some people nice?

At Bill’s I managed to fix his computer for him and then we had a good chat for ages – all about old cars, buses and the like. It always helps to pass the time of day.

But it was cold today and so I lit the fire up here this evening. So much so that I lit the fire for the first time in 10 days. And taking advantage, I cooked baked potatoes and baked beans for tea.

Tomorrow I’ll do some gardening, I reckon. That is, unless the weather is really bad.

It’s clear skies and stars outside just now but this is the Auvergne and things can change in the blinking of an eye.

-1

Thursday 15th March 2012 – MY HANDS ARE …

… all tingling like heck

Yes, I’ve spent the afternoon pulling up stinging nettles.

I’m actually quite immune to them and having lived with Nerina for many years plunging my hands into a bed of stinging nettles and pulling them up doesn’t cause me much of a problem.

But about 30 minutes later my hands start to tingle and then I notice it, I can tell you.

So being awoken by the alarm – for the first time for ages – I went a-computing for a couple of hours this morning. And then outside in the glorious sunshine, because it really was nice again today.

The farmer was working in the field next to here and so I waited uintil he went, and then dropped a lighted match into the garden refuse that was on the site of where the greenhouse will be. That lot went up like Joan of Arc, with it being so dry, and within an hour it had all effectively burnt itself out.

I’ve never had a garden fire go up as well as that one before.

Where I had the fire yesterday, I raked that out levelled it all off. That involved putting the big leftover peices into the brazier that I bought a while ago and much to my surprise, that all caught alight straight away as well.

I then moved the pieces of the greenhouse (the frame and the windows) down to there so that they are now close to where they are supposed to be, for me to assemble when I’ve dug over the plot where the greenhouse will be going.

After lunch, with the weather being so nice, I did another load of washing. Water at 68°C in the dump load as well – that ought to get it clean and just to be on the safe side I did the wash cycle for 30 minutes.

It’s not made any impression on the leftover dirty clothes from last time – what I washed today were all clothes that had accumulated in this last week. 

But that little tabletop washing machine that I bought for €10 from a brocante over three years is worth its weight in gold.

A full cycle of machine, if you can call it that because I have to do the filling and switching by hand, uses just 0.14 of a KwH of electricity and you can’t knock that.

While the machine was going on, that was when I was pulling up stinging nettles.

I had the bits for the greenhouse laid out bewteen the barn and the house and once they had been moved, I could see millions (and I mean millions) of stinging nettles and their tracks forming, ready to burst into life.

Consequently I spend two hours pulling them up and piling them up ready for burning.

I’ve even cleaned down the side of the house there opposite the barn.

All in all, it’s made quite a difference although there is still too much rubbish, as always.

Final thing was to check the solar-heated water in the black plastic tank. 31.5°C at 18:45, with it having reached 36°C at one time during the afternoon. But 5 litres of hot water out of the dump load brought the temperature back up to 36.5°C and I had another solar shower with it.

I’m all clean now and that makes me feel so much better as well. And with clean clothes too, I’m starting to become civilised once more. I hate the winter where having a shower and having clean clothes are something of a luxury, and I look forward to spring when things start to happen, such as solar hot water and washing and so on.

And spring seems to be here with a vengeance right now, doesn’t it?

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Wednesday 14th March 2012 – WHAT A SHOWER!

Even though it is soon to be the annual conference of an … errrrr … organisation (said he, using the term loosely) that featured quite heavily in these pages at one time or another, it is not to that which I am referring.

Neither am I referring to my visitors either.

And I use the term in the plural because I had more than one today.

First off at 09:00 this morning, the phone rang and it was Désirée, the local estate agent.

And 09:00 too, you might be thinking, but to everyone’s surprise, including Yours Truly’s, I’d been up for hours. And I mean hours as well. I’d been trying to speak to Désirée for a while and at last she was free and so she came round here for a chat.

Amongst the things about which we chatted, and probably the most important, was the building that I own in Montaigut. Long-term readers of these pages will know that I own something like a derelict warehouse there and I use it to keep some cars, namely the Traction, the 2000E and the Mark V Cortina estate.

Above it though is a large space that was formerly six large rooms on two levels, but the dividers, both horizontally and vertically, are long gone. I need to do something about this place and converting the upstairs into two apartments is what I have in mind.

And so I had a good pick of Désirée’s brains – after all, she’s the professional.

Another visitor was Bill, who came round with a radio-cassette player out of an old car. There was a tape stuck in it and being an electronic unit you can’t get the tape out without power.

At least, most people can’t get the tape out but with the aid of three long fine-pointed screwdrivers and a pair of fine long-nosed pliers, I can manage to do it.

All these years of a misspent youth, that’s what I put it all down to.

2012 first GARDEN FIRE BONFIRE les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn between the visits I finally managed to light the fire, the first of the year. And that is busy (even as we speak) disposing of much of the waste wood and the weeds that I have been pulling up this last couple of weeks.

You’ll notice though that it isn’t on the site of where the greenhouse will be. There was far too much stuff to burn, and the trees were overhanging far too much.

But I’ve left some over there – I’ll burn that off tomorrow and that should kill off many of the weeds on the site of where the greenhouse will be.

But back to the shower thing. At 18:00 I noticed that the water in the solar water heater was at 31°C today, and that the water in the dump load was off the scale again. So 5 litres of that water into the solar water heater gave me 38.5°C and I had my first home-grown shower of the year.

Just for a change I actually feel properly clean.

And I was right about the wind as well.

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