Tag Archives: intermarche

Saturday 8th August 2015 – MISERABLE DAY

Too hot in the bedroom last night so I had the window open. But it wasn’t the dawn chorus that awoke me, it was a torrential rainstorm. In fact 31.5mm of rain fell today.

It goes without saying that the guy whose Hyundai is on my drive never turned up to move it, and I wasn’t working in these conditions.

I was doing a few bits and pieces here and then went off to St Eloy to meet Rosemary. She’s off to the UK next week for a medical appointment and needs plenty of moral support before she goes – although since when has any support that I have been able to give anyone been moral?

On the way back, I went via Pionsat to do some shopping at the Intermarché, and it did spring to my mind that the next time that I’ll be doing any food shopping will be in the Metro supermarket in the Cote des Neiges in Montreal. I’m not sure if breakfast is included in my hotel room, so I’ll be needing my bagels and strawberry jam.

Back here I caught up with another few things that I needed to do and then I was engulfed in controversy. The football club that I follow, Bangor City, is in financial difficulty which is astonishing seeing as they are the best-supported club in the WPL and have the second-best exposure. Clearly things aren’t right in the club and, due to British law about slander and libel I shan’t go into them on here. But despite releasing three or four of their best players last season (remember that the club finished just third from bottom, even with these players in it) and having kicked out half of the development squad, today they have just sold their best player to a league rival.

These directors just don’t “get it”. Struggling near the foot of the table will cause attendances to fall, so they will lose just as much, if not more, than they have gained. And then with the inevitable relegation, they will lose the Welsh Premier League prize money, league sponsorship, all kinds of financial support and the club will go on a great big downward spiral.

It’s a classic case of “short-termism”. Press the panic button and the Directors all run around like headless chickens. There’s no long-term plan, no vision, no nothing. People like these aren’t fit to be in charge of a whelk stall, never mind a half-million-pound business.

Just one close-season signing – and he’s from a club two leagues down.

At least Afan Lido two years ago waited until mid-season to throw in the towel. Throwing in the towel before a ball has even been kicked is totally shameful.

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Wednesday 15th July 2015 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the flying shelf this afternoon.

flying shelf shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt took quite some effort and a pair of arms about 2 metres longer than mine, but nevertheless, after some considerable amount of ado about a great deal, I managed to do it. Strangely enough, the part that I thought would be very difficult was comparatively easy, and the part that I had expected to do quite easily was the part that took the longest.

However, looking for tools, nuts and washers was a considerable part of this too. But then that’s only to be expected.

It’s not as good as I would have liked – I can see several shortcomings in my work, but the design was good anyway. Just the execution was wrong and I’ll have to do better than this if I do it again.

But anyway, it looks OK if you don’t look too closely, and everything works as it is supposed to, so I suppose that that is something.

I was on my travels last night, visiting a football ground at a sports club in Crewe with a cement mixer – the lorry-based cement mixer thing. Someone connected with my family had connections there and they had ordered the cement, and meeting up with this person was the last thing on either of our minds. So I tipped the cement and when I tilted up the mixer into the vertical position, the lorry started to roll back. But someone from the football club grabbed hold of the bumper of the truck and hung onto it to stop it moving.

I was up before the alarm clock and so I spent a very profitable morning on the laptop doing some various assorted computer work, including finishing off a couple of radio programmes. I even managed to telephone the insurance company to have a duplicate label for Caliburn sent to me – which means that I will definitely find it now.

I had to go into Pionsat to buy some bread today for lunch, and also to try out the new bank card that I have received.

And tonight, I had a lovely warm solar shower that has made me fit for anything.

Tomorrow, I’ll be finishing the ceiling in the shower room, or at least, doing as much as I can.

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Monday 13th July 2015 – IT’S JUST LIKE OLD TIMES …

… up here in my attic tonight. I’m surrounded by papers everywhere – all over the floor and over the bed-settee and it feels so good to have reverted to all of my old untidy habits.

It all started off so promisingly too. I had a nice lie-in to reward myself for my efforts over the weekend and then after breakfast I attacked the dictaphone notes from my voyage to Canada in 2014 – must get that done.

No bread today because the boulangère is off on holiday so I needed to go into Pionsat, and that led to a little complication.

The insurance on Caliburn will expire on Wednesday and here in France, you have a little sticker to put in your windscreen to display your insurance details. I need to put the new one in the windowand I know that I have it – it’s been in my sticky little mitt at least once just recently and I’ve probably put it safe somewhere so that I know where it is.

But where?

This led to a search around up here, in the most obvious places, but it still hadn’t come to light by 14:30 and so, fearing that there would be no bread left at all in the Intermarché, I shot off to Pionsat where I was lucky enough to buy the last baguette. Not even one for tomorrow and that’s sad, as it’s Bank Holiday here and all of the shops will be closed.

After lunch, I started to search in the less-obvious places and that led to an unearthing of a load more paperwork – nothing to do with what I’m trying to find but there’s no sense in ignoring it so that’s being ruthlessly sorted out as well. I’m finding tons of stuff, a lot of which is really important and that I wish that I had found ages ago, but no sign at all of the insurance sticker.

Like I said, I know that it’s here somewhere, but the question is “just where?”

So guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow on my Bank Holiday day of rest? It’s not as if I don’t already have enough to do.

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Wednesday 8th July 2015 – IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to leave the comfort and safety of my comfortable bed. 3 alarms went off but it was still something of a struggle to heave myself out of my stinking pit. You wouldn’t ever have thought that last night I was in bed by 23:15 and was in such a deep sleep that the midnight buzzer in the verandah woke me stark upright.

After a rather tired breakfast, I spent some time updating the Radio Anglais stuff – the databases that I keep of what we’ve done and when we’ve done it – and then I updated out Facebook page, and now that’s online too. You can see it here if you like. I hope that you’ll pass by and give us a “like”.

When that was done, I carried on with my own website – I want to bring that up-to-date too but that’s an impossible task, which I fully realise.

However, in between times, I put another coat of varnish on the shelves that I cut yesterday and also on the shelf that will be going over the door. The aim was that they would dry ready for this afternoon.

I forgot that the boulangère is on holiday. That meant that I had to wander off to Pionsat and the Intermarché to buy some bread for lunch. And I wasn’t there five minutes either. It was a baguette today, and I have some speciality bread for tomorrow and Friday.

shelf over shower room door les guis virlet puy de dome franceFirst job after lunch was to fit the shelf in the shower room.

Space, or lack thereof, is something from which I’ve always suffered and so I’m fitting as many shelves as possible as I carry on with the development. There’s at least two feet (60cms) over the door in the shower room and that’s crying out for a shelf for the washing products and the like until the kitchen is done (whenever that might be). No sense in wasting the space

But the rest of the work isn’t so straightforward. The flying shelf is actually two layers of wood sandwiched together. The idea is that the electrical plugs and the 12-volt LED strip light will fit in the bottom part with the cables sandwiched between, and the top part will go over the top to keep everything covered.

That works fine with a 20mm-thick shelf when your mains plug is 18mm deep, but when your light switch is 25mm you need to think again. Accordingly I spent much of this afternoon making a pattress out of a pine offcut. 18mm deep, this home-made pattress, and that will do the job quite nicely. And it’s also enabled me to have a think about fitting a 12-volt DC socket there too.

And that, dear reader, took me until 20:20 tonight – something of a record for just recently. But today was much cooler, the temperature in the attic never passed beyond 30°C, and it gave me much more of an incentive to work. I even managed to tidy up a little in here too.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

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Monday 18th May 2015 – AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT …

… we had something of a slow start this morning. After my long drive of yesterday and my bad night’s sleep thanks to the Swiss Highway Patrol, I was in no mood for an early start.

Nevertheless, I did heave myself out of my stinking pit at something like a reasonable hour and after breakfast I set to work.

And the result of today’s efforts is, quite frankly, in the words of the old poem three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … badger all.

Anyone reading this rubbish will recall that the laptop that packed up on my voyage is my second Acer Aspire. The first one has a broken screen and a smashed keyboard where something fell on it (but despite that, this is what I’m using regardless, with “cut-and-paste” for the missing letters and manoeuvring the workspace around the screen, which shows you just how resilient they are, not to mention the five hours battery life) so the idea was quite simple – two identical machines so just swap the hard drives over.

After about two hours, during which time I realised that despite the outer casing being identical, they are far from identical inside and not even the batteries will swap over. Moving the disks produces the error message “No bootable device detected” even though the disks are both being picked up by the BIOS.

Acer’s technical help was interesting too. On their live chat system, I had a brief discussion with a “technician” who then copy-pasted a huge long screed about “you need to send your machine in for repair. Please send us £50-odd to open a file for you, and then we will send you instructions”.

So much for that.

The ultimate solution to the problem is a new machine. And there was an Acer Aspire – a more up-to-date version of mine – for £219 which by the time I’ve added the £50 for the file, the cost of a new hard drive, the labour for the installation and the postage and packing is mere peanuts.

So that is that. Meanwhile, any tips for hacking the information out of the old failed drive would be much appreciated.

On that note I went down to the Intermarche in Pionsat to buy some food seeing as how there is nothing here to eat. But badger that for a moment – here’s something exciting.

old citroen 2CV intermarche pionsat puy de dome France may 2015You can tell by the louvred bonnet that this is one of the earliest Citroen 2CV’s, and the deckchair interior goes to prove it too.

And while I was having a good look around, the owner came out. None other than Marianne’s friend Francois Legay, who has quite an interesting collection of old vehicles.

This Citroen is a 1952 model and is about 98% original. The seat material, the cooling fan and one or two other bits and bobs have been replaced, mainly due to the difficulty of resourcing the original parts.

There’s a 375cc engine in there, air-cooled of course, and flat-out, downhill with a following wind the car might just manage 70kph.

So that cheered me up somewhat, and I went off quite happily to do my shopping.

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Friday 17th April 2015 – SO …

… after the vicissitudes of yesterday, it was “keep calm and carry on” today.

But it nearly wasn’t. I shouldn’t have had that coffee when I knocked off yesterday evening because at 02:45 this morning I was still up and about. Serve me right.

And having slept on it, I’ve decided that the next worktop that I fit, I’ll cut it, fit it into position and then build the cupboard around it BEFORE I cut out the insert for the sink. That way, it might just withstand the whole process.

After breakfast, I made a start on the new stud wall. I’m building it downstairs and then I’ll take the bits into the shower room and assemble it. It’s had a couple of design improvements too, there are also the brackets fitted for a couple of shelves, and even though I say it myself, it’s much better-built than its predecessor – the joints are tighter for a start – but so it should be, seeing how I’ve taken more time over it.

By the time knocking off came round, it had all been built, shaped and had a trial fitting. Now, all it needs is for some wood treatment to be applied because the wood has been stored in the same place where the other two bits (that I mentioned yesterday) had been stored.

At the shops, I didn’t meet anyone that I knew, but I had to go and pick up a parcel that was awaiting me – more of this anon. I spent the grand total of €19 in the shops at St Eloy this evening even with a couple of little extras – it’s definitely cheaper here than at the Intermarche in Pionsat.

So now I’m off to bed for an early night. I need one after yesterday.

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Saturday 28th March 2015 – I’VE BEEN CARRYING ON …

… the moving round of everything today, despite it being a Saturday.

I’m annoyed though that it’s taking me 10 times longer than I anticipated. I’m nowhere near anything like finished and that’s depressing. Mind you, I did find €2:12 in loose change mixed up in the pile of dust so I can’t say that it wasn’t rewarding. It works out at about €0.25 per hour and you can’t say fairer than that.

Anyway, the two wardrobes up here are emptied and dismantled, and all of the spare bedding has gone downstairs into the wardrobe in the bedroom along with the clothes that were hanging up.

I’ve swept up all of the dust where the wardrobes used to be and moved the desk into that space. That means that the alcove is almost empty and the water tanks can go in there whenever I’m ready to start the plumbing.

There’s tons more stuff to be moved out to the bedroom, and not only that, rearranging things has created piles more rubbish all of its own and all of this will need to be sorted out too.

This is going to take forever.

In between times I went to St Eloy for some shopping. Not to the Intermarche at Pionsat, you’ll notice. And there’s a reason for this. That is that I’ve been noticing a gradual increase in prices there. The fruit and veg are no longer affordable and the quality is going downhill rapidly. I don’t mind cutting down on quality if I’m cutting down on price, or paying more out for better quality, but this is starting not to work. I reckon that ocompared with the prices at the Pionsat Intermarche, I’ve saved about €4:00 on the weekly shopping bill.

At the footy tonight, Pionsat lost 2-0 to Montel Villosanges. No complaints about the result – the Chimps were easily the better side and Pionsat offered very little. The defence was quite rocky, with Matthieu in goal performing heroics to keep the score down, and the midfield and the attack were pretty ineffective. It’s all looking quite depressing.

I was on my travels again during the night. I was with the two guys with whom I played bass in a rock group in the 1970s. We were going somewhere in Bill Badger, the A60 van that I had in those days, and we had a pile of scaffolding to move so we were loading it up on the roof of the van. Ohh happy days!

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Saturday 21st March 2015 – THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING …

… although you xould never have guessed it from the weather. We’ve had a hanging cloud on the mountain all day, it’s been pouring down with rain and I’ve had almost no solar energy. Consequently I’ve disconnected the fridge

bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt hasn’t stopped me from working though. Yes, I’m at it again, working once more on a Saturday morning.

I’ll tell yuo how good that little machine of Simon’s is, because it took me two hours to fit the final three runs of floorboarding using a hammer and nails. There’s not enough room to use the machine on the final three runs. To fit the other 35 runs, it took just five and a half hours, so you can see exactly what I mean.

bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceEventually, I finished it and all that remains to be done (the big stuff I mean) is the varnishing, the skirting board and the glass panel over the door. This is a dark house so you need as much light as possible filtering around.

When I had finished that, I went and did my shopping and then came home to chill out.

Now if anyone had said that FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI would draw against Aulnat, anyone at the club would have taken that without even kicking off. And when I saw that 5 of the players on the field were regulars from the 2nd XI in the 4th Division, then even more so.

But drawing 2-2 after being 2-0 up and having a 3rd goal disallowed under controversial circumstances has to count as 2 points thrown away rather than 1 point gained. To make matters worse, the equalising goal was really rubbing salt into the wound. Cedric, playing at centre-half, clears an attack by hoofing the ball out into touch, but the ball cannons off the back of one of his own players, rebounding right into the path of an unmarked Aulnat player standing in front of goal.

That just about sums up FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s luck as far as I am concerned. It’s a tragedy.

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Tuesday 17th March 2015 – THIS IS PROGRESS

hanging door bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceHere we have a door, now hanging nicely in the doorframe of the bedroom.

This morning I removed all of the masking tape and then wired up all of the electrical sockets in the bedroom (and that was something that took much longer than I anticipated too).

No bread at lunchtime, so I went into Pionsat to see the boulangère but it seems that they are exceptionally closed for the week. So that was that – I ended up having to go to the Intermarché.

And so after lunch, I attacked the door. I had to cut off about 20mm off one side to make it fit, and then I cut the lets in for the hinges. Much to my surprise, the door fotted perfectly for most of its length and width, but it was catching in places where the frame on the wall seems to be bowed.

And that was where the new belt sander fitted in. It earned its keep here, that’s for sure, sanding off where the door was tight. And in position too – it’s not that easy taking he door off, lying it flat on a surface, marking it off and then cutting off the excess. The belt sander did it in seconds.

fitting lock in bedroom door les guis virlet puy de dome franceI still had enough time to start on fitting the door lock. That’s 10mm wide and 60mm deep and so with the aid of an auger, I drilled into the door jamb as necessary. Tomorrow, I’l chisel it out to fit the lock and then drill through for the handle and key.

I’ll also fit the lock plate on the door frame, and then fit the battens to stop the door pushing through.

When that’s done, I can start to empty the room ready to do the flooring.

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Friday 13th March 2015 – I HAD A …

crazy paving les guis virlet puy de dome france… delivery this morning. Terry came round.

I have a patch of uneven ground underneath the window of the ground floor outside. I intend to build a stone wall to a level and then infill with all of the brick ends and rubble that is hangong around here and then pave it over to make a little terrace.

The crazy paving is much cheaper if you buy it by the pallet rather than by the square metre, and Terry wanted half a load for a job he’s doing. It made sense to me to buy the other half and keep it here for a year or so until I need it.

Consequently I didn’t start on the painting of the bedroom until about 11:30, but by 14:20 I’d finished it all. It’s not very good though as it’s thin and patchy. It’s not spreading too well.

After my lunch break (and a little siesta) I went back out and put the second coat on the paintwork that I had done yesterday. As it looks as if I’m going to have to put three coats on, I thinnned it out with another 2 litres of white paint and it now looks like a lovely custard colour.

I went down to Pionsat for the shopping this evening, and on the way back I had to call at Rob and Nicolette’s. It seems that, for some reason best known to herself, the boulangère left my bread there instead of at my house.

Not sure what’s happening there.

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Friday 6th March 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… as much done today as I was hoping for – but then again, isn’t this the story of this blasted wardrobe?

Mind you, I have an excuse for at least part of it. Round about 14:30 I noticed that the temperature in the verandah was 26°C. Not only that, the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the excess solar energy had gone up to more than 70°C but there was no room in the tank to put some cold water to cool it down, so I needed to take some out.

This can only mean one thing. And yes, the shower that I had was gorgeous.

Standing in the verandah pouring water all over me out of a jug might not seem like very much to you, but it’s the first shower of the year here so it’s significant in that respect and, of course, it’s all my own work.

And it’s the earliest shower of the year since I’ve been here (that was 2007 when I came to live here) and it’s a sure sign that the warm weather is here. In the height of summer I can have showers every day, and how I look forward to that.

In fact, today we had 207 amp-hours of surplus solar energy. That gives you some idea of how good the weather has been. What I’ve done therefore is to plug the fridge into the permanent circuit so that it runs through the night. Normally the fridge runs on the overcharge circuit so that it only runs when the batteries are fully charged (except in summer when I run it 24 hours per day) but I need to put a little bit of strain on the batteries. This is the earliest that I’ve had the fridge going through the night.

wardrobe door bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceReturning to our moutons, first job in the bedroom this morning was to trim off all of the doors on the upper row. I’d marked them off yesterday so it didn’t take all that long, but I ended up doing the bottom of one of the doors as well because the rest of it ended up looking so good.

I’ve started on the upper fascia panel too – making it out of the cut-off ends of floorboards mounted vertically, so I had to go a-scavenging around the bedroom for the offcuts. The chop saw is excellent though for the cutting.

However, here’s a design fault or two with the machine. A built-in measure would help enormously, as well as an end-stop which you can set in order to cut constanr lengths. I had to invent something for this.

I’m not very happy with this though. Each piece has to be shaped individually once it’s been cut, and some of these shapes around the exposed beams are quite complicated. For one section, I had to cut three different pieces before I was satisfied.

But that’s half-done now and it might take another half-day to finish. And I’ll be glad when it’s done too. I can then crack on with the rest of the bedroom

I finished off tonight by going down to Pionsat and the Intermarche for the shopping. THis means that I have Saturday free. And I’m pleased that I don’t have to go to Montlucon tomorrow for bits and pieces.

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Friday 27th February 2015 – IT WASN’T QUITE …

… such a late start this morning, although I did finish mixing the live concert for the rock show that i’ll be broadcasting in a few weeks time. I just need to do the text for the rock programmes (which I’ll do tomorrow morning) and that will be the rock shows done for the month of April.

shelves wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceBack in the bedroom, I started to fit the shelving in the wardrobe.

First job was to cut down the shelving strip. It comes in 2-metre lengths and so seeing as how I had four of them, I could each one in half to give me 8 lengths of I metre, and then measured up so that they could be screwed correctly into the back and front walls of the wardrobe so that the shelves will be level.

I ran through the offcuts of pine boarding that I had lying around, and there was enough to make 6 shelves, with some judicious cutting. Not enough, so I had to cut up a pine board in order to make two more.

shelves wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhat astonished me was that I went outside to find the clips that support the shelves and I was able to put my hand on them straight away. It’s not every day that this kind of thing happens, especially around here is it?

But anyway, now I have all of the shelving fitted and doesn’t it look nice?

I wasn’t so lucky with looking for the clothes rail. I know that I have two oval ones that I salvaged from a previous project, but I’ve absolutely no idea where they might be found. They will have to wait for another time.

I’ve also started fitting the framework for the upper row of doors, and it seems that I have miscounted and don’t have enough hinges, magnetic catches or door handles. Well, that’s just typical isn’t it?

And I’ve also managed to screw a screw into my thumb while I was at it.

Later on, after knocking off, I went to Pionsat and the Intermarche to do the shopping. And ended up having a lengthy chat about the virtues of Canadian maple syrup with a fellow-shopper.

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Friday 20th February 2015 – AHHH WELL!

Yes indeed!

door wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceYesterday I told you of everything that I needed to do on the wardrobe, and how I would be lucky to do half of it. In fact I’ve managed to make the framework for one pair of doors, assemble a pair of doors and hang one of them.

And that’s it.

And I’m not sure why either. It’s not as if I’ve been slacking or been distracted, or spent hours looking for stuff either. I’ve put in a good shift and made good use of the circular saw and the new belt sander (with which I am very impressed – it does exactly what I wanted it to do) too, but for some reason I don’t think that I’ve advanced very much.

I’ll have to work much harder than this if I want to make progress because this isn’t very good at all. if I carry on like this I’m never going to accomplish anything. However, I’m not quite sure how I can work any faster. After all, as I have already said, it isn’t as if I’ve been slacking.

After knocking off, I went into Pionsat. Firstly, for a pile of shopping at the Intermarche of course, and secondly to put a load of washing into the washing machine there. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … installing the little launderette at the Intermarche was the best thing that the owners of the supermarket ever did.

I had the clothes hanging outside in the wind, because we’ve been having a lovely windy day today, but when I was outside later doing the stats, it started to rain so I’ve stuck it all in the verandah.

Now I’m all set up for the weekend.

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Monday 9th February 2015 – THIS IS IMPRESSIVE!

Yes, I’ve had 105 amp-hours of excess solar energy today. The temperature of the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load rose from 0°C (yes, it was really cold in the living room) to 41°C and on knocking off this evening I was able to wash my hands in nice warm water.

That tells you the kind of day it was today. Clear blue skies for most of the day with just a few clouds scudding by round about lunchtime. And I was able to extract Caliburn out from under hsi snowdrift and go into Pionsat and the Intermarché to stock up on the grub.

Mind you, that was rather problematical because, on arriving at the supermarket at 14:00 I discovered that it was exceptionally closed until 16:00 due to a bereavement, so I had to go back a second time. Anyway, I’m now good for another week if we are snowed in again.*

I’ve also been able to fill up all of the water containers, seeing as how for a brief period this afternoon everything unfroze itself.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I started off this morning by tidying out the bedroom. I’ve emptied tons of stuff and taken it downstairs and in doing so, I’ve …
1) cluttered up downstairs completely
2) made a few exciting discoveries of things that I had lost an subsequently forgotten.

But here’s an interesting thing. I took the gas heater downstairs and in order to move it easier, I took out the gas bottle. I had a look on the date on it (I date the gas bottles when I fit them so that I know how long they last) and this one was dated 10th November 2010, and it’s almost full. That means that it’s over 4 years since I’ve paid for any heating here and at €30 every three weeks for 18 weeks or so per year, that’s a saving of 88 weeks divided by 3 and multiplied by €30, that’s about €900.

The woodstove on the other hand cost me €279 and of course my wood is free, and there’s also a saving on gas for cooking in the winter too. So you can see that this woodstove really is the best thing since sliced bread.

So having spent all morning emptying out the bedroom, I can walk all the way around and reach all of the walls ready to start the filling. And after lunch and shopping, I made a start. But I stopped pretty quickly too because, looking at some of the plasterboarding that I had done back in 2010, I ripped a huge pile out and redid it, with proper bracing. It’s amazing how much I’ve learnt and how far I’ve come on since I started on this.

Consequently, I didn’t get much of the filling done, and I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.

However, that’s going to be interrupted too as I’ve been summoned to the Mairie tomorrow morning. I told you that I missed the census the other week while I was on my one and only day out, and they came round today to catch me – the first day for well over a week that I’ve been able to leave the house.

Typical, isn’t it?

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Friday 30th January 2015 – NOW HERE’S A THING!

I was still working until after 20:00 this evening. And if that isn’t surprising enough, I’d already knocked off once and been down to Pionsat to do my shopping in the Intermarche, and then come back to carry pn working.

Mind you, this morning I thought that my muck was in. I was up quite early this morning and the sky was looking quite nice and blue. “At long last” I reckoned, “this would be the day where I could sand down the stairs, vacuum then and then varnish them”.

But it wasn’t to be.

I’d finished breakfast by 08:30 and so I set about doing a radio programme. By 10:00 I’d done the next month’s rock programme, including editing an hour-long live show. I must have been in a good mood.

However by this time, the weather had changed dramatically, and for the worse too. It was snowing quite heavily and all of the light had gone.

First thing that I did was to touch up the painting around the shelves. A bit of varnish had splashed here and there and I may as well have the place looking all shipshape.

recessed 12 volt LED light landing false ceiling les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce I’d finished that, I set to on the end pieces for the plasterboard runs. And by 17:00 this evening every single piece was properly shaped, in position and nailed in place.

I’d even made the door frame for the bedroom, as you can see, and you’ll also notice the recessed light in the false ceiling on the landing.

Even though I say it myself, I’m really impressed with all of this, and no-one will ever notice that most of the end pieces and most of the door frame have been made from cut-down floorboard planks. It’s amazing what you can conjure up when you are driven by necessity.

There was still the filling to be done and so seeing that I was in such a good mood I pressed on. It was in the middle of all of this that I knocked off and went down to the Intermarché.

It’s now finished – or at least the first layer is, and i’ll sand it down at the first opportunity ready for the second layer.

For tea tonight I pushed the boat out and had oven chips, real baked beans and a veggie burger, all doused in proper malt vinegar.

And it was beautiful too.

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