Tag Archives: kwikstage

Thursday 17th July 2014 – THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

Here I am, just after midnight in my little attic and it’s 29.2°C. And that’s with the fan going full-blast too. The temperatue up here reached 32.4°C during the day.

And if you think that that is warm, In the verandah we had over 52°C, and so you can guess what kind of day we had today – glorious sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. I even had another shower this evening.

It was hard this morning to get out of bed before 08:00 but I did just about manage it, and after breakfast we had the usual go on the website although I do admit to going to sleep for about half an hour.

wood preservative under eaves roof les guis virlet puy de dome franceOutside a little later, I was up on the scaffolding finishing off the 1st coat of paint on the woodwork and also, incidentally, finishing off the tin. After lunch, I opened another tin and slapped the stuff all over everywhere. That shouldn’t ever rot now which is just as well.

All of the stuff to do the guttering is now up there on the scaffolding, but I’ve had a change of plan about the fascia board. Firstly, its too heavy for me to lift into position on my own and secondly, because the ends of the chevrons were never squared off, it’s impossible to fit it properly no matter how much padding I use. I’m going to use the gutter brackets that I used for the barn, no matter how much I hate them.

Much to my surprise I have a few of those so I’ll use them as far as I can until Saturday when I’ll buy a pile more.

So after my shower I called it a day – 19:25. And so you can’t say that I’m not putting the hours in.

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Wednesday 16th July 2014 – I’M DOING IT AGAIN.

It’s currently 03:30 on Thursday morning and I’m wide awake – not the lest inclination to go to sleep.

And I don’t understand why either because I haven’t had an idle day.

This morning I was up at the usual time and after breakfast cracked on with the website. Later, I went outside and, just as I feared, it seems that the little cement mixer that has done such valiant service here has given up the ghost. Switching on, the motor “pings” into action but the drive doesn’t engage (that’s not so unusual). Swinging the drum by hand, the usual method of working it, does nothing at all except to trip the 100-amp fuse that controls the battery. In other words, the 40-odd amps being generated by the solar panels plus 100 amps out of the batteries is apparently not enough to power a little 375-watt motor.

Clearly something isn’t right here and I’ll have to look into this.

lime mortar cementing under eaves les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch I mixed a bucket-load of lime mortar by hand and spent a delightful couple of hours up on the scaffolding smearing that everywhere. All of the sealing-in is now done and it makes a much better seal that the mess that was there beforehand.

When I had finished the cementing, I started to paint the wood treatment product all over the wood underneath the roof – the plywood, the battens and the chevrons. I’ve done half of it, and tomorrow I’ll finish the other half and do the second coat. Yes – I’m putting as much as possible on everywhere because I can’t imagine that I will ever be up here again so it will have to last at least another 30 years.

We had a glorious hot day today and the temperature in the 12-volt immersion heater running off the surplus solar energy had gone off the scale (over 70°C). In the solar shower the temperature was 36.5°C and that meant that I could have the first solar shower since I came back from Munich. That, in turn, meant disturbing a bat that had taken up residence there.

And that was that. And here I am. And I’ll probably still be here tomorrow night too.

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Tuesday 15th July 2014 – BACK AT WORK TODAY.

This morning I was up and about fairly early and after breakfast I had the usual couple of hours on the website.

When I went outside I started to rebuild the 12-volt immersion heater. I had a couple of attempts at fitting the element before I was satisfied, and then I made up some electric cables out of a jump lead (the red one) and a starter cable (the black one). Once I’d done that, i added another pile of insulation to it and sealed it all in. It’s now all fitted, wired in and working properly.

As an added attraction, I’ve removed the warning light and that’s now fitted into the fascia panel of the socket that’s wired into the excess charge circuit.

This afternoon I was up on the scaffolding ripping off the ivy from the back wall of the house, and it’s all gone now, which is just as well as there was quite a lot and it was stuck fast.

I cleaned off under the eaves too and then spent a pleasant hour looking for tools. Once I had found everything that I was seeking, I charged up the cement mixer with some sand and lime mortar, enough to make two buckets full.

Up on the scaffolding, I started to spread this about over the rubble with which we had infilled between the chevrons. There were some enormous gaps in there which are all infilled now – at least, most of them because I ran out of mortar. Mind you, it was 19:20 and so I’ll mix up another bucket or two and finish it off tomorrow.

This evening I made one of my kidney bean and aubergine whatsits – enough to last me three or four days. I don’t want to spend the rest of the week cooking.

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Friday 11th July 2014 – THANKS TO TERRY …

kwikstage scaffolding erected rear les guis virlet puy de dome france… for helping me erect my scaffolding at the rear of the house this morning.

It was pouring down again at first and I was feeling that we were going to have another day like yesterday when I had the lowest July solar energy figure since I began keeping records in 2007 (just 17 amp-hours for those who are interested).

The field at the back is totally sodden and the scaffolding was sinking in in places but we’ve managed to underpin it. It’s not particularly stable but it’s the best I can do.

The plan is that starting next week I’ll be cementing in under the eaves, something that I have never managed to do since I did the roof in 2009. THat needs to be made good to keep out insects, animals and plants. The ivy needs ripping off the back of the house for a start.

I then need to fit some fascia boards to the end of the chevrons and give everything a really good going over with some wood treatment to keep out the weather. And when that’s done, fit the guttering to take the rain water to the underwater tank that I’ll be fitting and away from the base of the house. I’ll check the roof as well while I’m up there.

Finally, I’ll have to check the mortar to see if the ivy has pulled any out

You can see that I’ll have my work cut out.

I crashed out for an hour or two this afternoon, which was no surprise. I’d been to Mons during the night with the British Army in August 1914 and I do remember that we were being switched around from battlefront to battlefront by wading through filthy, dirty water up to our waists in these canals.

Later in the afternoon I carried on looking for one of these missing black jump leads. This ended up as a full-scale tidying up in the upstairs of the downhill lean-to and I discovered all kinds of exciting things. And also a metre or two of heavy black cable formerly of the starter of a car, and this will do for the 12 volt immersion heater.

I can finish that tomorrow.

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Sunday 20th October 2013 – WHOSE SILLY IDEA WAS IT …

…to set an alarm clock for 08:00 and ON A SUNDAY MORNING too?

Well, actually, it was my idea. When I was at Liz and Terry’s the other day, Terry mentioned that he had a scaffolding to take down on Sunday morning and no-one to help him. Right at that moment, Liz was poised over me with a plate of vegetable curry in one hand and a slice of ginger cake in the other, and so my spirit consequently wavered, and here I was at 09:15 heading across the countryside to Rosemary’s.

At that time of the morning, with the rain that we had had throughout the night, there was a gorgeous mist rising serpent-like from the Gorge de la Sioule and I would have taken an photograph or two of it in order to regale you all, but that was when I discovered that I had forgotten my camera.

After a coffee (thank you, Rosemary), we attacked the scaffolding and we soon had it down and in Terry’s trailer. Terry then asked me, rather disingenuously, if I wanted to come for lunch. I said that that would be very nice, to which Terry replied “good. You can help me unload the trailer”. Drat! Foiled again!

So after unloading the trailer we had soup and bread. And I was supposed to go to the football at Montel but I didn’t have the camera and in any case I wasn’t in such an energetic mood, so we chilled out for a while.

Back here, it’s Sunday and pizza night. And then I had Cécile on the ‘phone for over two hours. It seems like she has forgotten something important at her house, and would I mind …

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Monday 1st October 2012 – BY THE TIME …

… that you read this I shall be well tucked up in the Land of Nod. I’m thoroughly exhausted.

This morning nothing much happened but with a good run at the website I managed to do all of the photos and write the text for FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s famous victory yesterday against Briffons-Perpezat.

You can read the text here if you like.

mercedes 240D les guis virlet puy de dome franceRosemary came round at lunchtime.

So while I moved the scaffolding and cleared out the weeds, brambles and small trees from around the Mercedes, she dug up the onions and garlic and pulled some dried beans off the plants.

Tons of all of that stuff she harvested too – a good fruitful exercise

But doing this garden is driving me nuts. The brambles have torn lumps out of me, the nettles have stung me to death and so on and some of the tree roots took ages to dig up

But it’s looking all quite good there now. Just that one big tree to cut down and rip up.

Tomorrow I’m off to Montlucon with Rosemary to Lapeyre to buy her window and a few other bits and pieces that I need, and then I’ll be carrying on in this patch of land, sorting out the stones and levelling everywhere off.

Then I can bring everything round there from off the hardstanding.

At the Anglo-French Group this evening we had the biggest crowd for ages with two new attendees. Nice to see some new faces.

Anyway, that’s it. Off to bed before I fall asleep.

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Wednesday 26th September 2012 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… day today where I heard the alarm go off properly but the accompanying cloudburst made me turn back over and … errr … wait for a while before arising.

So after the usual while on the computer I went outside and started work.

And in another major change to my usual lifestyle, I was still out there at 20:00.

First plan was to fit the new handles that I had bought the other day to the gardening tools that were lying around. The rake and the binette worked fine but this sledgehammer handle won’t work at all.

But anyway, using the newly-repaired tools, I hacked my way through a huge pile of undergrowth, ripped up piles of nettle and bramble roots, and laid a big tarpaulin on the floor.

Onto this tarpaulin I collected up all of the scaffolding that I’ve been using and laid it out on there. That was followed by all of the leftover plastic slates, and then I cleaned out all of the wood and the breeze blocks from where I had been working.

That gave me some more room to move around there and I could then hack out another pile of brambles.

There’s probably only about 30m² of land to clear back there and I reckoned that it wouldn’t take long, but I’m being rather optimistic about that. It’s going to take a while.

But it needs to be done because the next phase is to clear all of the stuff from where I park Caliburn and it’s there that I want to put it.

That took me up to about 19:00 and there was still a little job that I needed to do. The charge controller for one of the banks in the barn packed up ages ago and so I’ve been wiring the panels directly to the solar bank – not that there’s enough energy produced over there to worry the batteries too much.

But I need to measure the energy that’s going in, and so I disconnected the remote ammeter off the other bank and wired that to it.

Not so easy as it’s pretty cramped in there so I hope that it’ll work okay.

Still, we’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?

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Wednesday 19th September 2012 – I TOOK DOWN …

… the scaffolding at lunchtime.

collapsed lean to repairing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, the first time in over 10 years that there has been no scaffolding of one kind or another out there at the back.

I was working out there all afternoon but I’ve not made much progress because this isn’t as easy as it looks. The concrete mortar that they used to cover the gaps between the stones is taking ages to come off.

Usually, if the mortar is in good condition I’ll leave it on and put the chalk over the top, but what is happening here is that water has infiltrated down the back of the concrete mortar when there was no roof on the lean-to.

This has washed away all of the original sand-and-clay mortar, so that it’s hollow behind.

The concrete mortar needs to be hacked off, the joints raked out, stones hammered in to keep the existing stones in position and in tension, and then the whole lot mortared in with chalk.

Of course, sometimes 3 or 4 stones fall out, and so I have to find an oversize one to knock into the gap with a sledgehammer. This is important to lock the remaining original stones in their position so that the stresses are spread horizontally and not vertically.

This morning though I had a good session on the website dealing with the footy match on Sunday.

It’s not quite finished yet but round about 11:30 I had a go experimenting with my old digital dictaphone to see if I could make it work like I wanted. No such luck and so I decided I would have a good search around for the one I lost on Sunday.

In the end I found it – fallen out of my pocket and down the back of Caliburn’s driving seat.

But no phone though – I must have been mistaken about hearing it bleep as it doesn’t seem to be anywhere in hearing distance.

I’ve also had an angry phone call with one of these rip-off solar panel merchants.

Apparently if I have his system fitted, it will pay for itself in 10 years.
“How is that?”
“Well, it costs €19,000 (three times what it would cost me to supply the stuff incidentally) and the Electricity Board will pay you €1,800 per year for 10 years
“That makes €18,000 doesn’t it?”
“Yes”
“So how will if pay for itself in 10 years?”
“Because the Electricity Board will pay you €1,800 per year for 10 years”

So after much arguing and shouting, he slammed the phone down. Serve him right. Nothing but a rip-off

But I’m glad that I got my wood in anyway. In the short space of time that it took to make tea tonight the temperature fell from 12.1°C to 8.0°C – on course to be the coldest night of this end of the year.

That’s also why I’m glad that I stayed here to do this wall and not go gallivanting off to Canada just now. Finish this before the end of autumn and it will last for ever.

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Friday 14th September 2012 – I WAS OUT …

COLLAPSED LEAN-TO REPOINTING STONE WALL LES GUIS VIRLET puy de dome france… on the scaffolding working until 19:30 this evening and that’s a surprise, especially as seeing that it’s Friday – or POETS Day today.

Normally, if I’m out working after 19:00 it’s because I’ve been carried away by something that I’m doing, to the extent that I’ve lost all track of time.

But not this evening.

I was well-aware of what time it was but this wall isn’t ever going to be finished if I don’t put more effort into it. Hence the extra bucket of mortar that I mixed after hours.

There’s no possibility whatever of it being finished by the already-extended date of Tuesday, but I’ll try to have it done by next weekend if I can.

COLLAPSED LEAN-TO REPOINTING STONE WALL LES GUIS VIRLET puy de dome franceToday I was working round by where the wall collapsed back 10 years ago. That created this massive hole and gave me the opportunity to fit the window instead.

They don’t go much for windows around here.

The condition of the wall around here is really sad and needs some careful attention. I don’t want the lot of it to fall on me like it did last time.

But it’s astonishing to think – and I’m really proud to say, that I’ve built up all of that wall from the level of the large window to the roof line, and a good metre-high length of wall at the back, all on my own.

And I knew nothing about building fieldstone walls and pointing before I started – never mind building a room.

One thing though, that checking on the stuff on the other half of the wall that I’ve already finished, I’m even more convinced that ramming these larger stones into the gaps with a sledgehammer seems to be the way to go.

Thhe vertical cracks haven’t developed at all – the rammed stones are holding everything up in tension.

This morning though I made rapid progress on the website and I’ve now finished the walk along the city walls of Québec – the only walled city in the whole of the Americas north of Mexico City.

Tomorrow I’ll make a start on the walk around the town.

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Wednesday 12th September 2012 – I HAVEN’T BEEN …

… on my website for the last couple of days. The footy has now started as you know and so I’ve been redesigning the footy website and doing the pages for the first two matches.

Those pages are now on line so that’s something accomplished.

collapsed lean to repairing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon, in between the rain showers, I’ve been driving myself up the wall again.

I’ve got down to the bottom on part of the wall at long last and I need to reach the bottom on the other bit that I’m working on. And it does look much better without the scaffolding in the way, doesn’t it?

That should be lunchtime or thereabouts tomorrow if I put my mind to it, extricate my digit and have a good start. Then I can start on the other half of the wall.

But anyway, banging a few of these oversize stones in really tight seems to have helped the wall settle, although of course the proof of the pudding …

In other news, never mind the temperature, I have all of the windows closed tight and I’m wearing a sweater. The temperature has collapsed and winter is on its way.

Tomorrow I’ll have to start wearing clothes underneath my overalls and won’t that be a novelty?

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Monday 10th September 2012 – OH DEER!

Oh deer indeed.

And to the deer that ran out in front of Caliburn somewhere between St Gervais d’Auvergne and Gouttieres on the way back from our Anglo-French Group meeting, Caliburn and I are really sorry.

But it’s a good job that I’m a vegan otherwise you would be in the pot right now.

Caliburn has a slight mark on the front bumper, which shows that he’s much more solidly built than the Chevy Malibu that I hired in Canada in 2003 (mind you, it was a stag that I hit back then) but I’m very much afraid that the deer went in all directions.

Ahh well 🙁

So apart from that dramatic end to the evening, what else?

After the usual bits and pieces on the computer, I went out and attacked the wall again.

collapsed lean to repairing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut astonishingly, only 3 buckets of mortar went into the wall. And for a whol assortment of reasons.

  1. I had to take down part of the scaffolding. That’s major progress in itself
  2. But before I could do that, I had to move a pile of stuff.
  3. Once that had gone, I had to hack down a pile of brambles and small trees to make some working space
  4. I had to clear away all of the sand and cement  that I’ve raked out of the wall and was piling up against the foot of the wall. That took ages, and I DO mean “ages” too


But I did make two startling discoveries

  1. I knew that I had another garden rake somewhere, a big heavy duty proper one with real metal prongs.
    And I would love to know what I was doing with it because it was under the stones that fell when the wall collapsed back all those years ago.
    The handle has long since rotted away but I’ll buy a new one on Saturday at Cheze.
  2. I now know the secret of why the lean-to is collapsing.
    There’s a whole network of tree roots from the walnut tree that has infiltrated into the wall below ground level. Much of the day was spent extracting them, and I need to think of a permanent solution to deal with that issue.
    Also, this is the bit where the wall is really bad.
    Rainwater has infiltrated and washed the old mortar away and many of the stones are loose. They need extracting where possible and replacing with larger stones/
    Either that or they need to be well packed in with other stones so that they can’t move and the forces above them are spread out horizontally.

So now you know why that’s why it’s taking me ages.

But anyway, at 18:45 I called it a day and had a quick a solar shower and following that, legged it to St Gervais d’Auvergne where we had the biggest crowd for quite a while.

And that is always pleasant.

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Friday 7th September 2012 – WHAT A GORGEOUS …

… tea 😉

New potatoes, beans and carrots straight out of the garden and into the vegetable steamer, all cooked with all my own surplus electtrical energy.

Then a veggie burger, onions and garlic fried in a mustard sauce with the vegetables and tipped, for the first time in I really don’t know how long, onto a plate.

No eating out of the saucepan for me tonight!

Yes, a meal fit for a king – with all of this surplus electrical energy from the glorious day that we had today, I had to do something with it. Cooking sounds like a good plan, and it’s one in the eye for my critics back in the UK.

I was up early today but somehow I couldn’t find any motivation for the website – no idea why. I’ve not advanced very far along the fortifications of Québec today.

collapsed lean-to repointing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut outside I cracked on and I’ve done quite a bit. Tons of progress today.

So much so that before I restart on Monday I need to take down half of the scaffolding. The half nearest the fence is now totally surplus to requirements so I need to remove it.

When that’s out of the way I shall rake out the soil to remove the stones, bits of cement and so on, and so I can kneel on the ground and finish off the last rows on that bit.

You’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to taking down the scaffolding. There’s been scaffolding there of one sort or another since 2002 – that’s how long I’ve been trying to organise this lean-to.

Give me another 7 or 8 days and with luck the scaffolding will be gone completely.

It’s still rather sad though. This week I should have flown out to Canada for the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival at Fredericton.

But like I said the other day, if I do that, and then go back out to Canada next Spring too, this lean-to won’t be started again until next June and that’s far too long to wait.

I’m pretty-much determined that I want to finish the outside before I plan any trip anywhere. Finish it all off this year and that will be that – one of the most important projects around the house all finished off

So, where shall I go to in October? That is, of course, always assuming that I will have finished this blasted lean-to by then.

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Wednesday 5th September 2012 – IT’S NOT EVEN …

… 23:00 yet and I’m absolutely whacked.

2 early-morning starts have done for me and so I’m off to bed in a minute

One thing about a … gulp … 07:30 start though is that you can do tons of work and I’m well round the fortifications of Québec City now.

Mind you, there’s still a long way to go before I can leave the place, let alone finish my voyage from earlier this year.

As well as that, there are the journeys from 2010 and 2011 that have yet to see the light of day and I need to deal with them. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

collapsed lean-to repointing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon saw me up on the wall again.

I had to rearrange the scaffolding and then I raked out underneath the horizontal beam over tbe windows and cemented that in properly.

From there I cemented in one of the window frames that I fitted the other day and then did a big pile of touching up. Not that I would ordinarily bother but this new trowel is just so good. Short, narrow and very springy, it makes a lovely finish on the wall.

For the second part of the afternoon it was much more complicated.

There is a huge crack in this wall too and a few of the stones are quite loose. I’ve been moving them out, cleaning out the mud and sand that they use round here for mortar, and then finding slightly bigger stones to fit in the holes.

It’s like a jigsaw puzzle and needs to be done very carefully, but I’m getting there. Finishing it all by next weekend may well be a tad optimistic.

So for tea I cooked rice in the electric steamer and had a helping of the pepper and lentil curry I made last night. Rosemary rang me up in the middle of it all for a chat too which is nice, even if my tea did go cold.

And right now, 23:06 it is and I’m off to bed. I can hardly keep my eyes open. 

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Monday 3rd September 2012 – I DIDN’T START …

… the pointing today, and I wouldn’t be doing any tomorrow save for Rosemary coming round for a lesson (talk about the blind leading the blind!) because I was rather side-tracked this afternoon.

And so I was this morning.

I made a good start though thanks to my really early night last night (in bed well before midnight) and I had a good crack at the web site.

With not being on long enough last night to charge the computer though, the battery went quickly flat and when I switched on the inverter to charge up the machine, the internet came on and my friend Marianne from Belgium was on line.

So we ended up chatting for an hour or so seeing as we haven’t seen each other on line for months.

But this afternoon, doing the pointing means of course lowering the scaffolding and as I was about to do that, I suddenly remembered that the wind turbine that I put on the side of the house in the early spring is only wired in temporarily.

If I move the scaffolding, that will be that and it won’t be long before the old manky wire that I used to connect up the wind turbine to the charging circuit in the emergency, all open and exposed to the atmosphere, rots away.

Consequently I set to to run some decent 2.5mm wire through some flexible conduit, and to install a junction box under the eaves for the second wind turbine that will one day be installed on the other side of the house.

And while I was up the ladder under the eaves it occurred to me that while I was there I could fit a light there as planned, that works off the dusk/dawn sensor and which will automatically light up the front door and down the side of the house to the door to the lean-to during the hours of darkness.

And as I was running that wire through the conduit, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to put a light under the eaves at the other end of the front of the house to light up the door to the verandah.

And so I ran yet more wire through another conduit.

Net result – the wire is ready to wire up the wind turbine, but I’ll wait until Rosemary is here before I do that. I’m going to have to be something of an acrobat and on a ladder that is hanging on a roof, I’d rather there was someone here to call the ambulance.

One of the lights, that over the front door and the lean-to, is now installed and when I came back from PIonsat tonight (it’s the Anglo-French club’s meeting) it was doing exactly what it was supposed to.

And doing it quite efficiently too.

Not that 1 watt of LED power is going to light up much, but I could certainly move around without a torch and that is what is the aim.

So an early start tomorrow to steam-clean the verandah seeing as how I’ll be having visitors. I might even clean some more in here too – you never know. I bet I still won’t find my mobile phone though.

I haven’t a clue where that might be.

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Monday 2nd July 2012 – What do you think …

creeping plant growing up kwikstage scaffolding puy de dome france… about my nice environmentally-friendly scaffolding? I’ve no idea what that plant is that has decided to grow up it, but it has heart-shaped leaves and small green berries and it’s growing like crazy.

Yes, you’ll notice that I’ve lowered the scaffolding. The roof is finished and, seeing as how I finished the rendering off around the front this afternoon, I’ve started to paint the woodwork with the LIDL wood treatment. That means that I have to lower the scaffolding. I’m only doing the outside now – the inside can wait until the weather is bad.

Once the woodwork is painted, then I need to paint the rendering off around the front of the lean-to so that it matches the house. For that, I need to move a pile of stuff that’s around the front, although I’ve not worked out where I’m going to put it yet. Still, It’ll All Work Out in Boomland, so they say.

Once all that is done, then I can start on my secret project, to put Krys out of her misery, or else I can carry on rebuilding the wall that you can see in the photo and then put the guttering on. Probably guttering is a good idea as Thursday I’m hoping to have the water butts for there. That’ll mean that Krys will still be in suspense for another couple of weeks.

So that was this afternoon. This morning I was on the website again, and then I was outside in the garden. Apart from tbe usual weeding, I planted another row of carrots and some more beetroot and then spent a pleasant hour thinning the cabbage and cauliflower. The sprouts need thinning too but I’m not sure where to put the ones that I pull out.

But this is all progress, isn’t it? I’ve never ever reached the thinning stage with the brassica. Usually this time of year I’m hunting for the survivors but there aren’t half some impressive plants – and all grown from seed too. 

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