Tag Archives: printer issues

Wednesday 8th August 2018 – WORKS EVERY TIME!

Yes, last night I had an early night and settled down to watch a film on the laptop. And I managed about 5 minutes of it before I dropped off.

Not quite like when I was in Canada and had the film and laptop running all through the night, but it was near enough.

And despite not having an alarm clock set for the morning, I was still awake at 06:00. Seems that I’m never going to have a decent sleep. But no danger of me leaving my stinking pit at that time. 08:00 is much more like it, isn’t it?

After the usual morning performance I settled down to do some work and as a result totally forgot about breakfast until it was far too late.

Just for a change, I haven’t been idle today. I’ve had a huge pile of e-mails that needed to be sent off, and following that there was a lot of stuff to print out.

I seem to have run out of coloured ink so everything had to be printed in greyscale. That was an issue that took quite a while to resolve, although I don’t know why. I never seem to have too much luck with printers. And I need to order some new cartridges before I forget.

It led to a rather late lunch – although it was rather cold sitting out there on the wall now that the weather has cooled down. One of my lizards was there waiting for me too.

And all of this meant that I missed my afternoon walk. Instead I was unpacking from my little trip, sorting out my stuff, and then going through a pile of paperwork. I need to deal with all of my medical expenses.

And I …errr … closed my eyes, but for just five minutes.

Another thing was to configure my on-line banking for my account in Belgium. That took longer than it might have done too. And once I was organised, I could see a memo from them dated 10th July saying that my identity documents have expired and I need to submit new ones.

That’s something that defeats me – it’s the same passport as five years ago, with the same number and anything. And although French passports expire after five years, mine is good for all of 10 years.

And so I rang up the head office and after hanging on for half an hour, I was told that it was a branch issue. And so I need to go to my branch. When I told the guy that I had no intention of going, seeing as I live in France, he took my number and said that he would have someone from the branch phone me back.

And we’ve heard all of that before, haven’t we?

Tea was a stuffed pepper and pasta, and then i finally did manage to go for a walk. And I was the only one out there tonight, now that the weather has turned.

The alarm will be back on tonight, so I’ll have an early night. I might even watch a film – or, at least, try to. One way of making sure that I fall asleep.

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Wednesday 20th June 2018 – THE WORLD’S WORST BANK …

… strikes again!

Remember that letter that I had to fax them yesterday? It seems that I had forgotten something off it.

And yes, I freely admit that it was my error. No argument there.

The bank sent me an e-mail and asked me to rectify the omission. No problem there either.

BUT

I had to reply by fax yet again. I couldn’t do it by phone, and I couldn’t reply to their e-mail either. Even though they had referred to my request in the e-mail that they had sent me, that it would be clear that any reply that I sent would have been in reply to their mail, and that the information was information that they had requested.

So that was yet more wasted time.

Like I say, I’m not denying my responsibility. I’m just moaning about the bank’s procedures. Had I still have been in the UK they would have been kicked into touch a good while ago. But then, had I still been in the UK, I would never have had the issues that I’m having now.

Last night, I didn’t get to see my film. I ended up going to bed fairly early instead. I was hoping to have an early night, but waking up at 03:45 was no part of my intentions whatsoever.

So much so that after breakfast I sat down and ended up being … errr … away with the fairies for a good half an hour.

But I pulled myself through, did some more tidying up and even vacuumed the living room, as well as measuring up a few things here and there, because I’m having a day out tomorrow.

hanging cloud port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOr, at least, I’m hoping to, if I can find the road.

On my trip into town this afternoon we were lucky to see the harbour. We’ve been swathed in a hanging cloud all day and it hasn’t lifted for a minute. It’s even worse right now.

If it keeps on like this, I won’t even be able to find my way out of the building, never mind out of town.

Having dealt with the housekeeping issues for today (Friday is to deal with the kitchen and Saturday is to wash the floor to let it dry while I’m out at the shops) I went back to the blog again.

The current whereabouts of my amendments is the day that I left Leuven to travel to Oostende. That page is not quite finished (although it might be by the time you read this) but it’s all now done from there onwards.

I’m determined to bring it all up to date before I’m much older, having left it somewhat … errr … incomplete during my all-too-frequent bouts of illness.

No point in going out for lunch today in the hanging cloud. I stayed in and read my book in the peace and quiet.

And then I had to fiddle about with the printer in order to make it work. It’s an ancient Hewlett-Packard that I inherited from Marianne all those years ago. It had an enormous amount of use while she had it, and it’s done some work here over the five years that I’ve had it. So it’s quite temperamental.

house demolition rue du port granville manche normandy franceAnd so off into town.

We’ve seen the hanging cloud, but I don’t think that you have seen the workmen down in the bottom-right corner who have now started on another house down on the rue du Port.

It’s difficult to tell whether they are knocking holes in the walls to fit new windows, or whether they are trying to knock the walls down completely. I suppose that time will tell.

gravel tipping port de granville harbour manche normandy franceHaving seen my friendly newspaper shop owner and sent off the fax, I came back up the hill.

And over in the port, another gravel lorry had arrived and had tipped its load. And behind it there was a digger driver busily heaping it all up into a tidy pile on the edge of the quayside.

Not in the gravel bins, you’ll notice. So that can really only mean that another gravel boat will shortly be paying us a visit. And I hope that I’m here to see it.

But I learnt some bad news in the newsagents. Madame la Maire has finally published her proposals for the port. She wants to build another casino and another pile of restaurants down there.

That means, quite simply, that all of the empty shops in the town will immediately be transformed into the kind of expensive boutiques that you see in every other seaside town – vastly overpriced for two months of the year and closed, gathering dust for the other 10.

And the port, instead of being a working, industrial zone, will become a haven for luxury yachts for 2 months of the year and deserted for the remainder.

It will totally destroy the character of the town, but such is the price that one has to pay for a bit of egoism.

And it did not go unnoticed that the proposals weren’t published until after the series of meetings with the residents (one of which we attended last week).

So that was my afternoon walk, and I crashed out yet again for a while. A coffee soon revived me though, and I had a good 50-minute session on the bass guitar. I’m cracking on.

After tea, which was a frozen mushroom and pepper curry in coconut milk, I went for my walk. And managed 120 paces at a run (well, a sort-of run). And if there was anyone else out there, I wouldn’t have an idea in this weather.

So now I’ll do a few bits and pieces and then have another early night.

And I hope that it’s more successful than the last one.

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Thursday 25th January 2018 – THE DIE IS CAST

All last evening, part of the night and for the early part of the morning, I had a long think about the letter that I wrote yesterday.

To say that it’s an incendiary epistle is an understatement and at one stage I was thinking that maybe I should calm it down somewhat. And then I thought again.

I remembered Gotthold Lessing, and his quote, crudely translated by Yours Truly (and if there’s anything that needs doing crudely, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney “I’m your man) “A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose”.

What’s been happening to me at the Crédit Agricole over the last 9 months has long since passed beyond the point of reason and one day I’ll tell you all about it.

And there are also the words of Sir Walter Raleigh – not the Elizabethan adventurer but the early 20th-Century author – who said “he is thrice armed who has his quarrel just”.

And so with this letter being the perfect lead-in, there’s no time like the present to start to wage a war, and so I made a couple of minor amendments, posted one copy off to the Bank’s Head Office and took the other one to the local branch where I instructed the receptionist to place it in the hands of the Branch Manager.

As I said, I’ll probably regret writing it, but I need to bring this sorry affair to a conclusion one way or another and there won’t be a better opportunity.

Last night was another bad night. I ended up going to bed late because I couldn’t sleep, and I was awake before the alarm went off too. There’s a lot going on in my mind right now of course.

So I medicated and breakfasted, had a shower and then went off to town and my letter deliveries.

It was a struggle to make it to LIDL but I made it in the end. And then I couldn’t think of anything that I needed. I bought a baguette, some rice and some pasta because that’s the kind of thing that you can always use.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that I’ve encountered another problem. I need to send in a “proof of residence” with my driving licence, and as my annual electricity bill is outside the date limit, I was intending to send a rent receipt for my apartment. But on examining the latest rent receipt, they have the address wrong!

And so while I was in town I went to the estate agents and they revised the details and very kindly printed off a new receipt. So that’s that problem sold.

hotel des bains casino granville manche normandy franceJust by way of a change, I came back from LIDL a different way – along the plateau to the south of the town and then down the steps right into the centre.

And from the top of the steps there’s this nice view across to the Hotel Des Bains (the big building right of centre) and the sea, right by where the Casino (the turrets poking up left of centre) is.

And you can see that just for a change we were having some fine weather. And it wasn’t cold either.

Back here I made a coffee and then sat down to recover up until lunchtime, when I finished off the rest of yesterday’s vegetable soup.

Having done that, I attacked the driving licence. And start as you mean to go on – a piece of paper jammed itself in the printer and I was there for an hour dismantling … "disPERSONtling it" – ed … it to solve the problem. It was only a tiny fragment too, but it would have to be just big enough to cover the sensor, wouldn’t it? It’s a good job that that didn’t happen when there were important things to do.

But eventually all of the paperwork was completed and having deleted all that I can off my telephone, I had enough free space to receive the texted code from the Bank to authorise my payment.

So that’s gone off and I have the receipt. But by heck it isn’t half a complicated procedure.

square maurice marland granville manche normandy franceI was late for my afternoon walk but I went all the same. And I went once more around the medieval walls.

My route took me past the statue of Maurice Marland. He was a schoolteacher and leader of a cell of Resistance fighters here in Granville. Despite having been arrested and tortured in 1943 he carried on with his Resistance work but was captured again on 22nd July 1944.

No-one knows what happened after that but a couple of days later his body was found in a ditch with five gunshot wounds.

His Resistance cell was broken too and several membfitbiters were likewise executed. This is a monument to all of them.

Another coffee and a session on the guitar, and then a chat to TOTGA on the laptop. That led up nicely to tea which was another frozen curry from the batch in the freezer. Potato and chick-pea, this was.

The day finished off with another walk, and I’m now at 120% of my day’s activity plan.

No sign of the Bank but it’s probably the calm before the storm. We’ll see what tomorrow will bring.

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Thursday 18th January 2018 – IT WASN’T …

… such a good, exciting day today as it was yesterday.

It started to go wrong when I went to bed last night and found that, once more, I couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning for much of the night and waking up bolt-upright part-way through.

Mind you, I had been on my travels during the night but you don’t want me to tell you about them. You’re probably eating your tea or something. It’s what probably awoke me too.

When the alarm went off I managed to crawl out of bed at a reasonable time thereafter, and after the medication and breakfast I had a shower. And SHOCK! HORROR! I did a machine-load of washing, including the bedclothes. Tonight I’ll have brand-sparkling-clean covers on the bed and won’t that be luxury?

But no chance of going out. The rain was back, and in spades too. I really didn’t fancy the walk up to LIDL in this kind of weather.

I’m not really sure where the morning went, because I don’t recall doing anything much. It wasn’t as if the washing took all that much time. It was actually 14:00 when I noticed that it was lunchtime.

After lunch, checking my e-mails, I found that I had had a reply from the French Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés. I had sent them an e-mail to ask them where I could find the two documents that I need for Tuesday. They sent me a link, but that wasn’t the answer and I had to spend a good hour or so exploring the site before I found them.

They are not at all called what the Doctor told me that they were called at all, but they correspond to the description. And so I downloaded them.

And then they needed to be printed.

It took a while to sort out this mains connection but it seems to work now, which is good news. But the next issue is trying to make the thing function. The drivers aren’t loaded onto this laptop and I don’t seem to have brought the disk with me.

And so I had to track down an installation disk image on-line and download it – only 255mb of it and that took an age. And then set it up.

And much to my surprise it actually worked and I was able to print off the documents.

While it was doing all of that I did some more sorting out of papers and all of those are ready for a good examination in due course.

digger working in tidal port de granville manche normandy franceThe weather had cleared up by now so I went for my little walk around the headland again.

And there’s yet more excitement in the port today. Part of the port area is tidal and this is where some of the yachts and smaller fishing boats tie up, and ground out at low tide.

But there’s a digger out there just now working away. On what, I have no idea but it’s interesting to say the least. I shall have to go back tomorrow for another look.

Back here, i made myself a coffee. But I didn’t drink it though. I crashed right out and was gone for over an hour. A really deep sleep too and I felt quite feeble when I awoke.

Not too feeble though to have a session on the bass guitar again. And this time, one of the things that I was working on was “Orgone Accumulator” – the Hawkwind track that I played when I was with Mike Allen and one or two others whose names I forget. After all, it is over 40 years ago.

For tea I tried some pasta and managed to eat it all although it took some time.

But the walk was a bit of a disaster. I hadn’t gone 400 yards before the heavens opened and I was drenched to the skin. NO point in risking double-pneumonia so I came back home.

So here’s hoping for a better night, and a better day tomorrow. But at the moment I don’t feel like it at all.

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Monday 15th January 2018 – IT GOES …

… without saying that this morning didn’t go according to plan, doesn’t it?

In fact, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m continually being confounded by issues not of my own making and I have to go to extraordinary lengths to circumvent them.

Just for a change, I was awake before the alarm went off, but that’s not quite the same as saying that I was ready to leave the bed. In fact it was something of a struggle to haul myself out of my stinking pit.

Fist thing though was the urine sample. Despite a thorough search this last few days I’ve not found the report from Leuven so I had to go through the procedure here. That’s what I call “taking the P155”. Then I could have my medication and once that worked, I could have my breakfast.

There was a form to fill in to take to the laboratory and that involved some tracking down of stuff too. But once I’d done that I could set off. Into the howling gale and driving rainstorm. After the couple of nice days that we have had, it goes without saying that as I’m out and about on foot we are going to have this kind of weather, doesn’t it?

First stop was the Mobile phone repairer. Having been told that he was back today I made this my first port of call. But as I really ought to have expected, it’s Monday today and many places are closed in France on a Monday – the mobile phone repairer included.

Next stop was the mairie. The doctor who is doing my medical examination told me that I could find some forms here. But according to the mairie, not any more. The forms are available to download on line.

But at least this means that I need to take some decisive action to resolve the cable issues that I’m having with my printer. The tag that holds the plug in place has broken off so the plug won’t stay connected. I shall have to invent a means of locking it in position, or even making a direct connection.

But it’s just typical of Hewlett Knackered. They can’t use standard infinity plugs like anyone else – they have to go for something really fancy and complicated that breaks under the slightest pressure and renders the machine unusable (unless you have a devious mind of course).

Hiking up to the laboratory (which is just on the station roundabout) I was running out of steam – I clearly haven’t recovered from my health. And the bad news is that the lack of this urine sample means that I’ve had to pay €6:80. no wonder I’m spending a fortune with being so unprepared.

On the way back I picked up a baguette and then staggered back up the hill to here – thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly soaked to the skin – to such an extent that I had to change my trousers.

And just for a change, I had a coffee. First one (apart from some warm brown liquid at the football the other week) since I’ve been back from Leuven. And it tasted awful.

Soup with pasta and bulghour for lunch again, with some of the fresh bread (the rest went into the freezer) and then I had a relaxing afternoon not doing very much, although I did have a good session on the bass guitar. To my surprise, some of the stuff that we used to play 40-odd years ago came back into my mind.

For tea tonight, I made a huge curry – the first one for a while. Mushrooms, peppers and because it didn’t make as much as I was hoping, a tin of sweet corn. One helping tonight and four more for the freezer.

My evening walk was a disappointment. Pouring with rain still and a howling gale. So I just did a short lap around the streets and came home. No sense in risking another attack of Bronchitis.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m off down to town again to see if this mobile phone repairer is finally going to make it back to his shop. He better had be because it’s getting my goat.

And the music?

For most of the day we’ve had Jethro Tull going round. If I really had to choose one group to be my favourite, it would have to be Jethro Tull. It takes me back to my school days and Benefit, Stand Up, Aqualung, Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play – the latter two albums being so good that it took the critics 30 years to realise it.

Those five albums, and many others that they released subsequently, have been on my playlist for getting on for 50 years and won’t ever lose their place. Other bands and artists may come and go but Jethro Tull will always be there

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Monday 22nd July 2013- I’M OFF

But then again you knew that already.

This morning I was up bright and early (just for a change) and did all of the domestic chores around the place before shooting off to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record the Radio Anglais sessions for Radio Tartasse.

As usual we had total and utter chaos – they had a printer and after much searching we found the USB cable, but as for the power lead, no hope for that. I ended up reading the text off the computer (I had taken that along in anticipation – one has to be prepared at Radio Tartasse).

Liz and I went on to record the information programmes, which passed off almost without incident, and then we set off back to Liz’s house for lunch.

I called at the bank to pick up the new bank cards but, as you might indeed expect as it’s Monday, the bank is closed.

At Liz’s we had yesterday’s leftovers for lunch and then went down to Gerzat to record the Radio Arverne version of “Radio Anglais”. That passed off without much incident too.

However, in a dramatic change of plan, we went there in Liz’s car. After all, the hottest day of the year and it has air-conditioning. What more can any man desire?

Back here though, not so good.

I melted in Calibuen on the way back and there was no hope of me going on to Brussels. I crashed out for a couple of hours, loaded up Caliburn with the dirty washing and a pile of empty cardboard boxes.

Just after 21:00, with the weather still absolutely roasting, I was on my way.

See you soon.

-8

Sunday 21 July 2013 – AND AM I ALL PACKED?

Am I ‘eck as like.

No surprise there, is there?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surreal was not the word.

..

-8

Saturday 22nd June 2013 – MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE …

les guis virlet puy de dome france… house I was confronted by vegetation the like of which I have very rarely seen.

It’s all very well with “the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye” but I bet that the weeds round here aren’t so far off that right now.

There was no path down to the house either and with nothing with which to hack my way through the brush I had to wade my way through the shrubbery, being nettled and brambled all the way.

Not very pleasant at all. and while I could just about make my way in via the verandah, it’s out of the question to go in by the front door.

I suppose that what I should really have done was to ask someone to nip round with the strimmer, or strim round with the nipper – one or the other. But it’s too late now.

As for the house itself, it’s as if no-one has lived there for a hundred years. Cobwebs and all kinds of things all over the place. All in all, very depressing.

However, I do have to say that I did feel at home there, more than anywhere else, and how I wish that I could go back on a permanent basis. I can’t wait for all of these issues in Brussels and elsewhere to be finished.

I also made a startling discovery too. I was looking for the keys to the barn and after a while I did discover them – in one of the barn doors, which was wide open.

Yes, and for about a month or so too.

I remember going in there to pick up a bottle of stuff to drink before setting off for Fromentine and then Brussels last time I was there. Ahh well …

Another depressing item is that my printer is not working. It’s already only printing in blue but now it’s not printing anything at all and I was there for half an hour trying to fix it.

I never seem to have any luck with printers – Pooh Corner is littered with all kinds of abandoned printers that have never seemed to keep going for long.

But at least I now know how I’m going to do the shower room. It involves the abandonment of one of the projects that I had in mind but it can’t be helped.

For that particular project, I need another 10cms on the width and while it is possible to invent a work-around, it involves all kinds of contortions with the plumbing and the pipework and at the end of the day, it just isn’t going to be worth the extra effort.

It won’t look as nice as I wanted it, but then again, since when did I ever care about aesthetics?

-2

Thursday 25th October 2012 – A BIG THANK-YOU …

… to everyone who thought about me while I was ill. I appreciated it very much.

A couple of you have suggested taking it easy for a while – sentiments with which I totally agree. Accordingly when the alarm clocks went off, I turned over and went back to sleep for a while.

Most of the day has been spent with paperwork – or rather, fiddling about with the printer so that I could print off a pile of paperwork.

It didn’t print in black last month and so I did everything in blue, but today I spent ages cleaning the heads and managed to get half a black printout.

One of the nozzles is blocked, and so I went to clean the heads again, and it ran out of black ink. I changed the black ink, but it still wasn’t printing properly and so I cleaned the heads again.

This time it ran out of blue ink.

I changed the blue ink, cleaned the heads, and it’s still not printing properly in black.

This means that for the foreseeable future I’m back to printing everything in blue again. I never seem to have any luck with printers.

This afternoon, I selected all of the music for the rock programmes but this evening was something exciting and unusual – Nan was having a little do and I was invited, as were Cécile, Gilles and Zoe.

We had a snack and played charades and so on for a few hours. It’s not like me to be sociable, is it?< Tomorrow is recording the Radio Anglais rock programmes for Radio Tartasse and so I won't be doing too much tomorrow morning either.

-5

Sunday 23rd September 2013 – AFTER THE DEBACLE …

… that was yesterday, and being still awake at 05:30, it’s no surprise whatever that I had something of a late start this morning.

And the … errr …. 11:30 start meant that the day was over before it had really begun.

I had to be at Marianne’s at 13:00 to set up the stage for this show that started at 16:00. so there was no time to do anything else.

Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze haydn concert church of st bravy pionsat puy de dome franceSetting up of the equipment didn’t take all that long and after the sound check we settled back to listen the music.

We were being treated to a concert of Haydn’s Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze – “The_Seven_Last_Words_of_Christ” – with three violins and a ‘cello.

As you know, it’s not my type of music but even I can recognise quality when I hear it.

Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze haydn concert church of st bravy pionsat puy de dome franceI would rather have a different kind of music as you know, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … around here, you have to take whatever entertainment that is offered, wherever, and whenever you can find it.

The musicians were extremely professional and very well-rehearsed. They certainly gave the music a good haydn. The packed crowd in the church certainly appreciated the performance too.

It all made for an extremely enjoyable afternoon, I have to say

Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze haydn concert church of st bravy pionsat puy de dome franceWith having set up the sound quite quickly, it gave me a god opportunity to have a look around the church.

Of course I’ve been here before, but I’ve never had much of an opportunity to go for a good prowl around.

And I’m glad that I did, because for a modern church (built in 1888 which is new for around here), it is surprisingly interesting and there’s a lot to see.

Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze haydn concert church of st bravy pionsat puy de dome franceThe thing that you’ll notice about this church is that it is not aligned in the more-traditional east-west direction. And there’s a reason for this.

This isn’t the original site of the church – that can be found across the square near where the steps down to the old market place are.

The church that was there was disaffected, like all churches were, during the French Revolution. It was used as a store for saltpetre.

Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze haydn concert church of st bravy pionsat puy de dome franceSaltpetre is however extremely corrosive and during a survey of the structural stability of the church some years later, they discovered that the saltpetre had eaten away all of the structure of the church and it was totally unsafe.

Not only had the church to be demolished immediately, they couldn’t rebuilt on the same site. The site where the church might be found today was the only empty plot of land in the centre of the town, and so they had to build the church around the plot, not the other way around.

Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze haydn concert church of st bravy pionsat puy de dome franceEven more interesting was the fact that it was the feast of St Bravy

He was an abbott on the 8th Century and is the patron saint of the church. And with it being his feast day, his skull, one of the relics of the church, was actually on display for all to see.

This led to one of these fascinating conversations that only ever happen once in a lifetime
Marianne – “it’s a very small skull, don’t you think?”
Our hero – “it’s probably the skull of St Bravy when he was a small child”.

Radio rehearsing came next with Liz, and a lovely stuffed courgette meal later, back here to carry on working.

Printing out the notes for tomorrow produced nothing at all and as I’m too tired right now to do anything about it, I changed the font colour to blue and now I have blue notes. I’ll have to look at this black ink cartridge when I feel more like it.

Right now I need to sort out some music for our radio programmes tomorrow if I can manage to stay awake, and then I’ll be off to bed.

I just hope that I remember to wake up.

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Thursday 7th June 2012 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

vinegar water weedkiller les guis virlet puy de dome france… that we discussed weedkiller the other day.

Joy suggested a 50-50 mix of vinegar and water and so I tried it. And you can see the result.

A pile of burnt and scorched grass. And so there’s clearly some mileage in that idea,

Thanks, Joy, but I shudder to think about how much vinegar I’m going to need.

This morning it was work as usual on the website but I didn’t get much done due to a couple of lengthy and complicated phone calls that led to a lengthy form-filling session.

All of that made me late for my trip with Marianne and while Liz was wishing me all the best for the afternoon and me saying something like “knowing my luck it will pour down with rain” we suddenly had the most terrific thunderstorm and cloudburst.

Right on cue, you might say.

church chateau sur cher puy de dome franceAnd so I picked up Marianne and off we went for a good wander around Chateau-sur-Cher.

The village is so named because the remains of a Gallo-Roman fort were discovered on the promontory overlooking the River Cher, on the spot where the church sits today.

It’s certainly an impressive site for a defensive fortification – surrounded on three sides by a very steep climb and I can understand why the Gauls would have chosen it

lime burner chateau sur cher puy de dome francenot only were there some interesting sights to see around the village and around the river, but that we were also directed to an intact chalk-oven and to an outcrop of a coal seam somewhere out off the beaten track on the way back to St Hilaire-près-Pionsat.

The chalk oven took some finding and that’s hardly a surprise. You can see that the chimney is all overgrown with all kinds of everything and you really did have to know where it was before you could see it properly

lime burner chateau sur cher puy de dome franceBut it was totally fascinating, as a good exploration confirmed once I’d been able to hack my way through the vegetation into it.

It seems to have been built from a kit or something like that, because the fire bars are noted with Roman numerals – presumably indicating the position and order in which they should be assembled.

I’ve never seen that before.

coal seam outcrop chateau sur cher puy de dome franceApparently the coal seam that we visited 2 years ago and about which I posted on here breaks out in a few other places in the Combrailles.

We had a good scratch around in the vicinity and, sure enough, we found some evidence. Not worth coming here with a mechanical shovel though – the Highways Department’s sign erectors would have been here a long time ago had it been worth the effort.

There are even some mining remains where someone had a go at trying to exploit it, but they are all overgrown apparently (as if the chimney was not) and so we need to wait for winter to hunt for those.

cadillac deville chateau sur cher puy de dome franceHighlight, for me at least, has to be this beast sitting here abandoned inthe garden of an abandoned cottage in the village.

It’s a Cadillac DeVille, one of the “fourth generation” models from the early 1970s I reckon, and what is significant about it is that according to the maker’s plate under the bonnet it’s actually a “Bienne” – a Swiss model made in that town where general Motors had an assembly plant for 40 years until 1975.

But scrambling over vehicles like this brought back some very happy memories. How poor Nerina must have suffered.

Meanwhile, in other news, I’ve run out of black ink for the printer. I’ll have to see if Terry can order some more for me.

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Wednesday 29th February 2012 – I’VE GONE …

… onto summer hours!

Yes, already! It’s now light enough to be still working outside at 19:00 and so that’s what I’m doing.

And the computing activities that I need to do, well I’m doing those from 10:00 until 12:00.

So with an early night after my dithering about, I had an early morning as well, just for a change. And on went the coffee pot again because if anything it was even nicer today than yesterday.

So much so, in fact, that I ran the electric heater up here. Not because I needed to, but because it was a shame to waste the energy.

One of the things that I needed to do was to print off about 50 pages of stuff that I need to complete. And I think that I’m having printer issues. The black ink didn’t work at all and in the end I put a new cartridge in.

That worked fine for a few pages and then we were back to the missing lines and dirty heads again. I cleaned the heads, and that worked fine for a while and then we were back in the missing lines and dirty heads.

I don’t know why that is. Printers never seem to last very long with me.

This afternoon I had a pile of fun.

I’ve had a few parcels delivered these last couple of days, and one of them contained the half-a-dozen 12 volt DC hour meters similar to the 230 volt ones that I bought to run with the mains inverters.

control panel solar energy wind turbine timer overcharge meter les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe purpose of these 12-volt hour meters is to wire them into the solar panel circuits to see for how long a solar charge is received by the panels (to help in resiting them to an optimum position), to wire into the wind turbine circuits ditto, and also to wire into the overcharge circuits to see for how long surplus energy is created.

And so I spent a happy afternoon wiring in the overcharge timers and the solar timers. I’m not able to do the wind turbine timers as I need diodes to stop the backflow of energy from the batteries and they haven’t come yet.

The wind turbines are connected directly to the batteries with no charge controller so if you wire a timer in there without stopping the current flowing back from the batteries, the timers will be running 24 hours per day, feeding off the batteries.

I also did some tidying up of the panel that I made a couple of months ago – the one with the 600-watt inverter, the electric meter and the electrical sockets, that I’m using in the barn. That looks neater and tidier, and works better than before.

But I forgot to say that when I was in Brussels at Christmas, Marianne was chucking out an old hair drier – something like 400 watts or so. Anyway, I chucked it into Caliburn and brought it back here.

The reason?

Every now and again I use heat shrink insulation on bare wires and while you are supposed to shrink it using a hot-air paint stripper, I don’t have enough power to run a hot-air paint stripper.

I do have enough though to run a 400-watt hair drier and while it’s slower and not quite as effective, it does in fact work well enough.

I’m quite impressed with that.

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Tuesday 20th December 2011 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… lovely tea tonight.

Baked potatoes and tortilla wraps with spicy beans. And once again it was cooked in the oven on the new fire, and once again it did an excellent job.

So much so that tomorrow night I’m going to go for a rice pudding and see what happens about that.

This morning I awoke well on time thanks to this new alarm clock that I have. It has a projector light that flashes the time across the room and makes enough noise to awaken the dead.

But printing off the paperwork for the radio station didn’t work – the new computer doesn’t recognise the printer and I can’t upload the drivers. I’ll have to see if I can do that by downloading them (which I can’t because all of Epson’s European sites don’t work).

So Radio Tartasse was done and then we set off through the driving rain to Gerzat. And as we drove over the Combrailles I joked to Liz that everyone in Riom would be basking in the sun in shirt sleeves.

They weren’t, as it happens, but the sun was there, and some blue sky too.

At Radio Arverne I had a premonition about the music we were to play and sure enough, in what could only be a gazillion-to-one chance, we had both picked a track with the same title. How bizarre!

We did the programmes for January and then recorded our Christmas special. That was a bundle of laughs, and what we did for the carols – well, you’ll find out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Home into the hills and into the driving rain again. I lit the fire in here and that was that. I had no intentions of moving and so I didn’t.

But tea was nice 😉

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