Tag Archives: shower room

Thursday 2nd July 2015 – NOW HERE’S ANOTHER THING!

Wide awake and up and about at 06:30.

Yes, I’ve often been up and about at 06:30 and I’ve often been wide awake at 06:30 too, but I don’t recall ever having done both of them at the same time.

Mind you, I blame the Dawn Chorus.

I went to bed last night and left the bedroom window open – the best way that I could think of of keeping cool. And with no curtains, I had the view of a most beautiful moon to send me to sleep. But as dawn broke, we had the cacophony that is Mother Nature, and that was that.

So after an early start and early breakfast, I attacked the radio programmes. Everything is now ready for the next recording session, which is next week in Marcillat and at the beginning of August at Gerzat. And then I need to do a series of programmes for the next session at Gerzat, four more rock shows and then that, dear reader, will be the radio all organised until the beginning of November.

And quite right too because today, I booked my flight to Canada. I’m leaving on August 14 and coming back on October 14th. Now that I have my own vehicle out there in Canada, then nothing can stop me and I intend to make the most of it.

I’m flying out from Lyon this time, as I said that I would, and not by Air Transat, the bucket shop operator either. Strangely enough, Air Transat want an astonishing $1129 – that’s about €1050 – for a direct flight from Lyon to Montreal and return. However if I go via Zurich on the outbound flight (staying overnight, which suits me fine as I haven’t yet had a good wander around the city) and come back with a changeover at Frankfurt-am-Main, it costs me all of … errr … €788 (plus the hotel in Zurich).

And that’s not with a bucket-shop operator either, that’s with … errr … Swissair, one of the world’s best airlines.

How about that?

But returning to our moutons, as the French say, I’ve also reconstituted the radio databases that were lost (and that wasn’t a five-minute job either) and I’ve also built a simple page on Facebook for Radio Anglais. It’s high time that I sorted something out for this and did a little advertising. It seems that Social Media is the way to go these days.

And did I mention Strider? He is of course a Ranger, the Ford Ranger that I own in Canada and whom I shall be making much use of. I was speaking to an insurance company in Canada today on the telephone and they have sorted out some insurance for me. That’s that bit resolved and all Strider needs now is a safety check (that’s pretty much a formality) and then I can register him in my name – especially as I now have an address in Canada thanks to Service New Brunswick.

I’ve had Rosemary on the telephone twice today. The first time for a really good chat which was very nice, and the second time it was a very delighted and enthusiastic Rosemary who called with a little good news. Ages ago I bought a cheap electric pump to pump out the water from the inspection pit and it worked in spades. Rosemary was impressed and bought one to use in her well.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … with all of the dry weather that we have been having, her water butts are empty and so she set to pump up some water from the well with her pump. And so impressed is she with the result that she rang me up to tell me.

I’ve spent much of the afternoon searching again – for the plastic vent covers for the air holes that i’ll be cutting in the bathroom door. I know that I have them, and they were in the bedroom until I emptied it out in February.

Then, I put them somewhere safe so that they won’t be broken, and that is that. Disappeared off the face of the earth. They’ll turn up on Monday though – that I’ll promise you because on Saturday I’ll be buying some more so that I’m not held up.

door shuts cut down floorboard les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn the meantime, talking of cutting, I cut down a floorboard into 25mm strips with the table-top saw and sanded down the edges with the belt sander. With the strips, I made all of the door jambs for the shower room door and the window frame above, and nailed them into position.

I’ve also fitted some quarter-round beading in the corner between the bedroom door and the shower room door so that part is finished too.

Tomorrow, always assuming that I don’t find the missing vents, I’ll be starting on the false ceiling in the shower room. I must remember to cut the holes for the lights and also for the shelf support. And to connect up the final bit of wiring that needs to be done there.

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Wednesday 1st July 2015 – NOW, HERE’S A THING

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a solar shower. It’s an old enamel shower base with a wooden frame built around it and infilled with corrugated plastic roofing sheets. On top of it is a black plastic box filled with water and connected to a shower standpipe and covered with an old caravan window.

It all sits outside absorbing the heat from the sun and a couple of times a week I can have a shower. Some times though, I have to put a few litres of hot water into it to bring up the water to a comfortable temperature.

Today, though, this was the first time, so my records tell me, that I have EVER had to put cold water into it in order to cool it down to a comfortable temperature. It’s thoroughly crazy, this temperature. And even with the cold water in there, it was still flamin’ ‘ot.

Mind you, it wasn’t like that this morning. It was all overcast and cloudy. Not good weather at all, even though it was hot. And I’d left the electricity on all night and had the fan going in the bedroom to cool me down while I slept.

I was on my travels too. back at school, school uniform and all. Properly back at school although, strangely enough, I didn’t recognise any of my fellow pupils. One person who was there though was Zero whom I mentioned the other day. What’s she doing at my school?

This morning after breakfast I cracked on with the radio programmes – doing the additional notes for the Radio Arverne sessions. The first lot is half-done and I’ll finish off the rest tomorrow. Then I can start on the second show.

And ironically, by pure and utter coincidence, a major topic has appeared right out of nowhere and landed on my laptop as it were. Something very important and very topical. “A sign from the Gods” I said, and stashed it away ready for use in a week or so.

I was interrupted by the postie who brought me my circular saw. “What happened yesterday?” I asked her, and she gave me a blank look. It seems that although La Poste promises to deliver on a certain date, it receives the parcels at the central tri, in my case at St Eloy, but they don’t come out to the Post Office at Pionsat until the following day. Meantime, to cover their tracks with Amazon, they pretend to have delivered the products the previous day.

Thoroughly dishonest.

After lunch, I attacked the bathroom door. It’s now sanded down so that it fits, a washer stuck in between the top and bottom halves of the hinges so that it doesn’t scrape the floor, and the mortise latch for the door is now fitted and the handles are attached.

Even more so, the closer in the door frame has been chiseled out and the closer frame fitted, so we now have a door that opens and closes properly. This really is progress.

Tomorrow I have to drill out the bottom of the door for the air vent and cut down a floorboard or two to make all of the door jambs. When that’s all done, I can mask everywhere off and varnish all of the wood.

But it is so impressive, this door. I’m well-pleased with that.

Then I had my shower, and went off to Marcillat. It seems that I’ve been co-opted onto the management committee of Radio Tartasse and I’m not sure why. Clearly something’s afoot, and I’m not talking about that thing on the end of my leg either.

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Saturday 27th June 2015 – OOOHHHH!

fitting shower room door les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, this is rather unexpected isn’t it?

It’s not very often that you catch me working on the house on a Saturday, but here you are. We now have a shower room door in place.

It needs sanding down in a couple of places and lifting a little on the hinges but otherwise it’s not too bad a fit. Not the best that I have done, especially after all of the effort that I have put into it, but it will fit, and close too.

I’ll finish it off on Tuesday and then give it first (of three) coats of varnish.

Apart from that, I had a real struggle this morning. I was up early this morning but then crashed out in my armchair until 11:28 when someone phoned me. Had the phone not rung, I’d probably be there now still. I put it down to my voyages during the night. It was a huge forest and someone wandering about there came across the body of a man who had disappeared three years ago. The body was in a dreadful state and it quite upset the person who found it.

Next to disappear was me. I was burnt to ashes but part of my kidney survived and was posted back to me with a label attached (you can forget about all kinds of logic in these voyages)

Finally, a young girl with whom I worked 30-odd years ago -she was the next to disappear and we had to rescue her before she was murdered too.

It’s strange really. The first part of all of this relates to a case in the media yesterday where, in an apartment in caring, sharing Britain, the body of an old man was discovered. He’d been dead in there for three years, and it shows you how much his family, friends and neighbours cared about himthat even in a block of flats, no-one took any notice or interest about him and the seemingly-abandoned apartment.

The second part of course is a reference to Jack the Ripper. He sent to the police part of a kidney believed to come from one of his victims, with a label attached with the aim of taunting the police.

The third part, though – what’s this all about? I haven’t wasted one second thinking about this girl since the day that I moved on from that employment. How come she appeared?

At least, I managed to attend to the door before lunch and that really was my aim.

This afternoon, I attacked the website and began to sort out the images and the text from my Canada 2014 journey. High time I did that, as it seems that whatever I did earlier won’t ever surface off the disk of the old laptop. That looks like it’s irrevocably gone unfortunately.

Apart from that, I’ve had a good chat with Rosemary and Cécile this afternoon. It’s nice to talk to friends.

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Friday 26th June 2015 – DUNNO …

rotten sills nissan 4x4 st eloy les mines puy de dome france… who does the controle techniques around here but I hope it’s not the guy who does the controle techniques on Caliburn.

I’m the first to admit that I used to have cars with sills like this, but that was 25 years ago in another life and things were so much different in those days. I didn’t think that you would go very far with a car like this these days.

I’ve been out and about doing my shopping this evening. I know that I said that I would go to Montlucon tomorrow but I’ve ordered my circular saw by post and I don’t really need the tiles next week as I still haven’t finished the door, and then I have the ceiling to do, and I had forgotten about that.

What with having Monday off to go a-radioing, which means that I’ll have to do about 150 miles with a quarter of a tonnes of tiles in the back of Caliburn and before I go to Montlucon to buy the tiles, to empty Caliburn of all of the stuff that’s still in there.

For all of those reasons, I’ve postponed my trip to Montlucon until next weekend.

This morning, I was up early yet again and after breakfast, carried on with my website for a couple of hours. And it made me realise that I seem to have slipped rather unconsciously back into how I used to be when I lived in Belgium – doing the writing stuff in the morning before getting on with the heavy work in the afternoon. Especially as, these last few days, I’ve had the coffee machine bubbling away through the morning, such has been the amount of solar energy that I’ve received.

I’ve fitted all of the hinges to the door now and had a go at hanging it. It’s certainly the most difficult door that I have ever hung, even though I’ve taken more time over this than I have over any other door that I’ve hung.

The door wasn’t quite right – or to be more accurate, the floor isn’t quite right and the door is fouling.

using aluminium guide to cut bottom off shower room door les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve had to cut off 4mm from the foot of the door and that’s not easy without a circular saw. I’ve done it by hand with the rough-cut saw and you can see how I’ve done it.

I use a length of aluminium in “L” section as a guide, clamped to the surface and then I saw along the guide. It’s not too bad actually although it takes quite a while to do it.

I’ve not re-tried the door yet. I’ve drilled and chiselled it out for the mortice closer. I had to hunt around for one of those because there were none in the house. In the end I found three in the barn, one of which didn’t have a lock so I’m using that. Instead, I’ll fit a little bolt on the inside of the door. I mean, there’s only me who lives here so it doesn’t really make much difference.

I could have finished the door if I had had another hour or so to work, but I was distracted.

I ended up on the phone to Canada for ages. I need to register Strider (my Ford Ranger) in Canada and for that I need an insurance policy and an address. This meant hassling Service New Brunswick – it’s been four years since I first applied for a street address for my parcel of land at Mars Hill Road. Anyway, after much binding in the marsh, I now have an address and I can progress.

At the insurance company, they were rather bewildered. They haven’t had a request like mine before – a person with a foreign driving licence wishing to insure a Canadian vehicle in Canada. They eventually decided to go away and discuss things with their Head Office and see what happens. I have to phone them back on Tuesday.

And then, with going shopping, I checked the temperature in the solar shower. 37.5°C with no added hot water and that was perfect. At 17:45 then I had a glorious hot shower and it was lovely. And then I could wander off into St Eloy and the shops.

So you see what I mean about being distracted, as well as needing an extra hour to finish off.

I might even have a go at it tomorrow.

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Thursday 25th June 2015 – I’VE NOT HAD A VERY GOOD DAY TODAY

My little circular saw has packed up today, which is something of a minor disaster. The bearings on the rotor have gone and so the blade won’t turn even though the motor is going round. And the big old one that I have from years ago, that’s not doing anything at all.

All of this is rather unfortunate as I was in the middle of trimming down the door for the shower room. The Ryobi Plus-One circular saw cut some more but then the lithium batteries went flat (no hope of the old ni-cads powering the saw) so in the end I had to fit a guide and then finish cutting it down with a rough-cut handsaw and tidying up with the belt sander.

That was all rather a shame as I was well on my way to finishing the fitting of the door. I could have had it hanging tonight if everything had gone as planned. As it is, it’s going to take a while to finish off now.

I’m disappointed about the saw. It’s a little 650-watt machine that runs perfectly off my solar power system – most of the other ones are far too powerful and consume too much energy. I’ve had this little one for quite a few years and it’s done me proud. I’m not sure where I’ll be able to find another one like it.

This morning I was up yet again before the alarm and managed a good morning on the internet. I’ve restarted the web site again seeing as how I’ve finished (for now) the radio stuff and I want to catch up, seeing as how I’ve done next-to-nothing on it for ages and there’s a lot to do.

cutting lets fitting hinges door frame shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce I’d organised that, I went off and cut the lets for the hinges into the door frame. That took ages and I had to sharpen the chisels a couple of times. This floorboarding that I’m using to make the door frames is pretty tough stuff.

And then we had the saw issues.

I’ll have to see what I can find on Saturday when I head off to Montlucon for the tiles. If there is one about anywhere, it will be in Montlucon.

UPDATE
Having a look on Amazon, there’s a 600-watt circular saw on special offer at €62:95 – and it’s a Bosch. If I’m going to have low-powered lightweight tools for what I’m doing, I’ll probably be better-off with something high-quality like a Bosch rather than a cheap generic model at half-price, and so I’ve placed my order.

It’ll be here on Tuesday. I hope that I will be too.

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Wednesday 24th June 2015 – MANY YEARS AGO …

… I was engaged for a short while to a girl called Liz (you’ve no idea how many people called Liz have featured in my life). It didn’t last too long, mainly for the reason that I wasn’t ready for such a commitment – and I’m probably still not ready even now.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … last night when I was on my nocturnal ramblings, we met up again and resolved to get back together. We arranged to meet up at a park entrance somewhere but we didn’t think about which particular entrance. It was a huge park too, with quite a few entrances so I was constantly driving from one entrance to the next to see if I could find her. Also featuring in this voyage were a very old friend of mine and his wife, a woman with whom I don’t particularly see eye-to-eye. They were constantly interrupting me as I was driving around and I was starting to panic that I would never ever meet up with Liz at this rate (and indeed I didn’t)

What was strange about this is that I was reading a story last night, just before I went to bed, about a couple who had rekindled their relationship after 22 years apart. And it also brought to my mind an occasion in the mid 1990s when I had to meet someone at an Underground station in London, but there were so many exits to this station that we didn’t meet up. However, I’d given no thought at all to this ever since – until I awoke this morning.

What this couple were doing in this story I really don’t know. But it’s bizarre that these couple of events in real life should become entangled in one of my nocturnal voyages.

With all of this going on, I was up and about at about 06:50, long before the alarm went off. And after breakfast I cracked on with the radio programme. It’s all done now, all 7,000-odd words of it. 41kbs that works out at, or about 13 weeks of text discussion. That should really keep me out of mischief for a while.

door frame shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the door frame, that’s not only started but finished (please excuse the photo – the flash on this phone-cam is not up to all that much). I cut down a couple of floorboards with the table-top saw (which struggled with this -the poor thing couldn’t quite manage properly) and I found an offcut in the barn that I cut down to give me all that I needed.

There’s a batten in there too. That’s for a shelf support as there is going to be a shelf there and that’s where the towels will live. I didn’t have a batten that size but when I installed the flying staircase down to the ground floor, I just used chevrons in a standard length for the columns without regard to what was actually needed. Cutting one down to size gave me more than enough to make the batten.

I just had to sand it down, and the new belt sander that I bought a couple of months ago did that for me.

I was so engrossed by this that I hadn’t noticed the time and it was 19:25 by the time that I knocked off. Really carried away, I was.

So tomorrow, I might have a go at fitting the hinges for the door, and then cutting the door down to fit. I’d love to have that fitted and working by the end of the week.

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23rd June 2015 – WE ARE RADIOING …

… next Monday. I had completely forgotten about it and so I need to get a wiggle on. It’s a good job that I had a few days on it earlier in the month in order to get ahead, otherwise I would be starting to struggle right now.

Consequently this mornng, I sat down and dashed off another 2000 words for our next hot topic. That makes about 25kb, which is about 5,000 words and at about 3kb per 5-minute segment, this is enough for 8 weeks. There’s plenty more where this came from too so with a bit of luck, God’s help and a Bobby, this might do until I return from Canada, with what is already in the pipeline. It means that I just have to do the additional notes and the dialogue for the rock music programmes.

At midday I reckoned that I had done enough for today and so I went into the shower room and measured up the inserts of the window frame in order to cut some plasterboarding. That wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been either. I mentioned the other day that with the house being an old fieldstone house, nothing is plumb and the walls are not parallel. It’s all kinds of shapes and so was this plasterboard that I had to cut. And I didn’t have any pieces long enough so I’ve had to join a couple of offcuts on either side;

I fitted a 20mm batten on one wall, a thickness that last night was perfectly correct. Through the night however, the wall has expanded and so the plasterboard is proud of the piece against which it is supposed to abut. I had a dsperate hunt around in the shed and in the end came across a length of 10mm hardboard from when we did the roof here in 2009. That needed drilling, shaping and fixing to the wall instead of the 20mm batten.

dot and db plasterboard wedged counter battens les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch, during which I treated myself to yet another electric coffee, I fitted the plasterboarding to the walls. It’s screwed at one end to the battens and at the other end (ap against the window) it’s been “dot-and-dabbed”. I managed to find my plasterboarding cement after all. The glued ends are wedged up to the walls with counter-battens which will give it an “incentive” to stick. It needs to stick well because it’s going to have tiles fastened to it and “dot-and-dab” isn’t the strongest method of fastening it.

Still plenty of time left and so I’ve been fitting the roof rails for the suspended ceiling. I’ve even put an extra longitudinal support in pace because, even though it’s only lightweight tongue-and-grooving that I’ll be using, a span of 1450mm is too long, especially in humid conditions, and the ceiling might warp.

And tomorrow? I really WILL start on this door frame. I promise.

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Monday 22nd June 2015 – BACK TO WORK …

… although I didn’t feel much like it. I didn’t have anything like a late night, but it was still difficult to crawl out of bed.

After breakfast, I did a pile of work on the computer again and that took me though to midday. And then I attacked the shower room.

worktop sink tap shower room les guis virlet puy de dome france The worktop is now in position, and all of the plasterboard has been fitted around it (except on the stud wall where the pipes will be running).

And I remembered why I hadn’t fitted the mounting rail on one side too. That was because there isn’t enough room to manoeuvre the worktop into position with both mounting rails in place. I had to take it out, fit the worktop and then refit the rail

But tiling the walls is going to be interesting. According to the plasterboard that I have fitted, the walls are out of plumb bu 25mm over a distance of a metre. So with 18m² of wall to tile, you can imagine what that is going to look like when it’s finished.

There were some bits of blank wall that needed plasterboarding too, and I had forgotten about these. I’ve made a start on them – one part has been done and I’m fitting the studding for the second. The third doesn’t need studding but just a bit of “dot and dab” – I’m sure that I have some stuff for that somewhere, and I’ll look tomorrow.

Water in the home-made immersion heater was really hot – off the scale in fact – and the water in the solar shower was at 32.5°C. 8 litres of water out of the immersion heater into the solar tank took that up to a glorious 38.5°C and I had the best shower that I have had for ages. But the wiring on the immersion heater is heating up again. I’m really going to have to have a good look at this next time we have a grey day.

Later, I made a mega-red pepper and lentil curry, enough for four days. Three says’ worth has gone into the fridge in the vacuum jars and that will keep me going quite happily for the next few days.

But I might not be working here tomorrow. Rob rang up and there’s the possibility of some folding stuff for the next few days.

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Friday 19th JUne 2015 – I’VE HAD AN INTERESTING DAY

I was actually working this morning when the alarm went off at 08:00. That’s not something that happens every day, so you need to make a note of it. I did!

I was putting the coat of varnish on the underside of the shower-room worktop. The top coat was dry from yesterday evening so I could run it over and begin. I wanted to do that as early as possible so that it would be dry by the end of the afternoon.

Back up here after breakfast, and seeing as I was on a roll, I did another live concert for Radio Anglais, editing and engineering it to make a continuous stream. Now I don’t know why it is but sometimes I’m there for days and I can’t ever set the joins correctly. At other times, it’s as if the joints go together automatically with only the most minimal effort, and today was one of those days.

The only real problem that I did have was with the original engineering and I found myself at times editing out the faults in the original mixing. One was particularly troublesome but I managed to overdub the following track and fade out the previous track where I’d overdubbed it, so that the annoying click is inaudible. Studying the waveforms of the two tracks, you can usually find a length in each tracks that is pretty much identical, and you can superimpose them at that position.

I’ve also restarted a radio project that I had begun in 2013 but with all of the issues that I was having in that year, I had set aside. I’ll tell you more about it at a later date when it’s complete (whenever that might be) but I need some info from Radio Tartasse that won’t be available until the end of the month.

After lunch, I found to my delight that the worktop was dry. So I could turn it back over and put the second coat on the top. This is bang on plan as the second coat always takes ages to dry and it can stay like that until Monday now.

I tidied up the shower room, brushed everything up and removed the debris. It’s looking quite tidy in there now, for a change. I’ve also fitted the missing mounting rail for the worktop (I should have done that yesterday but I forgot) and then I measured up the doorway so that I can make a start in making the door frame on Monday.

This evening it was shopping in St Eloy-les-Mines and if there was a big queue at the checkouts, I was in it. One of those days.

I didn’t buy anything extra, except for the strawberries. A huge punnet for €1:99 and the ones that I ate tonight (there’s enough for three or four days) were delicious. Well, i did have some soya cream that needed using up.

And seeing as how there were no yellow paper collecting bags out on the streets in Montaigut last week, I imagined that tonight would be collection night so I took all of mine down there. But there were none about so it can’t be every fortnight like it is in most places. But the two slugs and a snail enjoyed the run out anyway.

And now, just for a change, I’m going to have a very early night. My efforts this morning have caught me up.

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Thursday 18th June 2015 – I’M FED UP …

… with this weather.

It started off okay this morning but it clouded over slowly as the day progressed and by the time it was going dark it was teeming down with rain again. It’s really getting on my nerves. I recon that during the last week we’ve had more than 150mm (6 inches) of rain.

I had another morning spent on the computer dealing with these hardware issues that I’ve been having. I’m still nowhere near fixing them but I’m not ‘arf learning a lot on my way around.

enlarged holes in stud wall for pipework shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs far as working on the house went, I’ve finished drilling and enlarging all of the holes for the pipework in the stud wall. There were a couple more holes that I had forgotten and so I drilled those too.

I then turned my attention to the worktop.

That has now been completely drilled out for the pipes. Then I measured all up for fitting the sink and the tap. All of the holes have been drilled for them now (and I spent some time trying to take off the holecutter from the spindle – that wasn’t easy either) and the top surface has now had the first coat of wood treatment. It looks quite nice, but it’s still too dark if you ask me.

Tomorrow first thing I’ll do the underside of the worktop and then towards the end of the day I’ll put the second coat on the top surface. In between times, I’ll have a go at attacking the door frame and see where that takes me.

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Wednesday 17th June 2015 – I’VE BEEN DRILLING ….

holse chasing drilling for water pipes les guis virlet puy de dome france… for most of the afternoon.

I need to route all of the water pies – the cold water in, the hot water in, the hot and cold out and the hot and cold central heating – around the house, and where the water tanks will be going is in the attic right above the shower. The shower room and the kitchen where the sink will be are right in a vertical row one under the other, and so I’m planning to route all of the pipework down the inside of the stud wall.

The central heating is a later addition to the plan, and as well as that, I’d only made provision for the other water pipes in the top rails of the stud wall. Hence, there were 22 holes to cut and I’ve done 18 of them this afternoon.

As we’ve actually had some good weather today, I’ve resurrected the little 330-watt mains drill and that has made rather short and effortless work of the drilling.

Or it would have done, but I soon discovered why I hadn’t used it for years. The on-off switch is broken and so the drill is permanently “on”. That makes for some interesting moments when I’m starting off with the drilling.

I’ll finish all of this tomorrow and then I can finish off with the plan to fit the worktop. I might even have finished it off today but I crashed out for an hour – and I mean crashed out too. I was well-done.

This morning I started on my website, trying to resurrect all of the notes that I have lost, and that’s not easy. It’s going to be a lot of work and I’m not looking forward to doing it all again.

After that, I’ve been working in the garden. Yes, even though I said I wouldn’t this year.

But this was urgent as I had a load of stuff, including the beichstuhl, to take down to the compost heap. But I couldn’t get down there, seeing as the weeds, brambles and everything else have totally overwhelmed it. And so for a good hour and a half I was hacking my way down there.

But in a change, I’ve put the smaller container, the 15-litre one – in the beichstuhl. This will mean that it will have to be emptied more often, as it will fill up quicker, and that suits me fine. It’ll keep the compost bin turning over and keep the shower room healthier.

As it’s sitting low in the box, I’ve propped it up by taking the telephone directories upstairs and put them underneath the container. That raises it up and that’s much better. I’ve also put the bin bags and the shredder upstairs too so it’s all to hand.

And so I’ve had an easy night tonight. Day 2 of the aubergine and kidney bean casserole that I made yesterday and forgot to mention.

I was on my travels during the night – or, rather I wasn’t for I was here. Someone with whom I used to be very friendly back a few years ago was here too and we were watching my ocean-going yacht arriving down the little lane here. It took hours for them to unload it – in fact they still hadn’t finished by the time that I woke up, even though this guy had gone downstairs earlier to chivvy them up.

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Tuesday 16th June 2015 – NOW THAT I’VE FINISHED …

beichstuhl composting toilet les guis virlet puy de dome france… working on the corner where the beichstuhl is, I can post a couple of photos of it so that you can see what I’ve been doing.

That’s the worktop that I’ve been building just there. The container for the composting toilet is where you might expect it to be, and at the side is the container where the sawdust and wood-ash is kept. There’s a ladle in there for dispensing the sawdust and wood-ash.

The three contents combined (sawdust, wood-ash and the contents of a composting toilet used by someone with a vegan diet) contain all of the elements for making a first-class compost if it’s left to stand for a year or so. That’s why I have two compost bins down at the bottom of the garden. One is “working” and the other one is “standing”.

As for the container, it’s one of these huge stainless steel jam-boilers, about 25 litres of it, and complete with stainless steel lid. It’s lined with a bio-degradable dustbin liner and then a thick layer of shredded paper (I use old telephone directories as the paper is super-absorbent) to soak up any liquids.

les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the upper part, you can see the two shelves that I have fitted in place. One shelf is for what I call the “bathroom books” and the upper shelf is for the supplies of toilet paper and the like.

Storage space is quite important around here, seeing as how there is so much stuff that I seem to have accumulated. I can never have too much of that.

I have to fit the suspended ceiling (which won’t be for quite a while yet) and then it will be ready for tiling.

So having done that, I toot out the worktop for the sink. That had been propped into position merely to give me a kind-of workbench. Once I had done that, I had to reposition the mounting rails.

You may remember that I was planning an inset sink, but the old worktop wouldn’t support the weight of the sink once I had cut the hole in it. Hence I’m going for the type of sink that sits on top of the worktop, and this means that the height of the worktop needs to be lowered by 150mm so that the sink is at the same height.

I’ve also been drilling out the rails in the stud wall between the shower and the sink worktop so that the water pipes will pass down there out of the way.

I would have done much more too, except that I had to spend an hour or so in the barn looking for wood to make the new rails. I need to spend some time tidying up in there, although I’m not sure whenever that might happen.

And what else?

We had another bad weather day today. A hanging cloud everywhere this morning, and this in mid-June too. All miserable, wet and depressing.

I’ve been working on the laptop too, and found another technical forum that looks quite helpful, so I’ve posted on there to ask whether anyone has any ideas about whether it might be possible to extract the data from this failed hard drive.

I doubt it, but it costs nothing to try.

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Monday 15th June 2015 – IN THE 20 HOURS …

… between my going out late last night to take the stats and going out this evening for something to drink, we’ve had a mere 48.5mm of rainfall. and it’s been raining ever since as well.

That makes about 120mm in the last four days and that’s an astonishing amount. We’ll all be washed away if it carries on like this.

This morning after breakfast I carried on with the internet stuff that I hadn’t finished yesterday. I’ve made a list of all of the bands that have impressed me at the Fredericton Jazz and Blues Festivals that I’ve attended, traced as many as I could on the internet, and sent them a mail to ask them if there was a live concert recorded that I could use on the radio. This is something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, and I’ve finally made a start. And already, I’ve had two positive replies.

While I was rooting around with all of that paperwork on Saturday I came across a mirror. I nice bulls-eye mirror with a brass surround rather like a ship’s porthole. Someone gave it to me when I had my first house in Winsford and it’s followed me around Europe ever since. It’s finally found a permanent home on the first floor landing here and good luck to it.

I’ve also extended the light circuit here. On the ground floor where my workshop is, there’s only one light – a 4-watt LED and that’s by the front door. The rear part of the house is quite dark and it’s not so easy to see there when one is working, especially in the gloomy conditions of the last few days.

There was a light with a long lead that I used when I was working in the bedroom before I installed the permanent lights there. So today, I stripped off the plug and wired it into the lighting circuit downstairs. That’s given me much more useful light down there, even if it is just a 1-watt LED.

I’ve found a pine off-cut that’s fine for the upper shelf over the beichstuhl. I cut that to shape and varnished both sides. Tomorrow morning early I’ll put the second coat on the shelf and then that will be ready to fit.

This afternoon I’ve been cutting and fitting plasterboard for the beichstuhl corner. I’ve fitted what I can fit and I’ll do the rest when the shelf is in position. Then, I can take out the worktop where the sink will be, drill it for the sink waste-pipe and the taps and then varnish it. While it’s drying, I’ll fit the mounting rails in the correct place and then install the worktop correctly.

Then, I can start on fitting the door frame.

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Friday 12th June 2015 – I DUNNO WHAT HAPPENED …

… to my motivation today. After crowing about it for so long yesterday, that was really tempting fate because all of my get-up-and-go had got up and gone.

I struggled to find the motivation to continue with this radio programme that I’ve been writing. I only managed about 500 words today and that took me right up until lunchtime.

And I had an early start this morning too. Up and about for the usual reasons, as anyone of my age will tell you, I reckoned that if it was after 07:00 I wouldn’t go back to bed. So there I was, eating my breakfast and drinking my coffee at all of 07:13.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. I was still at school but somehow had managed to find a pass to allow me to enter into the local University. The date was valid but the bar-code didn’t work so whenever I went there I had to rely on someone else around to open the door for me. However, it did occur to me that with the date being valid I could get the Secretariat to re-validate the bar-code. However that was running a risk that they might ask for identification and then I would lose the card and the “power” of admission. There was such a lot going on there that it was well-worth keeping the card going. Meals in the refectory were good value too and last night I was there at a table with a group of students. I said that I was going up there to fetch some food, and everyone else asked me to bring stuff back with me. By the time that I returned to my table I was loaded up like a Pioneer’s donkey and performing all kinds of balancing acts.

So after lunch and another crash out, I cut another piece of plasterboard. This needed to be shaped because it is the piece that fits around the air vent pipe, so it took quite a while. But once that was in place, I refitted the rails for the false ceiling. With different plasterboard, a different stud wall by the beichsthul and so on, two of the rails needed re-cutting and shaping and that took a while too.

Consequently it doesn’t look as if I’ve done very much today.

I had a good wash and went to St Eloy for the shopping. But there was nothing special to buy and I wasn’t there long.

I’m going for an early night now and tomorrow I might cut the second shelf for above the beichstuhl. Then I can finish the remaining walls around there and then remove the rubbish.

And I’m glad that I sleep in the bedroom now. There’s a terrific rainstorm crashing down on the roof of the house right now.

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Thursday 11th June 2015 – I DUNNO …

… what’s happened this last day or two, but today I’ve had another roaring day with the Radio programmes. In the space of two and a half hours, I sat down and dashed off 2000 words on taxation. And that includes having to read a taxation document written in official French and to translate it in my head as I’ve been going along.

So that’s not like me at all just recently given my lengthy spell of lethargy.

I had a very late night as well and struggled to leave my bed this morning. For the first half hour or so I was all ready to go back to bed, and that’s what makes this morning’s efforts all that more remarkable.

composting toilet beichstuhl fitted installed shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’m glad that I chose light oak for the preparation of the surfaces of the oak worktops that I bought in Eching. I shudder to think how it might have turned out had I bought mid-oak or dark oak.

For the kitchen, I’m going to try to find a transparent surface treatment if I can. The stuff that I have is nothing like as good as this stuff that I bought.

But it has turned out rather well – you can’t deny the quality of the stuff. And here’s the worktop for the beichstuhl all in position with the fitted hinge on the lid covering the sawdust container and also with the bracket and peg to hold the lunette in position.

It’s all worked out rather well.

This afternoon I’ve been plasterboarding, spending much of the time trying to extract the plasterboard sheets from the back of the pile. But anyway, they are out and I’ve now plasterboarded the back wall and half of the wall to the left on the stud wall.

I’ve also fitted the shelf for the “bathroom books”

Tomorrow I’ll hopefully finish the plasterboarding in that corner and then I can start to empty more of the rubbish out of the shower room.

That will give me much more room to work.

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