Tag Archives: st eloy les mines

Friday 24th April 2015 – APART FROM HAVING …

… to leave my nice comfortable bed for obvious reasons during the night, I had the best night’s sleep that I have had for a century. It was wonderful.

I was out like a light, and was off on my travels too. I was at a Gothic cathedral somewhere in the UK auditioning singers to choose one to front a huge concert and trade show. And after having listened to all of them, I had the very disappointing task of announcing that there wasn’t one of them sufficiently good to be given the task. That was not a popular decision by any means.

From there, I went with Liz to the Trade Show. It was in a new all-glass exhibition hall and was on several floors, and packed to the gunwhales with people. We spent our time wandering around the mezzanine between the first and second floor looking at all the technology stands.

After breakfast I finished off the rock music radio programmes for the month of June, and then attacked the shower room. I’ve assembled the stud wall and screwed it into position. And I was right too – it’s much more solid than its predecessor.

I had to cut down a sheet of plasterboard while it was standing upright. I didn’t think that this would be very easy at all, to say the least, but clamping a long and heavy straight-edge in position where I wanted to cut – that simplified the task considerably and it’s not all that much more difficult than cutting it when its lying down on its back. It’s amazing how your technique adjusts itself when necessity is driving you forward.

So having screwed the first piece or two back on, I’ve made a start on constructing the new beichstuhl. This is going to be a permanent fixture instead of a “thunder box”, but the container can lift out and be taken downstairs to be emptied all the same.

I went to St Eloy for shopping this evening. There was no-one there whom I knew, and it was a comparatively cheap trip (apart from the fact that I treated myself to a couple of things in the “reduced” box).

And that is that. I’m off now for an early night in my lovely comfortable bed. It really is the business and I keep on sticking my head in there during the day, just to admire my handiwork.

That’s definitely a sign of contentment and, strange as it may seem to say it, I’m glad that I didn’t do it earlier as my technique a couple of years ago was nothing like what it is now. This is one of the reasons why I’ve dismantled the shower room and started again, and I do wish that I could restart the attic from scratch. Compared to the bedroom, the attic is something of a shambles.

I would love to do it all again.

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Friday 17th April 2015 – SO …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Friday 10th April 2015 – I HAD AN UNEXPECTED …

… day off work today.

But that was partly because I had an expected visitor, in that Liz came round to inspect the premises at lunchtime. Consequently I had to spend the morning tidying up. It certainly made quite a difference, and you can actually see the top of the table now, as well as the coffee table.

A job well-done.

Liz thought so too – she was quite impressed with what I’ve done so far (and so am I of course) and then we had a coffee and a long chat.

After she had gone, I installed the new Livebox and, as I expected, it didn’t go anything like according to plan (mainly due to the fact that the screenshots in the destruction manual were nothing like what I had on my screen). This meant a phone call to Orange, and that was the end of the early afternoon.

Still, the thing is working now, and it does seem to be faster, which is good news. maybe they weren’t wrong about upgrading the phone lines.

All of this meant that I had a very late lunch – more of an early tea really – and it wasn’t worth starting work after that. I had a play on the internet instead.

At 18:00 I went into St Eloy les Mines and did the shopping, bumping into the Laotian girl whom I know (and whose name I have forgotten) and also Desirée, both of whom were doing their shopping. We had a bit of rain too, but nothing to worry about.

second hand ford ranger 4x4 for sale montaigut en combraille puy de dome franceDriving past the big car sales place in Montaigut, I noticed that they had a Ford Ranger for sale, just like the one that I own in Canada. So I went over for a wander.

And it’s astonishing. It’s 3 years older than mine, with a much lower spec, yet they want almost twice as much money for it than I paid for mine. Still, the more that I see of them, the more that I like tham and I hope that I’m not going to be disappointed with mine.


And here’s something to record. With the temperature up here in my attic yesterday reaching 23°C and looking like it might be just as hot today, I’ve opened the skylights in the roof.

First time this year, too. It’ll be nice sleeping in here with a little breeze sweeping around the room.

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Friday 3rd April 2014 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… day today. A nice day off for Good Friday and I did almost exactly – NOTHING.

Mind you, I did get off to a bad start. Wide awake and up and about – and it wasn’t even 08:00 either. What a way to start a Bank Holiday.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. I’d been out with Terry towing a trailer that was in fact a tanker with a load of some liquid or other. We’d finished the job and the tank had been removed, well on time but we couldn’t take the trailer back as it needed to be cleaned. I nipped off to fetch Caliburn and ended up walking through this old Medieval town with Liz and Terry. We walked past my youngest siser’s house and there she was, having trouble with an infestation of crabs in her garden pond.

At this stage Liz and Terry transformed themselves into my elder sister and her husband and while they were chatting to my youngest sister, I went into a pub in the town centre, where I bumped into my brother. Even though I was walking through the town drinking from a pint of beer, I grabbed a quick half in this pub. And then dashed out where I bumped into my elder sister and her husband again.

Yes – my family appearing in my nocturnal ramblings. This is a first. I wonder what on earth was going on here.

north west river labrador canadaSo spending most of the day on my website where I’m at North-West River. That’s the farthest north in Labrador that it is possible to reach by the highway network and I was there in late September 2014.

I’ve been writing the story of Mina Hubbard, a woman whose husband was lost in the interior of Labrador, due mainly to his own stubbornness and stupidity. She was determined to complete his exploration and succeeded in becoming the first woman of European descent to make it overland to Ungava Bay.

I nipped out to St Eloy this evening to do my shopping. The big shops there don’t close until 19:30 so it means that I do have time to go there on Friday evenings even if I don’t knock off work until 18:00

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Thursday 2nd April 2015 – I’VE FINISHED …

… work for the next four days. Tomorrow is Good Friday and so I’m having an Easter Break. And I think that I deserve it too after the work that I’ve done so far this year.

I put my back into it today too. The living room is now emptied as far as I can reasonably empty it, and it’s now looking like it did last January and February after I had emptied it for the first time. Making a space in the barn to put everything was really a good move, although I’m not quite sure where i’m going to empty all of the rubbish. I’ll be dropping sacks off at each communal bin all the way to St Eloy.

It was all over by lunchtime too – a good couple of hours ahead of schedule. It’s not like me to be so far in advance, is it?

As a result, I had a couple of hours to spare and so I made a start on the lean-to – the one on the downhill side of the house. I’ve thrown out a good pile of stuff from there too, sorted out some space on the shelves for the gardening stuff and rearranged the gardening tools.

You can see floor in there too, and it’s been a long time since that happened.

I’d rounded up quite a pile of stray wood in there too (there’s still a huge mound of course that needs to be sorted) and that was just as well, for today has been horrible, cold and damp. Consequently, for warming up my tea tonight, I lit a wood fire up here. I may as well profit from the heat if I need it.

Now I’m off to bed. I’m going to have an early night to prepare myself for my nice long weekend off.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is going to take forever.

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

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

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

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Thursday 5th March 2015 – I DIDN’T QUITE MANAGE …

… to complete as much as I intended to do on the wardrobe today. I had the usual issues of working hard but making not much progress.

It took all morning to hang the two doors that I had made yesterday. Mind you, I spent some of the time having a good search around looking to see if I had any hinges lying around anywhere. I eventually found three in the barn. I must have bought those for some long-forgotten project, but they weren’t much good as they were left-hand hinges and too big in any case.

However I did find half a hinge in the house and this made a pair (or at least it will do when I find the other half) with a hinge that I had already, so I could at least do that. It also means that I don’t have to go on a shopping expedition to Montlucon on Saturday.

final door for wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch, I made the final door and for a change, I had a play with the cheap chop-saw that I bought agesa couple of years ago in the sales at Cheze in St Eloy-les-Mines. This did an excellent job, although it needs two cuts to cut the width of a floorboard (which is annoying) but never mind. I’ll be doing the floorboards with this.

While I was on my travels around, I tried to see if I could find the Ryobi portable router that I bought in the USA in 2012 but I’ve no idea where that might be. Not a trace.

The final door needed trimming down but once I’d done that it was quite a good fit and it’s all come out quite well.

all of the doors need trimming off of course, so I measured everything up ready to cut them down tomorrow. That ook me nicely up to 18:30 when I called it a day

During the night I was on my travels again, back in Crewe. We were living back in Davenport Avenue and there was quite a crowd of us there. We all had cars and the place was totally cluttered up with vehicles. Anyway, I went on the bus up Gresty Road and South Street and the bus turned right into Nantwich Road, towards the station. I realised that I should have alighted at the corner so I urgently rang the bell. The driver went to stop but of course there’s nowhere along there to stop (the bus was clearly driving on the right-hand side of the road) so the driver said that he would swing round into Pedley Street and come back round into Nantwich Road to drop me off. I told him not to bother as I was going to Pedley Street anyway, so I alighted then and there and went to a house where I cooked my pizza and chips. I somehow managed to burn my chips although my pizza wasn’t anything like nearly cooked. So I abandoned my tea that and went outside where I bumped into my friend Mandy, and we had quite a chat about the good old days.

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Tuesday 28th October 2014 – I HAD A SHOWER TODAY.

Well, it wasn’t actually too much of a shower but when I came back downstairs after lunch the temperature in the verandah was 24.2°C and the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that is the dump load for the overcharge on the solar panels had gone off the temperature scale ie over 70°C. Yes, over 100 amps of excess solar charge today.

I mixed 10 litres of water to 40°C and had a shower in the corner of the verandah. Nothing complicated – just a water jug and a large bucket of nice hot water but it didn’t half fetch me up nice and clean, just for a change, and in no time flat too.

And, yes, in the verandah too. Because this morning I was out there at 09:30 going through absolutely everything. I’ve made enormous headway in there, although it doesn’t look all that much different as you might expect. But the floor is clear now, hence the space to have a shower.

There is still a great deal to do in there however but the aim was to round up all of the loose paper that needs throwing out.

Having done that this morning, then this afternoon I went around the house and rounded up another pile of scrap paper, as well as all of the plastic bottles and tin cans as they can also go into the yellow sacks, according to the notice on the side of the sacks. This is an exciting discovery and saves me a journey down to the big dechetterie at St Eloy in the near future.

All in all, there are no less that 16 yellow sacks for me to take down to Pionsat tonight for the morning collection tomorrow and that’s really something. But it really doesn’t look much different here all the same.

Tomorrow, I’m going to start outside tomorrow, tidying up out there. I’ll have this place looking pretty even if it kills me, which it probably will.

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Friday 10th October 2014 – I MUST HAVE BEEN TIRED LAST NIGHT.

10:45 when I heaved myself out of the stinking pit, and had the ‘phone not rung downstairs at that time, I would probably still be there now. Terry said that he had never known anyone sleep that long, which just goes to show that he’s clearly not kept himself up-to-date with these pages, and that he’s never gone two days with just a fitful doze or two in between. But then again, my lifestyle has always been somewhat extreme compared to the norm, I suppose. Not many people would put up for a minute with what I do just for pleasure.

After breakfast, we had a long chat about things around here and when Liz came back we had lunch. Then, on their way to see Rob and Julie, they dropped me off here.

Caliburn started with just a glance at the ignition key – good old Caliburn – but we are having some issues here right now. I have (once again) left the fridge plugged in permanently while I was away, instead of in the overcharge circuit, and so with the bad weather for the last three or four days that they have had here, the batteries are right down. And with the forecast weather for the next few days, there won’t be much chance of topping things up for a while so I’ll be on short rations again. I really must remember to sort out the fridge properly each time that I go away. I did exactly the same thing last year, you might remember.

The battery in the laptop went flat after a couple of hours’ work and so I was wondering how to charge it up. By then of course, it was late afternoon and in the pouring rain I wasn’t going to be doing much else so the idea came to my mind to go to St Eloy to do my shopping. It would fill in the time this evening, save me a journey tomorrow, give Caliburn an airing and also charge up the laptop. Problem solved. Wasn’t I glad that I had bought that 12-volt charging lead a few months ago?

At LIDL I met Amondine from the Anglo-French group. She was there with her children doing her shopping and we had quite a chat. All in all, at the shops, I spent €21 for a week’s supply of food. That’s much more like old times.

Back here, the internet is down, so I discovered. Dunno what has happened here. I just did a few other bits and pieces and went for an early night. I’ll resolve this issue tomorrow.

Or maybe some other time.

I dunno.

But as Barry Hay once famously said at a concert at Scheveningen Beach, “I’ll tell you one thing, man. It’s good to be back home”.

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Sunday 3rd August 2014 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… afternoon out today. Rosemary rang up this morning for a good chat and so we agreed to meet up at St Eloy at 15:00.

At St Eloy we went to the cafe by the little beach at the lake and ended up staying there chatting until 20:00, such is the way of things. But it was lovely to get out and about for a change and the weather wasn’t quite as bad as it might have been.

Rosemary wasn’t the only one to phone up either. I had Julie on the phone for ages having a lengthy chat this morning too.

I had something of a restless night last night and was awake quite early. When I finally got out of bed it was only 08:40 and that was rather disappointing – so much for my nice Sunday lie-in.

After breakfast I finished off the tourism part of the Radio Anglais programmes and then hunted down some topics for the main text. I wrote two small articles that might do for three weeks or so – there’s planty of stuff in store that will fill in for the rest of the time.

I’ve also found another good topic that I can expand upon and if I do that next weekend I’ll be ahead again, which is where I want to be. I need to get ahead as much as I can with my impending voyage to the colonies.

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Saturday 12th July 2014 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day today. I was on my wanderings during the night although when I woke up, I couldn’t remember where I had been. And then after breakfast, I sat down and started on the next lot of radio programmes for Radio Anglais. However, my heart wasn’t in it and I didn’t stick it for long. I need to be much more resolute.

This afternoon I went to St Eloy to do the shopping and who should I bump into but Lieneke and Guus. They have apparently returned for the summer. We ended up having a good chat for quite a while.

Back here I crashed out for a while, then carried on reading Clay Blair and watched Austin Powers – International Man of Mystery

And that was that. And with Monday being a Bank Holiday, it’ll be like this for another two days as well.

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Tuesday 10th June 2014 – I MIGHT HAVE GUESSED …

… and indeed, to such an extent, that I told Terry that it was bound to happen.

And I was right too!

It’s been a year or so since the farmer who rents the next-door field has been here to bring his cattle to graze in here. And so today, for the first time that we have deposited a pile of objects in the lane in front of his gate, guess what happens?

Yes – the aforementioned farmer brings his cattle. It’s absolutely typical.

So this morning I was up early and went to St Eloy to buy the breeze blocks, but I came back empty-handed. In Brico Depot they are €1:15 each and I was prepared to pay a little extra for the convenience, but when Cheze wanted over €800 for 300, then they can forget that. Terry and I will be off to Brico Depot tomorrow to buy a van-load.

digging inspection pit les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo this is what we have been doing today. And while it’s a little short of the Empire Pool, it took about 6 hours of digging out with the digger, a pick and a shovel.

It’s not actually a swimming pool, but an inspection pit. All of my life I’ve been working on cars by lying on my back in the mud underneath cars on jacks, on axle stands or even propped up on bricks. But now that I’m settled here and can’t see myself moving on from here, I am going to treat myself to better working conditions.

I’ve always promised myself a pit, and I’m going to have one.

And this is it.

We had the power barrow here today as the floor is about finished in the Sankey trailer but i had to nip into Pionsat to buy some petrol. And while I was there I had to help a couple of young Dutch girls who were confounded by the petrol pump. Any excuse to practise my Flemish.

After Terry left, I had another shower and called it a day. Until the farmer came round.

But here’s a thing. And who says it never pays to complain?

You remember the Brico Depot incident the other day involving the trailer? Well, I left a polite but firm not telling them what I thought about my experience. And today, I had a phone call from the manager, something that I never expected. He gave me the usual platitudes, even telling me that he had rung round a few other branches to see if anyone else had a trailer left over.

Anyway, the upshot of this is that he’ll put my name on a trailer whenever the next batch is issued, and you can’t say fairer than that.

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Friday 6th June 2014 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… I was awake at 06:00 (and I don’t mean as in not gone to bed yet)? Anyway, so I was this morning, despite having been on my travels during the night.

And it was all to no avail as well because when I pulled into Brico Depot at 06:55, 5 minutes before opening time, there was already a packed car park and a queue of about 40 people at the door. And then at 07:00 they wheeled out the 4-wheel 1.5 tonne 4-wheeled close-coupled trailers for sand and gravel, that were on special offer at just €799. There was a total of 4 trailers and so that was that. I, and another 30-odd people, had had a wasted journey.

Not quite wasted though because I filled up Caliburn with everything that I might need for the next stage of the concreting (because there will be one) except for the 100mm breeze blocks, which I forgot. I also did a round of shopping, to save on going out tomorrow and at the Auchan I bumped into the Megemonts – a couple from Virlet. M Megemont is President of the Virlet Historical Society and mme Megemont is on the local council so I took the opportunity to ask her to send me anything that might be interesting for Radio Anglais.

I was back here for 15:00 for my butty and it’s clearly a case that Rosemary has a spy camera here as she phoned up the moment I set my foot in the door.

It was 20:00 when I went back outside to unload Caliburn. We had the hottest day of the year to daye and it was not possible to work outside. The temperature today reached 34.50C today.

So now I have the fan on here – the first time this year – and I’m off to bed in a minute. I hzve to start on the Radio Anglais programmes tomorrow.

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Wednesday 4th June 2014 – I WENT BACK …

… to Terry’s this morning.

Although I nearly didn’t. When I woke up this morning it was pouring down and wasn’t fit for anything. I had breakfast and wondered whether to carry on with the web pages but by then it had stopped raining so I headed off to Terry’s.

I checked the handbrake mechanism and the nearside seemed to be working fine but the offside not so, so I stripped down the brakes on that side and, as I suspected, the brake operators had seized.

Taking out the operators was not easy at all, but I dismantled them, cleaned them and greased them. A cut-out in the ear halfshaft and this would have been a two-minute job. And if taking them out was difficult, putting them back was even more difficult. And when they were back the pieces wouldn’t hold together and so I had to end up wiring them in.

And as you might have expected, having done all of that and making sure that all of the brake mechanism was working fine, it made not a ha’porth of difference.

We spent the afternoon working on the nearside brake. I made a few adjustments to that side and that did nothing either, which is a total surprise.

These rear brakes on this Jeep Cherokee are totally bewildering me. All that I can think of is that with the brake drums being brand-new, there’s a surface coating that needs to be broken down before the brakes will grip. So we’ll leave it for a week or two in order to see what happens.

If that doesn’t change anything, we’ll have to strip them right down.

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Saturday 24th May 2014 – PHEW! THAT WAS CLOSE!

Pionsat are not totally safe from relegation but this evening’s result means that St Priest must win tomorrow by 13 clear goals if they are going to escape.

A desperate struggle on the field against the runaway champions this evening. In the opening 20 minutes, Lempdes missed two absolute sitters in from of goal and immediately afterwards, Pionsat stormed up the field and took the lead. A long clearance by Matthieu was misheaded across the defence by one of the central defenders. It fell on the feet of a fellow defender but Nico was by far the quickest, whippingit off the defender’s feet and smashing it in past the unprepared goalkeeper.

Lemdes pulled one back near to the end when Pionsat were caught stranded upfield when they lost possession, and in the closing seconds, had two goals disallowed for offside much to their dismay. Pionsat were dug in on the edge of their own penalty area for the last 10 minutes or so, and when the final whistle was blown, an audible sigh of relief could be heard all around the ground.

This all looked most unlikely three matches ago. Pionsat’s final 3 games were – team 2nd, away; team 3rd in the table, away; champions at home. You couldn’t have a final three games much tougher than this and yet we had a draw, a very unlikely win and then a draw – 5 points out of 9.

All of Pionsat’s goals in those matches have been goals of sheer opportunism and we have had some desperate last-ditch defending with balls being kicked upfield or out of play without any ceremony at all, with the team captain bellowing out orders to his team-mates.

This is just how football at this level should be played and the irony of it all is that if Pionsat had played like this for the rest of the season, they would have been challenging for promotion, never mind battling desperately against relegation.

Apart from that, I’ve spent the morning and some of the afternoon writing stuff for Radio Anglais, been to the shops in St Eloy where I bought a vine to plant at the front of the house, and then crashed out for an hour this afternoon.

And Thursday, so I’ve found out, is a Bank Holiday. I’m going to have an unexpected day off work.

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