Tag Archives: http://www.erichall.eu

Friday 10th July 2015 – THIS FLYING SHELF IDEA …

… isn’t working as well as it ought to. The upper part of it works fine – the tubes that cover the threaded rod need to be cut down a millimetre or two but apart from that I couldn’t want for anything better. Mind you, it would have helped considerably had I not drilled into it by accident when I was doing something else.

The lower part is fine too. All of the plugs and sockets are fitted and wired in and working. The little LED strip light does its job just fine and although it could be brighter, it’s there and working and illuminating the sink and the mirror behind it (whenever they might be installed). I expected to have had much more difficulty with that than I did.

Where it’s all going wrong is routing the wiring where it’s supposed to go. It doesn’t like these channels that I have cut and so goes everywhere. This means that I can’t properly join the upper and lower parts and that’s where it’s all going wrong. I could put an extra piece in between the two – just a strip around the outside, and screw that in position to clamp the wires in place, but that would mean cutting down the threaded rod, cutting down the tubes and having many more difficulties about screwing the threaded rod to the shelves.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, but getting nowhere yet.

This morning though, after another early start, I finished off the web pages that I’d been bringing up to date, and then starting to transcribe the dictaphone notes. Admittedly the days that I have done so far are short days, but 8 out of 45 in a couple of hours is impressive none-the-less.

And I also had the honour of making a coffee this afternoon in the percolator and forgetting to put the jug in position on the stand, so I’ve had a mini-flood in here.

It’s just not my day, is it?

Thursday 9th July 2015 – EVEN THOUGH …

… it was something of a late night last night, I was still up and about long before the alarm went off. Well, in theory anyway, because I wasn’t in a rush to leave my cosy bed.

Mind you, I forget how many times I had had to leave it during the night. It certainly wasn’t just once or twice, that’s for sure. But that’s a sign of old age.

And here’s another thing too – after breakfast I sat down and sorted out the images and text for no less than 24 days of my voyage across Canada’s Maritime Provinces – without even stopping for breath. Out of 40, with a few previously done, it doesn’t leave too many to do now.

But that’s only just the start of it. I have to retype all of the notes from the dictaphone (and it’s a good job that I saved the dictations to a memory stick on my way around last year) and merge them in, and then research and expand them. So that’s not something that is likely to be finished in a short while.

After lunch, and a big pot of coffee (which I richly deserved), first job was to empty the beichstuhl. And it needed it too. But I’ve gone back to the bigger tub, because the liners are a much tighter fit and that works much better. The smaller one is a better fit in the container, but with the liners being too large, they are just pulled into the tub.

For the rest of the day, I’ve been carving out the cable trunking in the lower shelf of the flying shelf unit that I’m building. That needs to be done precisely and it takes ages, with measuring, drilling, chiselling and filing. But it’s done now and had the first coat of varnish at 19:15 and the second at – would you believe – 23:15. Yes, me working at that time is unheard-of. It’ll have the third and final coat tomorrow early morning too.

But there’s also been a subtle change in the design. While I was lying in bed this morning, I thought of another way by which I could improve the design, and so some of what I had done yesterday ended up in the woodpile. But it’s always like that around here. Design evolves continually, especially during the actual work, and I’ve lost count of the number of amendments that I’ve made to the original plan.

And in other news, a big “well-done” to the three Welsh clubs in Europe tonight. Airbus drew 2-2 in Croatia to lose 5-3 on aggregate to much superior opposition. Bala beat Differdange 2-1, but that wasn’t enough to overturn the away score last week – a match that they should have won at a canter, never mind lost. But pride of place must go to Newtown, who beat Valletta 2-1 away from home to progress through to the next round against FC Copenhagen. So with TNS going through to meet Videoton of Hungary after demolishing Torshavn on Tuesday, that’s a 50% success rate for Welsh clubs in Europe – a percentage that matches what Scottish football could manage in Europe this week.

A few heavy defeats tonight in Europe, including an 8-0, but no Welsh team lost this week. What with 10th place in the National rankings, things are looking up for Welsh football.

And not before time. Maybe people will start taking it seriously now.

-1

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

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

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

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

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

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

First job after lunch was to fit the shelf in the shower room.

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

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

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

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

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Saturday 27th June 2015 – OOOHHHH!

Yes, 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.

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.

Once 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.

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

… 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.

Saturday 11th April 2015 – WHAT, ME?

Working on a Saturday?

Perish the thought!

Meanwhile, here’s a composting bin.

Having unexpectedly lost a good few hours of work time yesterday and with the composting bin to finish, I nipped outside after (a rather late) breakfast and carried on.

I cleared away a previous attempt at a composting bin, put as much of the compost as would fit into the existing bin, and put this one up on the same spot as the one that I had just dismantled and put the rest of the compost in. That will act as a starter.

The top off the dismantled bin, I salvaged that and cut it down to fit the new one, rescrewing and strengthening it where necessary. I was also able to salvage the hinges that I had bought and used for the infamously-unsuccessful trapdoor in the landing floor, and now I have a folding lid on the compost bin. That was a design failing on the original one, having just a lift-on, lift-off lid.

When I get around to it and I can find some cheap forsythia, I’ll put a little hedge around it. I’m not sure when that might be, though.

What is ironic about all of this though is that yesterday, the day after I had built the framework for the composting bin, the postie came round with a leaflet, telling us that VALTOM, the organisation that deals with waste disposal, has a special offer on compost bins this Spring.

Two other jobs that I had intended to do yesterday – fixing the guttering on the lean-to and cleaning out the tank for the solar shower – well, they will have to wait for Monday regardless. There are limits to what I’m prepared to do on an “office” day.
This afternoon, I’ve been researching for my website. I needed quite a few bits and pieces off the internet, so I decided to attack that.

And really, that’s about it today. Doing my shopping on Friday evening is a good plan, that’s for sure.

-1

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.

So 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

-1

Sunday 8th March 2015 – WHAT A DAY!

I should have gone to Clermont Ferrand this afternoon for the football. Instead, I stayed in.

In fact, I’ve been in all day and the only time that I’ve set foot outside the door was to take the stats. Such was my day.

I had a nice lie-in though. I was awake at 08:30 but badger that for a game of soldiers. I turned over and went back to sleep. I did the same at 09:20 too and it was in fact 10:15 when I finally heaved myself out of my stinking pit. And that was for reasons totally unconnected with being awake too, as any male of round about my age will tell you.

So after breakfast I spent a couple of hours working on my website. And since then I’ve done absolutely zilch. It’s been a nice relaxing day.

For tea tonight, I had the usual pizza. And it was the first time since I don’t know when that I used the oven in the verandah. As you know I’ve been cooking on the woodstove or else on the camping gas container.

And tomorrow morning I have to go and help Terry with a load of sand.

-1

Wednesday 4th March 2015 – I WAS ON MY TRAVELS …

… during the night. At the wheel of a holiday coach going somewhere with a load of passengers. And to my surprise, there was a family (mum, dad and girl) from around here on board coming with me. Small world, isn’t it? I wonder why they were there.

And when I woke up it was dark. Not that it was early, but it was snowing like crazy. And throughout the day we had a mixture of sunlight followed by heavy snow flurries and back to sunshine again. And this was how it kept up. The temperature plummeted too and by teatime we were at freezing point. So much for the beautiful Spring weather of yesterday.

I spent most of the working day in the bedroom, as you might expect. And by the time lunchtime came round, I’d done the bracing for the two doors that I had cut yesterday, cut the lets in the doors and the framework for the hinges, hung the doors, fitted the handles and then the magnetic catches.

That took me nicely up to lunchtime so I cleared off for my buttied and coffee, and some more work on the website

Back at work this afternoon, I cut town the rest of the planking that I had made yesterday so that I had a strip for the doors on the other side of the wardrobe. I cut the two doors out of that and then cut them to size, and then cut the lets in the framework for hinges for the the right-hand door.

Thats as far as I reached today, as this was about 18:40 when I reached this point so I called it a day.

Up here, the temperature had fallen to 14.8°C – not all that cold but I may as well light a fire to cook my tea rather than use the gas.

So tomorrow, I’ll be hanging the two doors that I have cut and then cutting the final door. If I can do that, then I can apply the first coat of varnish on the inside before I knock off. THat will mean that it will dry through the night and won’t pick up any dust.

And won’t that be progress?

-2

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 – I HAD A GOOD DAY …

… at work today, for a change. Although, as usual, you wouldn’t really notice.

I was up early enough and after breakfast had a good crack on at the laptop. As well as the Radio Anglais programmes, I’ve restarted work on my website again. I’ve done almost nothing on it during the winter but now Spring is here and it’s time to come out of hibernation and get a wiggle on

In the bedroom I spent some of the morning finishing off the second door on the upper part of the wardrobe, cutting out the lets for the hinges and fitting them, and then fitting the door handle and the magnetic catch. Once I’d done all of that, I could hang the door.

And then take the door off, file down part of the edges so that it would fit better and then rehang it.

Off to Caliburn next, to fetch another pack of floorboarding and bring that upstairs. Then I could make up a board out of seven planks, ready to cut down to make doors 3,4,5 and 6.

After lunch, I cut two strips 770mm wide out of the board that I had made. 770mm is the height of the upper doors (give or take a millimetre or two) and these two strips will form the four doors that I mentioned just now.

One of the strips I cut down to make two doors of exactly the right width for doors 3 and 4, and then fitted the reinforcing battens. I had to cut down some wood for the battens, and the table saw that I bought in Commentry a couple of months ago did the job expertly. In fact, I was running the electricity and power tools today (the circular saw, the belt sander and the table saw) until 18:40 today without significantly draining the batteries and I’m well pleased with that.

So now the two doors are ready to be hung tomorrow morning, and then I can crack on with cutting down doors 5 and 6. When they are done, there will be just door 7 to fit, and then the upper fascia panels and then I can varnish the wardrobe.

Tonight, I didn’t light a fire. 17.8°C in the attic it was, which was impressive for this time of year. I cooked tea on the single burner camping stove that I use for making coffee and as well as working perfectly (a good plan making these huge curries and packing them into individual portions – they don’t take much heating) it warmed up the place by 1°C.

On the subject of electricity, I noticed that at one stage we were having 42 amp-hours of surplus electricity. It didn’t last long but it pumped uop the heat in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load.

-1

Tuesday 13th January 2015 – D’OHHHH!

It’s mystified me for quite a while – the subject of the wind turbine on the side of the house.

You may recall that just before I went to Canada in August I was up on the scaffolding at the front of the house tidying up all of the wiring and one of the things that I tidied up was the wiring to the Wind Turbine. I also fitted a charge controller, a timer and a data panel.

Returning from Canada after 7 weeks away, I was expecting to see a significant reading on the data panel and the timer, and no-one was more astonished than I was to see not a thing. That really confused me greatly.

I didn’t give it much thought after that, being preoccupied with other things, but I did notice while I was up on the scaffolding getting some tools the other day that there were two wires danging down from underneath the junction box. The thought immediately went through my mind that I must have forgotten to connect them up, and that was the explanation for nothing happening.

Today, with 20 minutes to spare before lunch and having promised to deal with a few odd jobs today, and especially with the I went up onto the scaffolding to connect up the wires.

Prising off the top of the junction box, I noticed that these two loose wites were supposed to be loose – they are the wires that will be connecting the third bank of solar panels in due course, and the wires connecting the wind turbine were properly connected up. At least, that’s what I thought at first, but closer inspection revealed nothing of the kind.

Don’t ask me what goes through my mind at certain moments, or whatever I must have been doing at the time, but somehow, despite the clearest indications and a great deal of effort being put into colour coding and all that kind of thing, I somehow managed to connect up the positive lead to the negative feed, and vice versa.

I stood and stared at this for about 10 minutes open-mouthed, and then disconnected everything and reconnected everything correctly. And almost immediately, the green power light that I had fixed into the junction box came on. Since then, I’ve had the old familiar sound of the wind turbine murmuring away in the background.

I really don’t understand what goes on in my mind sometimes, but it’s worrying.

During the night I’d been on my travels around the Holmes Chapel area of Cheshire, in XCL, my red Ford Cortina Mark 5 estate that lives in a lock-up in Montaigut, and I was up comparatively early this morning.

After breakfast I came across another “d’ohhhh!” moment too. It seems that I was premature in declaring that the wallpapering had finished. I’d missed a bit and so I had to deal with that first. Once that was done I had to vacuum up the dust on the stairs (I’m enjoying this soot sucker that I’ve converted into a vacuum cleaner) and then mask everywhere off. That took most of the rest of the morning.

After lunch I collected up a pile of wood, did some tidying up and tool collecting, and then in the last hour or so started work on the shower room floor. THat’s now all cut to size and ready for nailing down, sanding off and varnishing now.

Remember what I said yesterday about knocking off? Well, here I was at 18:00 with the floor only half-done, but regardless, I carried on working until it was finished off.

And in the water butt, following on the fractured tap there, the front water butt is now empty and ready for cleaning and a new tap fitting. But of course I don’t have a new tap (I should have bought one on Saturday, shouldn’t I?) so it’s a good job that I drew off those couple of buckets of water for a reserve supply

-1

Sunday 28th December 2014 – BRRRR!

I’ve just been outside to take the stats, and it’s minus 5°C outside. Absolutely taters it was and my tiny hands were frozen.

Mind you, i’m disappointed with this snow that we had. Here I was, expecting about two feet of snow given the weather last night, but what we did have was a light dusting and plenty of ice.

When I woke up this morning, it was a mere 12.9°C in here and that was enough to make me want to go back to sleep. I’d been on my travels during the night, back to the days of my youth. There were two girls in the house where I was living. One was something to do with the owners of the house and had a superb bedroom all to herself. The other was an adopted girl and she also had a bedroom all to herself which, although nothing like as luxurious as the bedroom of the other, was still quite impressive nevertheless. However this perceived lack of facilities caused her to burst into tears and she came to me for some sympathy.

After breakfast, with the temperature still not rising and having to open the rooflights to clean the snow off the solar panels (although I needn’t have bothered – w’ve had hanging clouds all day) I lit the fire in here and I’ve had a low fire ticking over in here all day.

I’ve been working on the web page for the end-of-year summary for the work that I’ve been doing on the place here, and also on the itinerary for my North American trip of 2014.

And that’s about it really. This hasn’t been the weather to go outside and do anything.

-3

Monday 20th October 2014 – I’VE HAD SOME MORE …

… unexpected visitors today. I happened to glance out of the window this afternoon and there was an old woman and three kids, two aged about 8 and a girl aged about 13 or 14, staring at the house. Further enquiried revealed that the old lady used to live here years ago and she just happened to be passing.

She insisted on a guided tour, which was quite embarrassing given the state that the place is in, but I suppose that I couldn’t turn her down, and she went off quite happy. She says that she might have some photos of the house from 60 years ago, and she’ll let me have copies if she finds them.

It disrupted my afternoon considerably, but I know that had I turned up like this at somewhere where I had lived 60 years ago, I would have hated to have been turned away.

But I do wonder who is going to be the next person to turn up here.

This morning I was up and about comparatively early and after breakfast I dealt with a pile of paperwork and put a load of web pages on line. You can now quite happily follow my journey around the Saguenay.

I also wrote a couple of letters that needed doing. And after a good hour or so’s work, I finally have a working printer here. I’m not sure how long it will keep going because, as regular readers of this rubbish will remember, I get through printers here about every 3 months and I’ve no idea why.

I also loaded up Caliburn with all of the clothes that I’ve sorted out. I needed to go to the Post Office of course to post the letters so on the way back I went to the dechetterie in PIonsat to drop them off seeing as how they have a clothing skip there. I also picked up a couple of rolls of yellow sacks as there’s a waste paper collection in Pionsat next Wedneday.

Back here I attacked the waste paper mountain until I was interrupted, and once my visitors had left I carried on again until knocking off time.

You still can’t see much of a difference in here unfortunately, but I must be on the right lines somewhere with all of this stuff that’s being binned.

-2

Wednesday 24th September 2014 – THE GREAT DECEPTION

Yes, I’m going to be talking rubbish … "well, there’s a novelty!" – ed … in a minute.

But before I do that, let me show you my nice and comfy little spec on the harbour at Goose Bay this morning.

Last night, I finished off my notes, made a good tea and then went to bed. Thoroughly painless until the alarm went off at about 06:50. I didn’t feel a thing.

And even though the temperature had dropped to zero by the time I awoke, with ice on the puddles outside and ice even on the inside of the windscreen, that didn’t inconvenience me for a minute. It was the sleep of the dead last night.

By 07:04 I’m on the road. I need to warm up the car, defrost the ice and charge up the laptop so I’m not going to hang about until all of that has been done. I’ve fuelled up half from the fuel can too, saving half of it for later. It has to be emptied before it can go back into storage anyway and it has served its purpose, easing my mind around these enormously long stretches of fuel-less highways. For the next few sections of the highway, it’s a more-realistic 300 kilometres.

While the car is warming and the laptop is charging, I go for a drive around Happy Valley to see what there is to see.

We find a grass lawn – yes, real grass growing here. It’s not quite the High Arctic here. And we also find an old early-1950s car. However have they managed to protect this from the elements?

The queue for Tim Horton’s is enormous. The longest one yet. I upset everyone by driving in through the out door as Idon’t want the drive-in services, and the queue inside is just as long. I have a little smile thinking to myself about what might happen if I were to imitate Charles Hawtrey in Carry on Cowboy and shout “Gold Strike at Bear Creek”. But not only would the customers immediately shoot off like lightning, so would the personnel and so I would be no better off. Old Frontier traditions die hard in Labrador.

and coffee at Tim Horton’s was first money (apart from fuel) that I have spent since Deer Lake and how many years ago was that?

But how times have changed here over the last four years.It’s like the M6 down here too this morning. There are 5 or 6 vehicles in front of meand one or two behind. And we are in the flaming sub-arctic. This place isn’t anything like what it was four years ago at all. In those days you were lucky to see one car per hour.

Now, this is how I always pictured Labrador to be. Log cabins by the side of rapids in fast-flowing rivers, and I’m glad to see that at least there is some of it left.

No dog sleds though. I’m told that the last working dog team in the region was retired in 1994. Everyone has snowmobiles these days, but where do you find fuel for them in the wilderness? And you can’t eat them if your supplies run out.

This is Gull Island, or as it is known by the local First Nation Innu community, Tshiashkueish. And I can’t even pronounce that with my own teeth in.

I’ve arrived during the Innu celebration gathering, which is taking place from 22-26 September and once more I’m disappointed by everyone arriving in 4×4 pickups rather than dogsleds. Whatever happened to native traditions? But still, it shouldn’t be overlooked that it’s these tribal gatherings are what is keeping the Nation together and I’m glad about that. These days, it seems that the emphasis is on supressing minority customs and traditions.

But I’m having a huge disappointment on this road. When I came by here in 2010 I struggled for hours and hours over some of the worst roads in the world. Not today, though. With the exception of 30 kms in the middle, the entire highway has been re-aligned and surfaced with asphalt as you can see. There’s a bit of the old road over which I desperately struggled, and you can see what it looks like today.

A length that took me five hours to drive, I’ve just done it in 50 minutes at … well, 80kph is the official speed limit here but the road is so much better than that.

Of course, I’m the first to realise that I don’t have to live here and drive it every day, so who am I to complain? But the solitude for which I’m craving has gone for ever here. Now, it’s like any black-top highway anywhere else in the world and the adventure has gone.

Anther advantage of the road is that prices have now normalised. Fuel at Goose Bay was just 140.1 per litre – only 6 or 7 cents higher than in the urbanised areas of Canada. That’s something for the locals to cheer.

This is the current ohm of some local type of sub-arctic bird. It’s done well to build its nest up there.

But it needs to be careful. It would be shocking if it were to fall out of its nest – quite revolting in fact.

And this is the only hint of wildlife that I saw. I was chatting to a couple of maintenance men here and they were telling me that the new road and all of the traffic has driven away everything that I saw when I came over here.

But this is good to see. About 70 kms from Labrador City I come across someone with a similar lifestyle to mine.

Here we have an Air 403 wind turbine going round like I wish that mine would, and solar panels. And he’s had to shin up a ladder to clear the snow away from them.

So bully to him. I’m glad to see that he’s doing it and making it work. We need more people like this.

THis is the town of Wabush in Labrador. And this could be mistaken for any suburb in any town that you might care to mention. Not a dog sled in sight

But make the most of this photo because in 5 years time it will be nothing like this. It’s a mining town and talking to the local security guards there, they tell me that the mine is exhausted and a new mining project in the vicinity has been cancelled.

People are being laid off and many have already left the community to seek work elsewhere. If nothing is done about the new mining project, then this place will be a ghost town.

And on that depressing note, I went to find somewhere to lay my weary head. I’ve driven 520 kilometres and not even broken sweat. Ohh, how times have changed.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality