Tag Archives: les guis

Tuesday 27th January 2015 – I’M POSSIBLY BEING A LITTLE OPTIMISTIC …

… about finishing the landing by the weekend. It’s been slow going today.

Mind you, it hasn’t helped in that I had a lot of housekeeping to do here this morning. I ran out of both kindling and logs, and the compost bucket needed emptying too. Doing that latter task, I found that the tie that’s holding up the collapsed apple tree had come apart and so that needed sorting out.

Eventually, I managed to start to attack the landing and Shock! Horror! all of the plasterboard is on the wall now. And not only that, the wiring is all tidied up and the light switches are in place.

I’m not going to post a photo of it though, because it’s a mess. What didn’t help the artistic impression was that I had spent an hour carefully carving a piece of plasterboard to fit perfectly and to take the pattress for the light switches, and then I dropped it from a height right onto the edge of the steps upon which I was standing, and knocked a huge lump out. Never mind, I can fill it but it isn’t pretty.

I had to put loads of battens in place too for the plasterboard, and some of the wood took a while to find. My aim to have it all done by lunchtime was thus totally missed. It was 17:00 by the time I had done all of the plasterboarding.

I’ve fitted the rails for the suspended ceiling – and that wasn’t easy either. And even though it was after 18:00 and knocking-off time, I fitted the symbolic first piece of ceiling. It was 18:35 when I finally made it up here. What helps about working late is having really good music to listen to. I’ve made it round to Hawkwind’s Astounding Sounds; Amazing Music, which features, inter alia, two of the most magnificent rock music tracks ever recorded – “Reefer Madness” and “Steppenwolf”.

As well as that, as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … that Ryobi Plus One percussion screwdriver is immense – it pushes 6×100 screws in like nobody’s business.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the rest of the ceiling and putting the first coat of varnish on. And if I have some sun (which isn’t likely, I have to say) I’ll be cutting the end pieces for the plasterboard runs and seeing if I’ll have the time to fit them.

It does however occur to me that in order to fit the end pieces on the stud wall between the landing and the bedroom I’ll need to have the bedroom door in position and the hinge lets cut out. That’s going to take a while and will be the big reason why I’ll miss my target of this weekend for the landing to be completed.

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Monday 26th January 2015 – I DUNNO WHAT’S HAPPENING …

… in the world right now. We in the rock community seem to be surrounded by death. Edgar Froese, the architect behind the Krautrock band Tangerine Dream passed away at the weekend, and we woke up this morning to learn that Demis Roussos, bassist/vocalist in the former Greek rock group Aphrodite’s Child, has likewise gone to play in that Great Gig in the Sky.

You’ve no idea just how depressing it is when all of your teenage idols shuffle off this mortal coil in a great big bunch.

Luckily, I awoke this morning, not without many vicissitudes, and the first job that I needed to do after breakfast was to put the winter tyres on Caliburn. If I’m going places, I need to be safe.

In the time that I had at my disposal I managed the front tyres, which are the most important on an FWD vehicle, and then shot off to Liz and Terry’s. Liz and I ran through the programmes that we were to record and then had lunch – a lovely vegan vegetable pie. I really am being spoilt these days.

The trip to Gerzat was uneventful, except for the miserable weather, and we found the new studios easily enough – Radio Arverne has changed its address. Very plush and very posh, but it needs a little refinement.

We didn’t stay long for a change and I was back here by 17:15 – including fuelling up (€1:072 per litre) at the Carrefour at Menetrol. I had a huge fire going and cooked a potato and lentil curry – enough to last me for three or four days.

And that’s my lot. It’s absolutely pouring down outside and I’m going nowhere now until Thursday morning when we record the Radio Tartasse sessions.

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Sunday 25th January 2015 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… gone round to Liz and Terry’s this afternoon to rehearse our radio programmes. But
1) our recording session on Monday morning is cancelled
2) I have to go round there on Monday afternoon anyway
3) seeing as how the roads are rather treacherous just now …
I made the decision that I would stay here instead and not venture out. After all, in these kinds of conditions it’s not a good idea to venture out unless it’s really essential.

I was awake quite early this morning – so much so that it was still dark. There was absolutely no chance of my leaving my stinking pit at that time of the morning so I turned over and went back to sleep. It was a much-more respectable 11:10 when I finally made it to the breakfast table.

I finished off the radio text that I’ve been writing and it’s ended up as a a quite respectable 24kb of text. That’s about 4300 words and should keep us busy for a couple of months at least. And apart from that, I’ve not done very much at all.

Mind you, we did have a sudden thaw later this afternoon and for a brief moment the temperature soared for to a massive 2.9°C. That gave me an opportuity to refill the water containers up here as we seem to be running quite low over the last few days. It might stay a little warmer too for the next few days although they say that winter will come back with a vengeance later in the week.

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Saturday 24th January 2015 – I HAD A NICE …

… morning out today.

I was up early this morning despite havig had a late night and having been on my travels again. I was driving up to Southern Scotland with Rosemary and had taken the road via Derby (the old A6) which had led to some kind of deviation around the Matlock area. We ended up at Carlisle in a motel but the room that we had been given also doubled as a rest room for the staff and I was continually being disturbed by staff members coming in for a smoke and so on. In the meantime there were a couple of boys with fishing nets and jam jars and wearing helmets, diving into pools of the most disgusting and dirty water, looking for what, I don’t have any idea.

By 09:00 I was at Cécile’s to show a couple of people around Cécile’s house and on the way back I called at the Intermarché and ended up having lengthy chats with various people, including Marianne.

I went round to the Mairie afterwards. It’s census time again and I’ve been away from the house for just one day, and guess which day it was that they called? I now have to declare myself at the Mairie but of courseit was closed this morning so I resolved to go back this afternoon.

No chance of that, though. We had the heaviest snow of the winter this afternoon and everywhere is a white-out. I’ll have to go there another time.

I spent this afternoon working on the text for the radio programme and that’s almost finished. An hour tomorrow and it will be done.

Apart from having a lengthy chat with Cecile this evening, that’s my lot today. It’s not been the weather for doing much else.

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Friday 23rd January 2015 – WE NOW HAVE …

beading around window and doors stairwell les guis virlet puy de dome france… some nice and pretty beading around the window and the doorways on the stairs up to the attic. Yes, I’m going all suburban and pretentious, aren’t I? Whatever next?

The Ryobi mastic gun did the business here, along with a tube of contact adhesive. Cut the beading to length (remember to cut the bevels the correct way round – GRRRR!), stick some glue in the angle, press into place and then tack down with a couple of 25mm lost-head nails, and there we are.

And doesn’t it look pretty too? It’s not like me, is it?

plasterboard on wall on landing les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn other startling news, we have also turned the corner. at least, as far as the plasterboard goes. I’ve put the first pieces on the stud wall for the stairs that go down to the ground floor.

This is quite symbolic progress. All that’s now needed is one more piece of plasterboard on the reverse side of the stud wall to the bedroom, three end-pieces, some filling and sanding down, and then I can wallpaper the walls on the landing and that will be finished too and I can start on the bedroom. I shan’t know myself.

I know that I said that I would be sanding down the stairs and vacuuming them ready to varnish them this weekend, but several things have conspired together to put an end to that idea.

Firstly, I’m not going out tomorrow. Cécile is having a visitor to her house in the morning tomorrow so I have to go round there early. That means that I won’t have time to varnish it before I go out.

Secondly, Mondays radio recording sessions have been cancelled due to illness at Radio Tartasse, so the third consecutive day that I need for varnishing isn’t going to happen either.

Thirdly, we’ve had a hanging cloud over the mountain all day today and I’ve received precisely nothing in the way of solar energy. There’s plenty of power in the batteries of course, but not enough to run a power sander for a couple of hours and a vacuum cleaner afterwards.

Fourthly, the temperature didn’t rise above freezing all day today and the next few days are likely to be the same. The temperature downstairs is just 4°C and the varnish won’t ever stick in that kind of temperature. It’ll just sit on top of the wood and freeze, and then break off when it’s knocked.

Accordingly, I left the varnishing for another time. Never mind. There’s plenty of other things to be going on with.

I was invited out this evening. It’s the annual dinner for FCPSH – the Football Club Pionsat St Hilaire, and I was invited to go along. I didn’t stay to eat because you can’t expect them to cater for my diet, but I was there chatting for a couple of hours.

And it really was freezing when I returned. I had a hard job to keep my feet on the concrete. And in my room the temperature had fallen to 9.8°C – the coldest for quite a while, but a roaring wood fire soon had that back up to normal again.

I’m glad that I bought this woodstove.

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Thursday 22nd January 2015 – FIAT LUX!

12 volt lights bathroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd we aren’t talking about Italian cars and washing … "you’ve said that bedore" – ed …

Anyway, we now not only have a varnished and shiny floor (covered in cardboard while it hardens) in the shower room, but we also have lights. To fit these was so straightforward that I can’t uderstand how it is that I haven’t fitted them before this.

And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too – those push-in spring-loaded wire connectors really are the business and I’m glad that I discovered them.

In fact, all in all, what I’ve learnt since I’ve been doing up this house has made me wish that I could go back and do the attic all over again.

12 volt lights bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceFitting the lights in the bedroom was not quite so easy.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve not installed one of the cables that needs to connect up the main lightswitch to the pull switch that I wanted to install. It’s not possible to install it no and so I had to rewire it into a single way switch.

All the four lights, bulbs and bulb holders were fitted but wiring it all up was something of a struggle, particularly as I’d forgotten which wire went where (I hadn’t counted on a three-year lay-off from finishing it off) but I eventually worked it all out and wired it into the 12-volt wiring circuit, even though all together it took me most of the day.

The beichstuhl is now temporarily installed in the shower room and then to finished, I sanded down, shaped and installed the skirting board at the head of the stairs.

And if the evidence of the last couple of weeks is anything to go on, my regular working hours have now gone out of the window. I think that having the music certainly helps.

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Wednesday 21st January 2015 – I HAD A NICE …

… day out today. I needed a couple of things from Terry and he needed a couple of things from me, and so I went round there this morning.

Mind you, it didn’t mean that I did no work here. I was up bright and early for once and after breakfast I put the second coat of varnish onto the shower room floor and then off I went in the deep sub-zero temperature to Liz and Terry’s.

We spent all of the morning dealing with some things for Terry and then after lunch we had a look at a couple of things that I needed doing, which included a trip out to Montaigut.

I was back here by 17:45 and first thing that I did was to put the third and final coat of varnish on the shower room floor. That’s now all nicely sealed in and in the morning it will be lovely, and ready for me to move the beichstuhl into there.

In other news, we had near-record days of sunshine while I was out. I had 95 amps of surplus solar energy and that pushed the water in the dump load up to 46°C. It’s all looking quite impressive

And it will be even more impressive if I can have a good day here tomorrow.

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Tuesday 20th January 2015 – I’VE HAD ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… today. And it all went wrong as early as breakfast time. I was thinking to myself that my breakfast coffee tasted pretty awful, and closer inspection revealed that I was in fact drinking merely hot water in a coffee-flavoured mug. That depressed me for a start.

And then going downstairs I fell through the trap that I had made yesterday, and only quick thinking by grabbing the beam as I fell through it prevented me from plummetting down to the concrete floor about 3 metres below.

I’ve done myself quite a mischief, but while I was hanging there from the beam working out the best way to haul myself back up, I came to the conclusion that maybe the hatch was not such a good idea after all.

I mean, it is an excellent idea but it won’t work here, because there’s not sufficient support around the edges to carry the weight of whatever is going to be walking across it, as I had just demonstrated. Consequently, once I had ccrawled back up onto terra firma, I ripped out the hatch and the surround and spen the rest of the morning refitting both layers of the floor. I’d nearly finished by lunchtime but I carried on regardless until it was finished.

I know that I said that I was going to vacuum out the bathroom and put the first coat of varnigh on the floor, but as you might expect after I’ve talked about such things, we were having a slight snowstorm and there was a hanging cloud here for most of the morning. That put the kybosh on the vacuuming.

After lunch I fetched a pile of wood into the house for the fire, but all of a sudden, the sun put in a bried appearance. Out came the vacuum cleaner and I cleaned out the bathrrom and then did the first coat of varnish.

As for the vacuum cleaner, there will be some who would complain about the lack of efficiency, but these people would have seen the price tag (€29:99 reduced to €14:99) and not seen the power of the machine – 600 watts instead of the more usual 1500 watts. I knew exactly what I was buying and I knew exactly how it was going to work, and so I was not disappointed at all. It did exactly what it said it would and did it quite efficiently too, and I was delighted.

I spent the rest of the working day cutting a board that I need for the head of the stairs – I’d forgotten about that. I’ll fit that next time I’m working here as I’m out all day tomorrow.

I’ve also fitted the handrail for the stairs. Two huge screwed eyes and a length of 14mm hemp rope, and that’s made quite an effective handrail.

It’s not 100% my own idea though. I knew that I had seen something like this before, and the other night, watching the absolutely outstanding Green For Danger, there it was, on the stairs of the Nurses’ Home. It looks as if I’m going back in time.

I was working long after 18:00 but I had a phone call that interrupted me for 10 minutes. Terry had the census people round there and they didn’t speak English, so I was required to interpret.

So tomorrow, I won’t be here as I have things to do. But I’m going to put the second coat of varnish on the bathroom floor before I go, and if I remember, I’ll put the third coat on when I come back and that’s the flooring all done down there.

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Monday 19th January 2015 – I HAD A LOVELY EARLY SUMMER’S DAY …

… working outside this morning. And I do mean early summer too because it was glorious.

First job was to empty the beichstuhl – such are the delights of my mode of living – clean it out and recharge it ready for use. Ohh the joys of low-impact living.

Next job, which took me right up to almost lunchtime was dealing with the water butts. You may recall that the tap on the front tank had cracked in the severe cold that we had the other day. Good job that I had fitted a series of isolation valves so that I can separate one tank from the other. I’ve been drawing the water off the front tank as it all slowly leaked away and by the end of last week it was finally empty.

When I was in Montlucon on Saturday, I bought everything that I needed, and so I set about dealing with the tap as well as giving the tank a good clean while I was at it. It’s a testament to the effectiveness of the system that I’ve designed and built here that aftera couple of years, the front tank wasn’t particularly dirty. It didn’t really need a clean but nevertheless I gave it a good going-over.

Then, I dealt with the tap. That was soon fitted, and not only do I have the tap but I now have an overflow as well as a depth gauge. Now I can see how much water there is in the tanks.

The tap has been insulated and I’ll need to insulate the clear plastic pipe that forms part of the depth gauge once I work out how to do this. I’ll have to give the matter some thought.

This afternoon I sanded down the floor in the bathroom, seeing as how we had plenty of sun. Tomorrow morning, I’ll vacuum up the dust, which will give me an opportunity to see how well this dust cleaner will perform, and then put the first layer of varnish on it so that it will go dry while I’m havine lunch. I’m out on Wednesday so I can put the second coat on before I leave, and the third coat as soon as I come back. I want to do this while I’m not doing any work, so that there’s no dust about to stick in the varnish.

So as well as sanding down the floor, I’ve been working on the floor on the landing. The first board is nailed in place, the trapdoor has been cut out, and the second board has been cut to shape and filed down to take the recessed hinges. If I can finish this on Thursday, then I can varnish this at the same time that I’ll be doing the stairs – namely on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

I’m really crcking on with this place now. If I’m not very careful, it will start to look as if someone is actually living here.

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Sunday 18th January 2015 – IT’S SUNDAY!

And I had a nice lie-in too. Until all of 10:30 in fact and I wish that it had been longer seeing as it was 03:00 when I wznt to bed. This 3D program that I’ve been playing with – I reinstalled the up-to-date version the other day following my midnight revelation last weekend, and after another couple of marathon sessions (including last night) I think that I’ve finally cracked it – and to such an extent that already, I’ve more-or-less abandoned the earlier version and everything that I’ve been building since 2010, and I’m starting again.

After breakfast, I had a leisurely morning doing not very much, and then I cracked on with the radio programmes. I’ve done a rock programme, the additional notes for the next series of shows and to conclude, I dashed off a quick 2200 words on our next major topic. There’s still plenty more to write but there’s enough for the next few weeks and in any case, I’ve no plans for the forthcoming weekend so I should be able to finish it off.

After that, I crashed out for half an hour and then cooked my pizza. and wonderful it was too.

I also had some visitors this morning. The hunters came back around here. I hate hunters with a passion that cannot be measured on any scale known to man. I class them as the lowest form of human life. At least with many other classes of despicable human criminals, those people generally leave their victims alive. Not so hunters. They kill anything that moves and usually for no good reason either.

B@$t@rd$ every last one of them.

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Saturday 17th January 2015 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING MY MONEY …

… again today.

Last night I looked at the weather forecast for the next few days and apparently the snow is going to arrive on Tuesday night and stay with us for quite a while. Around here of course, no-one goes anywhere in the bad weather unless they really have to, and so I made a decision that I would go to Montlucon today instead.

For once, I was up and about early and in Montlucon for the opening of the shops.At Amaranthe I bought the usual vegan cheese and some vegan paté, and at Noz I merely bought the usual rubbish.

I struck the jackpot at Vima though. You may recall that I bought a soot sucker – a 500-watt vacuum cleaner thing usually used for sucking the ashes out of a woodstove – and I’ve been using it as a vacuum cleaner. It works but not as well as it should as the dust clogs up the filer and thus it needs a few moditications. However, in Vima, there was exactly the machine for the job – a proper 600-watt vacuum cleaner especially designed for dust-sucking and complete with the correct bag filter and all of the attachments. And just €14:99 as well, seeing as it was an ex-demo machine. How can you refuse at that price?

At Brico Depot I spent €170 – and that’s without the tiles. I would have had them too but the server I spoke to promised to come back to me “in a minute” – and half nn hour later, I was still waiting.

However, I now have all of the skirting board, the glue to fit it, the interior crepi for the wardrobe, some more wallpaper glue seeing as how I’ve run out, all of the beading, and tons more stuff besides.

But it was here that I really did hit the jackpot. An electric 600-watt belt sander for just €20:00 was the first thing and that will speed things along here, that’s for sure. But the highlight, at just €0:95 each, were the clip rings for holding the capped halogen (or in my case, capped LED) bulbs into the ceiling. If you remember from reading this rubbish from ages ago, I’m having issues about the weight of the bulbs pulling themselves out of the sockets. Now I can set the bulbs in the false ceilings and clip them in. And where there’s no false ceiling, I can use these plastic junction boxes.

On the way back I stopped at the swimming baths at Commentry and went for a swim and a really good shower. Now I’m set up for the next couple of days.

Back here, I had a little snooze and then did the script for the rock radio programmes that we do for Radio Anglais. Tomorrow, I’m going to be doing some more radio stuff. I’ve been letting it drag for a while.

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Friday 16th January 2015 – AFTER ALL THAT I SAID LAST NIGHT …

… about having loads of sun so that I could sand down the floor of the shower room, then I woke up this morning to a hanging cloud. I suppose that that was odds-on, wasn’t it?

So having put the kybosh on the sanding, first thing this morning was to put the second coat of wood treatment on the old exposed beams. That didn’t take too long, From there, I attacked the floor on the landing on the first floor.

And cutting the first floorboard took almost all of the morning. It needed three lets cut in it so that it could fit around the verticals, and they had to be cut pretty precisely. Once that had been done, I had to cut a couple of countersinks into it so that the hinges that fit into it will be flush with the surface.

go on table saw bricomarche commentry les guis virlet puy de dome franceI needed to cut some floorboarding planks into 50mm lengths to make a framework for the trapdoor, and so despite the absence of electricity I decided to put the new table saw to use.

As I suspected, it is a cheap rubbishy thing (as I suspected) but it did the job well enough once I’d worked out how to fit the guide rail. But in news that will surprise most people, but not the more cynical amongst us, the built-in measure is reading 4mm short. Good job I measure up after I cut the first one, isn’t it?

After lunch, I filed down the offcuts that I had cut so that they made a neat line, and then went off to look at the painting. My masking isn’t up to much, it seems, as I have plenty of white spaces where the masking tpe prevented the wallpaper from reching, and also some of the wood treatment on the old beams has filtered down behind the tape. I’ll have some touching up to do on Monday.

Last job tonight was to cut the second “long” plant to size. That needed trimming off and a couple of lets cut into it to fit around the verticals. That’s now done and so on Monday, another thing that I can be doing is to cut out the trap door in the lower layer of floorboards. Whnen that’s done, I can fit the last two sheets of plasterboard on the studding on the landing, and then cut out the trap on the upper layer of floorboards.

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Thursday 15th January 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the painting of the walls in the stairwell today. And I’m glad that I put a second coat of paint on the walls as they certainly needed it – when it was dry, the first coat didn’t look as well as it had looked when I was doing it.

As the colour dried out, it went darker. Consequently I tipped another litre of white paint into the 3 litres of blue paint that was left over and the paint mixer attachment that I fit into the Ryobi Plus One drill mixed it all up quite a treat. I shall be doing a little more of this paint mixing now that I know that it works.

This afternoon I started to strip off the superfluous masking and I must admit that it looks quite nice, especially the contrast between the blue paint and the wooden ceiling and window surrounds. Mind you, the removal of the masking took longer tha I expected.

Once I’d done that, I had to remask around the roof beams that are visible, and I put the first coat of dark brown wood treatment on there. The second coat will go on tomorrow morning first thing.

Finally, I cut down to size the piece of wood that I’ll be using as the end stop of the shower room floor that fits under the door. That is now fitted into place now, ready for me to start tomorrow on fitting the floor on the landing (unless we have plenty of sun in which wase I’ll be sanding down the shower room floor ready for varnishing.

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Wednesday 14th January 2015 – WELL, HERE YOU ARE THEN.

painted stairwell attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe stairwell, all painted a nice blue.

It wasn’t going to be as nice as this though, because the paint was a lot darker than indicated on the tin and I didn’t fancy that idea too much. So into the can went a litre of white paint and that lightened it up a little.

And it was a good job that I did that too, because there wouldn’t otherwise be enough to do a second coat, which is what I’m going to be doing tomorrow. And it needs it too because I’ve been doing it with a brush and it doesn’t go on particularly thoroughly.

painted stairwell attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt took ages to do too, and it was long after 14:00 when I knocked off for lunch – more like 15:00 in fact, but I wasn’t going to stop work until I had finished the painting.

After my very late lunch I tidied up again and then carried on with the floor in the shower room. That is now all down and fitted in position, apart from the end block which will go under where the door will be.

For tea, I found an old tin of curried mixed beans and so I fried some onions, garlic and potatoes in olive oil and spices, and then added the tin of curried beans and a large tin of vegetables. Now there’s enough there for a good few days and that suits me fine.

For tomorrow after the second coat of paint, I’ll be cleaning up the exposed woodwork of the beams and rafters and painting it in the dark brown wood preservative. Once that is done, I’m going to go for it and start on fitting the door for the shower room. At least if I can do the door frame that will be a great advance.

I’ve worked out that I need three clear days to varnish the stairs and leave each coat to dry before I walk on it. If I go to the shops in Montlucon a week on Saturday, we’re rehearsing the radio programmes on the Sunday and then recording on Monday, then it looks like I have almost a week and a half to do as much of the flooring and woodwork that I can and sand everything down ready to start the varnishing on the Saturday before I head off to Montlucon.

That sounds like a good plan.

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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

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