Tag Archives: strawberry moose

Monday 19th July 2010 – There was no conversation group today …

… so Clotilde invited a couple of us round for a chat and some snacks, which was very nice of her. Of course Strawberry Moose came along too to meet some of his admirers.

Clotilde’s house is gorgeous but it’s really discouraging to hear her say that it took 46 years to get it into the condition that it’s in today. And she showed us a photo of how it was when she bought it – and it really was a right tip too.

On the way down to Clotilde’s, I went the long way round with my new camera via the birdwatching centre at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne seeing as how it was a beautiful early evening. This as you know is my favourite photography spot.

Here’s a beautiful view of the Gorge de la Sioule just down there in the centre of the photograph and over away to the left is the church at Sauret Besserve

I wanted to take a couple of photos of the view from there – a view which you all know is one of the best in the whole of France – and see how the new camera performs in the excellent weather conditions.

This is a close-up of the radio antenna on the Puy-de-Dome – a little bit of crop-and-enlarge from a full-size image. We have a new high-quality lens and I was keen to see how that performed too.

But that wasn’t all that was exciting about my little visit to the centre ornithologique this evening. As I was there this evening, the moon rose. Quite early for once, I know, and so I gave it a little go with the new lens too.

Quite honestly, this photo couldn’t have come out much better, could it?

All in all, I’m well-impressed with my new camera and lens. And quite rightly so, considering the money that I’ve spent on it.

Back at Pooh Corner this morning, Terry has started on Lieneke’s roof and I’ve been roped in to help. That’s going to be the plan for the next few weeks I suppose. And her roof is a right mess – far worse than mine was – and only patching a part of it is not going to be a long-term solution, for the more that you rip off the more damage that you find.

The chimney is leaning quite ominously too and I don’t like the look of it.

But it was hot up there on that roof today and my being stung by a wasp didn’t help matters much. 30-odd years since I was last stung by a wasp and now it’s twice in as many weeks.

And we’ve set a couple of records today. A total of 317 amp-hours on the two banks in the house will take some matching. And 44 degrees in the solar heat exchanger and 42.5 in the electric heater – those figures are impressive too. I’ve been thinking about the electric water heater – a 25-litre oil drum would do the job but an old milk churn with lid would be even better. I need to search the brocantes.

But at Clotilde’s this evening I did hear a story about a man who ran some cold water slowly onto his tin roof and took a shower underneath the downspout – and burnt himself, the water was so hot. And here I am, just having fitted about 150 sq m of metal roof on my barn. I’d love to try that out!

Saturday 3rd July 2010 – Today was really decided for me.

You may remember that last night I was undecided about what to do today and so while musing over the problem with a coffee this morning, the phone rang. Nada had been wanting to come round and see Pooh Corner for a while and could she come this afternoon?

I told her to come this evening instead and I legged it into Commentry where I bought all of the stuff I needed to finish off the guttering, the stuff I needed to make the puzzolane water filter (except the puzzolane), a pile of stuff from the cheapo shop (including a load of those clip-together storage bins at €1 for 3) and then back here and a quick tidy up.

While the tidying up was in progress we had a huge thunderstorm that presented us with 5mm of rain and flattened my potatoes (but at least it soaked all of the plants which is a good thing) and then Nada came round for her visit.

This evening was the annual walk around Virlet to get to know the commune and Nada came with me for the walk – it turns out that she knows the Mayor’s wife. Going for a tramp in the woods was out of the question due to the thunderstorm and the fact that we wouldn’t have caught him anyway

Instead, we visited the highlights of the village – namely the church that blew down in the hurricane in 1999, the old house that is on the point of falling down, and the cemetery which is of course right in the dead centre of the village.

Virlet is of course a very healthy village – so much so that they employ a man to go round the cemetery at closing time to tell the deceased to go back to sleep. It’s a huge cemetery for such a small village and an American tourist said “do people die here often then?”
The cemetery keeper replied “no – just the once like everywhere else”
The wall is quite high too and our American visitor wanted to know why they bothered to put a wall around it. The keeper replied that it was because people were dying to get in.
And I was impressed with the cemetery keeper. He told me that his job carried a great deal of responsibility – he had 500 people under him.
One thing that he did try to tell me was to reserve my plot. There were no English people buried in there (not that I am English but let’s not spoil this story by introducing facts into it). He did say that there was a Scots grave in the cemetery. So I wandered off to have a look, and there it was – “Here lies Jock MacTavish, a loyal father and a devoted husband”. Now isn’t that just like the Scots to bury three men in one grave?

One of the issues with burials here is the cost – it isn’t cheap. You can now get burials done on the instalment plan – they bury your left arm the first month, the right arm the second month et cetera. And I did ask the keeper what happens if you miss an instalment. “Well”, he replied “we simply dig them up”.

On leaving the cemetery this old guy was struggling his best to catch up with us.
“How old are you?” asked the cemetery keeper
“I’m 102 years old” he replied
“Well, it’s hardly worth your while going home then, is it?”

Because of the inclement weather, they decided to abandon the idea of lighting up the bonfire. Instead, we all went into the village hall for drinks and cakes and to have a good chat. It’s just a shame that there weren’t more of us.

You can’t have a village fête without inviting Strawberry Moose. He is very popular and took advantage of the occasion to have a photo opportunity with some more new friends. He’s always up for that.

A little later we decided that regardless of the weather we would indeed all go outside and have a go at lighting the bonfire after all. Perhaps the wine played something of a part in this decision.

I tried to encourage the deputy mayoress to play the leading role in my new production of “Joan of Arc” but she wasn’t having it. Shame. Everyone else thought that it would be a good idea.

We had a good time talking and telling jokes, all that kind of thing. It really was a nice friendly gathering and represents the best of French village life – something that you probably won’t understand if you have never taken part in it. And at midnight, with dogs and children all long-since asleep we all called it a night.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to make up for this by painting the wood for next week and doing the gutttering. I shall have to get my finger out.

-3

Friday 2nd July 2010 – Up until about 21:00 this evening …

… the weather was magnificent. In fact it was far too magnificent to work.

This morning we put up a small scaffolding at the southern end of the barn and while Terry was drilling and screwing into the wall for the mounting brackets I was sawing and cutting scaffolding pipe to make a framework to mount the solar panels that are on the roof of the Luton Transit.

I’ll be fitting them permanently onto this end of the barn along with the wind turbine that we took down from the north end of the barn.

But we were defeated by that most unusual phenomenon – overheating batteries. When they went flat in the Hitachi SDS drill (and what a good purchase that was!) they were too hot to take a charge. Mind you, it was only 37°C today – the hottest of the year.

Not to be outdone however we started on the guttering of the barn as you can see. I told Terry that there are four classes of people in France

the peasants – the ones with the leaky roofs
the lower class – the ones with roofs that don’t leak
the middle class – the ones with guttering on their barn …

“What’s the fourth class?” asked Terry

“The ones with drains to take away the water!”

But having seen how dry the house walls have become since I put guttering up, then my barn will have it too. I’m sick and tired of being up to my neck in mud. But I’ll have to wait a bit for the drains though.

The chevrons are much too short for the roofing (I went for a long overhang) and so a fascia board is out of the question but they did have at Brico Depot yesterday some galvanised straps with the facility for a sliding attachment. If you bend the straps so that the sliders are at about 60° there’s still a good 9 inches or so on the straps and they fit nicely onto the chevrons and you can bolt the gutter mounts to them and they are then perfectly vertical.

We did what we could bearing in mind that we had no joints (moving the scaffolding out to give us clearance was fun) but by 15:00 it was no longer possible to work up there. The combination of a searing hot metal roof, blinding sunlight and tools too hot to touch made us call it a day.

I did a little some while later and then history was made by my not only having a solar shower (and this LIDL garden shower thing needs some attention) but a solar shave as well. And no surprise – the water temperature was a phenomenal 46°C

We had a barbecue round at Clare’s tonight. Esther hosted it and very kindly invited me, and of course Strawberry Moose met some of his admirers. James and Julianna drew some good pictures of him too.

But by 21:00 we were having thunder and lightning and we even had some rain. But nothing like as much as we need. And right now the sky is a clear cloudless starry night promising much more sun for tomorrow. I have to go to Commentry to look for joints and downpipe and then it’s a toss-up as to whether I come back to do the guttering or go for a swim.

We shall see.

-7

Saturday 26th June 2010 – It was Karl and Lou’s chantier today …

… so Strawberry Moose and I went along to Lapeyrouse to see what was happening and to lend a hand.

Once again there weren’t all that many people there. The novelty of the idea is clearly wearing off as peoples’ own chantiers are completed. Liz and Terry, Clotilde, Francois, Jean, Hein (whom I met briefly for the first time at Kate’s the other day) and Yours Truly were the only attendees, and I was late arriving.

Hein’s wife and kids turned up later and of course Strawberry made a new friend. Good old Strawberry!

The girls (Lou, Liz and Clotilde) occupied themselves with painting 30 panels of OSB to put on the walls of the attic, while Jean and I put some guttering up to the side of the garage and connected a downpipe to the drain. I like working with Jean – he’s an old guy but very fit for his age and has a keen interest in woodwork and that kind of thing. We’ve done quite a few jobs together at various chantiers.

Terry, Francois and Hein spent the day working on the door to the barn. The previous owners had nailed it shut as the bottom had rotted off and the huge hinge had broken away, leading to a risk that the door might fall across the lane.

They unfastened it, removed it from the doorframe and lowered it onto some trestles. Once it was there they cut off the bottom part, screwed some new wood onto the frame, reinforced the frame, replaced the ironwork and then we all lifted it back into position.

In the photo just here you can see the work receiving close attention from the assembled multitudes. From left to right we have Karl, Jean (who is hiding Francois) Hein and Terry. Here they were refitting the stone that had the pivot hole for the lower hinge.

Back here the temperature in my room was an astonishing 30°C. But I am prepared for this kind of thing. I bought a heavy-duty in-car fan for just €3.99 the other day and I took off the cigarette lighter plug and replaced it with an American 110-volt plug (that’s what I use for my 12-volt circuits). It’s noisy but it doesn’t half blow the cool air around when you clip it into the frame of the open window.

A good move that!

+11

-5

Saturday 15th May 2010 – His NIbs made some more new admirers today.

Yes, we did this furniture removal today and Strawberry Moose came along to take charge, supervise and in general look after the children while the adults did the work.

Of course this calls for a photo opportunity (have you ever known Strawberry Moose to miss out on one of those?) and here he is being feted by James, Samuel and Julianna while Liz, Esther and Lionel look on.

The furniture removal took most of the day, what with one thing and another, but we had a chance to meet up with Clare and Keith. And Clare very kindly donated to the cause a complete set of kitchen cooking knives that she had received as a free gift and which were surplus to requirements. That was really nice of her.

After the removal was over we went back to Liz and Terry’s where we discussed plans for the forthcoming week and also to continue the discussions over our moneymaking activities. We’re a long way from being destitute of course and we are all doing things to keep ticking over but you need to be proactive and take control of matters. Consequently on Monday we will be extracting the old caravan chassis from the wilderness around here, repairing it and loading Terry’s small tractor onto it so that it is ready for work and then fitting the towbar off my old Transit onto Terry’s van so that he can tow it about. Then Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday we will be fixing the pipes at the back of Terry’s house, seeing as the kwikstage scaffolding is up there.

There are lots of other things too but if you plan to finish them all, the first thing that you need to do is to make the start. And that’s as good a place as any.

Once those things are out of the way we can see where we are up to.

-2

Wednesday 21st April 2010 – Friends Reunited

Strawberry Moose got to see his Auntie Tracy this evening. In fact it’s been quite some time since the two of them met – probably two years or so.

As predicted, cleaning this apartment is pretty hard work particularly when your heart isn’t in it. But at least I’ve cleared away the forest of dead plants inside the apartment, made a start on the ones on the terrace, and I began some desultory cleaning.

But then of course the rest is history.

It didn’t take me long to get discouraged so I rang up Tracy in Antwerpen to see if she fancied coming down for a coffee, but she wasn’t feeling too well and so, any excuse to stop cleaning and tidying, I went up there.

We had a good chat, mostly about what’s been happening to us since we both graduated from the Open University, and then went out for a meal. And if there’s one type of cooking that will run a good Indian close then it has to be Middle Eastern cooking and as luck would have it there is an Egyptian restaurant not too far from where she lives whose falafel and hummus is second to none. And of course there has to be a big plate of fritjes to go with it. After all, this is Belgium and they invented the French Fry. There is of course all of the old jokes about this –
“Why are there no Belgian astronauts?”
“Because there are no fritkots on the moon”
“What do you call a German living in Belgium?”
“Fritz”
“Why are there potatoes in Belgium and oil in the Middle East?”
“Because the Belgians had first choice”
Yes, we know them all.

But I like Antwerpen – it’s got much more going for it than Brussels. And had my work not have been so “irregular” I would have gladly bought a place here. In fact there is a suburb of Antwerpen specially named for me – it’s called Weerde. I would have been very happy there, almost as happy as living in that Belgian town between Enghein and Ath.

It’s called Silly.

-7

Wednesday 18th November 2009 – At least I know now …

… why it is that my little room is getting so damp. I moved a pile of wood and the evidence is right before my eyes.

The soil has once more banked itself up against the kitchen wall (I keep digging it out every couple of years) and also, some of the pointing has fallen out and water is infiltrating between the stones.

I’m glad that I’m going round to Terry’s tomorrow morning to have a pointing lesson with Mark. I can see me putting this to use in a very short space of time.

In other news, I’m still tidying up the garden, albeit in a rather desultory fashion. Most of what I’ve been doing is to sort out the scrap wood into what is useable elsewhere and what is only fit for burning. I’m also pulling up brambles and nettles in a sort-of tidying up of the scrub for I need a place to put the compost bin that I bought a couple of weeks ago and everywhere else is full up.

And what else? Ahh yes. I’ve dug over the carrot patch and the potato patch and rescued some veg. I fact I had home-grown potatoes and carrots for tea just now. I’ve also tidied up Caliburn’s cab and cleaned the inside of the windscreen which was all greased over and filthy. We’re off to Liz and Terry’s tomorrow and Strawberry Moose has been promised a huge hug from Liz. He’s quite looking forward to it.

And in other news, Rhys and I have been looking at cement mixers on the internet – Rhys has to lay a concrete foundation for his new shed. But never mind the cement mixer, Harbour Freight has a heavy duty concrete vibrator for just €99. Now isn’t that right up Lee “I’m a potty-mouth” Prostitute’s alley?

-6

Saturday 29th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. Long before the alarm went off, actually. Not like me, this. But at 08:45 I was on my way to Montlucon for part I of my mega-shop.

Nothing of interest in Carrefour or Vima, and only some new vegan burgers in Amaranthe. But Noz came up trumps again. A copy of an old Donovan album at 1:90 was something, but a triple-pack of Nice CDs at 3:90 was even more exciting – especially as the whole lot was reduced by 50%.

At Auchan I bumped into Rob and Julie and their kids. This was a complete surprise – older readers of my organ at its previous location will recall that it’s usually at Brico Depot that I bump into them. And poor Julie has been quite ill for a few months, although she’s recovering slowly now. That’s nice – I like them and their daughter Ashleigh is quite a big fan of His Nibs.

Brico Depot was exciting. I had two constraints – firstly money and secondly (and more importantly) space inside Caliburn. Interior space was important as I had forgotten to take my ladder with me so I can only reach a very short distance onto the roof-rack to tie stuff on. That stymied me a bit.

But we have the two windows (one of which needs some planing down to fit the hole), some more paint, loads of polystyrene and plenty of wood battens, as well as quite a bit of other stuff. That’ll keep me out of mischief for a week or so and I can go and get another load of stuff next weekend. It’s all very well buying it all in one go but firstly you have to transport it and secondly you have to store it.

I did also pick up a 70x70cm shower base. This was crucial as I’m building the bathroom around the shower and the dimensions need to be worked out fairly soon in my plans. It was the last one in the shop as well so I was quite proud. But as you might expect, as I was walking around the shop it slid off my trolley and smashed into a hundred pieces. Ahh well.

I also went to the “Conforama”. It’s a big furniture shop and it regularly sends out its publicity. Even though it’s only just across the road from the Auchan, in all the years that I’ve lived here I’ve never ever been there, but today I had good reason for going.

They are having a sale on these “click clack” sofas that transform themselves into double beds with a space underneath for storing your bedding. Now, I had one of those in Brussels and I was quite impressed with it for what it was. And so I’ve decided that I want another one to put up in my attic to sit and to sleep on.

The raised bed that I built here works fine but after nearly two years it’s fairly uncomfortable and so I’ve decided to push the boat out and get a really good quality one with a decent mattress. There’s 15% off until the 14th September and delivery is within 3 weeks so if I order it in 2 weeks time it should be ready for when my room is finished. It’s going to be expensive but a good bed is worth its weight in gold.

One problem though is that they don’t do a blue cover – one that will go with my room when I’ve painted it. The assistant who minced over to talk to me talked to me with a lithp, so I was on safe ground talking to him about colour co-ordination and soft furnishings. I suppose I should have profited from the situation to discuss curtains with him.

Talking of beds, tomorrow is Sunday, but no lie-in. A prospective customer wants to come round and talk to me about solar panels. Well, I’ll get out of bed early if there’s a possibility of amounts of folding stuff changing hands in my direction.

And it’s Virlet brocante in the afternoon. Always a good one, that.

-5

Saturday 15th August 2009 – I SAW THIS MOST MAGNIFICENT CLOUD …

… on my way to Liz and Terry’s this evening. A finer example of an “anvil” cumulonimbus cloud you cannot hope to see.

It’s hovering just about over Clermont Ferrand so I reckon that the good citizens of that fair city are having a right pasting this evening, for “anvil” clouds are associated with heavy thunderstorms.

So what was I doing at Liz and Terry’s this evening? You may well ask.

In fact it all starts this morning at about 11.45. There I was casually nailing my fascia boards to the ends of the chevrons when suddenly Terry put in a dramatic appearance.

“There’s a damsel ( or was it a damson?) in distress at the Brico Depot in Montlucon” he announced

Of course, someone’s antlers pricked up at that. All his life he’s been in training for just this moment and despite one or two false starts
“Help help I’ve been tied to this tree and ravaged by the entire crew of the HMS Victory” cried a damsel in distress, tied to a tree in the forest.
“Well, it’s just not your lucky day, is it?” Strawberry Moose
, unbuckling his tunic.
he was well in form.

He leapt into Caliburn, his trusty steed (in the old days when I used to be a superhero all on my own and the job didn’t pay as well as it does now, some of the vehicles I owned were rather less than reputable and were more like rusty steeds, but certainly not Caliburn) and as his driver, I leapt in beside him and we chaud-pieded it to Montlucon.

This digital revolution and mobile communications has brought about some significant benefits and so on – but also a major disadvantage that as far as I know, everyone else has overlooked. In order to be a superhero you need to have your underpants on outside your trousers, and telephone boxes are the traditional places for superheroes to change their clothing.

But try finding a telephone box these days now that everyone has a mobile phone! Strawberry and I had to search for ages until we found a suitable telephone box to change in, and that’s in the Auvergne where mobile phone coverage is patchy at best. How is Superperson managing in the USA where telephone boxes are all but redundant?

Superheroes will have to find new venues in which to change.

Public toilets are likely to receive plenty of support, and I have indeed made use of just such a venue on a previous occasion. But these days you have to fight your way into a public toilet past the drug abusers, the cottagers, the cross-dressers (“Mabel, if you don’t let me wear your tights I’ll smash your ****ing face in!”) and the like.

Mind you, I did have a brother who almost always used to come out of a public toilet with his underpants on outside his trousers, but that was more to do with his status as being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic rather than any superhero status he might (or might not) wish to claim.

So Strawberry Moose
, Caliburn and I duly arrived at Brico Depot and found Terry standing guard over a trolley with a pile of windows too large to go in the back of his car.
“Where’s Liz?” I asked
“Ohh, she’s going to take advantage of you while you’re here” he replied.
Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s a long time since anyone has ever said anything like that to me, and my surprise was quite clearly written all over my face.
“She wants to make use of Caliburn now you are all here by getting some more windows”
“Ahhhh” I replied, this time with disappointment all over my face.

Liz asked me if I could deliver the windows this evening.
“Might that involve some of your vegan chocolate cake?” I enquired.
“I’ll see what I can do” she replied.

And hence my visit to Liz and Terry’s this evening. And not only was there vegan chocolate cake, there was some vegetable curry with rice, and some vegan chocolate cake to bring home.

We have a system round here of chantiers communaux – where if anyone has a work project that needs many hands, we all do a blitz on their premises to get the job done. And whenever there’s a chantiers communaux at Liz and Terrys, you are usually trampled to death in the stampede, so well-known is Liz’s vegan chocolate cake.

And in other news, it was the hottest day of the year so far – almost 42 degrees – and I’ve fixed the fascia boards, tacked on the guttering (I can’t fix it on until the scaffolding is moved) and put on the first row of tiles.

-3

Monday 10th August 2009 I WAS HAVING A …

… quiet leisurely breakfast this morning when a car pulled up outside. “A bit too early for the postie” I thought so I wandered off to see who it was. And lo and behold! It was Terry.

“Come on, let’s have this roof off” he exclaimed, so before I could even begin to tell him about my change of plan we were ripping the slates off. Ahhh well!

I uncovered an ants’ nest (I wondered where all these ants had been marching to – now I know) but Terry won the prize, uncovering a mice nest, complete with mice. These were summarily evicted too. We uprooted a couple of rotten chevrons (most of them are fine and they will be staying put) and then we put up the scaffolding.

After lunch we xylophened the wood on the end of the main roof and then painted it with the LIDL wood preservative. Tons of the stuff went on.
“This won’t ever rot again” I suggested.
“It’ll rot sooner or later” said Terry.
“Well, as long as it doesn’t do it before I’m dead” I said
“No problem there” said Terry, brandishing a hammer.

>We edged off the wood with tiles just as I had done on the other side and then piddled off to Simon’s to see about his electricity. He had his kids there, a lad of 12 and a girl of 8. And Strawberry Moose made another friend as you can expect.

And at the Anglo-French group, Nathalie made a welcome return. It was nice to see her after all of this while. And next week, as the venue at St Eloy is closed, Amandine wants to invite us round to her house at Moureuille.

I forgot to mention too that Terry brought me round my new toy. A bargain pack of Hitachi battery-powered drill, torch and – wait for it – battery-powered SDS drill. I’ve been after one of those for years and Screwfix had them on special offer. So I’ve treated myself. I can think of a million uses for one of those.

And talking of Screwfix, Terry’s had to nip to the UK to pick up his latest purchases so I’m on my own for a couple of days again. But don’t worry – he’s left me plenty to do.

-9

Sunday 9th August 2009 – I MENTIONED THE OTHER DAY …

… about Strawberry Moose playing hide-and-seek with his sister Katherine and other students from Hatfield University. Well, I’ve been sent some photos to prove it.

Here you can see His Nibs cunningly hiding behind a tree. Unfortunately, his antlers somehow give the game away but at least he had a good time, being surrounded by young ladies of the female sex.

I’ve also been sent some “other” photos detailing his “other” antics while on his solo round-Britain tour, but the world is not yet ready for them.

Sunday today so I didn’t set the alarm. Nevertheless I was up at 09:30 and had a leisurely breakfast. I carried on with the pointing later – it takes me about 10 minutes to mix a bucket-full of cement and about an hour or so to apply it, and twice I was caught out by rainstorms just as I had a bucketload. I can’t leave it so I ended up working in the rain.

The second storm meant business so I abandoned the task once the bucket was emptied, came in and dried myself off, followed by a coffee. But the pointing isn’t going to be finished at this rate – not even close – so I’ve pretty-much decided on a change of plan.

-8

Friday 7th August 2009 – NEVER ONE TO MISS OUT ….

… on a photo opportunity, Strawberry Moose tagged himself along to Gilles’ barbecue this evening.

Of course he made plenty of friends, mostly of young ladies of the female sex, and was even taking part in the “jumping off the wall” game – to match the games of “hide and seek” that he played with students of Hatfield University the other week.

As for my part, I don’t “do” social stuff but I force myself to go out – otherwise I’d never ever do anything.

Terry and Liz are good company as are Bill and Gilles. Rebecca’s mum is quite nice to talk to too, but after a while I long for the peace and quiet of my own four walls such as they are.

And talking of walls, I started the pointing today. Followers of my ravings from previous incarnations will know that my cementing is total carp, and so I didn’t expect much from my efforts at pointing. But even though my technique improved dramatically, my target of Monday afternoon for this is hopelessly optimistic.

There are holes in the existing cementing big enough to put your hand in and god knows what kind of livestock is lurking in there. One hole swallowed up an entire bucket of cement so after that I resorted to filling the big holes with gravel and then cementing them in, to bind everything together. I was interrupted by a rainstorm too at 17:30.

It’s just as well that I’m pointing the wall as it is in desperate straights but finished by Monday? Not a chance.

-5

EPIC HALL

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