Tag Archives: caliburn

Friday 13th November 2015 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve not done anything much at all. I really need to snap out of this.

However, the day wasn’t suitable for doing much outside – grey and overcast – although that hasn’t stopped me very often before. And furthermore, the weather has gone colder and I can smell winter in the air.

I spent today revising what I’ve learnt over the last two weeks on my course about Hadrian’s Wall, and it seems to have worked because I took my test this afternoon and ended up with 93%, with which I’m quite satisfied, although I fell down on transcribing the inscription on a Roman monumental stone which is a disappointment because the only Latin that I can remember from my schooldays is due to my keeping it up by reading monumental stones. So Puer amat mensam, say I.

This evening I went off to St Eloy and shopping and due to my bulk purchases last weekend I spent a mere €14:00, mainly on fruit and veg, and also on the rice that I forgot to buy. And the grapes were beautiful, so much so that I bought two bags, one of which I ate on the way home and the second I’ll eat on Sunday. Not tomorrow though because I’m off to Enval tomorrow night for the football and do you know what? I’m going to buy myself a cooked pizza for tea and eat it in Caliburn on the way home.

You might be wondering how it is that I manage to eat pizza when I’m out, being a vegan. That’s because whenever I go to Brussels I buy a load of the vegan cheese slices that are on sale at the health food shop opposite where Marianne used to live. There’s always a pack or two in the coolbox wired into Caliburn’s ignition circuit and so when I order my pizza, I order it without cheese and ask the pizza place if they will stick three slices of my cheese onto the the pizza.

Of course, it’s a waste of time doing that at one of these big pizza chains, but most smaller pizza places and pizza vans do it quite happily, and I know for a fact that the one at Mozac (on the way home) will do it with no problems as I’ve had it done there before.

But depressing news at St Eloy. There was a “dispute” at LIDL between two shoppers that ended up with a punch-up outside the shop. I left the UK to get away from aggressive confrontations like this and it dismayed me to see this kind of thing over here. Mind you, St Eloy is a little … well … down-at-heel and depressed and I suppose that some of the locals relieve their tensions and stresses with alcohol and the like.

But it’s still a sad thing to witness. I’m dismayed.

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Friday 6th November 2015 – THIS WEATHER IS WEIRD

Here I am, it’s the 6th November and I still have the fridge running 24 hours per day and not only that, at 19:00 this evening I was outside in the verandah with a bucket of really warm water having a gorgeous shower.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t with warm water out of the heat exchanger because the weather didn’t permit it. It started off quite well but round about midday we had a rainstorm and then it was clouded over for the rest of the day. The batteries didn’t charge right up and so we didn’t have anything going into the dump load. I ended up boiling 2 litres of water on the gas stove.

And that reminds me – I’m planning to go into Montlucon tomorrow so I ought to disconnect the dump load before I go. I want to see it in operation and make sure that it’s safe before I go off and leave it alone.

But with the rainfall and the lack of excess power I wasn’t able to cut any wood – once more. Instead, I started to tidy up outside somewhat (although it doesn’t look as if there is any difference). Once I’d sorted some of that out, I started on tidying up the ground floor in the house and I’ve made some progress in there. In fact, you can even see the top of the table now in places and you’ll be surprised at the things that I found. I know that I was!

I took the opportunity to empty some stuff out of Caliburn. In fact there’s some food in there still that I bought in August and seeing as it’s mostly tinned stuff, it can stay there for now. But taking some stuff into the barn I found quite by accident the big drill for which I was looking the other day. Isn’t it always like that?

And so I now smell nicely of coconut and my nice clean clothes smell nicely of hint of soap. On that note, having crashed out for a short while just now, I’m having an early night. I deserve it.

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Saturday 17th October 2015 – SO FAR TODAY …

…I’ve changed gear three times with Caliburn’s indicator stalk and put him into first gear twice when I’ve been trying to back him into a parking space. And I can’t get the hang of this tiny button in the place where the steering wheel ought to be.

Yes, I’ve been to the shops today – first time since I’ve been back here of course. And I did a full shop that came to just €27:00 even with a few extra bits and pieces. It’s good to be back in Europe where you can buy the food for a week for the same price that you would have to pay for a few bits and pieces in a North American supermarket. All those people who complain about the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy ought to go for a month and do their food shopping in North America. Even with the benefits of mass-production and cut-throat competition, they can’t match the prices that we Europeans pay for our basic foods.

To give you an example – a baguette in a real boulangerie costs about €0:70 – that’s about 90 cents. In a North American supermarket, you’d pay $2:59 for it. These are the prices that people will be paying in Europe if the CAP is dissolved.

And so the first night back in my nice comfy bed.

And so comfortable was I that it was also first night back at my old school for I’ve no idea how many years. I’d been to the school gymnasium for the rehearsals of the school presentation of a Harry Potter play, and there I’d met the girl who was playing Luna Lovegood – who, as regular readers of this rubbish will know, is my favourite character in the series and the girl who should have been paired with Harry Potter – and we’d started dating. I’d agreed to take her home afterwards but when the bell rang, she was pushing her green and yellow bicycle towards the exit. “I’ll just take my bike home” she said, “and then I’ll come back afterwards and you can take me home” (such is the logic of these night-time voyages that I undertake). Anyway, I’d been waiting half an hour and she hadn’t come back so I wondered if I was waiting in the right place. She’d written down her name (it was Lalana or something) and phone number on a piece of paper, but somehow another piece of paper had become stuck over the top and when I peeled that back, it took off half of the girl’s writing. I then went to look for her classroom to see if she was waiting there, but there had been so many changes at the school since I was there that her class year was scattered throughout the building, not like it used to be with three or four classes adjacent when I was there. Eventually some boy gave me a school directory and so I started to thumb through that to see if I could see her in there. But by now it was 20:30 and I’d almost given up hope of finding her again, and I was distraught.

Considering how late I’d gone to bed, waking up at 09:30 (fully-clothed in bed) was something of an achievement. And even though the temperature hadn’t risen from last night, it felt rather warmer. But what I’m going to do is take the gas heater up to the bedroom. I’ve one of these portable calor-gas heaters and it’s not doing anything, so I reckon that half an hour before I go to bed and half an hour before I wake up with one bar of the fire will work wonders in there, even in the middle of winter.

While I was sorting out my breakfast, it suddenly occurred to me that last night I’d gone to bed without taking the stats, and that might well be the first time that I’ve ever done that. Ahh well – no matter.

I spent some time on the internet and then went off to do the shopping. And I’m convinced, as I’ve said before, that Rosemary has a secret camera focused on my house because I hadn’t been back 5 minutes (and the water for the coffee hadn’t even boiled) before she called me up.

Apparently her mobility is worsening and she needs a hand to move some stuff around, so in exchange for some home-made vegetable soup and bread, I’ll go round and help out – and we can catch up with the latest news.

And so FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI was relegated to Division II at the end of last season. It’s hard to believe that just three or four seasons ago they were challenging for promotion but I’ve mentioned so oftenall of the problems that have been happening off the pitch that you are probably sick to death of them right now.

Tonight they were playing the team from the Portuguese Social Club in Clermont and so I went down to see how they were doing. They’ve managed to retain most of the 1st XI from last year and made one or two additions who looked quite useful. And they looked a lot meaner and more aggressive too.

The Portuguese defence was dreadful – even worse than Pionsat’s legendary Easter island statue defence and how Pionsat only managed to score three (from three dreadful defensive errors and mix-ups) is totally beyond me. Pionsat just failed to put the defence under enough pressure despite all of the ball that they had.

And conceding two as well against this attack. The first one was from a direct free kick that curled nicely around the blind side of the wall, and the second was from the usual Pionsat tactic of failing to clear the ball out of a tight spot in the defence and playing it right into danger instead. If I had an Euro for each time that I’ve said that the ball ought to be kicked into the cemetery, the school playground, the abandoned railway line or the garden of the Queue de Milan, I’d be dictating this rubbish to a bunch of floozies sitting on my knee somewhere on a beach in the Bahamas. And still they don’t listen.

They threw away dozens of points like this over the last couple of seasons – this is what cost them promotion all those years ago, and this has what has caused them to be relegated last season. They ought to bounce straight back, but they have already been on the end of a heavy defeat and they are going to have to work much harder than this to fulfil their potential. There are some good players there at this level. The Portuguese are bottom of the league, and quite rightly so, but Pionsat made such heavy weather of this victory.

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Tuesday 13th October 2015 – NOW HERE’S A THING

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the question of fuel consumption for Strider has been causing me some little concern. Darren and I have talked at length about this, and one of the options that came up in the conversation involved fitting a diesel engine in him.

This is not as strange an idea as it might sound, and for three reasons too.
Firstly, the Ford Ranger is made under licence in Japan as the Mazda B3000 and that comes with a factory-fitted option of 3.0-litre diesel engine.
Secondly, in Europe it’s available with the same diesel engine as is in Caliburn
Thirdly, the engine is based on the old Ford V6 Cologne engine that was fitted in the late Taunuses and early Granadas, Sierras and Transits, and I actually have two diesel engines on my farm – a 2.5 NA and a 2.3 Sierra diesel – that would bolt straight in on the bellhousing.
I would lose a great deal of power of course with a diesel engine but why on earth does a Ranger need 207 hp? 163 hp is plenty.

Not only that, if you’ve been following my adventures around North America, you’ll remember that about 5 weeks ago, I met a guy in Bridgewater, Maine, who has a diesel fetish and has fitted diesel engines into almost everything that he owns, including a motor bike.

And so this morning after breakfast and after spending some time at the tyre place saying goodbye to everyone, I went over across into Maine to see him.

As you might expect, he wasn’t there. But his ladyfriend was and we had a good chat for a couple of hours about this and that.

Back in Canada, I went down to Woodstock and by the time we got … "you said that yesterday#34; – ed … I went to pick up another tote box. Leaving everything in Strider and leaving Strider in an open hangar means that we might attract all kinds of things and so I need to have everything in boxes and properly closed. Walmart had some tote boxes like the one that I bought last year, for just $6:00 and they also had, for $6:00, a three-drawer set of plastic drawers. I’ve been looking for one of those for a while, to put the cutlery and stuff like that in. I wasn’t going to pass that up.

I went to Tim Horton’s to catch up with the internet, and then round to the car wash to give Strider a really good going-over and to vacuum him out. I’d also bought a pile of mothballs and some sheets of Bounce. Folklore in New Brunswick is such that if you scatter them about liberally, they keep away mice, skunks and all of that kind of thing. Consequently, Strider is stuffed full of them.

After supper, we took the battery off Strider and put him away in the hangar for the winter. And it was at this moment that the diesel guy from Maine called me up to say that he needed to see the gearbox bell housing before he could do anything. And so that will have to wait until next year, won’t it?

maritime atlantic bus florenceville riviere du loup quebec canadaRachel ran me up to Florenceville and we had a big goodbye when the bus pulled in at the Irving garage to take me off to Montreal. It’s hard to believe that my 8 weeks in Canada is up already. I feel like I have been here for ever and quite frankly, I wish that I had been and that I could.

The bus journey to Montreal is quite painless. The buses are big, clean and roomy and then there aren’t too many people on them. I had two seats to myself and so I could spread out and make myself comfortable as we shot off to Riviere du Loup where we change for the bus that comes up from the Gaspé.

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Monday 17th August 2015 – LAST NIGHT …

… could have been a night just as good as the previous one, and that’s exactly how it was heading. And then it all came to a sudden halt at 01:30, for Bane of Britain here had forgotten to switch off his European alarms.

If I had had a quid for every time that I’ve done that while I’ve been in North America I would be dictating this to half a dozen secretaries draped all over my knee and thereabouts. You would think that I would have learnt by now, wouldn’t you?

To make matters worse, I was away with the fairies somewhere at the time, and by the time I’d composed myself afterwards, it had all gone.

I was still up before the alarm at 06:00 (I’m doing my best to keep to some kind of semblance of time) and after breakfast cracked on with a few things.

And here I am, on the bus heading towards the railway station. First stop is Namur and the Walmart, which comes up with a cap at $5:00, a big bottle of water, and 150 sheets of A4 paper at just $0:10 in the back to school bargain sale and you can’t say fairer than that. A useful thing to have around seeing as how I’ve forgotten my graph paper.

Back on the metro to Berri-UQAM and the long long walk to the coach station to buy my ticket for Florenceville tomorrow. $114 – arrgghh – and that’s with the senior citizens discount too. Heaven alone knows what it might have been at full price. But with 10.5 hours on the bus (changing at Riviere du Loup) it’s not really all that bad, I suppose. But 22:30 I leave, 09:00 on Wednesday I arrive – I am not looking forward to this, but since they ripped up all of the trains there isn’t much of an alternative.

So I had a really good chat to Rachel on the phone, giving her enough advance warning so that she can flee the country, and then a wander through all of the galleries – or, at least, as many as I could find. It’s cooler in there than outside.

That cheap technology shop near the railway station had nothing of interest although I did start to notice in one or two places that Government energy stickers are slowly starting to appear in the shops. A sign of the times, hey?

new ford transit montreal quebec canadaAnd look at this! This is not a new Ford Transit but a replacement for the Ford F-series panel vans. And if you are wondering why many of the very useful white-van-man features of the previous Ford Transit have mysteriously (and surprisingly) disappeared from the new version on sale in Europe, then look no further.

They don’t have white-van-man in North America. His equivalent over here drives a 4×4 pick-up and that’s where you will find the interesting bits and pieces. White vans here are just used for furniture removals and parcel deliveries and a little bit of urban maintenance and so are a completely different breed.

So if any North American has had a hand in designing the new Transit, that will explain why, as far as facilities go, the new Transit is essentially a backward step. I’m convinced that Transits of the model such as Caliburn
 actually had a white-van-man on the design committee and it’s sad that Ford Europe doesn’t have the muscle to have pushed forward their observations to whoever was on this global design panel.

Abandoning another good rant for now I head off down the rue St Catherine where there’s a big new shopping mall type of place on the right as you go down the hill. All clean and bright, with a Subway sandwich place down in the basement. Ahh! Lunch!

fountain food court shopping mall rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaAnd for the first time ever, since I’ve been visiting a Subway, when I asked the Serving Wench for my 12-inch with just crudites (yes, if it’s crudities you want, then I’m your man) she did not ask me if I wanted cheese with it. I made a comment about it, to which the aforementioned replied "well, I’ve been working here for quite a few years now so I’m used to it"

They had a fountain here too so I took a photo of it seeing as how pretty it looked, and as soon as I had started to leave, it erupted, so I came back for another photo.

giant chess board rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaBack outside and down the street they had the giant chessboards out again and so I watched 3 or 4 games in the company of a woman, and we were exchanging comments about the games. One game was ultra-defensive and everyone lost interest after a while, including the two players who abandoned the match.

Another one was however quite exciting. It was a younger girl against an older man and was played in what you might call something of an aggressive spirit, swinging like a pendulum from one way to the next as they traded piece for piece. She made a couple of moves that had mystified me, but then suddenly she caught his king in a trap against her pawns. By this time he just had his king and a knight and she a bishop (or fou as they are called in French, so I discovered) and a king, and they both had four pawns each.

What helped my concentration was that there was an ice-cream parlour right next door, and I can thoroughly recommend the coconut milk sorbet.

Further down the road in St Catherine Est I came across a bookshop selling second-hand books and CDs and so that’s me spent up yet again for another year.

chapel of notre dame de lourdes rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaThe Chapel of Notre dame de Lourdes was erected to the glory of Mary so we are told (but just WHAT is the Glory of Mary?) thanks to the generposity of the local people.

However that generosity does not extend to giving out help to those who ask for it. There’s a big sign outside saying that it is forbidden to solicit alms either outside or inside the Chapel.

Just what kind of Christians are these?

three wheeled batmobile rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaMy reverie was interrupted by the rather bizarre noise of something different coming down the street. Luckily I had my camera to hand to photograph it.

I couldn’t get close enough to this to see what it was, which was a shame, but it looked very much like a three-wheeled batmobile to me. It bore something of a close resemblance to The White Swan that we saw on the Saguenay Ferry in 2011.

3725 rue st denis montreal quebec canadaI had my falafel for tea as well. I walked right up the bank to the rue Sherbrooke and then rue St Denis to where I had had my tea one night in 2014.

Just up the road from here is this magnificent building, the address of which is 3725 rue St Denis, and one day I’ll find out much more about it. It has to be something quite important or have an interesting history.

The metro from Sherbrooke brings me all the way round to the metro DuCollege, and then back on the bus. And I ended up being guide to a couple of French tourists from Picardy on the same bus who were trying to find their hotel.

I had a shower, for by this time I was steaming and then to bed for my last night for a while in Montreal.

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Tuesday 11th August 2015 – WELL THAT DIDN’T GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

So in the absence of any better offer this afternoon, I set to work to move this Hyundai. First thing though – the battery in the Kubota was flat. Not much of a surprise – I haven’t used it since last October. And so I had to put it on charge for a while.

Later on, I put the battery back and made sure that the Kubota started, and then went back in ready to do the job as it went dark.

later that night, I went back out, to find that the battery was flat again. So I moved Caliburn down to jump-start the Kubota. Once the Kubota fired up, off I went to tow the Hyundai, leaving Caliburn there.

And wasn’t that a fatal mistake?

I eventually managed to put the Hyundai out of my drive (it’s not easy pushing a big heavy car like that and I’m far from in the prime of life) and then set off to tow it away.

But that didn’t work, as the Kubota didn’t have the waft to pull it away. It just dug itself into the gravel up to the axles. Giving it a final whack and the motor stalled. And, of course, the battery is now flat again.

And so, we are stuck in the lane that the farmer needs for access to his field in the following order –

  1. the Kubota, with a flat battery
  2. the scrap Hyundai that won’t run at all
  3. Caliburn, the only vehicle that is working right now

And it goes without saying that Caliburn is stuck down at the bottom end of the cul de sac and can’t move until the others are gone. If only I had moved him first.

I really and sincerely wish from the bottom of my heart that I had never set eyes on this vehicle and that I had never set eyes upon its owner. I am thoroughly and completely fed up.

All I need now is for the farmer to put in an appearance and I shall be well and truly stuck. I am beginning to hate everyone and everything.

But apart from that, the morning was comparatively successful. Liz phoned me up early (and I was awake long beforehand too) and so I took her off to Riom and the hospital, in exchange for which she did a couple of loads of washing for me to bring me up to date.

Although Liz’s news from the hospital might be perceived in some quarters as being bad, for Liz it is in fact good news because it confirms her suspicions, and with the knowledge that she gained today, things can only get better and that is what she needs to know.

We went for a coffee and then off to Gerzat for the Radio Anglais recording sessions there. They passed quite easily and incident-free, which makes a great change and makes it quite a pleasure to go there.

sculpted fountain chatel guyon puy de dome franceIt was such a nice day so we stopped for a coffee on the way back.

Chatel-Guyon is a beautiful spa-town at the foot of the Combrailles. It’s a beautiful place to visit for an afternoon’s walk but we just contented ourselves with sitting outside a cafe near a sculpted fountain
looking at the water, soaking up the sun and drinking a good strong coffee in pleasant company.

And then back home to more of this total nonsense.

How I hate this car.

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Thursday 6th August 2015 – *@#&*@ç&!

Yes, tomorrow is my last day to work on this car as I’m now booked up before I go away.

And the client says that he can’t come down. Apparently he has a paying job that has come in, and my convenience is apparently so much lower than that. Well, it’s nice to know where I stand.

He says that he’ll come round on Saturday morning and finish it off, but I won’t be here. I’ll be in Montlucon. And the car had better be gone by the time that I come back as I’ll be putting Caliburn in my drive. I’m off for 9 weeks and I’m not leaving Caliburn in the lane under any circumstances. I haven’t paid all of this money for this concreting that we did last year to leave my van on the public highway.

And I also need to clean my drive, with the amount of oil that’s leaked out of this car. That has totally dismayed me.

This blasted Hyundai has totally messed up all of my plans. There’s no chance whatever now of me tiling my bathroom before I go and I wanted to have this long-done before I go.

I’ve had a major sense of humour failure over this car. And the worst of it all is that, having seen the photos that I posted on here a week or so ago, you know as well as anyone else that this vehicle won’t be going very far even if we do manage to get it going. I’ve wasted all of this time and done all of this effort for absolutely nothing and I’m sure that I won’t receive any thanks for it. I shan’t see the owner of this vehicle ever again until his next car goes wrong.

Apart from that, we were radioing today at Marcillat. Two months’ worth of programmes that we recorded for Radio Anglais
 this morning and that will take us up to the end of October with the next recording sessions pencilled in for 26th October. Just one more session, at Gerzat on Tuesday, and that will be that.

Liz and I went for a long chat afterwards and then I came back here. On the way back, I noticed that the construction work on the edge of Marcillat on the bed of the old railway line has now developed into a small petrol station. It seems that we will be having some 24-hour petrol pumps there. The Auvergne is definitely dragging itself into the 21st Century.

Back here, I had a pile of stuff to do, most of which I managed to complete, and I even managed for once to make some food this evening. This is progress.

I should have been having a day out on Monday but I’ve cancelled that now. I have too much to do, and it’s a shame that the tiling isn’t going to figure in that. I’m really fed up now.

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Friday 31st July 2015 – I’M LOSING MY GRIP!

I’ve done something really silly today and I’m still bewildered as to how I managed it.

I was busy doing some electrical wiring when I glanced at the clock.

18:15! Blimey! The shops will be shut in 75 minutes!

So I quickly changed my clothes, leapt into Caliburn and head for the hi … errr … St Eloy.

The road down the hill from Montaigut was packed with traffic and I did wonder what it was all doing at that time of evening. But on the other hand, LIDL and Carrefour were comparatively empty. LIDL did have some 12-volt LED bulbs (it doesn’t now, of course) and Carrefour had some soya deluxe desserts reduced on special offer.

I picked up some cash ready for my voyage in 2 weeks time, and then drove home.

While I was organising a few things the stop-work alarm went off. 19:00.

What?

Yes, 19:00. It appears that it wasn’t 18:15 when I shot of to St Eloy but actually … errr … 17:15. D’ohhh!

I blame last night, though. I couldn’t sleep and I was still wide-awake and working on the laptop at 03:30. And with an alarm at 07:30, no wonder I’ve been feeling rather feeble today.

I had the usual sessions on the laptop and then after lunch, stripped off all of the masking from the door, fitted the air vents and wired in the socket at the head of the stairs on the landing so that I can plug the livebox in there. And that was where I was at.

But the air vents looks good in the door. The idea is that warm air heading up the stairs (once I finally have the fire going downstairs, whenever that might be) will go in through the vent at the bottom of the door, rise up through the shower room and out through the air vent that you might remember me drilling out all that time a couple of years ago. And that will stop condensation building up too.

So tomorrow, if the parts for this Hyundai haven’t come, I’m sure I’ll find some other things to do around the house. But do you realise – in 2 weeks time, I won’t be here?

But then again, I’m not all here now judging by my performance this evening, am I?

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Tuesday 28th July 2015 – I’VE HAD A BAD DAY TODAY

The alarm went off at 07:30 as usual, followed by the reminders at 07:45 and 08:00, but there was no way that I was able to leave my bed.

I ache just about everywhere – in places that I didn’t realise that I had places. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m far too old to go crawling around under cars the way that I did. Nice and leisurely, with a cup of coffee and a couple of biscuits every hour, I can manage that and I’m quite happy to do so. But working like I did yesterday, 9.5 hours non-stop without a pause, mauling some really heavy equipment about – I’m far too old for that.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. On a reasonable car where everything is there within reach, it’s quite easy. For example, with a Ford Cortina with a Pinto engine (of which there are dozens around here) the only time that you have to lie down is to take off the bottom pulley on the crankshaft. And that is that. The rest you can do standing up. With this blasted technological marvel of the 21st Century, you need to be up on top and on your back down below at the same time with three hands each.

And I have to do it all again when I need to re-assemble it.

But I can see now how it is that the vehicle has come here to be done. It’s quite simply that no-one else will touch it. And I can understand why.

But at least I had a nice concrete pad to lie down on after our efforts last year. Imagine trying to do this lying on damp gravel.

So I eventually crawled out of bed and I sat down in my chair and that was that. I couldn’t even move to make myself some food so I’ve just been nibbling on what I could reach.

Rosemary rang me up for a chat and instead, she had 90 minutes of me venting my spleen and letting off steam. Poor Rosemary. I just hope that I feel better tomorrow. I couldn’t even think about tiling today. And this is going to annoy me. I wanted to finish my tiling before I go away but Caliburn is parked up the road while this pile of scrap is parked in my drive and so I would have to carry all of the tiles and the sacks of cement 200 metres down here. There was no way that I was going to do that today and I probably won’t feel much like doing it tomorrow either. So it’s not just losing two days of work by working on this car, it’s also losing several other days while I recover from my exertions and no-one will ever think about that. I wish that I had never offered to do it now. It’s messed up all of my plans completely.

So starving, hungry, cold and fed up, and aching just about everywhere, I’m going back to bed. I hope that I have as much excitement as I did last night when I was once more back at school in Nantwich with a mini-traveller loaded with stuff and all kinds of people trying to peer in to see what there was. And an old girlfriend of mine, Ann, putting in an appearance too. Whatever was she doing here?

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Friday 24th July 2015 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… that you heard of me working at 21:10 in the evening? I might have done at one time, I think, but I didn’t make a note of it, so this time might well be the first official occasion.

And not only that, I’d been to do my shopping at St Eloy in between too, so that’s something of a rarity too.

This morning I managed to tie with the alarm going off and then after breakfast I had a nice uninterrupted morning on the laptop sorting out another pile of previous blog entries. If I crack on doing four or five each day, I can finish the Canada 2010 and do Canada 2011 before I go away – at least, that’s my aim.

After lunch, I finished off all of the masking, dismantled everything that needed dismantling and then put on the first coat of varnish. It was then 18:00 and the drying time for a second coat is 2 hours. Thus I leapt into Caliburn and headed off to St Eloy in order to do my shopping.

Back here by 19:30 and I had to wait for another 45 minutes or so, and then I put the second coat of clear varnish on the wood. And when I’d finally finished that, I could knock off and have tea.

Tomorrow after breakfast, I’ll do the third and final coat and while that’s drying I can carry on with the blog. And when the varnish is finally dry, I can fit the recessed lights and reassemble the ironmongery.

That will mean that, in between dealing with this car that’s coming here on Monday, I can make a start on the tiling.

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Saturday 11th July 2015 – I’M NOT THERE

Well, not all there anyway, but that should come as no surprise to anyone. After spending a few weeks reading this rubbish, you should have come to that conclusion yourselves.

celtic folk festival hotel de la providence et de la poste besse puy de dome franceThis is where I am, at the Hotel de la Providence et de la Poste in Besse, down at the southern end of the département. And you’ll notice that I have my own personal entertainment, with a Celtic folk band right underneath my window.

It certainly was Providence that brought me to the Hotel de la Providence et de la Poste and no mistake. I’m here in my little room with shower and facilities and this is where I’ll stay until tomorrow morning, for I’m on my travels again.

restaurant le bessoi besse puy de dome franceAnd this is where I had my tea tonight, at the restaurant le bessoi in the medieval centre. And I have something interesting to report about the place, namely …
Our Hero – “could I have the ‘salade végétarienne’ but without the cheese please?”
Serving Wench – “why don’t you want the cheese?”
OH – “I don’t eat animal products”
SW – “well, I’m not sure what I could offer you instead – an egg is no good, is it?”
OH – “I could have a double helping of mushrooms”
SW – “that’s a good idea – and I’ll bring you a pile of bread too”.
And she did!
That’s the first time that that has ever happened to me in France. What a surprise! Things must be looking up!

So what am I up to then?

The answer is that Liz is off on holiday and needed running to the airport at Limoges. And seeing as I’ll be needing a hand to do the plumbing when I come back from Canada and Terry will be the most likely candidate, I need to repay the favour.

I’d have done it anyway without a second thought, but anyway, there we were, at 09:45, off towards Limoges. And I’d been up since 07:00 too, long before the alarm, and that’s not something that happens every day.

caliburn D 941 la creuze franceAnd here we are – or, rather, Caliburn and Strawberry Moose at our lunch stop somewhere on the D941 in the Creuze on the way back. We’d stopped at a Casino supermarket and bought a few things, and so we stopped to have lunch.

And, if the truth is known, I had a little doze too. after all, it was quite an early start and it was by now quite late, as well as having been a hectic day.

On the way back I had resolved to go to Olloix. This is a town that we are covering in the Radio Anglais travel and tourism sector.

We’re ready to leave but there is a variety of roads from which to choose and I couldn’t make up my mind. Consequently, I resolved to have a wander down there and decide upon that for myself.

chateau de murol puy de dome franceOne road took me past the Chateau de Murol. This is a 12th-Century chateau that was in the hands of the noble d’Estaing family, and for that reason it was spared from destruction by Richelieu when all of the other fortifications in the Auvergne were dismantled.

It escaped being ravaged during the Revolution because it was being used as a prison at the time, and after years of neglect, there was enough left in 1889 for it to be classed as one of the very first Historic monuments in France.

belfry belfroi besse puy de dome franceHere, I saw a signpost for the small town of Besse.

That’s an early Medieval walled city that at one time was quite rich. But it lost its fortifications (except the Belfry) under Richelieu and later during the revolution and, with the railways by-passing the town by miles, it fell into decay.

However, the opening up of the area for skiing in the 20s and 30s saw something of a resurgence and the town has recovered a little of its former pride, although there’s still a lot to do.

So tomorrow I’ll go back to Murol for a prowl around and then retrace my steps to Olloix to see what gives around there.

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Saturday 4th July 2015 – NOW THAT WAS A REALLY NICE …

swimming baths piscine commentry allier france… afternoon at the swimming baths in Commentry. Glorious hot weather, I was all sweaty, what more could I say?

The sides of the pool were open and people were disporting themselves on the terrace and on the lawn (picnicking allowed) and the pool was packed out. So much so that I was going up and down the pool in one of the swimming lanes.

I was there for well over two hours too which is something of a record. But then again, there was so much to see. Ohh yes – I can still chase after the women at my age. I just wish that I could remember why.

tiles for shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd why was I all hot and sweaty? That was because I’d been mauling about half a tonne of tiles and cement about.

Caliburn is now loaded up with tiles for the shower room. You can see in the photo what I’m having. I’m not having those joining pieces though. I’ve bought some “different shades of grey” mosaic tiles, the type where you can cut the string with scissors. That way, if I start from the bottom with the darker tiles and start from the top with the lighter tiles, the gap in the middle can be filled quite easily without the aid of a tile cutter.

Quite astonishingly, I’d been around all of the usual places, done two laps around Brico Depot and loaded up Caliburn by just 11:45. Having the Dawn Chorus wake me up in the morning is an excellent idea. I even had time to go and buy the glass for the window above the shower room door before they closed for lunch.

A trip around LeClerc (where I remembered to change the empty gas cylinder for a new one) and round the Auchan, and I was away from there by 13:45 and in the pool at Commentry by 14:30.

old cars unic pick up montlucon allier franceI’d seen a few old cars on my travels too. This is a Unic pick-up that I saw at a tyre-fitting place in Montlucon on my way around.

Unic was a popular French car-maker before World War II, and many of the taxis that took the French troops to fight at the Marne were Unics. After the war, the company was taken over by Simca, for whom it was the commercial vehicle arm.

old cars unic pick up montlucon allier franceIn 1968 the marque was sold to FIAT and in 1975 was incorporated into the IVECO mark.

You can tell by the FIAT- like badge that This pick-up is from the period 1968-75 and so it’s doing really well to be still on the road and working. and I do have to say that I was impressed by the bodywork repairs on the cab corners, but you have to resort to tricks like this with such a vehicle, as I imagine that body panels are almost non-existent.

Chenard et Walcker peugeot D4 durdat larequille allier franceThe second interesting vehicle that I saw today is almost certainly older. This is one of the Chenard et Walcker vans that were sold by Peugeot as the D3 and D4 series from 1950 to 1965 when the model was replaced by the J7.

This os one of the later ones, as you can tell by the snout at the front. The very first models were powered by a 2-cylinder flat-twin two-stroke motor but that quickly gave was to the 4-cylinder four-stroke engine out of the Peugeot 203 and later the Peugeot 403. The 4-cylinder engines were too long to fit in the body, hence the snout.

It is possible to tell whether this is a D3A, a D3B, a D4A or a D4B, but not by me at this distance. Still, it’s pretty old and quite an interesting curio.

market hall commentry allier franceAll of the roads around Commentry were closed for repair and so I had to come back through the town. This took me past the Market Hall, the first time for ages.

I remember the market hall as being a dreary, dingy place when I first came past here years ago, but they seem to have done it proud with a programme of modernisation. It looks so much better now that ever it did before.

So that was my day – another expensive one, but loads of interesting vehicles and a lovely day at the baths. i’m off for an early night now to make the most of it.

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Friday 3rd July 2015 – THIS MUST BE SOME KIND OF A RECORD

Today’s temperature outside reached a massive 39.4°C and that can’t be far short of a record. No wonder I had a hard time starting work today.

This morning I wasn’t as bright and breezy as yesterday, even though I had the Dawn Chorus again giving me a helping hand. After breakfast I mooched around for a little and then plucked up the courage to attack the radio programmes.The second lot for Radio Arverne are now half-completed and should be done by Sunday, and I have to check over the rock programmes for Radio Tartasse because they are being recorded on Monday.

When I finally managed to attack the bathroom, it was really slow progress. I’ve only done the first three rows of the ceiling, but then again each one had to be cut and shaped by hand so it isn’t surprising. In fact, because of the way that I’ve done everything, there’s going to be a lot of the ceiling that’s going to have to be cut and shaped by hand.

I’ve also had to fit a supporting strut in the ceiling. There’s going to be a flying shelf in the bathroom and the brackets to hang it from the ceiling have to be fitted, and that’s why I needed the supporting strut.

Apart from that, I had to unload Caliburn ready for my trip to Montlucon tomorrow and you’ve no idea how much I didn’t want to do that in the heat that we were having. But at least the water in the solar shower was 39.0°C so that I could have a really good soak.

Now here’s a thing.

Apparently in the UK, there’s been a minute’s silence in memory of those who were killed in Tunisia. Now – can you remember if we ever had a minute’s silence in memory of anyone who was killed by an IRA terrorist?

This is an old Nazi trick and the Nazis used it to perfection. Whenever an “atrocity” was committed by a hated enemy, they would have these ceremonial minutes’ silence, parade funerals, eulogies and all that kind of thing. They whip up the emotions and subsequently the hatred, and then the Government can go ahead and invade another country to “revenge these dreadful deaths” and the public will be so whipped up by hatred that they can’t see what’s going on. And when you see the outpourings of the Tory Government, that echo the comments that the Nazis made about a death in Danzig or the Sudetenland, you realise just how much the Tories have learned from the Nazis and how much of it they have put into practice.

When it came to whipping up hatred against the Irish Republic or the Vatican over the deaths and other atrocities committed by the IRA, the Government was strangely silent. But when it comes to doing it against brown-skinned people, all of the gloves are off. This tells you all that you need to know about the British Government’s racist policies.

And don’t forget that it was the West that declared war on Islam, with the bushbaby’s “crusade” speech. And just who is so naive to believe that when you declare war on someone and start to fight them, they are not going to fight back?

You couldn’t make that up could you? It just shows you the depths to which the intellectual capacity of the Western world has sunk.

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Monday 29th June 2015 – BLIMEY!

Wasn’t it hot today! At one point when we were in Gerzat in mid-afternoon, the temperature on Caliburn’s thermometer was showing 41.3°C outside and off the scale (ie more than 50°C) inside. And it felt like it too.

Yes, we’ve been radioing today, haven’t we?

And I had a dramatic change of plan too. At 08:45 – 20 minutes before I’m due to leave here to head off to Marcillat and Radio Tartasse, I was busy scanning the news – to discover that Chris Squire, the legendary bassist with Yes, had died.

So with just 20 minutes before I had to leave here to record the rock programmes, I was sitting down and totally re-writing the show.

I recorded the rock shows and then Liz came to join me for the normal sessions. That will take us up to the end of July so we could then head back to Liz’s. After lunch (and finishing off the gorgeous dessert that we started yesterday) it was off to the furnace that was Gerzat and Radio Arverne.

We recoded another 5 programmes there, which will take us nicely up to the beginning of September, and another couple of goes should see us well on our way towards the end of the year. But we need to be well in advance with holidays coming up. Liz is off to the UK to see family and then when she comes back, I’ll be off to Canada.

On the way back, I stopped for fuel and a little shopping, and a nice cold drink in view of the heat, and I was back here for 18:20, promptly crashing out for an hour or so as it was far too hot up here to be comfortable.

And talking of being comfortable, I was on my travels again last night, in my nice clean bed. I was with Trixi and a few other people and we were doing a yoga tour of Europe, ending up in the Ukraine and Belarus, before coming back to the Netherlands via Northern Europe. But to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … the group of people who had come with us had become fed up and left the tour to the two of us. They went home via the south of Europe and had become snowed in in Northern Italy while the two of us carried nonchalantly on in the north.

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Friday 26th June 2015 – DUNNO …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I might even have a go at it tomorrow.

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