Tag Archives: early night

Thursday 2nd April 2015 – I’VE FINISHED …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Wednesday 10th December 2014 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… this afternoon. An estate agent wanted to visit Cecile’s house in order to take some photos and as I have the keys, I had to let him in. And it was cold, wet and miserable too outside. I didn’t feel in the least like going out but I do need to become involved in civilisation a little more.

I had an early-ish night last night and so once again I was wide awake long before the alarm went off. And after breakfast O had a lot of work to do. Now that i’ve started on the mince pies, I eed to attend to other Christmas matters, such as ordering everyone’s Christmas presents. Christmas is sneaking up on me and I don’t want to be caught unawares like I usually am. I’ll have to go into Montlucon on Saturday too as there are more things that I need.

Back from Cecile’s and after lunch, I carried on with the front panel of the control board for the barn’s solar panel installation. The European and British 230-volt sockets are now installed and wired, and the two 12-volt sockets, one for the main circuit and the other on the overcharge circuit, are in place.

I’ve identified something that I’ve missed too. The overcharge circuit needs a fuse and I’ve forgotten to fit it. Still, it’s not a big problem and there is plenty of room for it.

I’ve also made a start dismantling the old control board. I had a dual cigarette lighter socket thing there, and that also had a digital DC output that could be switched to a variety of DC voltages and comes with assorted “ends” for charging low voltage DC appliances. That’s that I want for the new control panel – with a USB adaptor in one of the sockets and using the other socket for things that can’t be fitted with one of my 12-volt plugs – and so that’s the first thing to come off that old control panel.

And it won’t be the last either.

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Friday 5th December 2014 – IT WASN’T QUITE AS EARLY …

… as last night. Still, being in bed by 23:30 is still something relatively unknown around here, as regular readers of this rubbish will realise.

And as you might expect, I was wide awake by 06:00 and if this carries on, I shall be emulating Rosemary in that I shall be making myself a coffee early in the morning and then going back to bed. And I forgot to say that Percy Penguin – she who doesn’t feature on these pages half as much as she deserves – put in an appearnce during the night, as I was on my travels in Cheshire.

First job after breakfast was to empty the compost bucket that I have up here. And then second job was to empty the beichstuhl – such are the delights of my living habits around here.

Once all of those were out of the way I carried on with the power board. This involved making up a flying lead so that I can connect all kinds of things to it – including the portable power board, if ever the need arises.

Once I had done that, I had to make some cables to connect the dump load. This le to a good half an hour looking for the negative 25mm cable.

And hereby hangs a tale. This cable only comes in blue and red, and I use only red and black for the 12-volt circuits. So you can see an immediate problem. However, I have learnt, by serendipity, that the red cable, if left out in the sunlight, fades to a nice dull yellow. I therefore have a couple,of lengths hanging upoutside quietly fading, but it took me ages to find the length that had already changed colour.

Eventually I found it, and so I could make up a red cable and a yellow cable for thr dump load. As you know, my sldering is rubbish but I have a crimping tool for fastening the big aliminium terminals that I use, and then I finish off with half a dozen turns with the vice.

Cecile rang up too for a chat,and she was on the phone for a good hour. Terry rang up too for a chat. It is nice to be popular.

After lunch, I made up a couple of cables for the big Studer inverter. But I’m not at all sure about this. I bought it years ago off eBay and it’s never been installed, although when I gave it a whirl a few years ago, I found that the capacitor was faulty and I had to send it away to be repaired.

The cables were not much problem, but fitting the inverter certainly was. You have no idea how heavy it is, and it’s hel on by screws through bolt holes, rather that cutaways, so you need at least four hands. After much binding in the marsh, I fitted a shelf onto the power board in the barn and put the inverter on that so that it was in the correct place – and then I could screw it up.

I remain unconvinced about its effectiveness and I might end up taking it off again.

I spent the rest of the evening looking for the keyswich that I put on one side on Sunday. This is actually a keyswitched battery isolator and I need that in my circuit so that I can disconnect the batteries without disrupting the system. I had it in my hand on Monday and put it safe where I knew that it wouldn’t be lost.

And I have another three somewhere too – and could I ‘eck as like find one of those either. But this is the story of my life, isn’t it? I spend more time looking for stuff than I do actually using it or fitting it.

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Thursday 4th December 2014 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… that I was in bed before 23:00?

It wasn’t last night, to be sure, but it wasn’t long after 23:00. Certainly at 23:00 I was downstairs taking the stats, the last thing that I do before going to bed.

However I was awake at about 06:00, despite having an exciting night where I was in Montreal. I’d been to see someone about mounting a wind turbine on my land in New Brunswick but he told me that it was a waste of time. In fact he had had the same idea as me and bought some land on the Canada side of the Mars Hill wind farm in the USA, but has decided to sell it on as the projected extension of the farm wasn’t ever going to happen. We then had a long drive around Montreal with me taking the wrong turnings all the time, and him jumping out of the car each time that I did so, and waiting for me on the corner when I realised my error and turned back.

Once I was awake, I couldn’t go back to sleep and was tossing and turning until the alarm went off.

After breakfast, I went round to Liz and Terry’s. Liz was at work but Terry had a medical appointment at Riom and needed someone to go with him.

That was a pleasant morning, not the least of reasons being that I met a couple of people there who go to watch the football at Pionsat. I have’t seen then for w while, and it turned out that the guy has been quite ill. He’s had an operation in the hospital and was going back for a check-up.

On our way home, we had a major surprise. Just outside Les Ancizes we noticed something big and black moving at quite a substantial rate of knots across the field in the distance. As it drew closer (and what a good artist it was) we realised that it was a sanglier – a wild boar – and one of the biggest that I had ever seen. He roared across the field and right across the road in front of us – a really impressive sight. Magnificent beasts, these wild boar. No wonder I love living right out here.

I stopped off at the Intermarche at Pionsat to do my shopping. These shopping trips are getting earlier and earlier in the week but there’s no point going out shopping when I don’t need to.

And isn’t this attitude a change?

Back here I don’t know what happened but at one moment I was sitting eating my lunch (it was 15:00) and the next thing I remember, it was 18:06. I had crashed out completely and I’ve no idea why, especially after my early night last night.

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Thursday 27th November 2014 – ANOTHER DAY …

… when I’ve hardly set foot out of doors today.

Mind you, I’ve had a really good bash at this radio programme and I reckon that I’ve broken the back of it. There’s well over 30kb of text now and that in theory may well be enough. However, I need some up my sleeve to cope with any unforeseen eventualities, and there are a few other things that need to be added.

As well as that, it all needs to be tidied up and made into something resembling a dialogue, and that I can do tomorrow. But it’ll certainly be something if I can finish this hour-long programme for tomorrow.

But I was certainly carried away with what I was doing today. I didn’t realise how late it was and I ended up having my lunch at about 17:30 – and thus no evening meal. That’s the penalty that you pay for being absorbed in your work.

And Rosemary rang me up in the morning too. She fancied a good chat so it was quite lucky that I was up and about at the usual time of morning, just for a change just recently.

I’m off to bed too now, something of an early night which will make a change for just recently. Another good day on this hour-long Christmas special should see it finished off.

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Wednesday 26th November 2014 – I HAVE HARDLY BEEN OUTSIDE TODAY

I’ve been far too busy in here.

I had an early night last night – in bed before 23:00 and that doesn’t happen very often does it? And even more interestingly, I slept through all of the alarms and didn’t wake up until 09:15. I must have been tired last night.

After breakfast I had a good hunt around and found the script of our Christmas Special from December 2012 and luckily there were a few pages that we didn’t finish. So I added on the bits from the radio programme that we didn’t record, and I wrote some kind of joining text, and that gave me the outline of a radio programme.

It’s not an hour long as yet, but I’ve been embellishing it and adding bits to it and it’s slowly taking shape. I probably have about 45 minutes’worth already.

So despite not going out, it’s been quite a profitable day. Another day or two and I might have a reasonable radio programme. But I really didn’t need this. I have far too much work to do as it is.

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Sunday 5th October 2014 – ANOTHER DAY OF REST

Or, at least, it should have been. But Amber had a couple of friends around for a sleepover and so round about 07:30 we had a herd of elephants stampeding around the house. And as I sleep underneath the TV room, then by about 07:31 I was wide-awake. So much for my long lie-in after yesterday’s efforts.

By about 10:00 everyone else was awake and we had a nice, long breakfast brunch en famille and once we had finished (and it wasn’t a five-minute affair either) I did … errr … absolutely nothing at all except have a hot shower and help Rachel with a few tasks around the house. And in return, Rachel made me a delicious curry for tea, and that went down well.

Well, that’s not really true. One of the girls brought a cake-making set for Amber – the type that you cook in the oven in small cups, put sticks in and then pour chocolate over the top. Amber had some difficulty melting the chocolate and so I became involved. A bain-marie and some cold water and I made quite a good liquid chocolate for her cakes.

That was everything, and I was in bed by 22:30 for an early night. I can’t say that I didn’t deserve it. I have to be up early tomorrow.

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Monday 16th June 2014 – WELL!

So Terry’s Transit and the Jeep have now been for their controle techniques. Both of them have failed but only on minor points, nothing that will prevent them from being driven on the road. There’s a 8-week period for correcting the faults.

Most surprisingly, the brakes on both vehicles passed with flying colours. After all of the work that I put in on them, especially with the handbrake on the Jeep, I was quite impressed and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t want to have to do that again.

Terry was of course preoccupied with the controle techniques today and so I was on my own here.

This new submersible pump that I bought the other day, that really did the business. I’ve 400 litres of water now in a pile of dustbins ready to use or cement, and the rest was pumped out and down the lane. It was all over in minutes and made a change from spending hours baling out with a can and bucket.

Caliburn is also emptied of his concrete pillar blocks and they are stacked. I’m leaving the cement in there for now though – the best place to keep it dry and out of the way.

Once I’d done all of that, I did some weeding in the garden for a change. The onion and potato beds are now clear of thistles.

This afternoon, I did what I should have done at the weekend and completed the Radio Anglais texts for the next recording session. I wish that I had done that on Saturday.

So now I’m off to bed. I have to be up at 07:00 as Terry and I are going to Riom to register the Jeep now that it has passed the controle technique. I’m glad about that – that’s one care less.

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Monday 26th May 2014 – THIS IS ASTONISHING …

… but here I am at 22:15 on a Monday evening and in a minute I’ll be off to bed.

Clearly something’s up, although I’m not quite sure what, and I did have a little something of a late night last night but nevertheless …

And the weather doesn’t help at all. It’s been raining for almost all of the day and this afternoon we’ve had some terrific rainstorms – coming back between Gouttieres and Pionsat I could hardly see the road.

So this morning I was up early and in Marcillat-en-Combraille for the Radio Tartasse version of Radio Anglais. And we had the usual shambolic performance that is becoming something of a trademark these days and it’s a good job that I’m engineering my own rock music programmes, for Heaven alone knows what they might be like.

Terry’s big Ifor Williams trailer was in Pionsat at Simon’s so I had to pick that up on the way back and drop it off on Terry, and then Liz and I made our way down to Gerzat for the Radio Arverne sessions.

Bernard for some reason wasn’t there and Philippe, the young apprentice, was there waiting for someone else (it seems that they had forgotten about us). But the someone else didn’t turn up so Philippe did the engineering for us. It took ages as he didn’t really know how our shows work but eventually it finished, only for Philippe to find out that the studio calendar was on the wrong page and we were indeed expected after all.

So what happened there I really don’t know.

So braving the rainstorms, I’m back home and I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough for today.

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Thursday 31st October 2013 – THE CLEANER …

… came round this morning right on time and was here for about 4 hours. I did what I could to help, but that wasn’t all that much and it was clear that I was in the way and so I skulked off to my little room and stayed there, just occasionally giving advice and assisitance.

I can’t say that I’m too impressed with what she did, to be honest. I was expecting a much more thorough job that this, but she did more in four hours than I would have been able to do in four years and so I can’t complain too much.

The purchaser turned up with a workman later. He wants to have the parquet floor sanded and polished, and needed an estimate. I didn’t have any good reason not to let them in and so in they came. It rather disrupted my plans a little, but that’s what plans are for, of course. And after they went, I cleaned a few of the more obvious places that the cleaner had missed.

There wasn’t much time left after that and so I had tea and called it a night. An early night with a good book is always a good idea every so often.

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Tuesday 10th September 2013 – I HAD THE MOST UNEVENTFUL …

… drive down to Fredericton that I have ever had. There was nothing going on and nothing to report whatsoever … "hooray" – ed …

But in Woodstock earlier a few things happened.

Zoe and I picked up her price list and stuck it on the wall of her salon where it looks pretty good and effective. We did a few more things (and I’ve still forgotten to fasten her cupboard handles) and then I wandered off to see someone about another little project that I have in mind.

However, that won’t be happening, said he with deep regret.

A small piece of land that I’ve had my eye on for quite a while, well, they want a telephone-number kind of price for it. Its situation is such that it merits a few extra shillings, to be sure, but the price that they are asking is simply delusional. Even half of the asking price would be expensive.

In Fredericton I went to Value Village – the charity shop – to scan the books.

Here in Canada, there isn’t a variety of different charity shops as there is in the UK. All of the charities have joined together and have a charity megastore, and all of the items are colour-coded, the purpose of this I suppose is to tell which charity each item belongs to.

I always visit it because it’s a really good source of books on Canadian affairs, history, grography and the like, and I wasn’t disappointed. Six new books have found their way into the Dodge and now this place looks more like a library than anything else.

strawberry moose harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswickI picked up my Media Pass from the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival offices at Regent Street (it helps, having your own media outlets back in France – good old Radio Anglais).

And Strawberry Moose was in his element – not only were there floozies to admire but they even dressed him up in Festival Gear and allowed him to be photographed with them.

What more does any Moose require?

Lunch was at the side of the river near the boat ramp and for some reason or other I crashed out here. And for a couple of hours too. It’s not as if I’ve been overdoing it or anything just recently.

What woke me up was the book sliding out of my hand and crashing down to the floor of the Dodge. I’d probably be still there now otherwise.

So off to the camp ground – this is at a place called Mactaquac about 20kms outside Fredericton and close to the big dam for the hydro-electric power station. This has created a huge lake and the campground is on the shores of the lake.

deer camp ground mactaquac provincial park new brunswickIt’s a wilderness campsite run by the Province of New Brunswick and so there is a good deal of wildlife hanging around and because it’s protected, it doesn’t have too much of a fear of man.

Consequently there was quite a deputation of Strawberry Moose’s friends and admirers from previous years awaiting his arrival, all keen to continue their acquaintance.

So I’ve emptied the Dodge and tidied it out, and made tea. Now I’m off to bed for an early night. Of course, you can guess what Strawberry Moose will be doing.

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Monday 9th September 2013 – ZOE AND I …

river meduxnekeag woodstock new brunswick canada… went to Woodstock again this morning. Mind you, it was pretty crowded in the Dodge because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, of course … "you said that the other day" – ed.

Another not very successful day for shopping but at least Zoe has much more of an idea as to what she wants. And a stroke of luck – while we were there at her salon, there was an old woman sniffing around outside and so I packed Zoe off to make further enquiries, with the result that Zoe now has her first paying customer for tomorrow at 11:00. Good old Zoe.

I had some rather mixed fortunes in Woodstock though. Did I tell you that I have broken the zip on my suitcase? That’s rendered it impossible for further service and I was wondering how to bring my stuff back home. But we went into a second-hand shop in the town to look for an office desk for Zoe, and while we had no luck there for that, they had an enormous suitcase even bigger than mine. Not quite as many pockets though, but beggars can’t be choosers, especially at $10:00.

The bad news is that the Dodge was running rather roughly this morning and I wasn’t happy at all. I had a look at Woodstock and it seems that the rear brakes have been binding. The handbrake is one of these foot-pedal ones by the door pillar and it’s not as cleverly placed as it is on a Mercedes and it’s possible that I’ve stepped on it by accident and not noticed. Driving the Dodge around the car park a couple of times in reverse seems to have freed it off and so now I’ll have to see how I go with it.

Anyway, an early night is called for tonight as I’m hitting the road tomorrow for a week or 10 days. I’ll see you soon.

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Wednesday 24th July 2013 – I HAD A(NOTHER) DREAM

And no floozies in it either, which was a little disappointing given the last effort. I was working in the building trade in London and, having worked out a swimming baths that I could use as my headquarters in North London, I was looking for a similar in South London and was going over some possibilities in my head. I was even out in the south-west of London travelling over a road that I had travelled in an earlier dream a good while ago – a short cut from the noth-west side of the city down to the west side, past a cricket or sports groud, when I was on my way walking past the House of Commons (on the south side of the city) and off to Edmonton (which was also on the south side of the city last night too).
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was attending a lecture for a whole afternoon and when I went outside I found that I had parked Caliburn (which was now, mysteriously, right-hand drive) roughly on the kerb with his engine running for about 4 hours. In a rush to get away and lacking in patience, I tried to force my way past a lorry that was badly parked, and put a scratch all down Caliburn’s right-hand-side.

So enough of that – awake at 06:00 in the pouring rain, and a desultory tidying up until 09:00, when I nipped out to pay the internet (I was confised about which company deals with what and we had been cut off) and do some shopping as there was no food in the house.

And then, I started to throw stuff away in here and it’s starting to look a little better.

Tea tonight was one of my aubergine-and-kidney-bean whatsits (enough for a week, I suspect) and now off for an early night. I’m getting old and I can’t last the pace.

And Friday, I have an appointment with my solicitor at 10:30. Mustn’t forget.

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Tuesday 18th December 2012 – Well, I’m still here.

Yes, man-flu hasn’t claimed me yet.

Mind you I’ve been having some weird dreams. I’ve been reading a book on the history of England from 450 to 1066 and in this dream I rewrote the entire book – which was something of an effort. We moved on from there to the station at Wrexham where I was waiting for passengers in a taxi that belonged to the first taxi company I drove for – but it was painted red, not white. I didn’t find the passengers I wanted, but I picked up two others and although they came from a working-class area of Wrexham and were women in their early 20s, they had designed a huge underground shopping mall in Montreal.

So having had a relaxing day, I’ll be off to sleep in a minute and see what else comes my way. I might even feel a little better in the morning.

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Tuesday 20th November 2012 – I’VE MADE A START …

shower room floor les guis virlet puy de dome france… on fitting the new floor in where the bathroom, or to be more precise, the shower room is going to be, and there’s one very unhappy bunny here.

The tongue-and-grooving is from Brico Depot and it’s a major mistake to buy anything from there.

5 packs of flooring I’ve bought, all of the same brand, all bought at the same time, and the packets are all of different thicknesses.

Not only that, the tongues of one packet don’t correspond to the grooves of the others either so when you firmly nail one lot down, the subsequent packet won’t slide properly underneath and you have to lever it up a little.

All in all, it’s looking quite a mess – nothing like the neat and tidy little job I was hoping for.

I haven’t finished it yet either because I ran out of light so that’s not going to be done until I come back from the UK, and I’m dismayed about that too.

This morning though, I made a start on the Radio Anglais Christmas Special that we do for Radio Arverne.

This is an hour-long programme, mostly speech but with some music as well and it doesn’t half take some writing. Today though, I’ve been researching and gathering material.

I’m not going to tell you the subject matter though – you can wait until it’s on the air.

Tomorrow, though, I’m going to be extremely busy.

In the afternoon Cécile is coming round to work in the garden in exchange for the work that I did for her last Friday.

Of course, I don’t want to frighten her away and so I need to do some tidying up, and that will take me all of the morning, and then some, I suppose.

Steam-cleaning the verandah is priority number one, and then emptying the composting toilet – that’s always a good plan too.

need to empty the verandah as much as possible, because for this winter I want to bring inside the pots of herbs and they are too heavy for me to lift on my own.

I suppose that I’d better go and have an early night then – I need to be fighting fit for tomorrow.

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