Tag Archives: caliburn

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

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

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

upper doors fitted wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn the bedroom I spent some of the morning finishing off the second door on the upper part of the wardrobe, cutting out the lets for the hinges and fitting them, and then fitting the door handle and the magnetic catch. Once I’d done all of that, I could hang the door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday 2nd March 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… as much done as I wanted to today – but then I had quite an interruption round about lunchtime.

I struggled to get out of bed this morning, but nevertheless I cracked on with my stuff about Algeria and managed to finish that, at least, even though I was late going down to work.

I managed to fit all of the framework for the upper doors, although one piece had to be recut after it split while I was malleting it into position. All of that took much longer than I anticipated, due mainly to my having to cut a couple more fascia pieces as the ones that I had set aside were not strong enough.

Once that had been done, I went out to fetch a pile of floorboards from Caliburn and then made the first of the upper doors.

But this was when I noticed the smell of burning.

We had a brief patch of sun today and I ended up with 45 amp-hours of power going down the cables to the home-made 12-volt immersion heater. It seems that the connector on the positive cable wasn’t up to that and the connection was arcing out. I ended up having to cut it off, fit a new connector, cut off the insulation and then solder it using the new gas soldering gun that Terry bought me for Christmas.

My soldering is total rubbish as you know, but it has to be better than my crimping, so it seems. and it was then that I noticed that the thread appears to be stripped in the heater element. I had to remove the screw and do my best with a nut and bolt, but that’s not looking so good and I’m going to have to deal with this.

All in all, I ended up having lunch at about 16:30.

Back at work I carried on until 19:00. All of the hinges are in place but the door needs trimming down. That’s not the kind of thing that you can do when you are tired and so I’ll be dealing with that first thing tomorrow.

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Sunday 22nd February 2015 – HOW LONG IS IT…

puy de dome france … since I’ve posted a pic of the Puy de Dome?

Yes, I’ve been down to Liz and Terry’s this afternoon. On Monday we’re recording our radio programmes on Monday so we need to rehearse. Consequently Liz cooked a lovely tea and we ate it after doing whatever we needed to do.

It gave me a chance to see the Puy de Dome anyway, all bathed in snow and looking like a lovely Christmas cake with its coat of icing.

Liz and Terry had other guests too. Simon and Tina, friends of Liz and Terry, were there and as it happens, Simon is a drummer. That’s worth knowing and we shall have to work on that.

You may remember that I moved Caliburn up the hill last night. I didn’t really need to because although we did have snow, it wasn’t enough to worry about. And by the time I’d finished my leisurely morning, almost all of it had gone.

Back here tonight I lit a fire. But it didn’t catch and spluttered out. And seeing that I’m going to bed in a minute I’m not going to persevere so I’m classing this as a no-heat day.

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Saturday 21st February – I WOKE UP THIS MORNING …

… "der dit der dah dit" – ed … to something like darkness.

And it wasn’t as if it was very early either. The truth was that we had had a snowfall during the night and the roof windows were covered.

It snowed intermittently throughout the day too – quite severely at times – but nothing seemed to stick. Nevertheless, seeing as how I’m going out tomorrow, I took Caliburn and parked him at the top of the hill in the lane because the temperature will drop during the night and if it snows like it did today then we really will be having transport issues.

The snow put paid to any plans that I might have had about going out. I stayed in all day and did nothing. I couldn’t even summon up the enthusiasm to do any tidying up.

I did go out to take the stats and while I was there I filled up the empty kettles, and that was the lot.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry either. I’ve been working hard just recently and I deserve a day or two off work.

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Wednesday 11th February 2015 – THIS MUST BE SOMETHING OF A RECORD

Today, I had a massive 169 amp-hours of excess solar energy and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load went off the scale (ie more than 70°C). There has never been that much surplus solar energy in the month of February – in fact we would not find too many days in July and August where we would have more than that.

That gives you some idea of what today wad like. The temperature outside reached 15.1°C and this was the first day for I don’t know how long when the temperature in my attic rose during the day rather than fell.

The increase in temperature prompted me into action and first job that I tackled was to paint the landing. But that wasn’t how it panned out, as I dropped my pliers into the 8 litres of white paint. They will be nice and pretty when I finally get down to the bottom of the tub and can fish them out. But that’s not going to be for a while yet.

landing painted yellow les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo here we are. You can’t really see things very well in the landing, but here’s the first coat of yellow paint on the wall. This is basically 8 litres of white emulsion and a tube of yellow paint pigment.

It’s not brilliant, but it will look much better tomorrow after I have done the second coat. And I don’t really like the colour – it’s come out much darker than I was expecting and much darker than what I wanted.

But never mind. it’s on and it’s staying on.

osb wall wardrobe s les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch, I started on the second piece of OSB for the end wall of the wardrobe. That eventually went into place with a little bit of manoeuvring and fine adjustment, and it won’t be coming out again.

It’s a different colour than the rest, due to the fact that I didn’t have enough OSB in the house and had to go outside and scrounge a piece that I had been using as part of the false floor in Caliburn. But as it’s being coated in crepi, it won’t make much of a difference.

This afternoon, after a few other bits and pieces that I had to do, I made use of the surplus solar energy and started to sand down the plasterboard. That took ages and I’ve only done about half of it, but the sandpaper on the sander split itself, at exactly 18:05, and I took that as being the signal to knock off for the day.

And those falafel balls and oven chips for tea were delicious again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 11th January 2015 – I HAVE DONE …

… absolutely nothing today. I haven’t even made any food since breakfast.

And breakfast was rather late too. having had a more reasonable night last night, I was awake before dawn broke. But badger that for a game of cowboys. The nice clean me turned over in the nice clean bedding and went back to sleep until 10:20. I deserve it after my efforts of the last week.

I did manage to go outside once too – to bring in a few bits and pieces from Caliburn, but that was about that.

Something worthy of note, though. Another day in january when I’ve had no heating on at all. It’s going a little chilly now but I’m off to bed in a minute. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … stuffing this place full of insulation was the best thing that I ever did. Money spent on insulation is never wasted.

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Thursday 8th January 2015 – IT WAS HARD …

… to get out of bed this morning. Being up and about at 04:00 might have something to do with it.

But it was a good job that I did get up though, because Terry came round to borrow a tool. And no-one was more surprised than me that I was able to put my hands straight on them.

And that wasn’t the only thing that was surprising. You may remember that I’ve been looking for the electric sander for the last couple of days? I had a flash of inspiration and went over to where it was supposed to be (although it’s been a long time since any other tool has been there) and, sure enough, there it was. However did that happen?

stairwell plasterboard filling les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo after all of that, I started work. with the aid of Caliburn’s ladder, I reached into the corners of the stairwell, masked off everywhere and attacked the gaps in the plasterboard and the screwheads with the filler. The, I made a very wet mix of filler and went around everywhere putting a second coat on the low spots, of which there were quite a few.

After lunch, I started to attack the filler with the electric sander. It looks like a snowstorm out there at the moment, even though I was only able to give about 30 or 40 minutes’ worth of sanding as the weather changed dramatically and I lost the sun behind a huge black cloud.

home made wiring clamp les guis virlet puy de dome franceLooking for something to do for the last hour or so before knocking off, I started on the wiring again. When I had straightened it out a few days ago, everything was in a real tangle so I didn’t make much progress. But with the hour or so that I had, I untangled everything, routed it properly and tidily, nd then made two wire clapms out of old wood battens and some 4×60 screws and clamped all of the wires to the ceiling beams.

Yes, we are definitely making major progress here and if I can finish the sanding tomorrow, providing that I can have 12amps of current, I’ll be ready for wallpapering next week.

I shan’t know myself then.

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Friday 19th December 2014 – NOW, HERE’S A THING!

Yes, two projects completed in a week, and two goals achieved. That’s something of a record for me, isn’t it?

floor board landing first floor les guis virlet puy de dome franceAt knocking-off time at 18:00 this evening, I was just fastening down the last piece of boarding for the floor of the landing. Bang on cue, in fact.

it’s only the first layer, of course. There will be another layer on top of this, a layer that will run through into the bedroom through the doorway that you can see to the left. But to do that, I need to go round to Cecile’s to rescue the floorboarding that we stocked there when we were trying to make some room here.

It wasn’t particularly easy to do this part of the flooring, what with the stud wall being built on top of the old floorboarding. To remove thet, it’s necessary to drill a line of holes along the base of the stud wall, rather like perforations, chisel down as much a spossible, and then using a huge crowbar, prise up the flooring and hope that it breaks off along the perforations. Finally, chisel off the rough edges to make sure that it’s something like a neat line.

But I’m glad it’s done anyway. It’s not often that I reach my targets.

Mind you, I managed it despite a few interruptions. Sophie the boulangere was late coming round with the bread and that interrupted my work, waiting for her. To pass the time, I took all of the food out of Caliburn and stored it away. And then, somewhat later, we had an avalanche in the European Cardboard Box Mountain, and I had to refill one or two of the boxes and restack the Mountain. One or two of the items that fell out of one of the boxes were things that would have come in handy over the past few days – but that’s what usually happens, isn’t it?

After knocking off work, I went round to the Intermarche for the weekly shopping. And this turned out to be rather expensive, due to the fact that I bought a few other bits and pieces to nibble on for Christmas

i was on my travels during the night too. I was running ly taxi business again, and it seemed tht some of the things that I needed – the books about tourist sites all over the world that I had been making up, had “disappeared”. I spent ages climbing over the roof of some old Ford and Bedford Lorries during the pouring rain and the soaking cardboard boxes and old mattresses, but they were nowhere to be found. Being fed up of all of this, I ordered all of my staff to assemble on the Common at the back of the allotments. My intention was to give every last one of them the statutory notice to leave my employment.

I walked up there and on the way, I fell in with a girl with whom I went to school from age 5 to age 18. Strangely enough, this is a girl about whom I haven’t given even one moment of thought, whether at school or subsequently, so I don’t have a clue how it was that she put in an appearance.

This led on to a recurring dream that I have every now and again, one that is so real and vivid that I often wonder whether or not it ever did take place, but subsequently to my selling my business in 1989, and after the purchasers died, I ended up with a couple of Mzrk III cortinas and I started running the taxi business on the side again, everything totally unlicensed. I abandoned that after a few months, but a short while later, restarted yet again. Of course I know that this never happened, but it’s such a real dream, I’ve had it so often and it’s left such an impression on me that I do have to convince myself.

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Wednesday 17th December 2014 – THE WORST DAY …

… that I can ever remember having since I’ve been here.

By the time I took the stats this evening, we’d had 32mm of rain. It’s rained non-stop throughout the day, the ground is totally waterlogged, there’s surface water on the mud outside and the run-off has come into the verandah and the floor of that looks like a swamp.

If that wasn’t enough to be going on with, when I went back outside after (a rather late, it has to be said) lunch, it was so dark that the outside lights had come on. In fact, had I not been awaiting a couple of parcels still, I would have thrown a suitcase into Caliburn and gone off to find some sun somewhere, even if it had been Italy or Greece. Things are that bad here.

As far as the work around here goes, it was another somwhat later start. Hearing the amount of rain that was cascading down onto the roof made me rather unwilling to leave the comfort and safety of my warm little bed.

Outside though, I was in the barn working. More tidying up and repairing things that needed fixing. And I have also found, at long last, one of the 12-volt DC cables for the charger for the rechargeable batteries – something for which I have been looking for years. It just goes to show you what a bit of tidying up can do. And it was a nice change doing it all to music.It made me feel so much better just having the music playing in the barn again.

temporary connecting board les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve also made a temporary connecting board. I quite often have to quickly connect something to the DC ciruit to see if it works or to see if there’s a polarity issue (these IKEA LED striplights do have a polarity issue and the cables aren’t marked) and on the old power board I could touch the wires of any appliance to the connecting points of the terminals. Of course, with this new power board, the connecting points are behind the front panel and sheathed in pattresses, so I can’t reach them. I’ve therefore made up a wooden board with two wires connected to a plug that I can plug into a 12-volt DC socket. The other ends of the wires are connected to two bolts in the wooden board. One bolt is marked red (for positive) and the other one black (for negative) and there’s a warning light to tell me that there’s current at the terminals. This will do what I need to do.

After lunch, I carried out another long-term issue – namely replacing the final 12-volt flourescent light with one of the IKEA 12-volt strip lights. I do have to say that they are nothing like as good as the LIDL 12-volt striplights, but drawing 1.2 watts instead of the 7 watts of the flourescent light is a huge improvement.

I wasn’t in too much of a rush to knock off so it was 18:20 when I finished. And a little later I had to go to Pionsat to meet up with Liz and to give her the Christmas presents for them both.

And the rain is still cascading down. Since I’ve been back from Canada on 8th October, there’s been just one whole day when there has been no rain, and the weather forecast for the next 10 days is “more of the same”. I’m sick to the eyeballs of all of this.

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Saturday 13th December 2014 – WOOO HOOO HOOO!

Yes indeed. after many many years of Yours Truly’s canvassing and campaigning, the “Amaranthe”, the local health food co-operative in Montlucon has now started to sell vegan cheese.

And it’s “Cheezly” too, which is even better news.

It is at “a price” however, but that’s only to be expected. It’s a big deal that it’s now available in the vicinity and that should ease the minds of my friends, who each time that they travel to the UK they are buried underneath a pile of mails from Yours Truly soliciting orders for vegan cheese.

As you might have guessed from all of this, I’ve been to Montlucon shopping today, buying all of the special items that I need for Christmas as well as doing some normal shopping.

I spent a fortune there, and I should have spent even more but I forgot half of the stuff that I meant to buy. I did fuel up Caliburn though – at €1:12 per litre which is astonishing. I also took the oportunity to give Caliburn another good wash. You’ll remember that I washed him a couple of weeks ago, but then almost immediately I ended up right up that field in the deep mud towing that old abandoned Transit out of that shed.

I’ve bought myself a couple of presents too, but I’ll have to wait until Christmas until I can see what they are. And at Brico depot, I bought, inter alia, the catches that I need to complete the power board in the barn.

Finally, I went to the swimming baths just down the road from Brico Depot and had a good swim around in the water for an hour, followed by a warm shower – nothing like as good as the shower at the swimming baths at Commentry but a shower nevertheless.

Tonight, I’m going to change the bedding and put my nice and clean body into some nice clean sheets. it’s Sunday so if I’m lucky I might have a really good lie in. I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.

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Tuesday 25th November 2014 – I THOUGHT THAT I HAD GIVEN THIS UP YEARS AGO

Yes, I had a phone call erly this morning from Simon. You might remember a week ago that some English people needed an old van moving from a house that had been sold and it had been offered to me. So could I fetch it this morning?

Terry and I went off to have a look at it and we picked up Simon on the way. We found the address and the van was in a shed right at the far end of the property, up a steep hill that had been churned up by a procession of diggers. Consequently, it took me three quarters of an hour to get Caliburn up as far as I could – and that wasn’t anything like close enough.

Luckily, the previous owners hadn’t left the handbrake on, so the three of us were, with much effort, able to push the van out of its shed and couple it up to Caliburn with the length of chain that I always carry about with me. THen we could pull it down the hill to the road.

I would have taken a lovely photo of the vans and all of us up to our eyeballs in mud, but the battery had gone flat in the camera, which annoyed me preatly.

The van didn’t look too bad – it’s a 2000 Ford Transit, the biggest of all the body options, but there’s a slight crack in the windscreen, a water leak and a fe other bits and pieces. And the starter had packed up. More in hope than expectation we gave it a puch down the road and to our complete and absolute surprise, the van fired up. I can’t think who was the most astonished.

A run up and down the lane to test the brakes, which actually worked, and so we made an executive decision (that’s a decision that if it goes wrong, the person making it is executed) to drive it to Terry’s. Terry and Simon leapt into it and I drove Calibuen as a blocking vehicle, to keep an eye open for the police and chase them away. It’s years since I’ve had to do anything like this, and you would never be able to do such a thing in the UK these days. This is what I like about France – you can still get away with doing things like this.

The drive was uneventful and the van is now safely at Terry’s.Then we all went home.

This afternoon, I started on my Christmas Special. I have tons to do, and only a short time to do it.

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Saturday 22nd November 2014 – IT WAS ANOTHER LOVELY DAY …

… today. This weather is totally crazy.

Mind you, I missed quite a lot of it. I actually managed to have a good lie-in and it was after 10:30 this morning when I crawled out of bed. And quite right too. I’ve not had a decent lie-in for quite a while.

After a leisurely breakfast, I attacked the radio programmes and now that’s all finished and ready for tomorrow’s rehearsal. And the weather was still holding out too, and that made up my mind for me. I’ve not done any washing since I came back from Canada and there was a huge mound of it lying about. I therefore made some butties and went down to Pionsat where I stuck the lot (the washing, not the butties) into the large 18kg washing machine. And while that was doing, I ate my butties.

I put the lot into the drier for 20 minutes afterwards, and while that lot was drying I went and took Calibutn for a really good wash and (just for a change) bought another pile of grapes. They are really nice and I’m sure that they do me good.

Tonight we had the footy of course and Pionsat need to put their train back on the rails as they’ll drop off the bottom on the table. However, tonight’s opponents, Blanzat, look like a tough proposition.

Much to my surprise, Pionsat fielded one of the strongest sides that they’ve been able to field this season. Cedric was back from injury and playing in defence again, with Julien and Jerome up front.

Even more surprisingly, Blanzat offered nothing whatever up front. I can’t think of a weaker attack than the one that was out there today. Their goal was direct from a free kick, but in reply, Pionsat scored two. A real screamer on the volley from Michael from about 25 yards out, right into the top corner. The second one was one of these ping-pong efforts from close range – three Pionsat players had a go at getting the ball into the net before it finally crossed the line.

So a valuable win for Pionsat, one that keeps them in touch with the pack down in the basement. But it was marred by a fight on the pitch after the final whistle – one that looked like it meant business too. Two players were involved, both of them from Blanzat. It’s rare to see two players from the same team having a go at each other like this. And I’ve no idea what had caused it either.

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Thursday 20th November 2014 – I’VE BEEN TO PARIS TODAY

And Terry came with me too.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have recently bought some huge 200 amp-hour batteries for my solar system here and I’ve been rebuilding the battery box and I’ve gradually been installing them one by one as the battery box takes shape.

I’ve been so impressed with these as you know – almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin. But anyway, my wholesaler sent me a circular the other day to tell me that they were having yet another battery sale. The price for the 100 amp-hour batteries was extremely interesting and my ears pricked up, especially as the batteries in the barn are struggling along on their last legs as you know.

Having a decent secondary solar system in the barn is of course very advantageous for many reasons, and so I bit the bullet and placed an order.

There is also a new range of data loggers that look much better than anything that I have around here and so I ordered two of those so that I can give them a whirl.

I would have had all of this delivered, except that the company is now starting to sell solar water heaters and they had an exhibition model on display. This is what I want for here, and Terry is very interested too, and so we decided that we would go, pick up my batteries and so on, and have a lengthy chat about solar water heating.

And so at 06:00 Terry phoned me up to wake me, and at 06:45 we were on the road to Paris.

We arrived on the edge of Paris at about 10:00 and then spent 90 minutes covering a distance of just 20kms to our destination. Not traffic queues and not roadworks either, but my satnav has a fetish with the A86 autoroute. No problm with that in itself, but there’s a height limit of 2 metres on that road, and Caliburn is 2.17 metres. Every road that we took brought us back to the A86.

After a wile I gave up, headed for the centre of Paris and then the road out underneath La Defense. But of course the sat-nav can’t pick up a signal in the La Defense tunnel and so I missed the exit. It was certainly not my lucky day today.

Eventually we arrived and spent a good hour or so there. And the upshot was that I have now come home with a solar hot water system. I couldn’t miss out at this price, even if I don’t have any running water yet.

On the way home, I took a different way and of course in the end after much binding in the marsh, we came to the A86 – not once but three times. This was totally beyond a joke and so I headed west on the A14 to Le Havre and came home via Rambouillet. And if that wasn’t enough, I hit a part of the kerb with a hell of a whack at some speed and I’ve smashed a wheel trim (and probably a few other things too)

The rest of the journey was incident-free but we did come home via Brico Depot in Montlucon, where I bought the insulation for the battery box and a few other things, and then the LeClerc for a bit of shopping.

So, what a day! Nearly 900kms and spending all that money but my renewable energy system will leap ahead in spades if all of this works out.

But I do need to work out this route. It’s doing my head in.

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Thursday 6th November 2014 – THE BIG PROBLEM …

… about portable telephones these days is that there are fewer and fewer public telephone boxes.

Consequently when Yours Truly and his sidekick Strawberry Moose are off in Caliburn on a Mission to rescue people in distress, there is nowhere for us to go to put our underpants on outside our trousers. As a result, we drove all the way to Rouen dressed quite normally.

The drive was quite uneventful and I found a place to park up in the secluded car park of a restaurant right on the edge of the city of Rouen and froze to death all night. It really was cold.

I had my phone call at 06:40 and then went to look for the hotel. And I do have to say that I have come to hate the centre of Rouen – really hate it. It’s all one-way streets and pedestrianised areas and I couldn’t reach the hotel. IN the end I had to park up and let my “client” come to me.

It was 08:00 when we finally met up, far too late, and then went off to Pissy-Poville (yes, it really does exist) for this recovery job. There was no way to remove the vehicle involved and so we had to empty it of everything – and I DO mean everything. That wasn’t as easy as it might sound either as it was so misshapen that we couldn’t open the doors. We were there for ages with a series of heavy crowbars and hacksaws, but we managed it in the end.

It then took ages to fill up Caliburn and once that was done, we had a drive back gome. And that wasn’t quite so easy either for we had a really full load up on Caliburn and he wasn’t impressed at all. Still, at 18:00, I was all unloaded and back in Pionsat.

What a day!

And it wasn’t finished either. I have some friends coming here and I’d booked them in at the Queue de Milan Hotel in Pionsat. I went round there to pay for the room now that I was free, only to find that they were there and had paid the bill. Consequently I took them to the Dauphin restaurant in Montaigut, giving them a guided tour of the town while we were at it.

I came back here and crashed out – hardly surprising given what I’d been through today. I’m far too old for this.

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