Tag Archives: eric hall

Friday 29th August 2014 – THE FAMILY PILE …

… 300 Draper Avenue, used to be over there on that site, just to the right of the streetlight in the foreground

And how can I say that with such confidence?

The answer is that I have spent a very exciting morning in the company of a very helpful archivist from the Public Records Department in Montreal.

And now I know the reason why the address has been so hard to trace too. There has indeed been a renumbering of the houses in Montreal (which I suspected) in the late 1920s, but even this wouldn’t explain the difficulty.

But the fact that my great-grandfather was a bricklayer and the houses behind it weren’t built until shortly after World War One gives us another clue.

Speaking to a very old woman whom I encountered in the street and who had lived here all her life confirmed the rest.

The archives showed that Lot 300 in Draper Avenue (the address that I had for him was 300 Draper Avenue) was subdivided into numerous different sublots all owned by the same person, and there was no official trace of his being there. Hence, we assume that he and his family were not proprietors or licensed tenants, but casual itinerant tenants (as you might expect with bricklayers living next to construction sites) – hence the sublots being all in one name (the owner of the site)

And then the lady told me that prior to the modern building here, there was a big row of shops with a pile of apartments on top. And there we are. All we need now to confirm is that the apartments had their entrance round the side that you can see, in Draper Avenue, and there we are.

I’m not sure how I’m going to do that though.

Another one of my illusions was shattered today.

Here I am on the riverfront going to eat my butty at lunchtime and clattering along come locomotive 7229, power car 200 and then locomotive 7083 of the Canadian National Railways. First time that I’ve ever seen a train along here.

Now I’ve always believed, and I’ve proved this by measurement, that Nort American trains are about a quarter of a mile long per locomotive, but all of this lot were pulling just 15 tankers. How much of a disillusionment is that?

This evening I went for another random ramble. I took the Metro to the Jean Talon station and then walked along rue Jean Talon for miles down to the Parc Metro Station.

Down here I encountered the Marché Jean Talon, which is the major fruit and vegetable market of the city. And this is a fascinating place – I can tell you that. I had a really good browse around in here, but refrained from joining the throngs who were sifting through the rubbish bins (it was at the end of the day) salvaging the dumped fruit. All kinds and classes of people were doing it – there seems to be no social stigma at all

Having found some vegan cheese earlier in the day, I could stop for a pizza. And it as here that we almost had a disaster, for I left my dictaphone behind. My faith in human nature was restored as it was still there, even though there was someone sitting at my table, when I returned 15 minutes later to look for it.

The Parc Metro Station is situated on the site of a former Canadian Pacific railway line and the old Canadian Pacific station is still standing (which is a surprise to me, having encountered so much official vandalism in North America) so I went to look for it before I caught my train

Here it is – and isn’t it wonderful? A nice collection of columns and so on, reflecting what a magnificent pile it is. It really must have been quite something in the Roaring 20s

And floodlit too, which is even better. I’m glad to see that it’s being taken care of because, anywhere else, it would have long-since been demolished to make way for glass-and-concrete offices, the fate that befell the magnificent Broad Street Station in London.

Mind you, its survival is probably not unconnected with its modern use as a trendy high-class upmarket clothes shop. They would want something of a flagship site and this would suit them fine.

The manager kindly allowed me to photograph the interior, and you can see just what a splendid railway station it really must have been.

But all of this meant that I had a 20 minute wait for the bus at DuCollege Metro Sation. I’d hit the driver’s break-time yet again hadn’t I?

Still, it was a very pleasant, warm evening so it wasn’t a real hardship, especially with some good music to listen to. I’m glad that I had found my *.mp3 player.

And I found an even better bus stop at which to alight too – it’s much nearer the passage under the motorway.

Finally – I’ve bought another toy. Well – I haven’t, I’ve reserved it and I’ll pick it up on Monday as I need a car to pick it up. More of this anon.

Thursday 28th August 2014 – HERE I AM …

… hurtling along on the TGV at 300kph on my way to the airport.

It was basically a good plan to stay in Lille. 10 minutes or so from the TGV station along a downhill slope, an alarm call that would have awoken the dead, a decent and copious self-service breakfast and then a pleasant stroll through the morning … errr … rain.

The train was on time too and finding a trolley at the top of the lift meant that I had one of the most relaxing arrivals ever at an airport.

It wasn’t to last, though. First thing that I encountered was a soldier on patrol, armed with a machine gun.

We all laughed at the Eastern European countries in the 1960s and 1970s with their soldiers patrolling the streets with their weapons at the ready. How Krushchev and Honecker would be laughing up their sleeves if they were ever to see this here on the streets in the West.

Not only that, can you imagine what carnage might happen to innocent bystanders if 600 rounds per minute were ever sprayed at a fleeing suspect? Something like this, I image, only much much worse.

Not only that, we had an unattended bag (did someone forget their wife?). This caused the terminal to be evacuated. I can’t think why – everyone knows that most suicide bombers these days go up with their luggage. “This is a Public Service Announcement – Abdul the Suicide Bomber Has Just Gone Off On Holiday”.

Anyway, it frightens everyone and ratchets the terror up another few notches so that the next wave of restrictions on personal liberties can come into force without any opposition.

We’ve often heard it said that “why didn’t the people in Germany – or in the USSR – or in France in World War II – rise up against their oppressors?” Well, where’s the uprising in the West?

After that, we were treated to the disagreeable spectacle of a girl about 8 years of age being given a pat-down search. I shall refrain from passing any kind of comment whatever about what might be going through the minds of the people who apply for this kind of job. You can think of your own.

At the check-in, I asked for an aisle seat. “Take this for now” said the girl at check-in, and ask at the reception area.

At the reception area, I was told “you need to chat to the people who welcome you on board the plane”.

And at the boarding of the plane, I was told, as indeed you might have expected, “you should have asked at the check-in”. Yes, another nasty letter on the way to Air Canada. You don’t even get this miserable treatment with a bucket shop airline like Air Transat and Ryanair.

Still, the flight was a new Dreamliner 787 and even hemmed in a row of 4 people, I’ve had much worse. A good selection of films (I watched The Desolation of Smaug [2013] and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and there would have been a few others that I would have been happy to see as well.

The vegan meal was excellent too and so I don’t have any complaints on that score either, but they could have been a little more generous with the coffee.

I’m staying again at the Quality Inn on the Cote de Liesse in Dorval, just down the road from tha airport. I stayed here last year and so I can pinch that photo.

It’s a nice hotel, not too far from the airport, and the service buses pass by on their way to the Metro, so it suits me fine. Especially as a 3-day pass on the public transport costs just $18:00.

So last night I went for a walk. Nowhere particular – I just caught the bus and then the Metro to a random station and then walked back some of the way. I didn’t see anything in particular, except this car, to prove that I’m in North America.

I’m not talking about the car itself – you can see them everywhere – but I’m talking about the body rot. When did you last see a car like that? In Europe, I welded a few up like that in the 80s but nothing since.

Anyway, after that, I went to the Cote des Neiges for my assiette falafel and my frozen sorbet next door, and back home.

And just for a change, I got off the bus at the correct bus stop.

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Wednesday 27th August 2014 – THIS IS MY HOTEL …

… right in the centre of Lille. The Hotel Continental, right opposite the Lille-Flanders railway station in the Place de la Gare, so it’s a shame that I’m travelling in and out from the Lille-Europe railway station so I had a 10-minute uphill struggle with the giant suitcase. Still, as they say, it’s all downhill from here.

I’m right in the centre of the city so that there’s plenty of food and facilities around (not like at an airport hotel) – in fact I had a good lunch of tomato, baguette and fruit from a supermarket, and an excellent tea from the Flunch just around the corner. And I’m 10 minutes from the station of course, where there are trains that go like stink right to the airport.

And the verdict on the hotel – well, 2 nights here with B&B is costing me the same price as 1 night at the airport and so when I say that the hotel is a little threadbare, I’m not complaining in the least. I’m having more than value for money here and that’s what counts.

And if they were to take up all of the depressing carpets and replace them with a good varnished wooden floor and paint all of the dark-brown woodwork with a nice cream topcoat, it would be 10 times better and I would love it.

So I’ve spent most of the day walking around.

My first encounter with Lille was in the early 1980s when it was a filthy, decayed old hole.

By the time I came back 10 years ago they had cleaned the place up amazingly, just like here at the Place Charles de Gaulle and it’s a vast improvement on how it used to be – so much so that I actually enjoy being here, and that makes a change for a major European city.

With the coming of the TGV here in 1994 there has been some astonishing rebuilding too.

That over there is Euralille, the new commercial centre. It consists of acres and acres of shops, a huge concert venue, piles of studios and apartments and a big student centre, one of the largest in Europe.

All in all, quite an impressive pile. And I bet that it’s been a long time since you’ve heard me say that about anywhere modern.

One place that I’ve always wanted to visit was the citadelle at Lille. It dates from the 15th Century when Flanders was an independent kingdom and was vastly improved by Vauban once the area had fallen to the French.

The walls are pretty much intact and the central barracks, vastly altered in the Napoleonic era, are in excellent condition – so much so that they are still occupied and so it’s not possible to visit there which is a shame.

So afterwards, I went for tea as I said, and now I’m back here going for an early night for I have a very early start in the morning.

Tuesday 26th August 2014 – WHAT A FLAMING SHAMBLES!

Absolutely!

This afternoon at Gerzat we had about 2.5 hours to record our radio programmes for Radio Arverne before I needed to leave to catch my train. 6 programmes this week, which meant that we would need about 2 hours or so.

Normally we would arrive there at about 14:00 and so our 2 hours would take us up to 16:00 leaving plenty of time for my train at Riom at 17:06. However, thinge never normally go according to plan and so we set out earlier, arriving at 13:45. I’d also had some kind of premonition and so on our way down to Gerzat we had stopped at the railway station at Riom so that I could pick up my ticket and so miss the rush-hour rush.

And I’m glad that we did, too.

When we arrived at the radio station, the junior engineer was outside smoking a cigarette. And inside at the office, the secretary told us that it was indeed the junior engineer who would be recording us. “Ahh well”, we breathed a sigh of relief. “He’ll be here in a minute”. That was famous last words, wasn’t it?

By 14:10 I was starting to become restless so I told the secretary how pressed we were for time. She phoned him up and then told us that he would be here in a minute.

By 14:25 I told the secretary that to call him again and tell him that at 16:30 we were walking out, regardless of wherever we were in the programmes.

Anyway, he turned up at just before 14:30 and by 14:34 we were ready to go. At least, some of us were. The engineer had a friend in the recording booth with him and was too busy chatting to see our cues. Every cue was missed and at one stage we overran because he had failed to give us our time signal.

As a result, at 16:30 precisely, we upped and went, even though the final programme was only half-way recorded. How they intend to finish it, I really don’t know, but ask me if I care.

For a change, everything went well-according to plan at Marcillat with Radio Tartasse. It’s usually there that we have our major issues but today, everything was ready and passed off without a hitch, even if I did forget to take my memory stick with me (good job I had the laptop in Caliburn).

It was nice to see Liz and Terry again after all these weeks and to talk to them about their holiday, and Terry gave me some really good news. Apparently Toolstation, Screwfix’s big rival, has now opened for business in France. They don’t stock the range of goods that Screwfix stocks, but from what I have seen, their prices for what they do carry are cheaper. I’ll be interested to see how their prices compare to Brico Depot. Anyway, it’s nice to see one of the major UK D-I-Y suppliers taking the initiative in France.

At Riom Station, my train came in on time. It’s been upgraded from the original rattletrap to something more modern, but it was jam-packed with people. There wasn’t a spare seat on the train. I’ve no idea what was happening there.

And not only was it on time leaving Riom, it was actually on time arriving at Lyon Part-Dieu too. And I felt so much better when we arrived too – leaving all of this mess behind.

However, being on time at Lyon was more than can be said for the TGV. It was 10 minuts late pulling into the station. And the fact that I’m passing comment on it shows you just how unusual this is. Normally, the trains run bang to time.

And while the luggage space was comparatively full, there were quite a few empty seats on the train. Not like last year when we were crammed in like sardines.

So by the time we got to Phoe … errr … Lille we were 27 minutes late, 3 minutes short of the magic 30 minutes that gives me a 25% return on my ticket. And now I’m in my hotel – a 10 minute walk from the TGV station. I’ve had a hot shower and I’m off to bed.

Monday 25th August 2014 – I HAD A LIE-IN THIS MORNING …

… yet even so, I was up and about by 08:05. And after breakfast, I set about packing everything.

And despite everything that I had done, there were still one or two things that I could not find and led to me having a good search around for everything. I reckon that I’ve now found everything that I’ll want, but if that really is the case, it will be a first.

Plenty of room in the suitcase for a change so in an amazing departure from the norm, I’ve cut up a couple of strips of that space-blanket insulation, 1.50m x 1.20m.

There’s a good reason for this. I’ve been using tarpaulins as curtains in the Dodge but that’s not particularly efficient. If I cut each sheet of this insulation into 2 strips 60cms wide and obtain some double-sided tape from Home Depot, I can stick this insulation onto the windows to blank them out and this will be much more appropriate, as well as keeping the temperature in the vehicle a little more comfortable.

Anyway, with all of this insulation in the suitase, the suitcase is very full but doesn’t weigh all that much.

Apart from that, I’ve sorted out the washing, tied up the onions and the garlic, put the shallots in a panier and did some tidying up and cleaning too.

I’ve also has Rosemary, Liz and Cecile on the phone.

Anyway, now I’m off for an early night because I’m going to have an early start tomorrow. There’s quite a bit to do tomorrow and then we’re radioing.

Sunday 24th August 2014 – AFTER THE EXERTIONS OF YESTERDAY …

… I was up and about quite early again. Long before the alarm went off at 07:30 in fact (yes, I had forgotten to switch off the alarms, hadn’t I?)

So a leisurely breakfast and chilling out in front of the DVD player for a while, I pressed on with the next batch of radio shows – I want to get ahead as much as possible if I can.

After lunch, I went round to Cecile’s to do some washing, check her post, sort a few things out for her and to organise one or two things, and then came back here to watch another film. I’m not quite sure what happened then because the next thing that I remember was that it was 20:00 and the film had finished. Yes, crashed out again and I’m not surprised either.

So tomorrow, I’ll have a lie-in and then pack ready to leave, do a mound of washing up and unplug the 12-volt immersion heater. I don’t want that running while I’m away. If it boils up and the water evaporates, I’ll be in trouble.

Saturday 23rd August 2014 – IT’S NOT EVERY DAY …

… that I’m up and out of bed at 06:30, but that was the time that Rob rang me up. And consequently, by about 07:30 we were on the road, fuelled up, tyres on the trailer inflated.

It was heavy going on the Autoroute northwards. It’s the last-but-one Saturday of the holiday season so there were piles of traffic heading towards Paris.

At Orleans we came off the autoroute and headed cross-country via Chartres, Dreux and Evreux to Rouen and then northwards towards Amiens and Abbeville. But Rouen dismayed us. There were major roadworks on the way into the city from the north and the queue was enormous, stretching for miles and miles. Travelling northbound, we had no troubles but it didn’t look good for coming back.

About 30 miles out of Rouen, round about 14:30, we located Rob’s car and loaded it onto the trailer. Strapped down at the back, but I chained it down at the front. Going that kind of distance (over 600kms), I wanted a chain holding the car to the trailer just in case.

We set off on a very scenic trip back. Avoiding Rouen isn’t easy as the River Seine is in the way and so it took several hours to rejoin the main road down near Evreux, but at least we were moving for most of the time.

Heading back towards home we were stopping every 100kms or so to check the strapping on the car – we didn’t want the car falling off the trailer – and we couldn’t go very fast anyway and so it was about midnight when we were finally back at Rob’s and unloading the car.

I was back here by 01:00 but I couldn’t sleep – just like in the old days when I could never sleep after doing a long shift on the taxis – and so I watched a film for ages.

Tomorrow I’ll have to uncouple the trailer and park it up properly.

But the irony of all of this is that we travelled almost 12OOkms without a hiccup and without attracting any kind of attention whatsoever, but at Evaux les Bains, just 10 kms from our destination and at 23:30 at night, we were stopped in a gendarme barrage, looking for drunk drivers and the like. They had a good look around, a good inspection of the trailer and then a length chat, and waved us on our way.

It was just 1km after that that the retaining strap that was holding the rear of the car snapped. I’m glad that I had chained it down as well.

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Friday 22nd August 2014 – IT’S AN ILL WIND …

… that doesn’t blow anyone any good. And so it is here.

In the realisation that I am not now going to be able to find the time, before I go away, to go to Commentry to buy the 16mm wire that I need to run through this piping, first thing this morning I sealed up the hole in the wall and put everything back.

And in doing that, I’ve chucked away a pile of stuff that was lying around, found a few exciting things that I had lost years ago, and tidied up a pile of stuff. Now, in the little corner where I sit, it’s never been so tidy. And that’s progress, isn’t it?

So now I can sit in comfort and work on the laptop.

Which I did.

I finished off the additional notes for Radio Arverne, all 6 weeks of them, including events for the ‘what’s on” section and I’ve even found a recipe. So that’s fine.

I’ve also done two rock programmes, including compiling the live concerts, which is what takes the time. The text for the second rock programme needs completing, and I need to write the additional notes for the recording that we will do when I come back.

That will be all of the radio, completed until the end of October. I wish I had had more time to complete it today but there’s only so much that I can do.

Now I’m off to bed as I have an early – like 06:00 – start in the morning.

And I hope that it’s warmer tonight. Last night it was 9.4°C. Cold it was, but that’s not a patch on Wednesday night’s temperature of … errr …. (or maybe “brrrr”) 7.2°C.

And this is August too!

Thursday 21st August 2014 – THIS TIME NEXT WEEK …

… I’ll be at 34,000 feet. I hope that the aeroplane will be too!

And I can’t wait to go either – I need a break. Especially after today. It took an hour and a half to sort out the difficult part of the wiring issues. The problem was relatively straightforward but it didn’t half take some fixing. What had happened was that when we must have fed the huge cable through the piping, the pipe had come away from its mounting and dropped down through the floor some way. Pushing the pipe back up had wedged it underneath the floor and trapped the wires.

Of course, now that the plasterboard has been put on the wall in the shower room, it’s not possible to reach the pipe from underneath. Consequently I had to drill out the floor from above and chisel part of it away. That freed the wires off but the insulation on the one that had been trapped under the floor was damaged so I had to wrap it in insulation tape. It’s a good job that I noticed.

But this huge armoured cable going through the pipe – I can’t understand that. Why did I choose that? Two strands of 16mm cable takes up much less room than that and will be much better at carrying the surplus current upstairs when I finally manage to move the immersion heater up here when the bedroom is finished. Consequently I pulled the cable right out.

It still wasn’t as easy as it might have been to pass this cable through the pipe but anyway, there it is. And there’s plenty of room for 2 strands of 16mm cable as well as one or two others if necessary.

Before I could restart work after lunch, Rosemary came round and we pulled up the onions and garlic. And what a crop! I’ve never ever been so lucky as to have had a crop like this. It seems that this wet weather has done some good somewhere.

That took us until 19:30 and I was looking forward then to coming upstairs and tidying up because it is a total disaster here what with me trying to pack as well as having to clear part of the attic to access this cabling.

But it’s not to be. I’ve had a phone call that means that either tomorrow or Saturday, Caliburn and I will have to take the big trailer on a rather long run. Consequently I had to empty out Caliburn and rescue the trailer from the undergrowth where it lives. Of course, there was a light out so I had to fix that too and that took me right up to 21:30 when it was too dark to do any more and I didn’t feel like tidying up at that time of night.

Tomorrow I’ll have to finish off all of the stuff for Radio Anglais if we aren’t going until Saturday. The radio stuff can’t be left and so for the moment this is the priority task.

Wednesday 20th August 2014 – PHEW!

Yes, I’m exhausted. And I’ve only been tidying up the wiring outside underneath the fascia board.

That was meant to be a five-minute task but I’m already on the 3rd day and it’s far from finished. Everything that can go wrong is going wrong.

I started off by disconnecting the wind turbine on the fence – the one that I’ve been using as a test bed. I wanted the timer off it. I then connected two wires to it, and that was where the easy bit ended.

When I dud the roof, I ran some 6mm wire down some conduit from outside under the eaves with theaim of wiring up the wind turbine – the one on the roof – to it, but it never gave any charge and so I ran an outside wire up to the turbine. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I had another go at wiring up this 6mm wire to see where the fault was.

This is where I discovered that the charge controller is built for a maximum of 4mm wire. After hours of fiddling around I had to splice some 2.5mm wire into the 6mm wire to make the good connection. When I wired it all up to the batteries and installed a fuse, I had a bright blue flash right across the living room.

Hmmm. A dead short. THat’s why the wire’s not working.

Back on the scaffolding, I cut down the wire so that there was no excess outside, and then attached a couple of new lengths to the older lengths in order to pull them through. Anyway, that promptly stuck and it took about an hour to pull it all back out.

Next, I tried a cable puller and that became irrevocably stuck and nothing that I could do would shift it. After much binding in the marsh, there was nothing for it but to unpack the corner of the attic where all of the wiring comes through (it’s not sealed off yet) and unstick it from the inside under the eaves. And that took hours and now the attic is on an even worse mess

But I didn’t ‘arf have a surprise when I opened it all. I don’t mean the cable puller – that came out in seconds, but there was a huge pile of wire inside there.

It seems that the wire from the outside is just coiled up behind the plasterboard and isn’t going into the conduit to go downstairs. Furthermore, the two wires that are coming up from downstairs is also coiled up behind the plasterboard and hasn’t been pssed through the conduit to the outside.

I’ve no idea what I must have been thinking when I was doing this wiring back in 2009, but at least it explains why the wind turbine wire wasn’t doing anything back in those days.

It also explains the blue flash downstairs too – that’s because the wires coming upstairs had been taped together so that they wouldn’t separate, and the copper in one wire is touching the copper in the other.

The wire that came through from the outside, I pulled it out, and the one that came from downstairs, I pushed that outside for the wind turbine and at last I’ll have a circuit.

If I had stopped there, it wouldn’t have been quite so bad, but seeing as I’m putting another bank of solar panels on the wall outside and they need a pair of wires, and I had the xall dismantled and a onduit passing through to the outside, I decided to pass the wires through the conduit and inside the house so that they aren’t visible fr – om the outside.

So with 4 strands of 6mm cable trying to fit through a 16mm conduit, it called for some delicate manoeuvre and I’ve never had cable so firmly wedged in conduit before. It was inch-by-inch, on and off the scaffolding to feed it into place and then into the attic to pull it through from outside. And when you need 7.5 metres of cable coming through, you can see how many times I was on and off the scaffolding.

Anyway, I now have 7.5 metres of wire coiled up inside and the next intention was to thread it down the conduit – a 32mm pipe with all kinds of stuff coming up in it. I’ve started to thread the cable puller up from the bottom, but that’s stuck in the conduit for the moment.

So that’s where I’m at at 19:30 in the evening with my little 5-minute job. I’ll be in bed in a moment with no tea because I don’t feel like making any. I’ll have another go at it tomorrow.

Tuesday 19th August 2014 – WELL I’LL BE …

Yes, absolutely!

Just about to go to fetch some cable trunking out of Caliburn this afternoon when a big red Honda motorcycle pulled up just outside here. A lady descended from the rear and smiled at me, which was a surprise – not something that happens every day – and then the driver came over, shook me warmly by the hand (which was also a surprise – regular readers of this rubbish will remember that most people who come here usually shake me warmly by the throat) and said “Jean-Marc”.

Well I am actually Eric, as most of you realise, but it turns out that the motorcycle rider was called Jean-Marc.

You may remember that several weeks ago on the way back from Munich, I called off at a village called Chasselas, near Macon, a village where I had stayed with a French family in my mid-teens. And now Jean-Marc, the son of the family, had come over to repay the compliment.

Yes, it’s totally astonishing. It’s 44 years since we have seen each other. And it was totally unexpected and I wasn’t in the least prepared, with stuff all over the place here. Good job that it was sunny so that we could sit outside. If it were raining, it would have been very embarrassing.

And sunny too – that’s about three days now that we’ve had some sun and I’ve had hot water. Too late to do much about it now – Jean-Marc was telling me that the grape-harvest in Macon will be a total disaster this year.

But this place is even more of a mess than usual. There’s stuff all over the place while I’m working out what to pack to take with me. And I also forgot to charge up the video camera so I had to do that as well.

I’ve also been trying to download off an old dictaphone some soundbytes – one of a Canadian diesel locomotive and and the other about a peal of bells from a Canadian church. But for some unknown reason, the lead that I have to connect the dictaphone to the computer isn’t picking up the sound. I’ll have to look further into this.

After Jean-Marc and his girlfirend left, I still had time to go up onto the scaffolding and throw piles of stuff off the top. That seems to be the usual practice these days and I was up and down the ladder for most of the evening.

But now, I have outside lights underneath the eaves to light up where I usually fall over everything when I’m out after dark. And they work too, much to my (and everyone else’s surprise). And all of the cables are in trunking made from 32mm water pipe and it all looks quite tidy, which doesn’t ‘arf make a change around here.

And no gardening today as I promised?

No, because Rosemary telephoned me to say that she might be round on Thursday. We can pull up the onions and everything else then.

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Monday 18th August 2014 – I’VE BEEN DIGGING UP …

… the shallots today. And there was quite an amount of those too – easily the best crop of shallots that I’ve ever had. I’ve washed them and they are draining off overnight, and tomorrow I’ll have to hang them up to dry off.

But I really am impressed with the crop. It’s superb.

I’ve also dug over the three potato beds again. Loads more spud too – it’s amazing how many were left behind yesterday but that’s something that always happens with potatoes. No matter how many times you dig over the beds, there’s always some potatoes left behind to grow again.

The beds have now been hoed and raked over and are now covered with black plastic to keep the weeds off. I can therefore forget about them for several months until the winter.

This morning though I booked my train and hotel. I’m leaving Riom on the usual 17:06 to Lyon Part Dieu and then the TGV – but this time as far as Lille. I’m having to stay two nights in a hotel before my flight leaves and two nights in a hotel in Lille is about the same price as one night in a hotel at the airport.

And not only that, there’s no food or anything at the airport except to be held to ransom in the hotel’s restaurant (and they can’t cook anything for me anyway) whereas in Lille there’s much more going on and much more choice.

Everything is now charged up as well – the North American phone, the North American SatNav, the spare batteries for the dictaphone, all that kind of thing.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to start packing. I mustn’t forget the car charger for the laptop and a few other bits and pieces but I’m certain that I’ll forget something before I leave. Most people make a list and then pack according to the list. I simply pack, and then make a list of whatever I have forgotten.

-1

Sunday 17th August 2014 – OHHH LOOK AT THAT!

Yes, look at that indeed.

Roselary came around this afternoon and so we decided to pull up the new potatoes. In fact we ended up pulling up all of them as the lates seemed to be ready too, and this is what we ended up with after about 4 hours of uprooting.

There’s about 20 litres of potatoes there and and that’s a lot of potatoes, much more than I was expecting and much more than I usually have. Clearly the wet summer is having something to do with this.

Rosemary stayed chatting until almost 20:00 and that made a pleasant evening, even if it was a little cool.

But not as cool as yesterday evening – the temperature dropped to an astonishing (for mid-August) low of 9.1°C, and if you think that this is bad, then Friday night’s temperature was an even lower 8.2°C. For mid-August, these figures are unbelievable. I haven’t seen anything quite like this.

This morning I finally finished this mega-backup. It’s all on a big external drive, a portable hard drive and (minus the photos) on a 64GB memory stick. That should keep me going if anything happens.

I’ve also prepared an old portable hard drive and another 64GB memory stick.They have the old films that I downloaded from archive.org and also the old-time radio programmes that I like to listen to. There are directories for the photos, the dictaphone notes and the text that I’ll be typing.

One thing that I’ll try is a 64GB SD card too. The trouble with portable hard drives is that they eat into the power supply of the laptop and, of course, with moving parts they will use a good part of the power. Solid-state is therefore the answer, hence a memory stick, and I reckon that an SD card might be even better in this respect.

We shall see.

So tomorrow, I’ll go back in the garden, churn over the beds agaon to see if we missed anoy more spudes, then hoe and rake tham and finally cover them up with black plastic to keep out the weeds.

-1

Saturday 16th August 2014 – I’M ON ABOUT …

… this parking again, aren’t I? It must be that time of the year again.

I just can’t believe just how selfish some people are. The Intermarché at Commentry is a busy place and there’s always pressure on the parking here – and even more when someone such as this takes up two places in an old nail like that. It’s bad enough when someone in a brand new car does it – it’s even more sad when it’s something like this.

So yes, I was in Commentry doing the shopping this late afternoon. And it was a quiet time there, apart from the stuff that I bought in Bricomarché, such as more trunking and also the cement rendering for the outside of the house.

Prior to that, I spent the morning finishing off the backups that I had been doing and sorting out the stuff for taking with me in 10 days time. I need to sort all of this out as quickly as possible.

After lunch I went over to St Maurice to pay the deposit for the stuff that I had bought the other day, and as usual I forgot to take any photos, so you’ll have to wait for a good while to see what it is.

And then, to the baths at Neris for my weekly swim. There were about half a dozen of us in there and that’s hardly surprising seeing as it was not that warm and the sides of the pool were open. But it did fill up a little later, and there were quite a few kids having a whale (well, we are talking about water) of a time. One girl was just 5 years old but was really at home in the water, leaping into the 2-metre depths and then doggy-paddling to the side to start all over again. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a kid having so much fun, and I had a good chat with the girl’s grandma.

So then off to Commentry for the shops.

And the parking.

-1

Friday 15th August 2014 – YEEUUCCHHH

Yes, it had been another one of those evenings last night. Late last night it started to pour down in spades and at about 06:00 it was so loud that it woke me up. It was unbelievable. Every day I seem to be saying that I’ve never seen anything like it, and every day I’m right because it’s just getting worse and worse.
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It poured down for most of the morning and I did the usual work on the web site. I ended up building a shop as well – I’m slowly changing all of the links on my Canada pages from Amazon.co.uk to Amazon.ca and there’s a shop facility on there.

I need to maximise the income potential on my web pages.

After lunch, I waited until the rain subsided and then went up on the scaffolding to carry on working on the electrics. And I would make much more progress if I could find all of the stuff that I needed without having to spend hours hunting it down, and I knew where all of my tools were. It seems that this tidying up that I did throughout the winter isn’t working out as planned.

I didn’t do much while I as up there either. Despite having planned it all the other day, I’ve changed it a couple of times already this afternoon while I was up there, and it will be changed again before I’ve finished.

Not only that, I was suffering from a bad attack of dropsy. I was dropping everything while I was up on the scaffolding and I had to keep on going down to fetch it – I’ve forgotten how many times I was up and down the ladder. In the end, all that remained to fall off the scaffolding was me and so I called it a day. It’s not the place to be, the scaffolding, when you are having concentration issues.

It was however 19:50 when I knocked off – it shows you haw engrossed I was in what I was doing. And it’s a good job I stopped when I did as about 15 minutes later the heavens opened again.

So let’s see how I can get on on Monday.

– in that I was

EPIC HALL

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