Tag Archives: ford cortina

Friday 11th March 2011 – I’m going to be having an early night this evening.

And I’m not the only one either. Terry and Liz are quite exhausted too, and I’m not surprised as we’ve been working really hard again.

I emptied out my bedroom and then Terry and I tidied the garage downstairs so that we could move all of the stuff down there. We also loaded Caliburn with some stuff for the dechetterie, whenever it will be that we will go there. But that’s not going to be for a few days yet as most of the furniture that remains will be going with it.

I came back upstairs and put the second coat of paint on the door frame and the first coat of paint on the wall of the back terrace while Terry finished the walls in the hall. During all of this, Liz was cleaning the bedroom.

While Terry redid the walls in the hall, Liz and I set about the bedroom. What with Liz on the paintbrush and me on the roller we had two coats on the ceiling and one on the wall in no time flat. We even took the radiator off (that’s all of the radiators that have been off now) to do behind it.

We then went out onto the front terrace and scrubbed down the guard rails and the new tiles, and that is looking quite pretty now. And while I went off to buy more paint (we are getting through that rather quickly) Terry and Liz finished off cleaning and waxing the floor in the living room.

No wonder we are all exhausted.

So the plan now is –

tomorrow the second coats of paint on the back terrace wall and in the bedroom, and cleaning and waxing the floor in the hall.
Monday will be doing everything else that we have forgotten.
Tuesday morning will be emptying the apartment of absolutely everything and me going to the dechetterie. But I have to be back at 11:00 as that is when the estate agent is coming.
Once he has gone we will be taking up residence in a hotel for two nights and using Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday to clean the place from top to bottom, and then loading up the two vans.
Thursday morning will see the Cortina on the trailer and then it’s off back home. I’ve decided to take the Cortina regardless and come back for the Minerva. It’s easier to do it that way round.

But back home on Thursday?

Can I remember the way?

Thursday 10th March 2011 – I have to go to rescue my Minerva.

If you are fairly new to these pages I bet you don’t know that I own a Minerva. It’s something I bought years ago while I was on the lookout for an old Land Rover for hauling logs around the farm. Ever since then it’s been in storage near Antwerp but I received an e-mail today to say that the storage facilities are closing down and I need to move it.

Luckily we are here with Terry’s big trailer, and I reckon that the Minerva will fit on it. It’s rather a shame in a way because I was hoping to be able to move the Cortina 2000E estate and get that down to the farm, but it will still be nice to recover the Minerva after all these years. Ahhh well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ve painted the door frame to the apartment and I’ve also prepared the wall at the back of the terrace. But when I went out to paint that, the wind blew me back inside again. It was rough out there, and so that will have to wait until another day.

This afternoon I cleaned all of the paintwork in the hall and then painted the ceiling in there.

Terry carried on with the odd jobs such as repapering part of the kitchen and fixing a few electrical items while Liz carried on with her marathon floor-waxing, with the help of Terry once the little jobs were finished. Once the floor was something like, we moved the living room back into where it ought to be and I’ve moved my bed and computer into this room while Terry and Liz started to paint the walls in the hallway.

Tomorrow I have to empty out my room of what is left there and then give it a good clean, put the second coat of paint on the door frame and paint the terrace wall if the wind will let me. Terry and Liz will finish the walls in the hallway and then paint my bedroom. The second coat for the hall and bedroom is planned for Saturday morning, and then all that will remain will be touching up in the blue bedroom where Terry and Liz are sleeping.

And that, dear reader, will be that. We’ll empty the place on Monday morning, have an estate agent round on Monday afternoon and then adjourn to a hotel for a couple of days so that the place will be completely empty so that we can do the touching up.

Such is the plan. And so you just watch something happen to upset it all.

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Wednesday 2nd February 2011 – You will hardly recognise this place now

Liz and Terry decided that we ought to empty some more stuff out of the apartment here today and so we had another mega-packing and sorting session. First thing that we did was to empty all of the stuff in the garage where the 2000E estate lives, check what I ought to be keeping, and then bin the rest. That was quite exciting as I discovered all kinds of stuff that I had carried about with me in my company car and which I had had to empty out when I handed back the car when I retired.

So with a comparatively empty garage (I say comparatively because you know that my idea of empty is different than everyone else’s), we had room to start moving more stuff downstairs. So while Terry was moving stuff downstairs and Liz was sorting, I was dismantling furniture and so on. Then we had a mega-bagging session of all kinds of bits and pieces and all of that has ended up in the garage too, and another pile of stuff has ended up in the trailer ready to go to the tip. You can actually move around here now, which is definitely progress from how it was 10 days ago.

We had a break at lunchtime for food, and as what with one thing and another we didn’t have time to send anyone for bread so it was to Carrefour at Berchtem St Agathe and the restaurant there. Just for a change there were nice, friendly and helpful staff – something I’m not used to in Belgium.

Brico couldn’t come up with a new lock for the other garage, which was a disappointment. No sense in breaking off the lock if we can’t replace it. But we did another load of shopping in Delhaize ready for the rest of the week.

And back home again we carried on with the sorting.

Tomorrow we may be starting on the third bedroom, and Terry will be attacking the bathroom, if the plastering that he did yesterday is dry.

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Sunday 3rd October 2010 – SOUTHERN POINT

Pelee Point is the southernmost part of Canada, and that is right here. if you look closely at the water, you’ll see the current flowing from right to left, on the right-hand side of the photo, and the wind blowing the water from left to right on the left-hand side of the photo, because the cind just here was wicked.

And when I’d finished taking the photo, I dipped my hand into the water just as a little celebration.

That’s where I’ve been today with Katherine and her friend Adam. I’m moving off tomorrow and I did promise that today I would take Katherine to wherever she would like to go, and she has chosen well.

It’s not particularly a student-type of place so I don’t imagine that there will be any tours out from the University to a place such as this. Nevertheless, it has to be an essential item on any tourist agenda.

I was puzzled by this sign though. I know that it isn’t all that far from Halloween but I couldn’t understand the reason why anyone would want to be selling goose outfits.

There was a Round The Horne sketch that featured Julian and Sandy and a goose outfit with a trapdoor for laying a golden egg, but I’m sure that it can’t be anything to do with that.

From the south end of Pelee Point there’s a view right across the bay to what I think might be Kingsville, where I was the other day and saw that Ford Cortina Mark II.

There wasn’t anywhere to take a decent photo of the town when I passed through, so this will have to do, although it’s come out rather blurred. But never mind.

On the way back, in the driving rain, because it was, we had to stop at a level crossing to let a train go by. It’s presumably on its way to Windsor and then under the tunnel from there under the river and into the USA

I’ve never seen a Canadian Pacific locomotive before so I had to take a photo, even if the raindrops didn’t do me any favours.

Having been woken up by a flight of geese passing over my motel (it’s “that” time of the year already) I made my excuses and left, in order to have a nice quiet evening to prepare myself for the road.

This last few days hasn’t ‘arf passed quickly.

Thursday 30th September 2010 – 2nd DAY IN CANADA …

… and I’ve had my first run-in with the farces of Law and Order.

Here I was, taking a photo of the Ambassador Bridge – the big bridge that goes over between Windsor and Detroit in the USA, and a copper pulled up. He told me to stop taking photos of the bridge
“Why?” I asked
“Because the Department of Home Security doesn’t like it” he replied
“But isn’t the Department of Home Security an organisation from the USA?”
“Yes it is” he replied
“Right” I said. “Tell the Department of Home Security to f$@µ off!” and I carried on taking photos.

Yes, the United States of America getting the Canadian Police to do American police work on Canadian soil – that’s a weird situation isn’t it? Whose country is it anyway?

But then as someone once said to me, when you are living next door to a well-known paranoiac who is armed to the teeth and has no intention of obeying the law, then you’d be a little wary too.

But I’ve been in Canada less than 24 hours and all my illusions about the country have been shattered.

I set off this morning quite early and drove down to the shores of Lake Erie, which was swathed in fog and mist.

First thing that I encountered was an abandoned railway line. Apparently the Beeching Cuts in the UK were nothing compared to what happened to the Canadian rail network in the 1980s and a huge proportion of Canada’s rail network was lost.

Admittedly much of it was unnecessary duplication, with three railway companies building transcontinental railway lines within 20 miles of each other, but an awful lot of it wasn’t.

My road down to Lake Erie took me to the little harbour of Port Glasgow. This is a huge pleasure marina with all kinds of leisure activities going on.

There were several people around here and I had a couple of quite interesting chats – a fine way to pass the time. And the weather was now quickly improving – the sun was out and the heat had burnt away the fog.

This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “Dutch barn”, doesn’t it?

Just as in France, there has been a wave of Dutch farmers coming over to Canada. Land in the Netherlands is difficult to find and is frightfully expensive. Many young farmers have crossed the Atlantic in the search for a place of their own.

And this place is up for sale, with an estate agent named Verbrugghe – just as in France, the Dutch have started to capture the Estate Agency market.

The whole of the shore of Lake Erie are covered in wind turbines, and I must have had to dodge about three or four lorries coming down these narrow roads carrying assorted bits.

But there’s also a small oilfield here. I counted about 20 small pumps and I’m sure that there must have been others that I didn’t see. I’ll have to look into this oilfield and see what’s going on.

And old cars too – there are plenty of those around here in southern Ontario.

A casual observer might not find a Mark II Ford Cortina to be the most exciting of the cars that I could have depicted as an example, even if it is a 1600GT, but I have a very strong affinity with British Fords, going back to my childhood. And when I had my taxis, I had nothing but Ford Cortinas, but the later Mark III and IV versions.

I was intrigued by this photo. I wonder what this “Do Not Push” on the back of this lorry is all about.

It does make me wonder what it is that Canadians have for breakfast, if people are worried about them being able to push lorries around. But whatever it is, I’d like to have a plate of it. It could come in handy with what I need to do back home.

In Windsor I found a cheap motel, parked up Casey and went for a walk along the riverfront where there is an impressive view of Detroit, ships passing by, and fishermen trying to find something worth catching.

The weather had turned out nice in the end.

So while I was waiting for Katherine to finish her classes (I’d arrived a little early) I wandered off to take a photo of the Ambassador Bridge and for my confrontation with the farces of Law and Order.

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Thursday 9th September 2010 – Here’s a pic …

… of our latest toy.

I told you a little while ago that Terry and I had bought a trailer between us – and here’s a picture.

It isn’t half a mega-beast, an Ifor Williams Trailer with a carrying capacity of 2.5 tonnes. Terry’s tractor and broyer went onto this and the thing didn’t even bat an eyelid. It’s a 4-wheeler with 12″ wheels, detachable sides and back, and a pair of ramps that would be the envy of anyone.

I have the Minerva and the 2000E estate to collect to Brussels some time when I have the room , and this will do all of that without any effort at all. I’m impressed.

So this morning I went down to Liz and Terry’s where we put one of the old caravan chassis on top of the other one and then put them both on the trailer.

Guillaume and his mate and then Simon came round in mi-chemin and once they had been sorted out Terry brought the load around here. We took off the two old trailers and dumped them round the side of the barn and then Terry loaded up his tractor and set off for home.

I put a couple of buckets of mortar onto the wall and it’s starting to look much better.

Tomorrow I have to go to Bill’s to fix his computer and then I’m off to Clermont Ferrand for a meeting that starts tomorrow evening and finishes on Saturday late afternoon.

If I don’t blog tomorrow night it will because I won’t have been able to find a wi-fi point.

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Thursday 1st July 2010 – I mentioned yesterday …

… that one side of the barn roof is finished. And so, here’s a pic that I took this morning not long after I woke up.

It’s quite impressive this roofing stuff isn’t it?

I’ve been quite busy today, although it might not seem much like it. I started off with a little gardening and then went into Pionsat for 11:00 to meet Max the secretary of Pionsat’s football club who had to sign a document or two for me.

Then it was back to gardening again and everything that is going to be planted this year is now planted and that is that.

That took me until 13:10 when I went chaud-pied into Montlucon. First stop was LIDL as they were selling some more 12-volt LEDs and at €3.99 too – I bought a pile of them. And then to Brico Depot for the guttering, the nails and stuff. No downpipes and no joints (it’s a rather familiar lament isn’t it?) but tons of other stuff, including a pile of drawers (not THAT kind of drawers, Rhys!). Yes, here I am planning to build myself a fitted wardrobe and a fitted kitchen and there they were with some end-of-range drawer kit – deep 40mm ones at €3.50 (you can’t even buy the sliders for that) and deep 60mm ones at €5.00. I now have 8 of each which is impressive.

Following that was my test d’effort. They put me on a running walkway thing for 7 minutes and attached a load of electrodes to me. I ran about 2.5km in that time (and in that heat too – it’s been glorious today) and the verdict is “very good condition for his age”. I sound like a horse or an old Ford Cortina.

I’d missed the post by then and so I had to drive all the way to Clermont Ferrand to deliver my file to the Referees’ Association, taking in a visit to the Auchan on the way. And I can’t find my satnav now – another thing I’ve mislaid.

But the highlight of the day had to be in the doctor’s this afternoon. He was helping me fill in the medical form –
“Sex?” he asked
“Put down ‘yes’ for that” I replied.
“Errrr … I think they wan’t you to put down ‘M’ or ‘F’ there” said the doctor.
“Okay – put down ‘M’ then” I said. “It’s been years since I’ve had an ‘F'”.

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Wednesday 26th May 2010 – It occurs to me …

… that we haven’t had a pic of the vegetable plots for ages. And so I remedied this this afternoon.

And don’t they look absolutely grand?

The bed on the left that is half-covered with a plastic sheet has some chicory seeds underneath it. I planted some of them this afternoon and under the plastic sheet (that keeps the weeds down) it’s damp, warm and humid, ideal conditions for germination.

Next to it are the leeks that I planted on Sunday and the weather has started to bring them along but in the next bed are 5 rows of garlic and about 15 rows of onions and don’t they look impressive? The garlic was actually last year’s and I dug it up to replant once I’d finished the beds whereas the onions were sets that I bought.

But clearly the plot and the weather are suiting them because I’ve never seen such luscious crops growing anywhere near where I might be in charge of a garden.

In the photograph above, you’ll notice the tree branch hanging over the onions. That wasn’t there a few weeks ago – it was up in the air but the weight of the foliage has brought it down.

At the moment it has some small green berries the size of large peas, just like the one in this photo here but they’ll probably develop into something impressive sooner or later.

At least I hope so – and I hope that I’ll be able to make some decent jam out of whatever the tree produces.

That’s not all the excitement either.

I went to have a look underneath one or two of the other plastic sheets covering the raised beds, and in the potato beds I noticed that the plants were sprouting and doing really well.

There was also a huge ants’ nest there too. The ants had somehow managed to bank up the soil a little against the underside of the plastic sheet and honeycombed it with burrows

So my question yesterday was to the effect of wondering what the weather might do. Basically we had 11mm of rain interspersed with a few sunny spells. I moved 200 litres of water as the water butts up at the top were overflowing and the ones down here were empty and it was a shame to waste the water.

Once that was completed I caught up with a load of succession sowing. The beans and the peas aren’t happening at all – neither are the peppers and chili but the cabbage and so on seem to be doing well. I hope everything will catch up.

You might think that that would be enough for one day, but I’ve even managed to find time to work inside the house.

Here in the bedroom on the first floor I found the time to finish lining the wall with polystyrene where I’ll be putting the built-in wardrobe. I’m falling behind with this so I need to get a wiggle on and do my best to finish it.

I must find some focus from somewhere and press on, or I’ll be finished before the bedroom is.

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Wednesday 14th April 2010 – I’ve finished all of the beds in the garden

You can see the last one just here on the right of the image.I can’t go any further for to the right are some fruit trees, behind me is the scrap Ford Transit van and to the left of the raised beds are the old Ford Cortina and the diesel w123 Mercedes 240D. And once we get round to next winter I can think about moving all of the vehicles elsewhere.

But 9 raised beds is enough for now, what with the megacloche as well – you may remember that last year it was just 8 raised beds.

There’s a caravan window across the megacloche for the moment. My tray of radishes and my container of carrots are underneath it hardening off ready to be planted. I needed the space in the greenhouse for the April sowing of seed, which I also did today. But nothing much seems to be germinating and that’s pretty disappointing. I’m sure it didn’t take this long last year.

15 of us at football training tonight. We started off with a few laps around the pitch and then had a game of quick-passing football. After that it was a heading match and then we finished off with a 7-a-side game. There was a new player there tonight – someone who I hadn’t seen before. A big guy, bald and a little on the senior side and called Christophe, which is bound to complicate things as there are already more Christophes than you can shake a stick at.

It reminds me of the old days with the Cheese Hall pub in Crewe. If you wanted a labourer or two to help on a job you would stick your head through the door and shout “Paddy”. You’d be trampled to death in the stampede.

But I digress.

There’a a goalkeeping crisis in the club right now – just one fit keeper for all three teams … “I bet he’s busy then” – ed … and this Christophe is someone who somebody else knows who retired from playing a few years ago but he’s been enticed out of retirement to keep goal for the 2nd XI for the next few weeks while Francois, Michael and Philippe recover from their injuries.

But this training lark – I’m miles off being match-fit and at my age I doubt if realistically I can get back into the right kind of fitness. But there is hope for me yet. If Tomi Morgan can crack it in the Welsh Premier League at his age then I can do it in the 14th level of the French pyramid at two and a half years more.

The proof of the pudding will be when I wake up tomorrow morning and see how the bones feel. I did notice that I was running much more freely tonight, and that’s a good sign.

Friday April 2nd 2010 – I thought you might appreciate …

… an aerial photograph of the new vegetable garden, such as it is right now.

You can see that I’ve now installed the 8th and final (for the time being) raised bed, but I’ve had to cover it with corrugated iron sheeting as I have run out of black plastic. I’m going to have to buy some more of that.

You’ll also see the nest part of the exercise. I’ve put a board up about 50cms from the edge of the raised beds (just to the right of centre behind the old-pallet duckboarding) and I’ve started to fill the gap with rubble. This will also be covered with old slates in due course and become part of the main path. It will also serve as a slug trap as two beds will be surrounded completely by old slate and these will be the brassica beds. I hope that this anti-slug idea works.

Next part of the plan is to dig out to the left of the new raised bed (the one covered in corrugated iron sheeting) as that is where this new large cloche is to go. I reckon about 1m20 or so at the back sloping down too maybe 35cms at the front and it will make a great place to grow melons, chilis, peppers and the like. I need to experiment with some hot beds in the autumn to see if it will work and provide the heat that I need to force some produce.

Once the cloche is made, that will be the heavy manual work ended in the garden for this year. Ultimately there will be another few raised beds to the right of the new path but I need to move the old van for that and that won’t be happening any time soon. And when I move the two cars I can set down a lawn there but that’s a long time hence.

And I noticed today that the onions have started to rear their ugly heads.

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Thursday 18th March 2010 – My progress knows no bounds

We now have, from right to left, a greenhouse, a cloche with 5 strawberry plants, a home-made bird scarer, a raised bed with garlic and onions, and a raised bed that is empty but covered with a sheet of black plastic.

First thing though was to scrape up all of the wood ash from the big fire. That’s my source of potash and it’s threatening rain – I don’t want to lose that. And I noticed something curious, namely that I’d set the fire over some tree stumps in the hope that I could burn them out but despite the raging fire all day Monday they are but scorched and it took me ages to pull them up today.

When I finished the raised bed I started on the organising of the seeds and I’ve now sown in seed trays some lettuce, peppers, aubergines, chili peppers and turnips. There’s loads more stuff to do. And I’m down on seeds too – there’s about 6 missing so I’ll be doing a megashop on Saturday.

I had a surprise visitor this morning – Liz came round with some of this compressed hardwood that a friend of hers sells. I invited her onto my terrace and we had coffee. It’s getting mighty civilised here these days – not like me at all. But it’s a major sign of progress all the same.

But there’s a couple of things that aren’t quite right. This compost bin is …errr … not much good and when I heaved a load of stuff into it, it all came apart. I had to empty it so that I could reassemble it and now it’s held together with a load strap. I dunno how long it will last – not very, I suspect.

The second thing is not quite so good. It concerns the composting toilet and a manure-water distiller that I’ve invented. This isn’t the place to discuss it – you’re probably eating your tea right now – but basically I wish I had put it somewhere else as it’s in the wrong place and it’s now too heavy to lift. The hot weather we have had is accelerating the distillation process and it’s making its mark on my close environment.

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Tuesday 16th March 2010 – Well, I moved the greenhouse!

This is where it will be staying for the foreseeable future, gale-force winds permitting.

I had to dig out six tree stumps and that tookabsolutely ages. I broke the handle on my pickaxe but luckily Claude (Laurence’s father that is) many years ago gave me a kind of digging axe and I put a shaft into it, and that came in really handy. There was a whole warren of tree roots under there and they took some moving.

This afternoon I had to dig over the patch a few times ( and that wore me out) and then dig out the greenhouse from where it used to be, in front of the verandah. In fact the empty space there makes a nice place to put my outdoor table and chairs. I rounded off the day by chopping wood but I really didn’t need it as it was an absolutely beautiful day today. The warmest so far this year an I had 270amp-hours (over 3KwH) of electricity – enough to run the electric heater in here for 5 hours and the temperature up here reached 18.6 degrees.

Tomorrow if the weather keeps on going I’ll be moving the cloche and making the first of the raised beds – you can see one of the shuttering planks leaning up against the Cortina.

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Thursday 11th March 2010 – One thing that you need to bear in mind …

… when cutting down trees is where they are likely to fall. It’s all very well doing “back-of-an-envelope calculations but if a branch gets caught up somewhere all of your plans can come to naught.

Keen readers of these pages last winter will recall that I had a domino effect – one tree into another and that one into a third. This year I managed to drop two trees across the Cortina and the Merc. Ahhh well!

Luckily there was no serious harm done to anything.

But I remember Liz noticing the look of consternation on my face as Terry used a years supply of wood to get his bonfire going the other day. “Don’t worry” she said. “There will be plenty more”. Well, she wasn’t wrong, was she?

But we had more snow today – piles of it. I was trying to clear up the wood but on two occasions I was driven inside by heavy falls. And by the time 17:00 came round and I was soaked to the skin and all my three pairs of working gloves were saturated, I called it a day, came inside, made myself a coffee and watched Fandango.

Now Fandango is a magnificent, vastly underrated Road Movie that should be part of everyone’s DVD collection. The music is superb. But talking of the music it contains one of the most astonishing out-takes ever. The film is set in 1971 as it quite clearly states, yet the theme music is “Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting” from Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road which, as any fule no, wasn’t released until 1973!

In other news, keen readers of these pages will recall an incident from a few years ago concerning a Welsh Premier League match at Porthmadog. A supporter shouted out at a linesman “Who’s the Paki with the flag?”. He was apprehended by a couple of supporters, marched down to the club’s offices, made to apologise to the club and the linesman, and then booted out of the ground and banned for life. However the Welsh Football Association charged Porthmadog with “failing to control its supporters”, fined £13,200 and docked 3 points. And so earlier in the week at Llanelli a group of supporters made monkey chants at Port Talbot Town’s Drew Fahiya, who is of Afro-Caribbean descent. The supporters were unidentified.

Now this sounds something like 10 times more serious that whatever happened at Porthmadog, but there are one or two subtle differences. Porthmadog is a small rural club run by a group of volunteers and continually bounces along the bottom of the league. Not the kind of club that will put up a great fight especially when money is tight and three points here or there is pretty meaningless. But Llanelli is a big city club – a leading light in the Welsh Premier League and run by high-profile businessmen. The club is challenging for the Championship and a place in the European Champions League, and the fortune that goes with it – is at stake. There are many eyes, including mine and several hundred others in Porthmadog, who are following this case with interest and awaiting the Welsh FA’s next move with bated breath.

And in other other news, I have a candle lit in my room sending a message to a dear friend who departed from this plane of existence a year ago and who I am desperately missing.

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Thursday 4th March 2010 – I had quite a surprise this morning …

… despite the torrential rain all yesterday afternoon, evening and through the night, the garden fire was still smoking this morning. It wouldn’t restart though, but nevertheless it was quite something to see.

I’ve finally reached the hedge at the back of the vehicles – you’ve no idea how many brambles I’ve had to scythe my way through – and I’ve made a start on cutting down the overhanging branches (and there are plenty to go at).

I’ve also cut around the far side of the old Transit so that is now totally clear of undergrowth so once I’ve burnt all of the weeds and brambles and the like (that’s another fire for tomorrow) I can drag that out of the way.

So this afternoon I emptied the greenhouse and got ot ready for cleaning. I’ll be buying some seeding soil on Saturday to get ready for the sowing but I need to clean the plastic sheeting of the greenhouse and get it ready to move it to its new home. It’s all getting quite exciting.

I also had a play with the Ford Escort but I couldn’t get it started – I think that the fuel cut-off valve is stuck. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have mattered very much – I would have just pulled it out with Caliburn, dragged it down the lane and then rolled it backwards down the hill into its new position. I might have managed it on my own but it’s one of those things that’s unequivocal – once you have started you really need to finish it because you can’t leave it blocking the lane and at the point where it’s likely to become stuck there isn’t anything like a handy tree to attach the chain winch to help me along. It’s the kind of project that I’m going to leave until I have visitors.

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Wednesday 3rd March 2010 – I didn’t get as much done today …

… as I was planning to. First thing I did was to put the battery on charge for the Escort and while that was brewing away I carried on down in the field where my garden will be.

It was quite a reasonable day this morning and so I cracked on, and I managed to uncover the scrap Cortina and the W123 Merc. Of course, the Cortina will never go anywhere much under its own steam. It was built in 1980 and spent its entire working life on a salt mine and by the time it was scrapped in 1994 it was rotten in places that Cortinas don’t even have places. It was driven through the night from Middlewich to Brussels in 1995 and since then it’s been moved around Europe on a towing dolly or an A frame, finally coming to rest down my field in 2000.

Its purpose is the provide spare parts for XCL – the Cortina Mark V estate that was my pride and joy for many years and which is languishing in a lockup garage in Montaigut. XCL has many happy memories for me – that was the car in which I came over to Belgium from the UK in 1993 with all my worldy goods in the back and for a few years we drove for tens of thousands of trouble-free miles all over Europe.

The Merc on the other hand has another significant memory for me. I was stuck without a reliable car after the Senator and I parted company in 1997 and I had to go to the UK to pick up a caravan for down here (the one that I lived in and was trashed by rats). A lovely girl called Annette from Guyana or Trinidad or somewhere like that and worked in the Guyanan or Trinidad embassy in Brussels wanted to go to visit the UK for a while too on a kind-of conducted tour so a decent car was essential if I were to take her. So I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for something respectable and he produced the Merc. And I had a lovely week in the company of Annette all around the UK. She really was a lovely girl and I was quite upset when she was transferred back home to the Caribbean.

We had a torrential rainstorm this afternoon so I decided to take the towing dolly (which you can see in this photo with the Subaru that Ric and Julie gave me being towed by the old LDV back in 2001) round to Bill’s. He has an old car he needs to remove from off the public highway. I got round there and asked him when he planned to move the car, to which his response was “well we could do it now if you’re free“. No straps, no chains, no anything, but so what?

We winched the Rover on board and with nothing to hold it on I set off to turn round. First bump in the road the Rover bounced out of the wheel traps and the car’s towing eye wedged up against the dolly’s mounting bracket. So when we finally got everything into position where Bill wanted the Rover to be, I had to jack the car out of its position with a trolley jack, two axle stands and a huge pile of blocks of wood. And all the time it was teeming down with rain.

It was just like old times when I had my taxi business back in the 1980s, doing crazy things with old cars in torrential downpours. I was soaked to the skin and I took ages to dry out afterwards. I’m trying my best to get warm now before I go down with pleurisy or something.

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EPIC HALL

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