Tag Archives: http://www.erichall.eu

Wednesday 17th August 2011 – My signs arrived today.

You can see one of them on the front wing of the Minerva. They are small but nevertheless they are pretty eye-catching. All I hope for now is that I’m not offered a white car. That would be unfortunate.

I also had a phone call this afternoon. Someone asking me if they could bring their car round for rustproofing.
“What number have you dialled?” I asked, somewhat bewildered.
“That number that’s in the directory – 982-2129”
The penny dropped
“Ahh – you’ve dialled the wrong number. This is 982-2199”
And so my Canadian number is not only up and working, the transfer to my French mobile phone works too and that’s exciting. And a beautiful sing-song Atlantic Canadian accent it was as well – made me homesick and I started to become all broody. I’m clearly out of place here in Europe.

In case you are wondering, the phone number quoted belongs to Portland Rust Check, 51 Williams Ave, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. And her car will need rustproofing if she drives it across the Atlantic to me. It reminds me of when I was talking to Colleen – this woman who I met in Labrador last year. She expressed surprise that I had travelled the Trans-Labrador Highway in Casey who, as you know, is a Chrysler PT-Cruiser.
“Most of the time it’s down to the driver” I told her. “You can take a motor vehicle almost anywhere if you have a decent driver. In fact, for my next voyage, I shall be crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike”.

So what with computing this morning, I spent some time making a collection of tools and so on to take to Canada with me. Not that I really need them because I can soon buy some more, but it’s just that I have a baggage allowance of 25kgs and so far I’ve managed to pack not even 10kgs. It’s pointless going with an empty suitcase when there’s stuff I can be taking with me. I’ve organised a “drop” in Montreal at about $8 (that’s about a fiver) a week where I can leave them for my next visit. I intend to leave all of my stuff there because there’s no point in dragging it back and forth across the Atlantic and I’ll be going back quite frequently.

This afternoon I was pointing again and now the ladder is up past the window. It’s quite high and fairly precarious so I’m doing my best not to look down but it really is a long way up. And don’t forget – the ladder is standing on the roof of the lean-to and that’s about 8 feet off the ground.

At about 18:15 the sun went in, and I noticed that the temperature in the solar shower was 38°:C. That called for a shower to wash all of the dust out of my eyes.

home grown potatoes les guis virlet puy de dome france No point in going back pointing the stonework after that, and so I dug up all of the new potatoes. There aren’t all that many of them, so what’s happening there? Has someone else been eating them? Anyway, I’ve left them outside to dry and tomorrow I’ll be cleaning them and storing them away.

But what’s the plant on the left-hand side? is it a Parsnip? What’s that doing there in the potato patch? It’s nothing that I’ve planted and prior to the potato patch, that land was part of the meadow so it’s not anything that anyone else has planted. How bizarre. For its size, it came out of the soil quite easily too.

Now that the new-potato patch is empty, tomorrow I’ll be planting chicory in it. Some nice big witloofs, I hope. I also have tomatoes and chilis too in the cloche and that’s all exciting.

In other news, my campaigning over the last few months seems to have paid dividends at last. I have someone from the New Brunswick Government wanting to see me – about the school house that’s on my land. As you know, I’m trying to find it a good home because it’s all pretty rare and historically important. He’s called Bill Hicks and so I’m half-ecpecting to find a Yankee comic shrouded in cigarette smoke.

Yes, it’s all starting to come together and I’m looking forward to being back on the North American road again.

-3

Tuesday 16th August 2011 – It’s quite useful …

… being up early in the morning because you can get so much more work done.

And up early I was as well for last night I had an early night. It wasn’t planned, but the internet crashed here quite early on as I told you and so I profited by going to bed early. And that surprised everyone, I bet.

This morning I was up, breakfasted, washed and dressed long before 10:00. And after working on the website again I was finished by 12:30. It was time then to attack the pointing again and I managed to do quite a lot.

I finished one load of mortar by 13:45 and ir wasn’t worth starting another load prior to lunch so I fitted the toilet seat to the composting beichstuhl. It’s cut like that for a special purpose and that’s why I needed a wooden one.

You can see how the beichstuhl works. There’s a huge 20-litre casserole saucepan in there, complete with lid. Inside there is a compostable bin liner. So you lift the white top of the box (you can see the hinges), take off the casserole lid, put in some sawdust (you can see the blue sawdust container behind the beichstuhl) close the white lid, do what you need to do, put in some more sawdust, lift up the white top and refit the casserole lid. When the bin liner is getting full, you dump it in the compost heap and fit another. It’s as simple as that.

Recycling, self-sufficiency and closed-cycle environments is what it’s all about. The water consumption is zero and I shall have tomatoes as big as your head next year.

This evening the temperature in the solar shower was at 39°:C and so I had a gorgeous shower. That was quite enjoyable too. And to round off the day I was down the garden getting a huge courgette, a pile of beans and a pile of new potatoes and made a huge curried stew that will keep me going for the next couple of days as well.

All in all it was quite a good day today.

Monday 15th August 2011 – I’M HAVING AN EARLY NIGHT

And quite right too!

I pretty tired because I’d been working quite hard all day. I’d had my usual morning on the computer and in the afternoon I was up the ladder pointing the stonework.

You can see how much I did as well, and that ladder is quite high. It’s a long way up and down, especially when you keep dropping the screwdriver that you are using as a mortar rake.

But at least I am making a good deal of progress up there. You never know – I might even finish it this year if I’m lucky.

Bill and I had a really good chat at our meeting of the Anglo-French Group tonight and then I came back home to do some work on the internet.

I managed about an hour or so, and then I lost the connection, and that was that. I was wondering whether to stay up and wait for it to come back, but badger that for a game of soldiers. I called it a day instead and took advantage of what Providence had sent me.

See you all tomorrow.

Sunday 14th August 2011 – Every Picture Tellls a Story …

… and this one tells a story of today’s weather. A glance out of the window on the way downstairs to cook my pizza this evening, and I saw a small hanging cloud drift quietly up the valley just down the hill from the house.

The last serious one just like this was in Labrador back in October. Then, we had had rain and snow for most of the day and believe me – never mind the rain, I reckon that it was cold enough to snow just now. It was pretty miserable.

I should have gone out to the Vintage Fair at St Maurice pres Pionsat today but never mind that – I wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, I did some more tidying up in here – the desk received my attention today – and I found more stuff that I reckoned that I had lost or misplaced. It’s good, this tidying up, I’ll tell you. All the rubbish has been binned and so what I need to do now is to have a quiet evening sorting out the papers and filing them away.

I’ve also started packing for Canada – putting the 120-volt electrical items in a bag so that they are all together. And one of the advantages of having a North-American sat-nav is that I can programme it to hold all of the addresses that I’ve been finding – all the shops I’ll be having to visit. I’ve also prepared 3 notebooks – an A5 spiral-bound notebook with all kinds of useful info and addressed, an A6 spiral-bound notebook for mileages, petrol and expenditure, and an A7 spiral bound notebook and pencil to keep in my pocket. I’ve also found a couple of folders to put all of the receipts and papers in.

This evening I’ve been surfing the web and I’ve found a 160cm x 70 cm foam mattress in IKEA for $49 and a bed base of similar size for $15:00 so that’s my sleeping accommodation sorted out for the back of the van. Canadian Tire do a 60-watt solar panel for $299, plenty of deep-discharge caravan batteries and also, interestingly, a 60-amp-hour battery pack with a built-in 400-watt inverter for $99. All of that looks like it might be extremely useful.

As the day for my departure draws close, I’m getting quite excited, and who can blame me?

Friday 12th August 2011 – What a lovely tea …

… I had tonight. And not only cooked with my own fair hands but grown with them too, for everything that you see came from out of my garden. I used my own herbs as well, but as for onions and garlic, I used shop-bought stuff because I had them and they need using. There’s no reason not to use my own though.

But it’s all exciting, isn’t it? Starting on the harvest of crops out of my garden. But I’m having a struggle to find them as the weeds have gone berserk I wish I had time to do the weeding.

This afternoon anyway, after another morning session on the computer, I restarted at last on the pointing of the end wall, and I’ll post you all a photograph tomorrow when the cement has dried so that you can see where I’ve got to.

Regular readers may recall that I started this at the beginning of last summer but doing my barn roof and then Lieneke’s roof, followed by my trip to Labrador put an end to my progress. And with having to empty the apartment in Brussels and make it ready for sale (which included clearing out the barn and the lean-to so that I can store everything in there), that took up most of the summer so far.

I want to get one side of the wall finished before I go back to Canada because when I come back, I want to put the wind turbine up there. Seeing how the anemometer is doing up there – about 3 times the wind down at ground level, I might even have enough wind to get the turbine to work.

And so I need to get a wiggle on.

Thursday 11th August 2011 – It smells lovely in my room just now.

Seriously – and for several reasons. Not the least being that I cut down all of the herbs that were running riot – 5 different types of herb – and they are all hanging up in here starting to dry off.

And not only that, we have a clean me too seeing as we had a scorching day today and the water in the solar shower heated up quite nicely. And as well as a clean me we have clean clothes and clean bedding too because I did a huge load of washing. Well, seeing as the water in the home-made immersion heater reached 48°C it was rather appropiate.

So apart from that I’ve been working on the website this morning. I’m just about to go into the New Glasgow Industrial Museum at Stellarton. That’s where you will find the oldest steam locomotive in North America, built by Timothy Hackworth in 1839. Hackworth’s main claim to fame was that he designed the Sans Pareil, one of the rivals to Stephenson’s Rocket at the Rainhill Trials.

This afternoon in between the washing I carried on with some tidying up and now that I have space to put things since I’ve put the shelving up in that room over the bread oven. Slowly but surely I’m making a little progress. In another 20 years I might get somewhere. But what I did find was the missing data head for the new anemometer that I fixed on the barn ages ago. However did that find its way onto the floor underneath the Whitworth toolbox? I haven’t moved that for ages.

Talking of the Rainhill Trials by the way, I can’t remember how many locomotives took part but I do know that they were all found guilty.

OK – I’ll get my coat.

-1

Wednesday 10th August 2011 – I had an earlier night last night.

Yes, I was in bed by 01:00, just for a change. And so I was up at a reasonable time, fighting fit.

I’ve now reached the other side of Truro on my web site, heading for the industrial museum at Stellartown. I might even arrive there tomorrow if I’m lucky. But this radio web page is giving me a headache. It’s taking ages to upload the programmes to my website and I’ve absolutely no idea why it should be so. It won’t be finished any time soon.

I’ve also finished (for now, at least) the guttering on the barn roof outside here. That’s all re-positioned so I hope that it works better from now on.

Now this is what I’ve been doing for another part of this afternoon. I’ve fitted the cheap anemometer to the roof of the house. It wasn’t giving me an accurate-enough reading from down on ground level in the garden and I still can’t find the data head for the new one.

Now I bet you will all be wondering how I will be changing the batteries in the unit, seeing as they are up there about 40cms above the roof line. Well, that’s easy. The unit is fitted to a 38mm pole that’s 2.5 metres tall, and that’s fastened into a key clamp on the side of the house. I’ve deliberately set it just outside the window at the top of the stairs outside the door into the attic. To change the batteries, you just slacken off the clamp and the pole slides down the kep clamp, and you lean out of the window to change it.

And while we’re on the subject of the guttering and the subject of the house roof, then seeing that I had the ladder out for the anemometer, I propped it up against the front of the house and re-positioned the guttering there a little too so that it looks prettier and is (hopefully) more effective.

And so having done all of that with the guttering, I’m intrigued now to see what will happen now when it rains. But it wasn’t going to work today though – for the first time for ages we have had a glorious summer day.

I hope that it stays like this as well.

Monday 8th August 2011 – I’ve finished …

… my Halifax pages. You can read them here and find out why I think that Halifax is the most beautiful and interesting city in the whole of North America. You can always add your comments on this blog and let me know your opinion of the place. I’d go and live there if I had the chance.

Anyway, that took most of the day, but I wanted to get it all finished. And that’s not all I did either. I spent a while on the phone sorting out Terry’s windscreen (although we are no further forward) and then getting my French SIM card unblocked. Apparently you can’t use it outside the EU (that’s why I was having so many issues lst year in Canada) unless you tell them and ask them to unblock it.

My Canadian phone number, that one I’ve had all of the issues with, is now up and working, and so I’ve ordered some signs from Vistaprint. They are magnetic and they will fit nicely on the hire car that I will be having.

No harm in a bit of publicity and after all, I’m going there to work. It’s not a holiday.

I couldn’t get yellow and black, would you believe? That’s sad. But I like this layout and even if they are small, they will still stand out, and that’s what it’s all about after all.

I’ve also had notification that my money has been paid into my UK bank account for the sale of Expo – my big apartment in Brussels – and so I’ve had to send a string of letters (snail mail too) to tell people what to do with it. With the stock market in freefall now is the time to invest before it starts to climb back up.

I also managed a couple of hours tidying in the barn, sorting a few things out and putting more stuff on the shelves that I built the other day.

Tomorrow I’m going to bring the radio blog up-to-date and copy all of my music onto my 8GB memory stick to take with me. I’ve done it all on to CDs but I reckon that with battery issues with laptops, some non-moving media will be better.

And then I’m going to do some more work on the guttering

-6

Friday 5th August 2011 – We didn’t manage to start the Minerva :-(

Bill came round this afternoon as planned and we had a good play with the Minerva. But we didn’t manage to start it. We cleaned the plugs and the points, checked the electrics out and made sure that there was a nice bright spark wherever there should be one.

We worked out how to hot-wire it so that we had the ignition circuit live, but the starter bendix gear wouldn’t slide out. In the end we removed the starter (and that entailed removing the floor and the oil filter of the Minerva) and cleaned it so that the bendix gear would slide out, but the starter still wouldn’t turn over. After dismantling it, we found the cause as well. While the vehicle has been standing, there’s been a slight oil leak and it’s dripped inside the starter motor and fouled all the coils. 8 or 9 years of standing hasn’t done it much good and I need a new starter for it now.

But it does fire up though – I tried it on the starting handle and not only is there plenty of compression I got it to backfire twice – that with my bad arm as well and now it is even worse.

I freed off the clutch pedal too. Simple lack of use. I took off the grease nipple heated it with a blow torch to melt away the old manky grease, refitted the nipple and pumped a huge load of grease into it. That’s quite nice now.

I had a mind to invite Bill in afterwards for coffee but he was in a hurry to get away. But no matter. I had spent the morning tidying up in my room and fitting a couple more bookshelves so that the place is so much tidier now, so some good will come out of it all.

Tomorrow is shopping. I think that I’ll go to Commentry, and then go for a swim at Neris les Bains.

-1

Wednesday 3rd August 2011 – Well, I’m exhausted this evening.

I had another early start for a change and then attacked the web site. I’ve almost finished the Halifax pages and it won’t be too long before they are on line.

After that, seeing as the weather was miserable, I attacked the Sankey Trailer. That’s now empty at last, and I’ve fitted the new bracket for the jockey wheel. That meant drilling the chassis, seeing as it’s a heavy duty bracket and doesn’t fit into the holes of the lightweight one, and the huge inverter, a LIDL 300-watt electric drill and sone decent bits (stepping up from 3mm, 5mm, 8mm, 10mm) made short work of that. But the problem isn’t really the bracket – the jockey wheel just isn’t strong enough for it. But never mind – there will be one on one of the old caravan chassis that I can use.

After lunch I set about cleaning out the room that is over the bread oven in the lean-to. Full of tiles, dust, straw, all kinds of stuff in there since God knows when. That took a while and I’m now on the way to building a pile of wooden shelving to go in there. I’m going to store in there everything that won’t be spoiled by rats – such as engine oil, paint, all kinds of things like that. It’s high time I had a go at getting my storage sorted out.

So that took until about 18:30 when I ran out of easily-available wood. What I did then was to move the Sankey trailer into its new home. And I rather wish I hadn’t because you have no idea how heavy it is, and it’s all uphill as well. I finally got it to move and then I realised that I couldn’t let it go as it would roll back down right into Caliburn. A Sankey (these are the old British Army Land-rover trailers in case you are wondering) weighs about half a ton and that is blasted heavy going uphill on your own when you have a pulled muscle in your shoulder, I can tell you. But it’s now in place and I had to go and lie down for an hour afterwards. It’s a long time since I’ve hurt like that.

This evening I’ve been surfing the web. Shopping on IKEA Montreal, Walmart Montreal, a Solar Panel shop in St Laurent, and a few other places besides. I’m having to do all of this on my own of course, the way things have turned out, but it’s still exciting all the same.

With regard to a mobile phone, that scam company never got back to me, as I suspected that they might not. I was looking on eBay for a triband phone for North America but the prices are absurd, and then I saw a battery for the ancient Nokia 6110 that is hanging around here – just £2:49 plus 35p postage. What I’ll do is just pile loads of credit on my French mobile number and use that with the Nokia. It would have been easier with a proper phone and a proper phone number but there are some things that you just can’t do remotely.

One thing that I realised years ago, and I can’t ever remember why I keep on forgetting it, is that at the end of the day I just have to be self-reliant, do what I can do myself, and not lose any sleep about anything else.

-1

Tuesday 2nd August 2011 – The best-laid plans …

… of mice and men oft go gang agley’. And today was no exception.

Dunno what happened last night but at 05:30 I was lying in bed still awake reading a book in the dawn sunlight. That kind of thing can upset your day and as a result it was rather a late start again (nothing like as late as Sunday though).

Working on the website again this morning and then after lunch I started to empty the trailer while I was waiting for the water to reach temperature. But a phone call soon stopped that. Was I free to do a furniture delivery to the other side of Montlucon?

“Caliburn will only work if you know the magic words” I said
“Stop messing around, Eric. You’ll be well-paid”
“Ahhh – you DO know the magic words”

And so two guys came and helped me unload the oil tank and we all went off to do this delivery – and I was indeed well-paid. Thank you, Pascal.

I also discovered a really cheap fruit and veg shop there and now that’s me sorted out with tomatoes and cucumbers.

Mind you, I didn;t get the rest of my washing done and it won’t be done any time soon as the weather has broken, the glorious summer weather has gone and we are back in storms again – just about 30 seconds after I made the point that we have been 4 days without rain and the place is beginning to need watering. You can’t get any better timing than that.

-2

Monday 1st August 2011 – Actually I’m quite astonished …

… by the people who read this rubbish, and how helpful they are. Having published yesterday about my missing morning, the farmer who owns the field next door came roaring to the rescue this morning on his tractor – at 07:11 exactly as it happens. And I didn’t even know that he read my blog!

And so after crawling out of my bed at a reasonably-indecent time, I spent a few hours on my website. I’m now finalising the pages on Halifax ready to publish them. I’ll let you know when they are on line and you can read them, and you’ll see why it is my favourite city in North America.

But before that – you might remember me saying that I have made a few alterations to the media corner in the attic where I live. Well, here you can see it in all its glory and I have to say that it does look quite impressive, as does the huge pile of wood and paper ready for winter.

And that’s not going to be all that far away you know. At least the wood is keeping dry in here. It’ll burn a treat when we need it.

After I finished on the website, I went outside and spent the morning working on the guttering. You may remember that I had several issues with the guttering – on the house there was a piece missing and there was another piece that had collapsed under the weight of the snow in the winter. On the barn, a piece melted in the heat from the fire earlier this year, and part of the rest of the guttering had sagged.

Anyway, I’d fixed it all before lunch. There’s a few new brackets and a couple of the old ones have been bent further round – let’s see if that stops the water cascading over the top. I also replaced the melted bit but apart from the fact that I can’t find the left-hand gutter end that was attached to it, I can’t find any other either – which is bizarre because I have three right-hand ones. How did I manage that?

The guttering on the house is fixed now as well and the missing piece added. I’ll post a pic here tomorrow so that you can see it, for I forgot to take one earlier.

After lunch, seeing as it was a glorious day, I did a load of washing. Temperature in the 12-volt immersion heater, heated by the surplus electric energy, reached 62.5°C and so it was a nice hot wash. And while that was doing, I did some tidying up and then I had a nice solar shower, seeing as the water in there was 38.5°C. So clean clothes, clean bedding, and clean me tonight. What luxury!

After the Anglo-French meeting I bumped into Simon. He was trying to fit a 700-litre diesel tank into the back of his van to take to the tip tomorrow and so I went to help him. But to cut a long story short, it’s now in the back of Caliburn ready for me to use as a biodiesel tank for when I set up my refinery. Thanks, Simon. And apart from that, Bill and I had the guided tour of his new abode.

Tomorrow if the weather stays nice, I’ll be doing another load of washing and that should bring it up to date. And now I have some heavy duty sacks, I’ll be doing what I ought to have done a year ago – namely emptying the Sankey trailer.

And while I was up a ladder hanging on grimly with one hand “lucky grimly” – ed, using a cordless drill and balancing a few lengths of guttering, I seem somehow to have pulled a muscle in my right forearm and it hurts like hell.

-2

Friday 29th July 2011 – AFTER THE EXERTIONS OF YESTERDAY …

… it will come as no surprise for you to learn that this morning I was up at … errr … 06:48.

However, that was to go for a gypsy’s. No way I was staying up at that time of the morning. 09:30 was a much more realistic time to haul myself out of my stinking pit.

After breakfast I was back on the computer with the website – to see how far I can get with that today.

Later I was outside working on the wiring in the barn – there were a few things I needed to do like install some crocodile clips for charging spare batteries and the like. And once I had accomplished that, I set too and emptied, cleaned and tidied Caliburn.

After that, I came up here for an early finish and watched a film. And I’m annoyed with myself now!

That’s because when I was emptying out the apartment in Brussels earlier this year I threw away a huge pile of videotapes with loads of good stuff on them, on the grounds that they were recorded in Long Play.

But remember that 12-volt TV/video player that I bought at that brocante a while back? I’ve just discovered this evening that it plays Long Play tapes.

Hardly any surprise that I’m upset!

-7

Thursday 28th July 2011 – MAYBE IT WAS …

… the shock of being up and out of bed by 08:00 this morning that did it – I dunno – but I didn’t last long this evening, that’s for sure.

And I don’t know why I was up before the alarm went off but anyway, so I was.

The morning I spent working on my website and in the afternoon I went on the internet and did a huge pile of housekeeping, getting all kinds of stuff ready for my trip to Canada, sending out piles of reminders and the like. But the most important part was actually closing down my electricity account in Brussels. On the phone, as you might expect with it being Belgium, no-one was interested. “Can’t be bothered” is the phrase. But eventually I worked out how to do it on the internet and after much steam and heat, it’s now concluded. Mind you, there is a delay of 6 weeks in bringing things up to date, so I’m told. Only to be expected, I suppose.

But there is something quite sinister about something else. There’s a site on line where you can obtain phone numbers in different countries and have all the calls transferred to another number of your choice. And so I registered a really good Halifax, Nova Scotia, number with them.

And then I had an e-mail ….
Due to some discrepancies on your account 418767, our automated alerting system has placed it on hold. I am very sorry for any inconvenience this interruption in calls may cause. Customer Service will review your account soon, but you can act now and speed up this process.

For fastest return to active service, please email us a high quality image of both the front and back of the credit card used on this account and your government issued ID. Please also email an high quality image of the government issued ID of the credit card holder if the credit card holder is different than the account holder.

… and do you know – I suppose they even get people who do this too. Anyway it’s an American company and the FBI have a decent cybercrime unit and so I made a report to them.

I was still working in the evening too. I’ve bought a big, well, enormous chest of drawers in the IKEA sale the other day and now that’s up here, built, installed and filled with clothes.

It’s no wonder that I crashed out early on.

Monday 11th July 2011 – I really don’t know …

… what happened to today.

For a change I was awake reasonably early and after breakfast I had my nose pressed firmly to the keyboard here by 10:00. I’ve been working this morning on a bit about Canadian Railways and so I was pretty much engrossed, and what with one thing and another it was about 13:20 when I stopped.

I nipped outside after that to carry on with my solar panel frame. First task was to sort out all of the fittings that I bought in the UK. But hereby hangs a tail – half of them are missing – including the important bits for my framework. Sudsequent enquiries reveal that there were two boxes of stuff for me at Benchdollar, but they only gave me one of them. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Next task was to cut the scaffolding poles to the right length. And could I find my angle grinder? Could I elephants. In the end I found the old one, rewired that and used it (having to use two drills and a screwdriver to change the disk). And of course, after all of that, as soon as I had finished, I found the proper one as you might expect.

That took me to, would you believe, 16:30, and time to get ready for the Pionsat Patrimoine meeting. Here, I have never known so many people gifted with the capacity for fitting the smallest amount of thought into the largest amount of words. Everyone was jostling for position and you could here the egoes banging together. Absolutely everything became a conflict – it was awful and I was glad to get away. It surely can’t go on like this. It was worse than a meeting of the Open University Students Association

We went off to St Gervais d’Auvergne and the Anglo-French Group afterwards. Terry is talking about adding a dumper to the fleet and I’m thinking seriously about a cherry picker. We’ll have a famous pool of equipment at the end of it all.

Tomorrow, I’m off hunting a Roman spring, so I won’t be finishing this flaming framework either.

EPIC HALL

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