Tag Archives: les guis

Monday 14th July 2014 – HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

And it started as it meant to go on with my being wide awake at 08:00. And on a Bank Holiday too. And even worse, I didn’t go to bed until 02:30 and so I was expecting to have a long relaxing sleep today. No idea why I awoke so early.

What was evn worse was that I was on my travels again during the night, working at a home for Eastern European boys, and I do remember a boy from Romania coming to the home, and he had a centipede embedded just underneath the skin of his stomach. From there, I went off with Caliburn. We were on the A556 – the major road that runs between Chester and Manchester and connects the M6 and the M63. Coming from the Chester end, I came to the big roundabout on the M6 and so initially I started to descend the slip road for the southbound carriageway, suddenly realised that I really wanted to go northbound but there was a police barrage across the slip road and so my doing a U-turn would attract suspicion. Nevertheless I turned round and slipped around the roundabout to the northbound entrance, and there was another police barrage there. I was, of course, flagged down and the policeman stopped me spoke to me in a mysterious Eastern European language which I understood but couldn’t reply to.

And it hadn’t escaped my notice that I’d gone widdershins around the roundabout, not clockwise as I would do in the UK where, of course, they drive on the left-hand side of the road.

After breakfast I watched part Two of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows and this was much more like it. Even with the same director as Part 1, this film spent much more time exploring the dark side of the whole affair and the tension slowly built up consistently all the way to a climax. In my opinion, it was certainly the best film of the series.

Having said that, the film is full of non-sequitors and inconsistencies and a mature audience will notice the considerable holes in the story, as well as the dozens and dozens of situations and scenarios that anyone who has seen The Lord of the Rings Trilogy will immediately recognise.

And I still say that Ginny is totally the wrong partner for Harry Potter. He would have been much-better suited to Luna and I remain totally convinced of that.

So as the sun came out today, I opened the windows here for the first time for three weeks, and that was the hardest work that I did today.

Tomorrow, I’m back at work.

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Sunday 13th July 2014 – WHO WAS IT …

… who said that the weather would improve this weekend? We’ve had another desperate day just like the other day when we had a minimal amount of solar energy. 17.5mm of rain fell during the dy and by the looks of things there in plenty more to come.

Mind you it was very nice where I was during the night. I was back in Crewe driving a coach down Middlewich Street for G&B Travel. At the bottom of the hill I turned right into Badger Avenue and on my left by the petrol station … "WHAT petrol station?" – ed … were a few vehicles belonging to a band of travelling gypsies. All the way along Badger Avenue and as far as the Merlin pub were more gyspy vehicles and a few of them were erecting aerials. I went up to one caravan and asked if there was anywhere where I could have internet accent. The woman there told me that there wasn’t anything there, but in her next breath she said to her neighbour – in Romany – that there was excellent internet connection.

So this morning I was up at, would you believe, 08:15 and after breakfast I watched Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1

This is another disappointing Harry Potter film. It didn’t miss out by much, but what it did miss made a great deal of difference. It was much more of a mystical, introverted film rather than an action film like the earlier ones. It was all dark and broody and could have been an excellent psychological thriller if a real director had been in charge of it. With someone like Hitchcock in charge it would have been one of the best films ever but I had the feeling that the director was afraid of the subject and afraid of losing his audience. As a result, he chickened out of the film and … errr … lost the plot completely.

This afternoon I had a mega-tidy-up, and you won’t believe the difference that it’s made here. I’m quite impressed and I did it.

So tomorrow, more of the same. It’s a Bank Holiday so another day off for me.

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Saturday 12th July 2014 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day today. I was on my wanderings during the night although when I woke up, I couldn’t remember where I had been. And then after breakfast, I sat down and started on the next lot of radio programmes for Radio Anglais. However, my heart wasn’t in it and I didn’t stick it for long. I need to be much more resolute.

This afternoon I went to St Eloy to do the shopping and who should I bump into but Lieneke and Guus. They have apparently returned for the summer. We ended up having a good chat for quite a while.

Back here I crashed out for a while, then carried on reading Clay Blair and watched Austin Powers – International Man of Mystery

And that was that. And with Monday being a Bank Holiday, it’ll be like this for another two days as well.

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Friday 11th July 2014 – THANKS TO TERRY …

kwikstage scaffolding erected rear les guis virlet puy de dome france… for helping me erect my scaffolding at the rear of the house this morning.

It was pouring down again at first and I was feeling that we were going to have another day like yesterday when I had the lowest July solar energy figure since I began keeping records in 2007 (just 17 amp-hours for those who are interested).

The field at the back is totally sodden and the scaffolding was sinking in in places but we’ve managed to underpin it. It’s not particularly stable but it’s the best I can do.

The plan is that starting next week I’ll be cementing in under the eaves, something that I have never managed to do since I did the roof in 2009. THat needs to be made good to keep out insects, animals and plants. The ivy needs ripping off the back of the house for a start.

I then need to fit some fascia boards to the end of the chevrons and give everything a really good going over with some wood treatment to keep out the weather. And when that’s done, fit the guttering to take the rain water to the underwater tank that I’ll be fitting and away from the base of the house. I’ll check the roof as well while I’m up there.

Finally, I’ll have to check the mortar to see if the ivy has pulled any out

You can see that I’ll have my work cut out.

I crashed out for an hour or two this afternoon, which was no surprise. I’d been to Mons during the night with the British Army in August 1914 and I do remember that we were being switched around from battlefront to battlefront by wading through filthy, dirty water up to our waists in these canals.

Later in the afternoon I carried on looking for one of these missing black jump leads. This ended up as a full-scale tidying up in the upstairs of the downhill lean-to and I discovered all kinds of exciting things. And also a metre or two of heavy black cable formerly of the starter of a car, and this will do for the 12 volt immersion heater.

I can finish that tomorrow.

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Thursday 10th July 2014 – WHAT THE …?

Yes, I’ve spent ages this afternoon looking for a black jump lead. I save all the old ones as they come in useful as a cheap source of heavy duty cable, and I can find no fewer than 5 red ones, but there’s not a black one anywhere to be seen. I just don’t understand this.

During the night I was in Calveley with my father and a few other people, visiting the farm that belonged to my father’s parents. All of the outbuildings were still there but the farmhouse was a prefabricated type of bungalow. It seems that the farmhouse had burnt down and my grandfather had erected a kind of mobile home to replace it, with no planning permission. The uproar that this had caused led to a variety of court cases against my grandfather, all of which he lost, and the farm had to be sold to pay the legal expenses and grandfather went bankrupt. My father was in tears when whoever it was told this story.

So when I woke up and after breakfast I carried on with the website for the customary couple of hours, and then as the driving rain was preventing any outside work, I started to tidy up the bedroom.

This led to a couple of discoveries, one of which was a halogen table light. After lunch (I had to go into Pionsat to buy some bread) I rewired it and fitted a LED bulb in it, and that’s now illuminating my new comfy chair.

I also found a multiple cigarette-lighter socket with USB socket and so I rewired that and fitted it on the control board downstairs.

While I was there, having been told that the bad weather is to contine, I emptied the 12-volt immersion heater and ripped the wiring out. When I made it, I had forgotten to insulate the terminals and that’s not been helping the circuit, and the cables are scorched as I suspected. This led to a couple of design modifications, and then the search for heavier cables, such as old jump leads.

At about 19:15 that up until tomorrow and knocked off work. Rosemary rang up for a chat for about an hour, and then I had tea.

I’ll continue the search for the cable tomorrow.

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Wednesday 9th July 2014 – TODAY, I HAVE DONE …

… absolutely nothing at all.

I’ve been outside just three times, twice for filling the kettle to make coffee and the third time to record the statistics. I didn’t even go outside to pick some lettuce for my butties. And I didn’t even have my lunch until 18:30.

hanging cloud les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd this is the reason why. This is how things looked here at 07:30 and it didn’t change throughout the day.

The rainstorm woke me up at about 07:00 and interrupted a really interesting journey, the details of which disappeared the moment I woke up despite me saying to myself that I’ll have to remember this one.

So after breakfast I cracked on with the website for the usual couple of hours with the intention of going out to clear away the rest of the weeds at the back of the house. But with the torrential rain still pouring down (we had 13mm up to 22:00 and it’s still raining hard) I abandoned that idea.

Instead, I carried on exploring the possibilities of this new upgrade of the 3D computer program that I installed the other week and then spent the rest of the day reading the first volume of submarine warfare in World War II

This and the second volume are two thoroughly absorbing books, but totally spoiled (which is a deep tragedy) by the (American) author’s total Anglophobia. I don’t think that I’ve seen even a German author write with such distaste and disdain about the British war effort in World War II

I’ve not had any tea tonight either as I’m not in the mood for it, even though I have stuff prepared downstairs. I just hope that it will be a better day tomorrow.

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Tuesday 8th July 2014 – I’VE BEEN A BUSY BOY TODAY

And I had a restless night too. I can’t remember where I was or what I was doing but it was certainly something quite active and I was quite worn out when I woke up.

So after breakfast I cracked on with the website until about midday, with an interruption from my solicitor in Belgium.

Downstairs I stripped down the water filters as nothing is getting through to the water tank. As I expected, the filters are all blocked up and so I cleaned them all out, fluhed them through and refitted them. Now they are working fine – I can tell you that because we’ve been having further rainstorms today.

I keep saying that I ought to adopt a regular programme of cleaning the filters – every four months or something – and that way they won’t block up. However I keep on forgetting to do it.

Next task was to reorganise the car parking. I’ve moved the Kubota and the Sankey Trailer over so that I can put Caliburn on the concrete. This is why I’ve done the concreting and it certainly does look better.

black and decker portable air compressor les guis virlet puy de dome franceTalking of the concreting and parking the cars, this is something that I bought on my travels. I’ve been looking for an old-type portable air compressor for ages. In the old days farmers used to have air compressors with detachable air tanks so they can charge up the tanks and take them off down the fields to blow up tractor tyres and the like.

I’ve never found one, but in Belfort I found this. It has just an 8-litre tank and runs off a 270-watt motor which, as you know, is perfect for my low-wattage electrical system. It’s light enough to carry around as well.

I changed over the plug to a British plug (I use British plugs and sockets here as the plugs are fused) and gave it a try. It charged the tank in seconds and inflated the wheelbarrow tyre in an instant. I’m well-impressed with this if it keeps this up.

I also changed the plug on the 500-watt vacuum cleaner that I bought the other week and tried that out. That works fine too.

I’ve been tidying up in the barn too, and then I set to to pull down the ivay and rip out the weeds and brambles and so on from the back of the house so that I can fit the scaffolding and get up there to do the guttering. I’m hoping to have the scaffolding up this week so that I can crack on with that.

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Monday 8th July 2014 – TODAY WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… where I didn’t feel like going outside at all. Woken up by another pile-driving downpour of rain at about 06:30, I was thinking to myself “what a way to start the day”.

Anyway I finally made it out of bed at the usual time and had the traditional couple of hours on the web site. And just for a change I made myself a second cup of coffee at about 10:45. I was cold.

Just as I was about to pluck up the courage to go outside working, Rob came round. His internet is down and he was desperate to check his e-mails. Not a problem of course and we ended up having a lengthy chat. That put paid to any plans that I had to go outside to work as by now it was raining again and so I did some tidying up on the ground floor.

I missed out on lunch. I became involved in something on the internet and it was gone 17:00 when I stopped for my butties. And here’s a surprise. The lettuce fairy seems to have come by while I was away. I have 10 small lettuce plants in one of my raised beds and I’m convinced that they aren’t anything that I planted.

Later, I had a chat – in German – with Cécile. That almost finished off the day but I was determined to make at least some progress and so I tidied up in here, dismantled the old easy chair that marianne gave me years ago and I’ve had here in various stages of disrepair over the last 7 years, and erected the new chair that I bought in IKEA the other day.

It has arms that hold me up and so its much easier to work on than the sofa. That has no arms and so I sink lower and lower on that until it’s impossible to work.

Yes, for CHF29:00 this chair seems to be a good buy.

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Sunday 6th July 2014 – WITH IT BEING SUNDAY …

… I’ve done pretty-much badger all today. However my plans for a long lie-in all came to naught as the most terrific storm woke me up at about 06:30. We’ve had about 11mm of rain today.

I managed to hold on until about 09:30 and then I was obliged to rise, for the “usual reasons” and that was that.

After breakfast I watched a DVD until about 12:30 and then I spent the next couple of hours bringing the blog right up to date.

This afternoon I’ve been working on a computer program. When I bought my new laptop I downloaded an updated version of one that I use. And it turns out that most of the add-ons written by third-party developers don’t work with it. I’ve been meaning to look into this for ages and so this afternoon I set to. It involved using the hard-drive out of the laptop from three years ago (thank heavens for caddies) and a lot of fiddling around.

When you are searching for the files, the options for the old version’s file extensions is not given and, much to my surprise, there’s no “all files” option. But I eventually worked out that if you type *.(the old file extension) into the “open file” dialogue box, then sure enough the required files are displayed.

There are still some that are missing but nevertheless this is serious progress and my Sunday afternoon was not wasted after all.

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Wednesday 25th June 2014 – WHERE AM I?

Ohh yes – I’m in a parking space on the side of the road near Dole, 250 or so kms from home, busily making a list of things that I have forgotten to bring with me, such as all of the fresh fruit and the soya desserts in the fridge. The soya desserts will be out of date by the time I return, but seeing as how I’ve closed all of the windows in the attic (in the middle of summer) I shudder to think of what the fresh fruit will be like by the time that I return home.

So with the customary couple of hours on the computer, after lunch I emptied a ton of cememnt out of the back of Caliburn and gave him a good brush out. He’s still not very clean inside and so I laid some sheets of OSB and plywood on the floor – at least that is clean and so should keep me clean.

I then loaded him up and I brought the gas cooker even though I have no gas – I’ll try to find some en route as I travel around. For the bed, I’ve brought a foam-rubber folding chair thing that Marianne gave me a few years ago when she was cleaning out her cellar. I’ll have to see what that is like one day, so why not now? Roxanne had one in her room for when she had friends for sleepovers and no-one ever complained. Mind you, I can’t for the life of me remember how or why I forgot about the folding bed thing that I bought ages ago.

I’ve also disconnected the dump load. The cables are still running too hot for my liking and here in Midsummer and I’m not there, better to be safer than sorry. I really ought to fix this properly one of these days.

I’ve sorted out some clothes and some food (except the fresh fruit and the soya desserts) and drink, made myself a flask of hot coffee, put the Gibson, the Roland amp, the Carlsbro amp, microphone and stand into the van and then hit the road.

I played tag with a woman in a silver-grey Peugeot 206 estate all the way from Montmarault to about 20kms short of Montceau-les-Mines, and stopped at Montceau for tea. I found a Turkish kebab place that made me a gorgeous Oriental salad and chips, with bottled water, all for a very democratic €8:00 and we spent most of our time chatting about our experiences living in a foreign country.

So back on the road in the dusk and here I am

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Tuesday 24th June 2014 – IT DID CLEAR UP …

… even though it didn’t look much like it when we started. Damp, claggy and overcast.

Nevertheless I was at my task early and first job after brzakfast was to empty the beichstuhl as I was to be having visitors. I also steam-cleaned the kitchen in the verandah and unblocked the sink there – I need to have the place looking something like. I followed that by working on the web pages again – getting back into my normal routine.

After lunch, the weather picked up and it looked quite nice. Rosemary turned up as planned and we set about a couple of the raised beds. Rosemary weeded four and I weeded almost three and I do wonder about my technique because Rosemary’s weeding looks absolutly perfect whereas mine looks a total mess. I wish I knew what her secret was.

We had a long chat afterwards and at about 19.15 Rosemary went home and that was that.

Tomorrow I won’t be doing much as I’m off on the road tomorrow night.

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Sunday 22nd June 2014 – THE NIGHTS ARE CLOSING IN

Yes, what happened to the first half of the year? I have never known one go so quickly. It’ll be Christmas before we know it.

Even more astonishingly, there I was lying in bed for a good half-hour thinking that I maybe ought to get up, and when I did, noticing that it was just 07:40. On a Sunday too. I’ll never have a decent lie-in at this rate.

Resuming my usual habits after this last few weeks of work, I watched a film this morning while I was breakfasting. Today’s offering was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and I was totally puzzled by this film. I was sitting there watching ti all warm up and wondering when the action might begin and suddenly it ended. 2 hours or so of no real plot and no real action and I can’t think of where the time went because there was nothing memorable about it.

However, having read the reviews of the film, I’m clearly in a minority of one. Lots of people consider it to be the best of the films.

So I spent the rest of the day doing some informal tidying up in here until it became too hot, and also tidying up a huge pile of files on the computer.

This evening Iwas round at Liz and Terry’s rehearsing the radio programmes as we are recording tomorrow. I also went round to Cécile’s to pick up a couple of letters.

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Saturday 21st June 2014 – SOMETIMES I HAVE DAYS …

… when I stare at the computer for hours on end, wondering what on earth I am going to write. And on other days the stuff seems to pour out without me even touching the keyboard. Today was one of the latter.

Despite having a little lie-in this morning recovering from the after-effects of an attack of cramp, I was at the computer early enough. And by the time that I had finished early this evening, I’d done another programme for the rock show, including engineering the live concert and making up a sound string, and I’d written three texts for the current affairs programmes, on senior citizens, medical care abroad and on French legal aid, 28kbs of notes.

There’s nothing like cracking on with things when one is in the mood.

For shopping, I went to the Intermarché at Pionsat. Things are slightly dearer there but it saves me about €3:00 i diesel and it has everything that I really need, especially as I’ve been doing a few major shopping trips to Montlucon just recently.

concreting car park hardstanding les guis virlet puy de dome franceI checked over the concrete too and it seemed to be drying rather quickly, so I connected up the pump and pumped the water out of the pit onto the concrete to moisten it.

It’s a shame that we were in such a rush to do the job, but it’s still looking quite impressive and when it has its stone wall all around it it will make a world of difference here.

Tomorrow I’m getting back into my old habits now that the pressure of work is off for now, so I’ll be having a lie-in and a leisurely morning. We’re recording on Monday so tomorrow evening I’ll be round at Liz and Terry’s, rehearsing.

And I might be off to Munich next weekend. Won’t that be exciting?

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Friday 20th June 2014 – WE FINISHED THIS CONCRETING TODAY

Or was it the concrete that finished us? One of the other anyway.

concreting car park hardstanding les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut in fact the concreting isn’t finished because, strange as it is to relate it, we ended up not having enough. There was 60m² of surface area at 150mm depth, which relates to not quite 9 cubic metres. Take off the surface area of the pit but add on the depths at the side of the pit, I calculated about 10 cubic metres. And as a result, se are about 1.5 cubic metres short.

And it doesn’t look very pretty either. But there’s a reason for this. I planned to have 2 lorry-loads, one coming at 14:00 and the other one oming later in the day, each one having 5 cubic metres of concrete. And so when we finished the shuttering and fitting the grillage at about 13:30, Terry suggested that I went and made my butty.

concreting car park hardstanding les guis virlet puy de dome franceMy reply was, of course, based on past experience, that the moment I turned my back the concrete lorry would pull up.

And so as I turned my back, the concrtee lorry did indeed turn up, and there was just Terry and me to receive it. Rob turned up shortly after and we were shovelling and barrowing like mad. 7.5 cubic metres on this load instead of the 5 that I asked for, so we had to move quickly. And even more so when the lorry came back, just 15 minutes later with the second load.


Hottest day for a couple of weeks to and so it was drying before we could lay it properly. And so with all of this, it’s no wonder that the job doesn’t look very pretty. Still, it’s down and that is what counts. I’ll have to finish it off some other time – probably with the cement mixer.

The water in the solar heat exchanger was a healthy 35°C and so I took the opportunity to have a nice warmish shower. So now, just for a change, I’m all clean and dry. I came up here and crashed straight out. And I’m hardly surprised.

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Thursday 19th June 2014 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY

I mentioned yesterday that I had to go to Montlucon today for some more grillage for the concrete that’s coming tomorrow.

As it happened, Rosemary rang up and so it came to pass that we met up this morning at the Texaco garage outside Montaigut and she came with me to Montlucon.

We didn’t spend too long in Brico Depot but I bought the grillage, some more pylons, a few other bits and pieces and so on. I now have everything that I need for tomorrow, especially as Terry has remembered to put the bolt cutters into his van.

Rosemary and I then went to the garden centre and a few more shops before lunch and then afterwards, with the weather being so nice we went for a walk around the lake at Premilhat, stopping for a cold drink half-way round.

We came back via the Gorge de la Cher and, strange as it is to say it, at the tinky village of St Therence, miles of the beaten track and far from anywhere, there was a barrage. Half a dozen gendarmes, a dog handler and a dog were stopping all of the traffic, namely about one vehicle and four cows per hour. I don’t mind these at all, especially these days as Caliburn and I are all totally legal, but it’s still totally bewildering as to why they should have a barrage in such an out-of-the-way place.

Back home, I finished off the shuttering and backfilled with soil and stones ready to lay the grillage. But what a weird place to have a barrage.

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