Tag Archives: lie in

Monday 9th January 2012 – THERE’S NO POINT …

… in having an early night and going to bed early (well, 00:15 is early for me anyway) if you wake up again at 4:45 and can’t go back to sleep.

Mind you as day started to dawn and I knew that it was soon time to get up, I managed to fall asleep again, and it was 10:15 when I finally woke up. So much for my good resolutions for New Year.

First thing that I did after breakfast was to sort out a design fault on the electric board that I had made the other day. The wires to the inverter were bent at an unnatural angle and the live was touching the earth tag. I had to tape over the ends to insulate them and then drill a hole in the board to run the wires round to the back so that they are lying straight and parallel.

Once I’d organised that I stripped off some of the temporary roof on the lean-to, put some scaffolding up there and put a ladder up from there to the top of the wind turbine mast.

There I turned round the bracket that we had turned when we raised the mast last month and straightened out all of the guys.

I drilled into the wall, fitted a wall anchor with an eye, attached a turnbuckle and then fastened a guy to it all and wound it up to take the tension so that the last is held firm in that direction. That’s one out of the four guy wires sorted out.

After lunch I made a major advance – I started to put the plywood on the roof of the lean-to. It was flaming difficult too – it’s not easy pulling those sheets up on my own, I’ll tell you that, but I have three now fastened into position.

I’m being careful with the supporting chevrons, having learned my lesson from elsewhere where I’ve been working. I’m putting the sheets into position and then fitting the chevrons underneath them so that the sheets are supported in the middle and that the edges of each adjacent sheet meet up over a chevron.

I recall all kinds of bouncing sheets when I was nailing the tiles on when I did it in other places. I don’t want to do that here.

But starting to put the roof on the lean-to. Isn’t this progress?

-1

Sunday 8th January 2012 – SUNDAY IS …

… a Day Of Rest.

And quite right too. After my exertions of the last week or so, and with many more exertions to come in the very near future, I reckoned that I needed one.

So a lie-in until I don’t know what time, and I can’t even remember if I’ve set foot outdoors – it’s been one of those days today. No football, nowhere else to go, but ask me if I care.

I’ve sat by the fire, did some stuff on my presentation about the Trans Labrador Highway, read a book, watched a film or two, and that’s really about my lot.

I cooked a pizza in the oven in the woodstove, and the more I use it the more I realise what a good plan that was to buy it. €297 is about the equivalent of 15 bottles of gas at current prices and as my wood costs me nothing, I reckon that I will have paid for this in a matter of two years, not to mention avoiding the inconvenience of going downstairs to cook in the lean-to in minus 9°C.

In fact, all kinds of thoughts are running through my head right now.

So now it’s an early night, I reckon. I want to be on form for the week to come.

Wednesday 4th January 2012 – TODAY DIDN’T WORK …

… out as I had wanted it to do.

Forgetting to switch off one of the alarm clocks didn’t help much, for a start.

But nevertheless it was about 10:00 when I finally surfaced.

As part one of the plan, I watched one of the the films that Marianne had bought for me for Christmas. I’m a big fan of Louis de Funes and have a great many of his films, which I can watch time and time again.

But I’ve had loads of difficulty trying to track down one of his films that, to my mind, is by far and away the best film that he has ever made – La Folie Des Grandeurs.

It concerns de Funes as a Spanish nobleman who runs foul of the Queen of Spain. Apart from the legendary “towel in the bath” scene, it also contains the immortal lines –
de Funes – “tell me some little flatteries”
Valet – “senor is the greatest Spaniard who ever lived”
de Funes – “that’s not flattery – that’s the truth. Try again!”
Valet – “errr … senor is very very handsome”
de Funes “that’s better!”

Anyway, Marianne tracked down a copy for which I am extremely grateful, and I sat and watched it. and I’ll be watching it again … "and again and again" – ed.

But at lunchtime, Terry rang up. He and Rob were working somewhere and they had run out of concrete. So that involved digging out the Sankey trailer and setting off for the quarry. He just had the sand/stone mix and so we had to go to St Eloy les Mines as well, and that took most of the afternoon.

So much for my plans to tidy up and do some paperwork.

But the tyres on the Sankey are thoroughly perished and they need to be changed before it goes anywhere else. You can’t haul a tonne or two of sand and gravel on tyres like those.

So this evening was quiet – I read a book. And that’s really it.

But going back to Marianne’s I do remember one evening sitting down to watch La Grande Vadrouille, another de Funes film in which he stars with Terry-Thomas. It’s another one of my favourites and Marianne had bought that for me as well.

And as I was getting the film ready to watch, Marianne was idly surfing through the channels and what should be on the TV but La Grande Vadrouille?

Coincidence or what?

-2

Sunday 25th December 2011 – A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers.

I didn’t get that line from a Christmas Cracker or from an Annual, but from off the back of the door of the Public Lavatory on Crewe Bus Station. That was a good source of reading material for a spotty young teenager and I certainly learned a good deal about anatomy there.

In fact, I reckon that it was thanks to there that I passed my Biology ‘O’ Level with the best result I ever had.

This morning we had a lie-in and so it was about 10:00 when we finally struggled into the kitchen. Breakfast was flapjacks made with flour, soya milk and a little sugar, and then we went to the church at the Abbaye de la Cambre.

I have issues with churches, though.

Someone once tried to drown me in a church, and the next time I went there someone stuck this woman in my hand. I swore that they next time anyone of my acquaintance went to a church it would be over my dead body.

All in all, I’m surprised that I wasn’t struck down by a thunderbolt

I made Christmas dinner as well. We had seitan slices in onions and gravy, boiled and roast potatoes, sprouts (well, we ARE in Brussels) and mixed vegetables, followed by Christmas pudding and custard.

And even though I say it myself, it all tasted very nice.

This afternoon though, we listened to our Christmas Radio Programme on Radio Arverne, watched “Dr No” and that was that really – just chilled out.

But tomorrow we are starting work in earnest. after all, that’s why I’m here.

-3

Monday 19th December 2011 – I HAD A LOVELY …

… tea tonight.

I made myself a pizza.

And what was so exciting about that was the fact that I cooked it in the little oven on the top of my new fire.

With me having been in the house almost all of the day I’ve had the fire on all day. And I’ve only used three logs as well but the temperature reached 26°C, and that was what made me try out the oven seeing as how it was so hot.

it took an age to cook but nevertheless it all worked and I was impressed with that.

So this morning I was awake at 04:30 and reading a book. But eventually I was back under the quilt where I stayed until about 10:30 – I had no plans whatsoever to get up and fight the snow which was falling quite heavily.

but anyway now I have my new analogue electricity meter installed, as well as the hour meter that I bought in Radio Spares the other day – to see how long the inverter has been running. I’ve been looking forward to trying these

This afternoon I finished off the radio programme – just as well seeing as how we are recording it tomorrow, read a couple of books and that was that.

And not to mention being rung up God Knows how many times on the phone.

But I am quite impressed with this oven. I shall have to try some further experiments

-2

Friday 9th December 2011 – I WON’T BE …

… here tomorrow night either.

I’m going to the UK next week as you know, and I’ve been checking ferries.

And to my surprise, the ferry from Le Havre (2 hours closer to here than Calais) to Portsmouth (nearer to the Midlands than Dover) and return for Caliburn and Yours Truly is a mere €129.

Only problem is that the sailing is at 17:00 which would ordinarily mean an early start but as you know, I don’t do early. My plan is to leave here the night before and getting a couple of hours on the clock.

Anyway, this morning was rather … errr … late and had I not had a spam phone call I would probably still be in bed right now.

And then I had another call – someone wanting to visit. That meant no work of course, and tidying up in here instead, tip that it is. That took me quite a while.

So Nan came around and we discussed the initiative that she is doing for some organisation or other about co-projects (car-sharing and that kind of thing) in the area.

That’s the problem with being a minor celebrity … “chortle chortle” – ed … – people are always sounding you out for things like this. Not that I mind, of course. It’s nice to have visitors.

This evening I’ve been buying stuff on eBay. And getting it shipped to my mailbox in the UK. You’ve no idea how much money I’m saving by doing that. It’s the best £25 a month I’ve ever spent.

-2

Saturday 26th November 2011 – OUCH!

It’s really difficult to sleep when you can only sleep in one position.

Each time I rolled over into another position something else hurt.

And coupled with that,I suffer from bad attacks of cramp every now and again and last night I had not one but two attacks. And that was probably the worst bit.

it was dawn when I finally managed to go to sleep and …gulp … 12:34 when I awoke.

So what I did today was to work on the notes for the programmes for Radio Anglais. For the next few weeks we’ll be discussing winter driving techniques, as well as all of the usual stuff that we do.

Tonight at Pionsat the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 2nd XI were playing against Clermont Franco-Algeriens and they were totally played off the park.

Even when the opponents had a man sent off (two yellow cards, both times for insulting the referee – how silly can you get?) they still had enough in the tank to demolish a weak FC Pionsat St Hilaire side that during the whole 90 minutes of the match could only manage only two shots on target (and somehow scored both times as well, which totally astonished me).

The number of times Clermont broke through the weakest FC Pionsat St Hilaire defence that I have ever seen (and we’ve seen some pretty weak ones just recently, believe me) and blazed over the bar from five yards out – never mind only scoring 4, 14 would have been more like it.

By the way, excuse the poor quality of the photo. Not only did we have the usual problems of lack of light in crucial zones of the pitch to contend with, the match was played in a very thick fog and there were moments when I thought that the match would never be finished.

But I’m starting to get worried. If the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 2nd XI are relegated to the 4th Division (which they will do if they carry on playing like this) the 3rd XI will have to go into hibernation.

And that won’t be at all popular.

-2

Monday 7th November 2011 – WHAT A DEPRESSING …

… miserable day this has been!

I woke up to a hanging cloud stuck on the mountain this morning. It was enough to make me turn over and go back to sleep.

And so when I did finally heave myself out of the stinking pit it was still there. And it’s been there all day and not moved an inch. And it’s still there even now.

There’s been no solar energy in the barn, and about 4 amp-hours here in the house. Winter is definitely here.

The batteries have gone flat on the anemometer on the house, and so that was the cue for me to get up on the roof and take it down.

I then made a framework bracket out of aluminium and put the new one up on the side of the house. Not that I needed to bother because the wind that we have received here today can be measured in minutes. A far cry from the 20 hours of wind the other day.

After lunch, despite the grey damp conditions I carried on pointing the side of the house. It’ll take ages to dry of course in this weather but at least it won’t be freezing and so it will have the time to dry out. It’s important that it’s properly dry before the frost gets to it.

I did quite a lot, looking at it when I finished, and another two good days might see it finished if I am lucky and the weather holds out.

At the Anglo-French group tonight, I had a good chat to Bill. It seems that this house repair stuff is getting to be contagious as this week he’s restarted work on his house.

Good for him!

Although it did remind me of the story about the small boy at school who was asked to write a sentence containing the word “contagious”. And so he wrote “our neighbour went out to mow the lawn yesterday and my dad says that it will take the contagious to finish it”.

I’ll get my coat

-1

Monday 10th October 2011 – AFTER ANOTHER …

… late night last night I wasn’t in too much hurry to raise myself this morning, even though for once I heard all of the various alarms.

Mind you, I wish I had hauled myself out earlier because summer has come back, and with a vengeance too. Nice, bright and blue even though the sun is rather watery.

And we are promised this weather until at least Sunday, although I’ve heard all of that before.

I spent the morning working on the football match reports from the weekend. I’ve done the 3rd XI and the 2nd XI reports, and I’m halfway through the 1st XI report. I’m hoping that I can finish that tomorrow and then turn my attention to the Radio Anglais site and bring that up to date.

After lunch, I made a start on pointing the outside wall of the lean-to at the corner where it’s pretty unstable. And I’m not sure that I like what I see there. It’s been pointed once but with cement. The cement has not adhered to the stones but to the old mortar in between. And as the water has infiltrated behind it, due to the absence of roof, the cement has worked loose and fallen out, taking the mortar with it.

And that’s the root of the problem here. What I’ve been having to do is to gently pry out the cement, rake out the loose mortar, fill the gaps with stones and then use lime mortar to point between the gaps.

I now have it stable – well, after a fashion.

What I have done is to put a breeze block in at the upper corner and then I infilled behind it. That will give me something solid and level to start with, which is the most important thing to do.

I can build up from there tomorrow and see how far I can get. But it’s all a mess and the only real solution is to knock it all down and start again, and I’m not doing that.

At the Anglo-French group tonight, Christiane came along – the first time for ages that we have seen her and that was quite nice. Things are picking up.

-1

Sunday 9th October 2011 – I HAD A …

… nightmare drive out to the footy today. I was hammering Caliburn on through the bends when twice the front end broke right away and I was all over the road and almost off it. I had a look at the tyres and although the front are quite worn they weren’t bald by any means but it didn’t half slow me down after that.

But a short way further on I found someone else who had been taken unawares and I came to the conclusion that the road must have been awash with diesel for some reason or other.

Mind you, I was lucky to be up in time for the footy and if Percy Penguin hadn’t have phoned me at 11:30 I would probably still be in bed now. That was because I was chasing a rodent around my attic at some silly time of the morning. God knows how the thing got in but I can see me having to check the defences again to see if there’s a mouse hole anywhere.

>Braving the rain (all 18 mm of it) and the hanging clouds that gave me hardly a moment of solar energy, I went off the St Angel to see the 3rd XI play – or at least, the 1st half of the match.

And what a transformation they were from last year. 1-0 up when I left, and they could have had a bagful with a little more luck.

The match at St Angel was so interesting that I ought to have stayed and if it wasn’t for the fact that I am now the official press reporter for the 1st XI so it seems, I would have done too for they won at a canter, 3-0

Meanwhile, the 1st XI went down 3-2 to a pretty mediocre Royat side. For once the Pionsat defence was mostly tight and in the right place at the right time for once, except in the left-back position and with a good left-sided defender on the bench, that was the only substitution that the trainer didn’t make.

For once though, the attack misfired and it was a log, hard game. It was only a couple of high “route one” balls into the box that gave them the two goals.

And so back here in the rain again and ready for tomorrow and starting work again.

But I still can’t get over this weird (lack of) substitution at left back. Franck the trainer has been making a few bizarre decisions lately.

-1

Friday 7th October 2011 – I WAS WORKING …

… on the lean-to wall again this afternoon

And I bet you are waiting for me to say that I was building it up. But you would be wrong for I was actually demolishing it.

Well, part of it anyway.

It all started off with me searching for stones, and that entailed rooting around on the floor in the corner near they might have fallen. To do that I needed to hack my way through the brambles and trees and so on and that took a while.

Once I managed to get over there, I uncovered quite a few as well, but I also uncovered quite a few cracks in the wall that I hadn’t noticed. And they are going to need dealing with.

So having rescued some of the stones I also set about rescuing the wooden beam that acts as a lintel for the support of the roof chevrons. That was bought new in 2002 or whenever it was but I never got round to positioning it. Anyway, it’s now roughly in place and tied onto the chevrons over where I’m working,so that it doesn’t fall down again.

But getting it up there led to knocking down a pile of stones that were there. But that’s not a problem – if they won’t stand a clout with a wooden beam they needed recementing.

But the tragedy was when I was reaching over to hold the end of the beam up – I put my foot on the wooden board that I’d used as shuttering when I started to repair the front of the wall all those years ago – but that broke free and fell taking a few breeze blocks and a pile of stones with it as well, and all in all it’s something of a mess.

But then again, that can’t be helped. I’m going to have to start lower down the wall on the outside I reckon and point all of that corner of the wall to hold it all together before I build up any higher. I’m going to have to do it anyway sooner or later but that corner is definitely melting slowly away and urgent attention is required.

>But what was impressive was that the concrete infill that I used back in those days to repair it – that’s all held up and it’s stronger than the actual stone wall itself. I’m impressed with that.

So having decided on something of a plan, I mixed a pile of mortar to start on the pointing, only to be denied by a torrential rainstorm. At least my tarpaulin roof is holding well up, and gave me some shelter while I used the mortar that I had just mixed to point the inside of the wall that I’ve been building up this week.

But talking of rain and so on, the temperature dropped to 5.8°C last night – the coldest for ages. I have all of the windows closed, the fridge switched off and a jumper on.

And I don’t know what happened to the cacophony of alarm calls this morning. I somehow or other managed to sleep all the way through it and it was 10:33 when I woke up. But all the photos are now up to date thanks to another morning session on the computer, and I can now turn my attention to other things.

-2

Monday 3rd October 2011 – WELL, IT’S BACK …

… to the daily grind now. Or, at least, it should have been, except that at instead of the early night that I had promised myself,I was still wide awake at 05:00. Sleep issues again – it must be my guilty conscience.

Obviously, 08:15 never happened and it was about 10:50 when I heaved myself out of my stinking pit ready to face the world.

This morning I spent writing up my notes for the match yesterday. I’m amazed about how much I wrote and it’s probably going to take me all week to do the web page for it. But I need to exert myself and not let things drag around like I have been doing.

This afternoon I moved a few things around on the car park and managed to get at the immersion heaters under the tarpaulin. There’s a newish 50-litre tank there that Bill gave me because it has a leak in it somewhere so I’ve connected it all up to all kinds of pipes so that I can fill it with water and then close it off. I’ll leave it like that for a day or so to see if I can see where it’s leaking from. Then I can fix the leak, fit a 12-volt element in it and then use it in the lean-to as the new dump load.

>A pleasant surprise at the Anglo-French Group tonight where we had two new members. Peter brought his ladyfriend along to take part, and Nan turned up, seeing as she has now moved to la Cellette. we had a really good time as well and we were all quite animated. It’s nice to see that kind of thing happening.

But that’s it basically and I really am going to be going to bed in a minute. These late nights are catching up on me and I need to be up early tomorrow.

-2

Thursday 29th September 2011 – THE PHONE RANG …

… at 10:00 this morning. And it’s a good job that it did too otherwise I would be still asleep even now.

So much for that early night!

It was Liz on the phone, reminding me about our recording session later doday. And had she not done so I would have gone there for 16:30 and not 14:30. No idea how come that time had entered itself into my head.

But anyway I was in plenty of time to pick her up and we made it to Gerzat with plenty of time to spare. And it’s a good job that we did too because my first task on arriving was to fix their computer which had stopped working. .

Once I’d organised that we could record our next four programmes.

We are using a different format from now on, though. We have 15 minutes rather than 10, and the programmes are divided up into four segments

there are the events
we have the supplementary information – for one week Liz does a recipe, a second week I do a gardening bit, and for the other weeks we discuss useful French phrases.
we have music – English-speaking songs and such-like
we have the legislation bit

And it was hot there too – the temperature displayed on the wall on the pharmacy round the corner was off the scale – more than 40 degrees and I could believe that too. We were sweltering. Late September too!

Liz cooked tea as well which was nice – it’snice being waited on hand and foot every now and again, especially with the delicious food that Liz produces.

Yes, as Golden Earring so famously said that beautiful evening on the beach in Scheveningen in the early 90s – “There’s one thing I want to tell you man – it’s good to be back home”.

-3

Wednesday 28th September 2011 – SO WHAT HAPPENED …

… today then?

The rather prosaic answer is “I don’t know”.

But I’ll tell you something, and that is that I know what didn’t happen. You were all expecting me to leap out of my bed at the crack of dawn all fired up with a new enthusiasm after all of this time in North America, weren’t you?

But really – as if there was ever any likelihood of that happening.

So I had a leisurely day, slowly unpacking the stuff that I had brought back with me, and also doing a few desultory bits and pieces with the photos that I had taken. Not that it was an awful lot, I hasten to add.

The day ended with me going to bed to have an early night. This jet-lag thing is difficult to overcome as you can imagine and my body-clock is all shaken about.

It’ll take me a day or two to get back into my old routine.

Thursday 8th September 2011 – WATERFALL

I had another excellent night’s sleep and yet another really vivid dream. As a result I wake up fully refreshed at … errr … 08:30, which, after going to bed at 10:00, is something of a record for North America.

We’re still in wet and clammy weather after yesterday of course but slowly the morning brightens up, and not before time either.

I eventually go round to the garage and have a good long chin-wag with everyone there, and even help Darren MoT a car. Once I’ve done that I head off to Woodstock to try my luck at the council again.

I’m at a place that’s probably 9 kilometres south of a place called Lakeville on the brow of a high ridge. I’ve no idea how far that is away from where the wind turbines are but you can see them for miles.

It’s a magnificent view though isn’t it? You can see exactly why they installed the wind turbines up there. There’s nothing around for miles to interrupt the flow of wind.

By the time I got to Woodstock I was half a … &#34yawn;" – ed … and much to my surprise the council offices are open.

The girl there is very helpful – tells me some of what I can and can’t do.

There’s a good place to eat my butty down on the river bank and then wander off to do some shopping (well, not much because apart from gas there isn’t anything much else that I need right now) and then back home (and isn’t it nice to be able to say that here in Canada?)

I’ve taken a little deviation to the North Branch Meduxnekeag River (and I hope that I’ve spelt that correctly).

The reason why I’ve come here is that I saw a sign down the road pointing this way that said “Jackson’s Falls” and the name looked interesting.

As for the falls – well, I have to admit that I’ve seen better but they do look quite attractive.

The bridge might not look like very much but what caught my eye was that it carried a maker’s plate, and that’s not something that you see every day.

It was built by the Dominion Bridge Company in Lachine, which is where the rapids are, just outside Montreal, in 1928. And so it made me wonder how people crossed the river back before then. Did we have a ramshackle timber bridge, or did people have to ford the river as best as they could?

And on that note, I could go back home.

EPIC HALL

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