Tag Archives: eric hall

Wednesday 18th April 2012- I’ve finished the heavy work in the garden.

That’s all that it’s getting this year anyway. It can whistle for the rest.

If you compare this pic with the photo from a couple of days ago you’ll be able to notice the new frame that I made this afternoon. The soil that is in it has been dug over, hoed, raked and then hoed again, and it’s now covered up with a couple of offcuts of corrugated sheeting, for nothing is going to be planted in it until I come back and I don’t want it running to weeds while I’m away.

I’ve also sown a huge pile of beans in one of the beds, a few more rows of peas in another, and in one of the beds for root vegetables I’ve sown another row of beetroot and a couple of rows of carrots.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be sowing some more brassica, some parsnips and some spinach, weeding both the cloches and that will be the garden finished until I come back. And when I come back, there will just be weeding to do and (hopefully) not much else. I’m glad I managed to do it all anyway but I can’t wait to crack on with other stuff. I want to finish the lean-to this summer.

This morning I have been working on my website again and I’ve finally finished what I want to do – namely cross the St Lawrence from the Charlevoix to the Gaspé from my voyage in early September 2011. Tomorrow I can bring up-to-date the radio pages and then start on the footy pages. No more footy for me this season which is a shame.

Another thing that is a shame is that one of the ferries that I was planning on taking on my journey in a few days’ time, L’Heritage from Trois Pistoles to Les Escoumins across the St Lawrence River, has had its annual opening put back. I’ve been on it before and it was a bit of a rust-bucket then, but this winter it failed its four-yearly inspection and so it’s had to go for a refit at a cost of … gulp … $1,368,000 or whatever the equivalent is in local currency, and the start of the ferry season has been put back from April 21 to May 15, something which is going to inconvenience me rather considerably.

There’s another ferry that does something like the same route but that doesn’t cater for cars. The advert says something like “don’t forget your bike”. I can imagine one polar bear looking at another polar bear as I go cycling past, and saying “oohhh look – meals on wheels”.

I’ve also started backing up all of the files on my computer – moving copies onto a portable hard drive. You never know what is likely to happen when I’m on an adventure. If the ferry sinks and takes my computer with it, I shall be sunk – I’ll tell you that.

And not only am I likely to be sailing over a route where a passenger ferry was sunk by a U-boat in World War II, I’ll be passing over the site of the wreck of an ocean liner that went down with the loss of over 1000 lives, within sight of land, in peacetime 2 years after the Titanic disaster.

So as you can see, anything is possible.

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Tuesday 17th April 2012 – Well, I was right…

… about the need to protect my new plants from the frost last night. When I was down in the verandah at 04:00 (don’t ask) it was -2.2°C outside, and it dropped as low as -3.3°C. definitely a good plan to cover them up.

No such issues tonight though, even if it is flaming well taters outside. It’s also p155ing down with rain. And so the covers are on again, but for entirely different reasons.

This morning I spent on the computer doing some more of my web pages. But this was interrupted by the arrival of the postie, who brought me my new memory cards (I’m being organised this time, would you believe?) and also by the boulangère, with whom I need to discuss my bread arrangements.

After lunch I popped into Pionsat to go to the bank and also to the Post Office where I posted a lettler to my UK bank. There really is so much to organise. But at least, good news is that my flights are confirmed. And I’m not going on a bucket shop charter either. A national flagship carrier flies to the same destination for just €50 more, so copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say . All I need now are the car hire and the train. The ferries can take care of themselves as I encounter them. But one ferry issue is that one of the boats that I would be taking is away for a refit and so instead of starting the ferry crossing on 20th April, it’s now going to restart on 15th May – two weeks too late for me. I shall have to see about that.

Out in the garden I made a start on the final raised bed but at about 18:15 I was chased inside by a tropical monsoon. Just as well in a way because the framework for that bed needs replacing too and I didn’t fancy doing it at that time of night. But hopefully I’ll finish that tomorrow and then I’ll cover it up to keep the weeds out. I’ll do a final lap around the garden hoeing and planting more seeds, and that will be that until I come.

Now I’m off to bed and an early night. I’m whacked.

And to let Liz and Krys know that I’m thinking about both of you.

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Monday – 16th April 2012 – Ouch!!!

Yes, I have an ache in my back. It’s all this work in the garden that I did this afternoon. There are two beds that weren’t dug over at all last year and this afternoon I tackled one of them with the aim of sowing some spinach and parsnips in there.

But it didn’t work out as it was supposed to do. The actual wooden frame of the bed was one of the first that I made when I did the earlier vegetable garden back in 2008. And made of 10mm timber instead of 25mm timber which I use now, it simply disintegrated when I dug around it.

It’s quite difficult having to replace a frame that is already well-settled into the ground but it had to be done. It took a while too, but at least now it’s in place and doing what it ought to be doing, as you can see in the centre-foreground.

I only ended up giving it one dig-over, but it’s thoroughly hoed and raked and hoed again. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll give it another digging over, a hoeing and a raking, and then do the planting. Then I can see what it’s like.

As for the other bed, that will be for the leeks. But it’s not likely to be used for a while as I have only just sown the seed (in a tray in the verandah) and so it’s not so important if it’s not done before I leave. It will be nice to do it, though.

I had to cover everything up this evening. Last night the temperature dropped to 0.9°C here outside and it’s threatening to be even colder tonight, as the sun made a slight appearance late this afternoon. That means a likelihood of frost and I don’t want everything to die off.

This morning though, I had to spend much of it lying down in a darkened room. I needed to sort out my Belgian credit card ready for my trip, and this involved ringing a call centre there. And to my surprise and astonishment, I received a very helpful reply and (for once) some decent service. Totally astonishing. I also did that work that was outstanding – this morning the inspiration arrived from somewhere and I took full advantage before it went again. But my list of things to pack is looking larger and larger, and I can’t find half of the stuff that I want, like my earphones and my spare camera battery to name just two things. I can see this voyage turning into something of a debâcle if I’m not careful.

Sunday 15th April 2012 – Here’s a good photo.

Or, at least, it would have been in the goalkeeper of the Chimps had been wearing a more visible kit and the weather had been so much better. It’s not every day that I’ve been able to catch a keeper in full flight.

The difference is that I’ve recently upgraded the memory cards that I use. I still have the cheap rubbish but I’ve spent some money buying two 4gb cards of the quickest writing speed available and while the difference between 1/250 of a second and 1/40 of a second might not be very much, it is enough when it really counts.

But it was a miserable day at the football. Cold, wet, grey and windy. But that’s enough about me. The weather was the same. Everyone was soaked to the skin, even the three spectators in the stand. The result was nothing to cheer about either. All in all, a bad weekend for the club.

In fact, this will be the last time that I see them this season. Matches next weekend are cancelled due to the General Election, and the following Tuesday evening I’m on my way. I hope that they can manage without me.

Now you might remember this thing. I’ve told you about it, but I haven’t shown you a pic of it. It’s the external speaker thing for the notebook, the one with the built-in battery. It also has a slot for a micro-SD card as I might have said, and in a flash of inspiration I remembered a mis-order that we had made a few years ago at the 7-Day Shop and ended up with a couple of 1gb micro-SD cards.

Much to my surprise I managed to find them amongst all of the rubbish here (and finding the missing blank 4gb full-size card as well) and so I recorded a pile of music onto them. Did you know that you can fit about 35 albums onto a 1gb memory card if you record at 56kbs, by the way? Anyway, the machine reads the cards and plays the music, impressively too, I have to say. No menu, just one ofter the other, and it won’t recharge while it’s playing. Minor problems, seeing as it cost just €9:99 from LIDL. This will be coming with me on the ‘plane.

In other news, I lit the fire up here tonight, with the temperature a very damp and wet 13.6°C. I was debating about doing it, and then I remembered that it was Sunday night – pizza night – and I could cook the pizza and the garlic bread in the oven up here. And so I did. And with the wood having been up here for three months drying out, it burned a treat as well.

But it’s like flaming winter again here. 12.5mm of rain today. Whatever next?

Saturday 14th April 2012 – I’ve been busy today as well.

I managed to wake up with the alarm today, for a change. And an early breakfast too, for once. After that, I spent a lot of time working on a project that I’m doing for Dave at Hexham. Only problem with this though is that I’m struggling for creative inspiration at the moment. Margaret Thatcher once famously said “anyone can do a good day’s work when they feel like it. The key to success is to be able to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it” and I don’t disagree with those comments at all. I really need to summon up the inspiration from somewhere.

I’ve also started to make a list of things that I need to do before I go away. It’s going to be a flaming long list, that’s for sure. And it will certainly stop me feeling listless.

In St Eloy I bumped into Clare and Keith doing their shopping, even though I wasn’t there long and had a rather minimalist €23 shopping bill. Nothing special was on offer. Never mind.

Tonight, I was at the football watching Pionsat play the Chimps. And I’m not going to be talking about the match on here because I have a feeling that I shall be talking about it elsewhere.

But I did go to see the Maison Ducros in Pionsat, the building that I photographed the other day and about which there has been so much controversy just recently.

As you can see, there won’t be any more controversy about it now, is there? It’s a tragedy and it was all so unnecessary.

For an hour or so, I did manage to see some of the classic film Ben-Hur starring the famous Charlton Athletic, he of the cold dead hand. But never mind any of that, guess who was the stunt co-ordinator and second unit director? Yes, none other than our old friend who has featured in these pages on several occasions, the legendary Yakima Canutt. He gets about a bit, doesn’t he?

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Friday 13th April 2012 – I can’t remember now …

… what it was that I did this morning. One thing that I do remember however was sleeping through the alarm clocks and waking up at 09:35, and it’s been a long time since that happened.

I did spend some time on my web site again and did some more work, but round about 11:30 I must have been distracted because I’m having one of these mental blanks.

After lunch however, the interesting stuff. I phoned up my travel agents in Belgium and told them of my holiday plans. I was on the phone for about an hour because what I’m trying to do is not easy and neither is it straightforward. The net result of it all is that they have all of the details and they’ll work something out and call me back tomorrow. Or at least I hope that they will.

After that I went outside and dug over one of the beds that I’ll be using for root vegetables. and that wasn’t straightforward either. I put a plank across the beds to stand on while I dig the beds over, but this plank broke one of the sides of the bed. That caused a halt while I went to search for a suitable plank to cut down to size to remake the bed.

But anyway, that bed is dug over and properly hoed, and I’ve put two rows of carrot seeds and one row of beetroot seeds in, in order to see what happens. I don’t have any parsnip seeds, which is a surprise. What is also a surprise is that there seems to be tons of tiny plants in the bed, which look just like seeds that have germinated quite recently. And they look too focused to be weeds. I’m trying to think what they might be. It was brassica that was in there last year – did something run to seed maybe? Anyway, I’ve pulled most of them out but I’ve also left some of them in so that I can work out what it might have been. I’ll probably come home to a bed full of dandelions or something.

I checked over a few other beds too. The new potatoes are stirring now and so are the garlic bulbs. The peas too are looking as if they might be doing things but the beans are as yet quite quiet. Pride of place though must go to the brassica – the sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower. Those seeds were planted about three weeks ago, thoroughly watered and left under a black plastic sheet to keep the moisture in place and to heat up the soil. The result of this is that they seem to have gone berserk and there is brassica everywhere in the rows that I sowed. It obviously suites them under there.

Anyway, Liz will be coming to pick the strawberries while I am away. I’ve told her to help herself to brassica too. The rows will need thinning and so the thinnings may as well go into her garden.

Anyone else want any brassica?

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Thursday 12th April 2012 – I still didn’t …

… get very far with my holiday plans today. I was rather sidetracked.

I was asked if I could remove a gas tank from behind a house this morning. An unusual request, you might be thinking. And you are probably right. Even more so when you realise that it wasn’t meant to be physically moved – but removed by the means of what is commonly called “airbrushing it out” on a computer.

Of course, back in the old days I used to spend a great deal of my time doing that when a couple of friends and I ran “Shitesports” – a weekly review of affairs in football, and I was the correspondent for the “League of Wails”. Some of you might even remember the legendary “Juan Kusov” under which name my articles were published. Ohhhh happy days!

Anyway, so I set to work on the photo and “airbrushed out” the offending article, even though an airbrush is a tool that I never ever use when I’m doing something like this and I can’t understand why it’s called “airbrushing” anyway.

And here you can see my finished article. One gas tank suitably removed.

I had to do another photo as well, and what with having a letter to write (or, rather, translate) for someone it was after 17:00 when I finished. This is the kind of thing that takes hours to do, but nevertheless it’s worth it when you can make a good effort.

But once I’d finished everything I went back outside and carried on potting. All of the herbs are now done too, but I’m not expecting much to come from them. Some of the seeds looked pretty sad. Still, they won’t grow if I don’t plant them, that’s for sure.

And seeing as there was still a few minutes left before knocking-off time, I raked out the last two herb bins to remove the weeds and dead plants. And there I was a few weeks ago complaining that I don’t have any mint. Raking out the bin where the mint used to be, I was pulling tons of it out. And in the dedicated mint bucket, cutting off and pulling out the dead bits revealed quite a bit of healthy growth. So it’s not all bad news.

Back up here, I couldn’t resist having another little play. Many of you have seen my … errr … “composite photos” – I post a few on here every now and again, especially when I’m recounting the adventures of Strawberry Moose, and so in a little fit of boredom I knocked up another composite photo, just to keep my hand in.

Of course some people will argue that it’s not a composite photo at all but that some aliens really did land in the Auvergne one day last winter and they will use this photo to prove it. But never mind – I wished I had something better to do as well.

But iat did rather remind me of the little girl catching her daddy in the shower.
“What’s that, daddy?” she asked, pointing to the obvious.
A rather embarrassed daddy replied “ohhh … errr … it’s a spaceship, baby”
“It’s not very big daddy, is it?”
“No love, but it gets bigger when it gets near Mars”

But some more work for me to do has come through this evening, and I’ll need to do that tomorrow. I’m not ever going to book this holiday, or finish my garden. But then why should I complain? I complain quickly enough when I don’t have any work to do. I ought to be thankful.

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Wednesday 11th April 2012 – It’s been another …

… busy afternoon on the gardening front. First job was to make some potting compost to plant my seeds into. This ended up being 12 measures of sterile compost from a supermarket bagful, 4 measures of dry sand and 2 measures of dry wood ash. And if anyone has any better ideas about making a compost for sowing seeds I would be absolutely delighted to hear it.

So once I had done that I went and collected a load of those plastic pots that soya desserts come in. Already nicely washed, I piled them together in heaps of 10 or so, heated up a baked potato skewer until it was red-hot, and then poked it through the heaps of pots four or five times to make drain holes.

Once the drain holes were pierced, I washed the pots again and then filled them with my seed compost, and planted all the “fragile” seeds, like aubergines, peppers, chilis, cucumbers, courgettes, gherkins and a few other things too. And with what was left, I prepared a few seed trays and put leeks and lettuce in them.

There is a reason for all of this. For a start, why the soya dessert pots? The answer to that one is that they come in all varieties of shapes, sizes and colours. And I am heavily into colour coding. I can tell by the different colours, shapes and sizes of the pots that the seeds in them are all of the same type of plant.

The second reason is much more interesting. I’ve decided that I need a holiday, and so I’m planning to go away. And while I’m away Liz is going to babysit my plants in exchange for half the crop, which I think is a good deal in anyone’s terms. That’s why there’s the rush to do the potting up.

And so this morning I was planning my holiday, and the logistics of it are proving to be a nighmare – it’s nothing like as straightforward as it ought to be. But then this evening while I was tidying up, I had a brainwave about my trip and so I’ve spent most of the evening sitting here with an atlas. And I reckon that I can do this in another fashion.

So tomorrow I’ll be scrapping everything that I have done so far and starting again.

Tuesday 10th April 2012 – I planted my spuds today.

Yes, that’s two raised beds worked over and thankfully they didn’t need much. I realised in fact that I’d dug them through a couple of times in February and so one needed just a once-over with the fork whereas the other one managed with a quick hoeing. And that made a change – usually it takes an age to dig over one of the beds.

There was some garlic from last year growing away quite happily in there too, and so I’ve left that for now. No point in disturbing it when it seems to be doing so well. i’ll pull that up when I pull up the spuds in the autumn.

The shallots and onions that I planted earlier this year are doing well too. Nice regimented rows of shoots bursting out of the soil. This year’s garlic and the leeks aren’t doing anything though – I suppose it’s too early for them.

I also planted another row of peas and another of beans. The earliest row of peas looks like it might be doing something although the rest – and the beans – are not doing anything yet.

But that was all that I did in the garden and I knocked off early – at 18:00. It was teeming down with rain on and off and I ended up soaked to the skin and thoroughly miserable. I sat up here, watched a film and wrapped myself up in the quilt to try to warm myself up. It wasn’t very nice.

But this morning I was up before the alarm and breakfasted before the second alarm went off. And I’ve been working on my website again. High time I caught up on that. But the next time we have a sunny morning and I can run the inverter early on, I’ll update the Radio Anglais blog now that I’ve finally managed to find an mp3 converter program that seems to work.

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Monday 9th April 2012 – On the way back from the footy …

… there was a really good view of the Puy-de-Dôme in the distance from the top of the brow of a hill near St Priest. It’s been quite some time since I posted a photo of the Puy.

So what was I doing out at St Priest? The answer is that as there was no local football at all this week I had to cast the net rather wide, and I ended up at St Priest. To my surprise, the 1st XI of St Priest don’t play in local football but in regional football. That’s about 3 levels higher up the pyramid than Pionsat’s 1st XI. Anyway, they were playing in the Cup against a team from down south somewhere and so I wandered over there to watch.

The match wasn’t as good as I was expecting. St Priest were deservedly beaten by a better team, even if the opponents didn’t have much idea in the final third of the field. St Priest were rather lacking all round although they had their chance – hitting the bar and the post and a couple of their forwards taking one step too many with the ball, or trying to do the difficult thing when the simpler thing would have been much more appropriate.

After that I went round to Liz and Terry’s to drop off some stuff, and I was treated to tea which was very nice. And not just tea, but a doggy bag too – and home-made hot cross buns. Aren’t I the lucky one?

And this morning? Well, to be honest, 11:15. Say no more.

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Sunday 8th April 2012 – Well, apart from the fact …

… that I have a splitting headache and I’ll be off to bed in an instant, I had another afternoon out. If I’m not careful I’ll be making a habit of it.

But with it being Easter I had a day off and did absolutely nothing at all. Highlight was watching a DVD of a Nosby Stills and Crash concert that has been hanging around here for years. I’m going to have to find a good program on the internet to rip the sound-track to use on the radio programme.

But before anyone says anything, because it has been mentioned in the past, there are no issues with doing this – ripping sound tracks and the like – because with it being a bona fide radio station (in fact, all of those for whom we contract are) they pay a licence to the Performing Rights Society or whatever the French equivalent of that, and so whatever they broadcast (which includes our programmes and the contents thereof) is covered. Just so that you know.

In fact it rather reminds me of the time back in the 1980s when I was driving a tour bus for Shearings Holidays and showing a copied video-cassette of Carry On Camping to the passengers. This passenger came up to me and said “I’m going to report you”
“Why?” I asked
“Isn’t that a pirated video you are showing?”
“Well, as a matter of fact it is”
“Well I’m going to prosecute you!”
“No you aren’t” I told him
“Why not?”
“Because what you do is that you report me to the copyright holder and the copyright holder sues the owner of the coach – as they have the vicarious liability of the actions of their employees”
“So who owns the copyright of the ‘Carry-on’ films?” asked my passenger
“The Rank Organisation” I replied
“And who owns this coach?”
“The Rank Organisation”
Mr know-it-all then went and sat back down again, suitably deflated.

I hate doing this kind of thing to people, but sometimes, it does have to be said that anyone who sticks his head above the parapet deserves to catch all of the flak.
This afternoon, Marianne rang me up. If you remember from last year, the town of Pionsat has bought a derelict art-deco maison de maître in the town with the aim of demolishing it and building a new salle de fêtes. We went round to have a good look at it at the time.

It seems that they have now started to dismantle it and Marianne noticed that the rear door had gone so that people could now enter into it without the key to have a good look around. Was I doing anything?

Needless to say, I don’t need to be asked twice, so off I shot into town and we went for a prowl around.

I took loads more photos to add to the huge stack that I took the last time I was here, including this splendid one of the village of La Cellette right across the valley with the magnificent La Cellette viaduct on the long-abandoned Montlucon-Gouttieres branch of the Paris-Orleans railway in the background

After our little clandestine wandering we then went for a wander around the outskirts of the town looking for the traces of the ditch that brought the water from the river down to the old water-mill as the owners of the mill want to restart the water wheel.

After much protracted searching we managed to trace the entire track all the way back to the river. It’s been fairly well damaged and needs quite some expense to bring it back to a decent state.

As well as that, Marianne also gave me a pile of press cuttings from the local paper – all stuff that I had contributed over the last year or so. I keep a file of that kind of stuff – you never know when it might come in handy.

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Saturday 7th April 2012 – I managed to get out today

Yes – I made it into St Eloy for some shopping – such is the highlight of my life. Mind you, I spent a few bob. Another plant sale, and so I bought three soft fruit bushes – two redcurrants and one blueberry – a tray of 12 cauliflowers and a tray of 12 lettuce.

Another thing was that a few months ago LIDL had on sale a kind or remote speaker that looked like a mushroom. It takes a micro-SD card, but also there’s a small jack that fits into a small headphone socket and there’s also a USB connector for charging up the internal battery and running the sound system off a laptop computer. They were on sale for €12:99 and I was humming and hawing about one, but today they were reduced to €9:99 and so I bought one.

And honestly, I’m impressed with it. The sound is really good, much better than I expected. And I’m looking forward to trying it with a micro-SD card when I’m working somewhere. But the main reason for having it is that the phone that I bought in Canada takes a micro-SD card and so I bought a 16GB card, recorded all of my music onto it, and used the phone as a walkman-type of thing. I wasn’t impressed with the earphones though and so I can plug this speaker into the phone and listen to it like that.

And so back home, in between the phone calls, I planted the cauliflower, the fruit bushes and 6 of the lettuce. I’ll give the other lettuce to Liz on Monday for her to plant.

This morning though, I went through the magazine that I received in the post and made a list of potential radio programmes that I can do. There must be a good half-dozen that I can squeeze out of that. And then I finished the one that I was doing, adding a bit more stuff that I came across that was relevant, and finishing off the additional notes for June. I’m cracking on with this.

Another thing that I needed to do was to transform a few radio programmes from *.wav format to *.mp3 format. And it took ages to find a freeware utility to do it. I had all sorts of difficulties doing that.

Now here’s a thing. You may remember that a few weeks ago I bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
and so I went to watch it tonight on my new TV. And what surprised me is that the list of languages for subtitles available on disc is English, French and Dutch, whereas the spoken languages available are English, French and …. errrrr …. Flemish. Now I have never seen that before. The difference in language between Dutch and Flemish is far, far less than, say, French and Québecois, and usually a film company will go with either Dutch or Flemish – confident that those who know one will not notice the difference in the other – but to have them available as a mixed but exclusive option like this is totally bizarre. I’ve a good mind next time to listen to it in Flemish but read the Dutch subtitles and to see if I can spot the difference.

Ja, zeker!

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Friday 6th April 2012- I’ve had another day of being indoors

Yes, I’ve been hard at it today.

And I’ve been working as well. I mentioned briefly last night that I needed to look around for another subject to discuss on the radio for when we finish “speeding convictions” and as chance would have it the Postie brought me one of these little magazines that the bank sends me every so often.

This month there was tons of stuff in it, and there was also another little magazine that comes out every few months as a supplement, entitled “Family Matters”. And by ‘eck wasn’t there some good stuff in there too?

They did one a year ago which was “40 typical situations in France – true or false?” I copied those out and embellished them quite considerably, but I noticed in this magazine today that there were several readers’ questions. I’ve selected a couple of those and added them to the list of qestions – by the looks of things I can keep that going for ever if it keeps on like this.

But there were two subjects in there concerning important matters of everyday life in France that are treated quite differently from in the UK. So what I’ve done today is to dash off a quick 31kb of information about one of them. That took most of the day and there’s more to add as well. We normally do about 3 or 4 kb of information per programme so that’s about 8 programmes, plus whatever else I can haven’t added in yet. That should all keep the ball rolling for while I’m away and also for when I come back too for the first month. I’ve also made a start on the additional information for the recording session when I come back.

Then, of course, there’s the second topic. I won’t do that right now though – I’m going to have a rest for a bit once I’ve finished what’s on hand. I deserve it.

But I tell you what – sitting here with a pile of papers, extracting relevant information, turning it into a play for two actors – we were discussing on a “social network” the other day the benefits that we gained from studying with the Open University. I wouldn’t have been able to do too much of this preparation for the radio without having had the kind of preparation that I was taught at the University, that’s for sure.

And another small matter that is worthy of note – all the paperwork that I receive is in legalese French. I have to translate it all into vernacular English in my head while I’m doing it. I just thought that I would mention that.

And that’s not all I did today either. Liz rang me up and asked me to run an errand round to some clients of Terry’s who live nearby. Then Percy Penguin (who doesn’t feature half as much in these pages as she might) rang up for a chat, and then Dave from Hexham rang up with further information from yesterday and to give me a job of work to do for Sunday.

And to think that I came to live here for a rest! Still, it keeps me out of mischief.

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Thursday 5th April 2012 – I’ve not been out much …

… today either. It’s another day where I’ve been working on radio stuff – this is fast becoming a full-time job.

With the aim of getting as far ahead as possible, I’ve been concentrating on the Radio Arverne programmes. As you know, these are in four parts – namely the events (organised by Liz), the selected track of the week (just grab the nearest CD and look for something about 3 minutes long), the practical information, and the additional notes – namely useful French phrases, a recipe and gardening hints.

What I did today until about 16:30 was 6 weeks worth of the additional notes. Get those out of the way.

After that I went outside for a few hours in the garden. I made up some tubs for the lavender, cleaned a few of the herb beds and planted the thyme and rosemary that I bought the other week. There was some rosemary in there that looked like it had died so I pulled it up – but the root system still looked good and healthy so I planted it in the cloche – let’s see what it does there.

As well as that, I cleared out some of the space where I’ll be planting the rose bushes, and I did some more weeding. With all of the rainfall after the weeks of beautiful sunny weather the weeds are going berserk.

I had a couple of phone calls this evening too. One from this guy in Canada and another one from Dave from Hexham, who contributes every so often to the comments on this blog. He is working right now on a new business idea and so we had a long chat about that – that is, until his phone card expired.

Tomorrow will be another morning in. I need to choose a new topic for the practical information for the radio programme and then write a pile of stuff about it. I’ll have to go through a pile of magazines and journals that I have here and see what I can find.

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Wednesday 4th April 2012 – I’ve hardly been out …

… of the house all day. I’ve been busy writing radio programmes.

We’re launching a new series of programmes on Radio Tartasse on Thursday and Sunday evenings at 20:00 – what is known under the generic term of AOR, or album-orientated rock music. Two programmes every month – one which will feature just album tracks with some kind of chat in between the tracks, and the other which features a 5-minute introduction and then 55 minutes of one particular group doing a selection of live tracks that I edit and cobble together to make it a kind of live show.

It was the kind of thing that I reckoned would be pretty straightforward and easy seeing the size of my record collection and the amount of useless information that has collected inside my head, but it’s far from it. It’s taking much more time than I imagined. I’ve been at it all day from about 11:00 and I’ve managed to do 4 programmes.

We’ve already recorded four of them – for the months of April and May, but I want to get well ahead while the getting is good and so I wrote another four – two months’ worth – and we’ll be recording them in due course.

And that’s it, really. Nothing else. Doesn’t time fly quickly when you are enjoying yourself?

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EPIC HALL

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