Tag Archives: eric hall

Thursday 19th January 2012 – THE WEATHER …

… changed during the night, just as I suspected that it might when I saw the clouds gathering yesterday afternoon.

I woke up this morning to a grey and miserable overcast day, and that’s how it remained all day.

The third of these cold-calling solar panel salesmen came to see me at about 11:00 and he was gone by 11:05, interrupting my woodcutting.

I need to do as much as I can of that because I want the space at the back of the barn, where I’m storing the tree trunks, for other things. Getting it out of the way by cutting it up seems like a good idea to me and I’m planning to do half an hour each day. Warm me up for other things.

Once my time was up I went to look for something in the barn and I can’t remember what it was now, but I didn’t find it, as you might expect in my barn.

I ended up doing some kind of tidying up (after a fashion) and repairing the lights up there so that I can see what I’m doing, and I found the 400-watt halogen heater that I brought back from Brussels.

The oil heater isn’t heating as much as I had hoped and it’s not keeping its heat as long as it ought to either, and so I’ve decided to go with the halogen one for now.

100 watts less, but of course halogen is much more efficient than most other forms of electric heating and I recall getting quite warm with that in the old days. I’ll be intrigued to see what it can do in a glorious alpine day.

I also found a pair of steel toecapped work shoes that I had forgotten all about. They’ve been rescued and put to good use. It’s nice to have decent footwear.

This afternoon I went about and inspected the trees overhanging the next stage of the garden development – the space to where I’ll be moving the compost bins. There were a couple of them that looked rather dodgy and so they came down.

I also cut up the tree that had fallen down in the gale last summer and flattened my spuds and onions, and moved it out of the way.

I DO like this new saw.

To finish off, I started to weed one of the raised beds where I grow my vegetables and I’m making quite a pile of stuff for burning, right where the greenhouse is going to be.

And four reasons too.

it’s a nice big clear space there
it’ll get rid of all the rubbish that’s accumulating
it’ll burn the weeds that are growing there
the ashes will fertilise the soil

But I won’t be burning anything tomorrow, and I won’t be working in the garden either. We’re having a torrential rainstorm right now outside and I’ll be intrigued to see how the new roof is coping with it all.

-2

Wednesday 18th January 2012 – WELL, THAT GOT RID OF THEM!

Yes, I had two visits from solar panel installation sales companies, and neither stayed for very long.

And serve them right too. I hate these cold-calling canvassing companies.

And there’s another one coming tomorrow as well. I can’t believe that I’m being snowed under with these blighters. They clearly don’t have anything better to do.

But this morning started with me being up and about before the alarm, and that doesn’t happen very often.

And after breakfast I had a mega-woodcutting session, so now the woodpile is looking quite impressive again, as it ought to be. I’ve heard it on the grapevine that winter is just lurking around the corner

But in the bright sunlight of the early afternoon I fired up the huge SDS drill and carried on drilling the core hole through the stone wall into the lean-to, but I wasn’t there for long because as I went out, the sun went in and the clouds came out.

That drill is 1200 watts, remember, and it needs plenty of sunlight for it to run continuously.

This afternoon I prepared an order of product to be exported to Canada

When I was there in September, you might recall that I had computer issues, and I met a guy who helped me repair it. He was telling me that he can’t easily find 230-volt electrical components in North America, but of course I can over here in Europe and so I’ve started a new role as supplier of his 230-volt products.

That involved, this afternoon, screwing 108 transformers to 2 pieces of plywood (left over from my roof), making a sandwich of the lot and wrapping them in a cardboard box ready for shipping.

Yes, this new little venture can be quite exciting if it comes off.

-1

Tuesday 17th January 2012 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

… the other day that I mentioned that there was a new digital 1200-watt inverter in the post on its way here. Well, it turned up a couple of days ago but I never had time to install it.

Anyway, that all changed this morning and after cutting another huge pile of wood I set about fitting it in the system.

It’s quite a monster and quite heavy too, and the cable is 25mm welding cable. And to fit it on my panel board it involved moving a few things around in order to make the space.

But it’s certainly impressive and if it works as well as it’s supposed to, it will be a big improvement on the current (well, we are talking electricity here) analogue 600-watt inverter, which creaks and groans under the load that it sometimes has to bear but which has kept going for almost three years, day-in and day-out, nevertheless.

The aforementioned has now been relegated onto the portable power panel that I made the other week which I drag around the outside from place to place when I need power.

As for the 150-watt inverter that was on there that has creaked and groaned day-in and day-out for even longer, that has now been relegated into Caliburn where it will just be used for charging up the laptop and the occasional power tool once in a while, replacing the unsatisfactory 150-watt pulse inverter that only seems to want to pulse when it wants to, which is never when I want it to.

This afternoon I did something that is so unusual as to merit recording here on the blog. And that is something called “tidying up”.

That’s a phrase that is contained in the vocabulary of many people but is somehow missing from mine.

You can’t see much of a difference because I seem to be the only person in the world whose tidying up makes more of a mess that it was before I started, but I’ve recovered 7 square metres of roofing tiles left over from the roofing of the house and the two lean-tos.

I’ll put them on one side for now and think of a way of using them.

I also went into the field next door hunting for the nails that made a bid for freedom. I don’t want the farmer’s cattle to find them first. I recovered a dozen or so but that’s just a tiny fraction of the number that got away. I’ll go for another look tomorrow

But the purpose of tidying up was to clear all of the wood off the floor of the first floor of the lean-to. Where the tarpaulin had been blown away, that area of the floor was soaking wet and the wood that was piled on it, much of it new stuff, was also soaking wet and it was all stopping the floor from drying.

So all of that wood has been arranged tidily where it will receive a nice current of air, and the floor is clear so that it might dry out. You might remember that it was only 18 months ago that I laid the floor and I don’t want it rotting away quite yet.

In other news, I have two companies sending representatives around tomorrow to sell me these roof-top solar panel systems.

I hate these cold-calling canvassers who ring up at 19:15 and 19:45 when I’m trying to drink a coffee and watch a film. Worse than spam e-mails they are – at least you can delete those – and so I’m fighting back.

I can waste more of their time than they can of mine.

And in other other news, the water in the new immersion heater reached 28.5°C this afternoon. Not a lot you might think, but that was 25°C over the ambient temperature downstairs, and that’s well-worth having.

It’s not hot enough to use the washing machine or to have a shower, but we are moving in the right direction.

Monday 16th January 2012 – THE FIRST THING …

… that I did today was to empty the composting toilet.

I’ve been neglecting it for a few days, what with one thing or another.

And of course, once you get started you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are too. But the composting toilet did need to be emptied, such is the exciting life that I lead these days.

Second job was to cut a mound of wood.

I’ve been running the pile down this last week or two while I’ve been waming myself and cooking with the new woodstove and so I set about sawing up a big load of wood which should keep me going for the next few weeks.

All done by hand with this new saw, and I’m almost as impressed with that as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin, which hasn’t featured anything as much as it deserves in these pages of late.

Third job was to rescue the old anemometer that was formerly mounted on the side of the house and which I had taken down when I had put the wind turbine up there.

This was sitting in the lean-to not doing very much at all but it’s now screwed to the fence by the front door.

The main reason why I put it back up is that its temperature gauge is much more accurate than the one that I’m currently using to measure the air temperature.

This afternoon, with the sun blazing down and the heater upstairs working flat-out, I reckoned that this is a bit silly. There is so much more that I ought to be doing with the surplus electricity that I have.

And so remembering the heady days of spring and summer 2011 with the 12-volt immersion heater that I had made out of an old xylophene drum and a 12-volt heater element and which corroded through while I was in Canada just now, I set to and dismantled it.

I gave the important bits – like the heater element – the once-over to make sure that they still worked (and you would be amazed at how quickly it boils 1.5 litres of water) and then built another heater using a 4-gallon plastic water header tank.

I’m not sure how long the plastic will remain viable, but it should be good for a while anyway. It will hopefully give me hot water in weather like this and I can do my washing.

But all of this got me thinking – and that kind of thing is dangerous.

When I was setting out on the road of doing all of this, I remembered mentioning to someone who I thought was a friend of mine my plans for maybe having a microwave oven here.

A short while later I stumbled across a thread in a newsgroup somewhere where this “friend” and his mates were openly ridiculing my thoughts about this. Of course, such a friendship had to peter out after that.

Nevertheless, I do wonder what this guy and his mates would be saying now when here, in the middle of winter, for the last three days I’ve been running an electric heater up in the attic.

Serve them right.

And what happened to this day off that I was going to have?

-2

Sunday 15th January 2012 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that yesterday featured a spectacular change of habits for me, you ain’t seen nuffink yet because today was absolutely dramatic.

Because it’s a Sunday, and believe it or not, I have been working.

And you can count on the fingers of one hand the times that that has happened.

I was up and about reasonably early for a Sunday and once more I was presented with a glorious blue sky and loads of sunshine. Far too nice to waste, I reckoned, with winter about to breathe heavily down my neck.

And the benefits of having cracked on yesterday were apparent because this morning was about a foot of frost everywhere which would have slowed up any normal progress, but With having done so much yesterday, there were only three rows left to do and I could afford to wait until the frost had melted before setting out to work.

I mentioned ages ago, and doubtless you will remember, that these slates don’t ‘arf warm up quickly and retain their heat once the sun gets on them. And so it was today.

By about 12:40 all of the frost had gone and so by 12:45 I was on the roof.

And by 15:30 it was all over.

The slates are on and hopefully it’s all now weatherproof. It certainly looks like it might be, and I am so grateful for the weather having held off while I did it.

Although why I wasn’t struck down by a thunderbolt for working on the Sabbath is something that I don’t understand.

Of course, it’s all far from finished.

I need to cement the join between the roof and the wall, cover one or two exposed nail heads with bitumen, make good the rendering, add a fascia board, paint all the woodwork, cover up the exposed demi-chevrons and fit the guttering. But none of that can be done until the warmer weather of the spring.

A major mistake that I have made though (but it isn’t really a mistake, although I could kick myself from here to Montlucon and back) is that I have forgotten to fit the roof-light.

I salvaged an old cast-iron-framed roof-light that I was going to fit in the roof here, but I forgot all about it in my haste, and it’s too late now to do anything about it. That’ll teach me to rush.

Ahh well.

After all of that, I came in here and relaxed in the warmth. And I DO mean warmth because we had so much solar energy today that I ran the oil heater for three hours and the temperature rose to as much as 17°C in the attic.

But as it cooled down later on I ran the fire and had a gorgeous tea of garlic bread, pizza and rice pudding, all made in the oven of this magnificent fire that I bought a short while ago.

So now I’m off to bed, a good half-hour before midnight and that’s something else that is astonishing. But I’m exhausted, and I don’t mind being exhausted through good honest hard work.

Tomorrow I’m not going to be in a rush to start work and I might just have an easy day, having missed my weekend.

But I’m not complaining. I’m just so pleased that for once the weather has been on my side and I’ve finished slating the roof before the real winter arrives.

I might have hoped, but I certainly didn’t expect this.

-2

Saturday 14th January 2012 – SATURDAY IS SHOPPING DAY.

And so it was today.

But in a dramatic change to my usual habits, shopping day was a quick one-hour thrash down to St Eloy les Mines late in the afternoon just as it was starting to go dark.

Yes, I woke up this morning (-ish) to a beautiful bright blue clear sky and that meant “sod everything else – up on the roof!”.

I wasn’t intending to miss this unexpected stroke of fortune, even if it was freezing cold and everywhere was covered in ice that started to melt and soaked me to the skin again.

In not all that much time, comparatively speaking, I had another 6 rows of tiles on the roof. They aren’t particularly pretty but they are on, and that’s the bit that’s important. The weather was far too good to miss.

But do you like the IKEA bags? Very useful they are, for all kinds of purposes. And I have one fastened to the top of each ladder and they are used for holding the slates and nails so that I don’t have to keep on going down to the scaffolding.

And two ladders? The scaffolding is in two bays and each ladder is tied to the handrail of each bay. The difference with the metal planks that I have bought compared to the wooden planks of the other scaffolding is that the ladders don’t dig in – they slide across the metal.

So you need to tie them onto the scaffolding to stop them sliding off and of course if they are tied, then they can’t be moved from one bay to the next.

The other ladder hanging off the scaffolding is part of the side of the decorator’s platform that I have in the house. That came in useful when I was working lower down the roof – I could hook it over the uprights and work off the top but now I’m out of reach of it.

On the way to the shops I realised what a good buy this LIDL quilted overall was. In order to leave here I had to switch on the wipers on Caliburn in order to to clear the screen because they were frozen on to it – that was how cold it had been during rhe day, but I hadn’t noticed because I was curled up as snug as a bug in a rug in the quilted overall.

I’m well-impressed with that as well – almost impressed as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin in fact

But by the time that I was finished I was absolutely whacked and aching everywhere.

To such an extent that on the way back, when I noticed way across the valley that the floodlights were switched on at AS Marcillat’s football ground indicating that there was a match on tonight and that would ordinarily have been the signal for me to go over and watch, seeing as there was nothing on at FC Pionsat St Hilaire tonight, I was aching far too much to even consider it.

Instead, I just came in here and crashed out.

That’s a rare event too.

But then again, I said that I would pay for the effort that I’m putting in on this roof, so it’s not unexpected.

But now there are just three or so rows left to do, and they’ll be for the morning of the next working day.

-3

Friday 13th January 2012 – I DIDN’T DO …

… so well today.

But there again, I did mention yesterday that this was likely. Only 5 rows of the Aspire recycled plastic slates went on the roof today.

First reason was that we had something of a … errrr … late start. Not so much that I didn’t wake up, but more of a case that each time I moved my joints and muscles crackled like a pan of chips. I’m not as young as I used to be.

Second reason was the weather. That hanging cloud was there, and it stayed here all day. As well as that we had a frost and as it melted and streamed down the slates that I had already put on, and little by little I was getting soaked to the skin.

The more I worked, the colder, wetter and more miserable I became.

It was however very pleasant to see the water draining off the plastic sheet onto the tiles and then off the roof .

This large overhang that I mentioned the other day keeps the water well away from the base of the lean-to and stops the damp soaking up the walls. That’s what it’s supposed to do, and that’s why I’ve built it like that.

It’s also good to be able to walk inside and see everywhere and everything bone-dry inside there – that’s something that I’ve been waiting for years to see. I can’t wait to finish it and then start to get everything organised for in there. That’ll be a bonus for sure.

The third reason was the fact that I needed to reorganise the scaffolding, fit a new strut and a couple of planks, and then track down a third ladder to help me climb up to where I’m working.

And once I finally got into a rhythm I was pushing along quite quickly. Problem there then was the light and with the hanging cloud the light went early. And you’ll be able to tell which was the row that I finished off in the dark.

Still, it has to be done and I’m lucky to have done this much at this time of the year. I never expected this.

-1

Thursday 12th January 2012 – WHAT A GORGEOUS DAY …

… it was today!

Well, up until about 16:00 anyway.

A heavy frost overnight followed by a glorious alpine blue sky and so much charge in the batteries that I ran the electric heater up here for an hour or so this afternoon.

I never managed that last winter.

First thing that I did, seeing as how the nice weather was, was to dash outside and take a photo of where I finished in the dark last night.

It’s a highly significant photograph as it shows the first row of recycled plastic slates that I put on there. It’s significant because regular readers of this rubbish will recall all of the vicissitudes that we have had over the last 10 years to reach this point.

This is the climax of the work that I’ve been doing for the last 6 months or so since I was wondering what to do with that left-over bucket of cement in the mixer when we were doing Lieneke’s roof in the summer.

But returning to our moutons, as they say around here, up on the roof I managed another 7 rows today – that means that I’m about a third of the way up.

But it’ll be slow going from here onwards. It gets harder the higher up you go, as the actress once famously said to the bishop.

Up to now I could manage by leaning on the scaffolding. As of tomorrow I have to do it off a couple of ladders and that’s not easy. But nevertheless, it’s all looking good on the roof.

And so it was until about 16:00, when the temperature plummeted and we had a hanging cloud. It looks like winter has finally arrived and we shall have to see what the weather holds for us now. The weather is going to be deciding where I’m working and what I’m going.

In other news, the 1200-watt digital inverter that I ordered a few weeks ago – that’s finally arrived. I’ve not had time to play with it but I’m quite looking forward to the possibility.

That’s something else I’ll be doing when the weather changes for the worse.

-1

Wednesday 11th January 2012 – GOSH, IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… just as I predicted.

but that’s enough about my personal life. Let’s talk about me trying to get out of bed.

And that was hard too.

And I now know what it means in these old novels when they say that “so-and-so walked gingerly to the door” because that’s just how I was moving this morning.

So to change the subject, here’s another photo of the lean-to and its roof.

What you can’t see in this photo are any slates. And that’s a shame – I’ll have to buy an infra-red lens for that because by the time that I had knocked off work (18:10 if you are wondering) the first row was already in place.

And in the dark too, so I shudder to think what it might look like in the cold light of day, but I was determined to put the first row on, no matter what.

What else you can’t see are the three cut pieces of plywood to make the final length, and the screws that are holding down the roof sheets onto the chevrons, because it’s all now covered by a plastic membrane – the type that stops water passing through but allows water vapour to escape.

Yes, it’s all looking good on the lean-to roof and it can chuck it down now for all I care because at least it’s all weathertight.

It’ll be even better when all of the slates are on, whenever that might be. I can’t count on the weather holding off indefinitely – it did well to hold off for these last three days while I managed to do this much. Not like the Auvergne at all, is it?

I’m impressed by the way with the Ryobi one-plus drill that I’ve been using to screw the roof sheets on. Twice now it’s fallen off the roof all the way to the ground and when I’ve picked it up each time, it’s worked fine and carried on fixing the screws.

I reckon that if I had fallen off the roof twice, all the way to the ground, I wouldn’t be able to carry on screwing, that’s for sure.

Tuesday 10th January 2012 – I THOUGHT THAT …

.. I would start today by showing you where I got up to last night.

Three sheets of plywood in position and tacked down ready to be properly fastened. to the chevrons

So first job this morning was to remove the rest of the temporary roofing, put two more chevrons on the roof and fit another sheet of plywood. Then I had to fit two chevrons at the near end either side of the wall, and fill in between them with concrete.

“Concrete in early January in the Auvergne?” I hear you say.

Yes indeed – you can see what the weather was like, and I was sweating while I was doing it too.

While the concrete was setting, I cut down the chevrons to 3650mm with my new saw which is ever so impressive – almost as impressive in fact as my galvanised steel dustbin.

I’m fed up of having nothing but rubbish around here so in the UK the other week I bought an expensive thick-bladed rough-cut saw and it went through those chevrons like a knife through butter. Should have bought one like this ages ago.

And why 3650mm of chevrons?

Well, the width of the lean-to on the slant is 3400, the sheets are 2440 by 1220 and so one sheet lengthways and one sheet sideways makes 3660 – enough to cover the lean-to with sufficient overhang without having to cut anything (and wielding a circular saw up a ladder is not an ideal solution for anything).

There’s sufficient room to put a barge board and fascia panel and to fit some guttering.

A good overhang is important too because they don’t do damp course around here. if the base of the wall is too exposed, the rain that falls at its foot will soak up in the stone and mortar. Apart from the issues of damp, there will be cracking the former and dislodging the latter from its position in winter by the “freeze-thaw” process. When water freezes, its volume is greater so water soaked up into the pores of stone or cement expands in the cold and cracks the stone or forces the cement. the force is so powerful that it was recognised as an established stone-breaking process thousands of years ago

Anyway, when the chevrons had been cut I mauled up another sheet (and they aren’t half heavy doing it like that) and manoeuvred it into position sideways across the ends of the far two sheets that are on there lengthwise, and then screwed it down.

After lunch I had to move the old scaffolding that was there (the one that I’d liberated from a skip in the dechetterie at Commentry in 2000), and seeing as how it had been there since 2001 that wasn’t easy either. It involved cutting down a few trees that had grown into the way (so there’s the firewood for next winter and isn’t this new saw really good?), clearing the ground away and removing all kinds of bits and pieces.

Once I’d done that, I then had to erect the new kwikstage scaffolding that I had brought back from the UK the other week.

That took ages, and I don’t know why, and then I just about had enough time to lift up another sheet of plywood and screw it across the bottom of the other two sheets before it went dark.

And you can see where my concreting from this morning went.

18:10 when I finished and I was shattered. But it wasn’t being shattered that stopped me – it was the losss of light. I’d still be there now if there was light enough to work.

But I have a feeling that I’m going to pay for all of this tomorrow. I’m not as young as I was.

And so tomorrow I need to cut three pieces to make the covering for the final part of the roof, climb all over the roof screwing all the sheets down properly, and then cover it with a layer or two that breathable plastic membrane to keep out the damp (a good buy, that industrial hammer-stapler).

If I can get that done tomorrow that will be where I want to be. And then I can start nailing down the plastic slates.

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.

Saturday 7th January 2012 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again.

And it’s not as if I have too much to spend either, but there you go.

In Carrefour in St Eloy les Mines I spent a mere €12 or so, most of which went on a jar of coffee seeing as I seem to be rather down on that at the moment, and won’t that be a catastrophe if I run out?

In LIDL I spent €25 or something – with nothing much to show for it except some wire brushes for the angle grinder. I’ll always pick up a few packs of those when I see them.

But there I met a couple of people whom I knew – some friends of Bill’s whom I had met at one of his soirées, and Jasper and his mum (who have featured previously in these pages) were also there.

But then went to Cheze – the hardware shop where the Intermarché used to be when I first came here.

The bread box was trashed in the hurricane so I need to make something new, and Cheze was the likeliest place to find some bits. I didn’t find what I wanted but I still spent €52 in there.

Yes, it was sale time there and even more importantly, a clearance sale. There was a big bucket of hardware like door knobs, adjustible feet, special bolts and so on, at 50 centimes a pack. I had tons of stuff out of there.

There was also a LED spotlight with a dusk-dawn sensor, powered by a solar panel, reduced to €8:00. That will make a handy work light or torch for when I’m down the garden late at night.

Pride of place though went to this beautiful machine – a chop saw.

I’ve been after a low-powered one of those for ages and I’ve hunted high and low but without success. But here at Cheze were three or four end-of-range chop saws, quite small and all rated at 1200 watts, all for the price of €34 each.

At that price I just had to have one, especially as there’s a 1200-watt inverter winging its way to me in the post even as we speak. After all the time I spend chopping wood by hand, and how easy it was doing the tongue-and-grooving back at Expo when I had the battery-powered one.

The width of the blade and the instability of the machines means that they aren’t ideal for precision work, but where precision cutting isn’t 100% essential, this wil ldo just fine, so I hope that it does what it says that it will do.

BUt I didn’t stay out long. It’s rained non-stop today, all grey and drizzly and depressing. I took advantage of the morning by writing the additional text for the radio programmes we shall be recording at the end of the month, and I’ve watched the odd film or two.

Tomorrow I’m going to start my presentation for the Trans-Labrador Highway.

I have to do that on Feb 24th, so no time like the present to get going.

-1

Friday 6th January 2012 – IT’S BEEN …

… an exciting day today

Having been pondering over the battery situation here – to whit, the house batteries are losing charge when there’s no current and I had ample proof of that yesterday as I attached a little voltmeter to the battery bank and watched it go down and down – I decided to have a butchers at the battery bank.

I reckoned that there might be one battery that was overheating but I was wrong – there were in fact two of them all swollen up. No wonder the batteries were gently emptying themselves.

So I pulled those two out and I’m now down to just 8 batteries.

I’ve been suspecting that these 90 amp-hour batteries are just too small to handle a surge of about 50 amps on a regular basis and this seems to be confirming things. There’s four now that I’ve had to change, and it’s always been the one in the centre of the bank.

You may recall that I went to Paris to the supplier just before Christmas and they had some 200-amp-hour batteries on special offer and so I bought 8 of those. That will be a battery bank and a half.

Ideally I need even-bigger ones but an issue presents it self with that in that these 200-amp-hour batteries weigh 58kgs. While I can pick them up and walk with them, I can’t go far very quickly. Imagine twice the weight.

You might be wondering why I didn’t go the whole hog and fit them today. Believe me, it was my intention. But the battery cables that I have – 225mm – aren’t long enough. I’ve had to order some 375mm cables and they won’t be here until Thursday next week.

This afternoon, tired of manipulating inverters, timers and the like around, I made myself a plug-in electric board.

We start off with a two-pin American plug with 6mm cable wired into it. This goes to a 300-watt inverter screwed to the board. From there it’s into an electric meter and from there into one of the hour meters I bought in the UK.

Finally it ends up in a 13-amp UK socket.

All I need to do now when I’m carrying out some work somewhere around out of range of the main inverters is to take my little board with me and plug it into the 12-volt circuit.

After that I went to the bank to pay in a cheque, reorder my bread and then go for coffee and a chat with Marianne to catch up on the gossip.

It’s her birthday tomorrow, and that set me thinking about all the other people I know whose birthday it is in January. Krys, Marianne, Marianne from Brussels, Mandy. Those names spring straight away to mind and I bet there are loads more as well (so apologies if I have forgotten you).

It really is astonishing.

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Thursday 5th January 2012 – I THOUGHT …

…that you might like to see my Christmas present from Liz and Terry, before I started hacking it about.

Yes, it’s nice to have good friends, especially when they make you nice things for Christmas, like this absolutely gorgeous vegan Christmas Cake, isn’t it?

Anyway, today started off with the howling winds and gales and rain – that put the kybosh on any plans I had for working outside. I’m not going up a ladder in this weather.

So after a leisurely start and watching one of my films, I went about tidying up the attic. And what I’ve done is to change things around a little.

The bed is now on the other side of the room now by the books and music, which is much more logical, and I can actually see the fire in the wood stove from where I’m now sitting.

The wardrobe and a couple of chests of drawers have been moved around too. It looks like there’s more room up here now although that’s an optical illusion.

That took ages to do and so by 18:00 I knocked off and had a coffee – and tucked into slice 1 of the Christmas cake. It was well worth waiting for as well. Absolutely gorgeous. I can see me enjoying that for the next few weeks to come, and quite right too.

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EPIC HALL

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