Tag Archives: bad night

Thursday 24th August 2017 – CANADIAN WINTERS …

ford ranger rotted shock absorber strider aout august 2017… can be pretty brutal on mild steel.

No wonder Strider was dancing and hopping around on the road last night coming back from Fredericton with a pair of shock absorbers looking something like these.

The hoods were completely corroded away and the telescopic shafts were pitted, meaning that there was no effective seal.

Add to this an oil change, fixing a leaking rear differential, a safety inspection and …gulp … two new tyres (and I’ve fitted the best, none of your cheap rubbish) and I’m now lying down in a darkened room to recover from the shock.

But at least Strider handles like he ought to handle, and I’m well-prepared for the far north of Labrador in a couple of weeks time.

I have the licensing and the insurance to deal with too next week. But even so, it still all works out cheaper than hiring a vehicle.

And I’ve worked out how Strider managed to go to the transmission shop to have his overdrive problem fixed when everyone was so busy that they couldn’t spare the time. And it can’t possibly be Amber who drove it there, can it? After all, she’s only just turned 14 and isn’t allowed to drive a motor vehicle on the public highway.

Last night was a very bad night for me. I have felt it coming on for the last couple of days and knew that it wouldn’t be long in arriving.

All day yesterday I was feeling out of sorts and coming back from Fredericton was a struggle. I went to bed almost as soon as I arrived back here but sleep was… shall we say …fitful.

I didn’t feel much like it this morning either and didn’t have any breakfast, but I gradually came round and by 10:00 I was feeling rather better.

But the strain that everyone is under here in Ellen’s absence is telling and we had what can only be described as “an unfortunate outburst” this morning.

This led, rather surprisingly, to two people not at all connected with the events rounding upon the perpetrator and telling him precisely what they thought about the event – and in no uncertain terms either.

This led to the perpetrator “going out to deliver some hogfeed” and that was the last that we saw of him all day, which suited everyone else quite fine.

We even had a “team meeting” and summoned the local computer programmer to come up with a new accounting system to replace the one that Noah had used to calculated the finances of building the Ark.

Amber was out with her boyfriend this evening but Hannah’s friend had arrived (they are going back to University tomorrow) so we were still pretty numerous for tea. Rachel had made me a nice salad and soup.

Now I’m off to bed – an early night. I have a lot of sleep to catch up on after yesterday.

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Wednesday 23rd August 2017 – ANOTHER EARLY NIGHT …

… is called for tonight.

I’ve had a hectic day.

It all went wrong at about 04:00 when we had the most tremendous thunderstorm. That, I reckon must have awoken almost everyone in the neighbourhood. And the torrential rainstorm made it almost impossible for everyone to go back to sleep.

I was still awake when the alarms went off and at 07:00 I was up and about, breakfasting and making my butties.

We had a rush to get into work this morning but eventually everyone arrived there and for the first time for quite a while we had a full house (excepting Ellen of course).

And so I was something rather supernumerary so I carried on with a little project that I had started yesterday on the laptop as well as chatting to one or two customers who were waiting.

Apparently there’s a family of ospreys who have made a nest in the pipework of the cornmill and we were admiring their handiwork.

Later on this afternoon Rachel ran me down to Fredericton to pick up Strider where he was having some work done.

And that wasn’t as straightforward as it might seem. There were piles of queues on the roads, roadworks, a police stake-out, and eventually the road that we needed was blocked off by road works so we had to back up and go the long way around.

And all the time we were dealing with telephone calls from the office about accounts enquiries. No wonder we were all so stressed out when we arrived.

I went to the Atlantic Superstore for some groceries and then picked up some fuel at Keswick before coming back.

And my odyssey isn’t over because there seems to a be a shock absorber that has burst judging by the bizarre handling from the nearside rear that had me all across the road on a couple of occasions.

So now; totally exhausted, I’m off to bed. I”ll need my strength to sort out this rear end tomorrow.

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Monday 21st August 2017 – I DID MANAGE …

… to go to sleep last night – to such an extent that I was away on my travels.

I was in Winsford having to go to Northwich and there was a choice of two routes to take. And they were the same distance too so I couldn’t decide which one to take, especially seeing as I was going on foot. But eventually I arrived there and came out of a building that might have been the railway station (but which isn’t). On the left was some kind of 1960s tower block which the town council was using as its headquarters and to the right was an old Victorian building rather like a school which was owned by the Council and which had been their previous HQ but was now derelict, and there was some scandal about the deal which had led to the Council vacating the building and leasing the more modern one for a fee which many people considered to be excessive. I was in a crowd across the square watching this old building, in the company of none other than Liz Ayers – and how many years is it since she’s been on a nocturnal ramble with me? I saw a movement over the roof of this building and couldn’t explain what it was – something like a shadow but I called it a light, which it most certainly wasn’t. But as I said it, six red lights appeared in the sky quite low down just underneath the fullish moon. “Space Laboratory” immediately came into my mind. I tried to explain this to everyone but as they all turned to look, some old woman on a broomstick – a witch – came flying out of the moon.

It was a very restless night last night with me tossing and turning so much, but I was asleep yet again when the alarm clock went off. Sleep is one thing – crawling out of bed is quite something else.

But I had a quick breakfast, made my sandwiches and went with Rachel into the office.

Making myself useful, I cleaned out the bathroom from top to bottom and threw away tons of stuff that had accumulated in there. Now it’s quite clean and shiny, but it did take ages and I had to sit down for a while afterwards.

Having gathered my strength I went round with Rachel to Bob’s house and finished off the vacuuming now that I had located the bags. And we did some general tidying up too.

I hope that I’m still in this kind of mood when I return home.

We had a knotty accounting problem to deal with this afternoon. Ellen is still running the accounts on the basis of Canadian 19th Century accounting, poor Rachel is struggling to understand it and explain it to me, and I’m trying to do it with British 21st Century accounting principles based on Ellen’s templates and Rachel’s explanations. And so between the two of us we ended up in a hopeless tangle.

But we sorted it out eventually once it suddenly clicked with Rachel and she could explain it to me.

In the meantime I’d crashed out, woken up, and gone for a walk around the old railway station site for some fresh air.

Amber and her boyfriend brought me back here where I promptly crashed out again. But a shower brought me round and a nice tea of the rest of the salad and soup from Saturday made me feel even better.

Now I’m having an early night and I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning. Because my legs have swollen up again and that has depressed me mightily.

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Saturday 5th August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that I had been having a few quiet days then this one takes some beating.

It all went wrong before I went to bed actually. A blasted firework display at bang on midnight that went on for hours.

In the end I was praying for one of those occasions that rings a bell in the back of my mind from London 2 or 3 centuries ago when a spark from the first firework fell into the bucket where all of the others had been stored.

Instead of a beautiful one-hour display observed by 10,000 people, you had a half-second of something that was heard by everyone across the whole south-east of England.

So that set the night off on a bad foot.

Struggle out of bed, but a shower soon revived me. Trip down the road for the baguette, and lunch on my wall in the high winds. Blasted uncomfortable too.

Apart from that, I’ve been doing something interesting on the laptop and following the football results too – the season has restarted today. Where did summer go?

Tomorrow there’s a fête up here in the walled city. Music, dancing and, of course, the buvette. Nothing whatever takes place in France without a buvette, and if there is none it’s a national scandal.

Must be on form for that!

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Monday 31st July 2017 – THAT WAS A NICE …

… tea tonight. Another aubergine and kidney bean whatsit, with enough left over to last the rest of the week.

And it would have been even nicer had I remembered the olives. And the peanuts. Ahhh well!

But it wouldn’t have made much of a difference because I couldn’t find a small aubergine at the weekend. The one that I bought was the smallest in the shop, but “small” in this case is purely relative. In any other place it would have been “enormous”.

It all makes up for my extremely bad night. Still awake and kicking at 03:30 this morning, and although I do remember stretching out to switch off the alarm at 07:00 I remember nothing else until the repeater at 07:15. And then it was a slow crawl out of bed.

But I’d been on my travels though. And it involved a flock of sheep, some of which were wandering around freely and others in a tightly-grouped flock. One of the sheep in this flock was quite a vicious sheep but the shepherd replied that he was a good defender of the others and so they kept him with the flock for precisely that purpose. Any monkey business and the vicious sheep would sort it all out.

Down at the magasin de presse I solved the issue of the water sprayer from yesterday. Yes – if you want to know the answer to a question, you have to ask the question, don’t you?

Once every year there’s an open-air mass on the quayside and all of the cliffs around here are good vantage points for the crowd to congregate.

And then a priest blesses some water which is taken by a ship to a point just off the headland which is significant as being the site of a marine tragedy when a lifeboat was lost in a storm.

The Holy Water is then ceremonially jettisoned into the sea at the site of the tragedy and boats sail by through the spray hoping that they too might be blessed.

Lunch on the wall again, watching Grima come a-dieseling in.

And doing a couple of laps of the harbour because some stern trawler had pinched her spec underneath the crane and had to be moved, otherwise she would not have been able to unload her cargo of scrap.

45 years of age, and looking every day of it.

But there was some excitement up there at lunchtime. A big family-size car with Dutch plates pulled up and a large family disgorged itself to take a photo.

After much hoo-ing and haa-ing they decided that a selfie wouldn’t work so they looked around for a suitable volunteer. And there I was tucking into my hummus salad butty.

The matriarch came over to me and asked in very faltering French if I would oblige – so I replied that I would – in very good Dutch – something that took her completely by surprise.

I was going for a walk tonight but I was distracted. There’s been an “issue” at the tyre place in Canada, and as a result I ended up being on the phone across the Atlantic for half an hour instead. It was nice to talk to people over there, even if the circumstances could be better.

And, despite my bad night, I’ve managed to avoid not crashing out today. But this won’t last. An early night is beckoning, I reckon.

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Saturday 29th July 2017 – I’VE HAD A BAD …

… day today.

It’s probably something to do with my very late night last night – gone 02:30 when I finally crawled off to bed. And it was difficult to leave it at 07:00, I’ll tell you.

For the first couple of hours I didn’t do too much and then for the rest of the morning I went into town. It’s market day, and seeing as I hadn’t been into town during the week I took the opportunity to go for a prowl around.

Still no bank accounts transferred over, and so we had “words” in the branch office there. And quite right too. They seem to think that a wait of almost three months is “normal” – but I don’t, and I told them so too.

But the good news is that at least my pension is now being paid into the account – which means that I can afford to eat now.

Although whether I can do that soon is another matter. We’ve had an “incident” with the fridge today and I can see me having to replace that if I find a cheap one.

It’s my fault – I’m the first to admit it. But chiselling off the surplus ice with a blunt instrument has always worked in the past on every other fridge that I’ve ever had. Why didn’t it work on this one?

I declined the butties on the wall at lunchtime. There was a howling gale blowing and it was pointless to try to sit in that.

Fighting off the fatigue (and not always winning) I attacked another blog page today but ran aground. My heart wasn’t in it at all. I have days like this occasionally as you know and so I’ll have another go tomorrow.

Tea tonight was exciting. I planned something quite different and ended up with stuffed pepper (not made one of those in years), baked potato and frozen veg (and wrestling with the freezer door in the process).

A mix of tomato, mushroom, onion, garlic, olive oil, spices and tomato sauce into the emptied pepper and cooked in the oven for 40 minutes at 180°C (with the baking tray out, of course). Done to a turn it was.

And the veg smeared in butter and black pepper – it was gorgeous. But I never thought on to cook a rice pudding while I was at it. I’m clearly losing my touch.

So I’ll brave the hurricane and go for a walk in a minute, and then an early night.

I wonder where I’ll end up tonight. Last night I was somewhere that looked very much like this place, but I was looking down on it from a couple of hundred feet. We were (or, rather, whoever down there was) fixing a lighthouse that needed a good clean as it was all oiled up and sooty. And we had it working, and the beam was magnificent. Well-impressed with that.

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Tuesday 25th July 2017 – I KNEW …

… that it was going to be a lot of hard work today when Terry offered me a slice of Liz’s home-made vegan ginger cake as I arrived.

And I wasn’t wrong either.

I’d had a bad night too. With crashing out so convincingly earlier, it was well after 01:00 when I went to bed. And it wasn’t half an ungainly stagger into the bathroom this morning when the alarm went off.

Having done a bit on the blog (I’m trying to update at least 2 entries every day no matter what) I hit the road. But it wasn’t so easy as it might have been as the telecommand for the barrier didn’t work. I had to rely on a helpful neighbour.

Calling at the Casino for some fuel and the boulagerie in Cérences for some bread, I arrived at Terry’s for coffee and cake.

A quick dismantle of the remote control showed that the battery wasn’t seating right. So I took 10 minutes to repair it properly and even made the warning light function – and that’s a first.

All morning was spent sanding down the walls that we had filled yesterday. Terry had the machines and I was doing it by hand in the corners where the machines wouldn’t reach – Terry couldn’t do that because of his shoulder.

By the time we stopped for lunch we were looking like snowmen.

This afternoon we finished off the sanding, and then we had the cleaning. And I’m not sure which took the longer either.

Final job was to sweep the chimney, which was blocked. This involved a trip around all of the neighbours until someone produced a brosse de ramonage – Terry had packed his so well when he had moved house that he had no idea where it might have been.

Terry was up on the roof and I was down below holding the ladder and checking the fire.

By 17:00 I was totally finished off (remember that I had given up all of this work) and came home. First thing that I did was to have a shower (I forgot yesterday) and rinse my clothes of the plaster dust.

Second thing was .. errr … have a snooze, and until 20:00.

I’d had the remains of Liz’s apple flan for lunch, but Terry had sent me home with the remains of Sunday’s hot-pot so that was tea quickly organised. And just as well too because I’ve seized up, aching everywhere and in far too much pain to move.

But I’ve freed off a little now so I’ll go for a short walk around outside, just to say that I’ve been.

And then an early night – I reckon that I’ve deserved it.

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Friday 21st July 2017 – WELL, I’M NOT …

… going out for an evening walk tonight, that’s for sure.

Not only do we have a howling gale, we have a lashing rainstorm too. And it’s pretty black over Bill’s mother’s too.

I had another bad night last night, that’s for sure. Only 5 hours and something-worth of sleep, with ony four hours of that in a deep and restful sleep. Yes, I’ve charged up the Fitbit and uploaded the data to the laptop.

I was busy working on another mega-blog page after my walk and somehow ended up being carried away. 01:45 when I went to bed. No wonder that I was tired when the alarm went off, and that I crashed out for a couple of hours this afternoon.

But a shower brought me round somewhet after breakfast and having dealt with “a computer issue”, i went shopping.

And I’ve been spending my money too, yet again. Although nowhere near as bad as last week.

The Centrakor was the beneficiary of my largesse today. They had some multi-USB hubs on sale at €3:99 and I need one of those, seeing as how Brain of Britain has somehow contrived to leave all three of his back in Virlet.

But of course one thing leads to another, and once you make a start you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are.

The Bluetooth oyster that I had as a hands-free device before the bluetooth radio – I took that to Canada for use in Strider, but it’s a different kind of lead than a standard USB lead, and I’ve … errr … misplaced that.

And so I’ve been havong a good look around for another one. And they had one in Centrakor – with a Bluetooth oyster device included. All for €7:99, which is the same price as I have been quoted for a cable. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Not only that, they were having a sale of silicon pie dishes and the like for just €3:99 which is cheap at anybody’s price. And now I have a proper round pie dish, a bread/cake mould and a mould for making six tarts. I’ll be having a go at making mince pies in the winter.

Note to self – ask someone to bring me a couple of jars of mincemeat from the UK.

I stayed in at lunchtime too – the winds were wicked out there and I wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting on my wall at all. And I rather lost direction this afternoon with the fatigue. So it’s not been a very good day.

But I did finish the blog entries about the trip to the UK in June 2011. Now to see what else I’ve missed before I start on the Canada 2011 pages.

And I did have a visitor at lunchtime – and I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow. I’m too tired to go into details tonight.

Footnote
I did go out – just for a quick lap around the block. And in the 5 minutes that I was out, I was soaked to the skin. Except where I had my new McKinley raincoat. That did exactly the job that it was supposed to do – and I wish that I had bought it in a bigger size now.

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Wednesday 19th July 2017 – THIS WALKING IDEA …

… is supposed to make me sleep better at night.

And it worked for the first couple of nights, but last night I dunno what happened because I was still sitting up here working at 01:45 and even when I did go to bed I couldn’t sleep (note to self – check Fitbit next time that I charge it up)

So a very tired me staggered out of bed this morning … errr … somewhat after the alarm had gone off.

Grey, miserable and windy. But that’s enough about me – let’s talk about the weather. And I didn’t feel much like going out for my baguette this morning. But I was early too, which makes a change.

Lunch on the wall, with no lizards and mice to keep me company, a little … errr … repose this afternoon, and another helping of lentil and mushroom curry for tea.

And the blog.

Having spent some time last night (or, rather, early this morning) untangling my visit to the UK in early June 2011, I started the assault on the pages.

I’m halfway through at the morning, having dealt with pages like this one that never even had a place-holder before. The next half a dozen have been done too.

It’s amazing the things that I have forgotten, and the things that never made it onto the blog. it’s high time that I caught up with it.

And remember the other day when I mentioned my mammoth expenditure?

The first part of it has come today. But of course it’s the part that doesn’t work without the other bit, so you’ll have to wait a little longer to see what it is.

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Saturday 15th July 2017 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

And I’m not talking about cutting my finger open with the sharp vegetable knife when I picked up the cutlery out of the drainer either. It was much more painful than that!

So last night was another restless night. Especially so seeing as how I was off on my travels again.

There was a war on, and of course the UK was very susceptible to a blockade. However there was no rationing and people were going about as it it all was of no consequence, something that struck me as being a great matter of concern.
And then I was with my mother (but whoever it was wasn’t my mother, thank heavens) and it involved something to do with Mark III Cortinas. She drove away and I was left holding a bonnet from the aforementioned – a light blue one. I was trying the blots with my fingers to make sure that they were loose enough without disturbing the settings. A couple of women in a cafe made some ribald remark about me being with a “much older” woman so I went over to say “hello”. Their tune soon changed when they saw me come over because they recognised me, and they realised that the “much older” woman had been my mother.
While I was in the queue here a whole group of people came to the counter and it was all people whom I recognised from from a difficult period of my life. They were all pleased and enthusiastic to see me but I wasn’t at all pleased to see them. They crowded around me and asked me how I was and I was really uncomfortable in all of this. We discussed work and they found out that I had given over a good job to go driving taxis – but at leat “it was my own taxi, and not someone else’s”.

I’ve no idea where all of these people have come from – people whom I met in the early 80s in a couple of unpleasant encounters and whom I wish never to see again. I can’t think whatever it might have been to trigger all of that off.

After breakfast and a shower, shave and clean clothes, Caliburn got his motor running and headed off down the highway in the general direction of the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing special and neither did NOZ, the rubbish shop. But at least they had a few more of these hexagonal herb and spice jars. I get through tons of turmeric here so I stocked up with two containers of that together with a couple more of different types.

At Centrakor I went a little berserk. They were selling cigarette lighter socket twin-USB adaptors for just €1:99. I need one of those for Strider over in Canada so I picked one up.

But they also had some of those portable battery packs for powering your mobile phone or other hand-held appliance – a 2600 mAh set-up and just €3.99. That’s half what I have seen them elsewhere at their cheapest, and that’s without postage and packing too of course!

LeClerc was just the usual banal stuff, but I REALLY went mad in Intersport.

The trainers that I bought at Sports Direct in Leuven last October have fallen apart. So I only paid €20 for them, I know, but they’ve been letting in water for quite a while and now the soles are falling off.

Intersport was having a sale so went to have a look around, and came away with a pair of Salomon Goretex trainer-style hiking boots. They should have been … gulp … €119 but they were reduced by 30% in the sale and they were so comfortable.

I hope that they last a darn sight longer than these ones that I’ve just chucked in the bin.

And that’s not all either.

My rain jacket is falling to pieces. It has a couple of holes in it (never good for a rainjacket – holes in it) and it’s looking well the worse for wear. I have another one but that is one of those bright yellow rubberised ones that is uncomfortable, bulky and sweaty.

Today though, reduced to just €24:95 was a proper McKinley breathable Aquamax. And in my size too, which was unusual.

And last, but by no means least – I’ve been talking for a while about buying a Fitbit – one of these that tells you your heartbeat, how far you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burnt and all of that stuff. But when I’ve seen the price, it’s put me off.

But a new model has been launched and Intersport was clearing out the remains of the previous one. Nothing wrong with them at all – there’s just a new design – and they were reduced to just €50:00.

Yes, I’m making ready for my holidays, aren’t I?

All I need now is a new suitcase and a new camera.

But this Fitbit – “always ready when you are” it proudly announces on the packet. So I went to wear it … and the battery was flat! What kind of misleading publicity is that?

Back home, the whole town was heaving with grockles as predicted. Even coming home the back way I was stuck for ages. And it’s a good job that we have our own private parking here because the public car park was jam-packed, with grockles dragging off suitcases all over the old town.

Early for my baguette tomorrow, I reckon.

Fighting off the waves of sommeil this afternoon, I was on the blog again. Not reducing the “unclassifieds” but untangling a few bits and pieces from when I returned from the Ile d’Yeu until going back to Brussels.

I’ve put that bit off for a while, but a close look at it revealed that it was fairly straighforward to untangle so here I am. Well on my way to finalising that little lot.

Tea tonight was more mashed potato, frozen veg and burger. And I fried a little onion and garlic with my burger too and it was delicious.

I really do appreciate living here in my little apartment.

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Friday 14th July 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN DOES IT AGAIN!

Yes, remember yesterday? When I told you that I was going shopping today?

So there I was checking the date this morning (I take certain pills on odd-numbered days and certain others on even-numbered days) and it was then that I noticed …

Yes, 14th July. Quatorze Juillet – la Fête de la Bastille. The anniversary of when the Paris communards stormed the Bastille and released all of 14 prisoners.

And, of course, it’s a national holiday, isn’t it? And I didn’t have much food in the house either.

I’d had a bad night too – I’m not even sure if I slept at all. And I was up and about long before 07:00 too. But the Bank Holiday threw me out of my stride.

And so I’ve not done as much as I might otherwise have done. I’ve been spending some time socialising on the internet (something that I decided that I would dramatically cut down on) and also sorting out a huge pile of photos from 2007 that I discovered.

clairvoyant by appointment chatelguyon puy de dome franceIncluding this absolute gem from Chatelguyon in July 2007.

I mean, what kind of clairvoyant is this? Visits by appointment only?

If she were any good as a clairvoyant you wouldn’t need an appointment because she would know that you were coming, surely!

However, I did do some work on the blog upgrade. Not as much as I would like, of course, but then that’s always been the story of my life. And for much of the morning I was working on this page.

This was another one that started off as a mere 100 or so words as a placeholder, but now it runs to well over 1200 words and a pile of photographs too.

I had to do without a tomato at lunchtime (I had some vegan cheese instead – luckily I still have some left) and tonight we had mash and rozen vegeables (all cooked in the steamer) with a veggie burger and gravy, followed by one of my breakfast fruit purées.

Tomorrow I WILL have to go shopping but I’m not looking forward to that. The holiday season is well under way and the grockles will be out in force.

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Thursday 6th July 2017 – I DIDN’T FORGET …

… to have my 17:00 melon this evening. Which was just as well, because it went down a treat. And in this heat, it was beautiful.

It was hot even when I awoke this morning, and as I was sitting doing nothing very much just after breakfast I could see the temperature on the thermometer rise and rise.

I’d had a bad night last night though. Took ages to go to sleep, and woke up in the middle of the night feeling really uncomfortable. It took ages to go back off to sleep again, but when I did, I was away with the fairies.

It was the turn of the person who has been described in this rubbish on many previous occasions as “The One That Got Away” to accompany me on my travels. And she didn’t get away last night – not ‘arf she didn’t! I was back in Crewe (heaven alone knows why!) and going to Hunter’s Lodge – along a road that bore absolutely no resemblance to the road to there, which wasn’t a problem because Hunters Lodge wasn’t anything like it is either. Anyway, there I fell in with the aforementioned and ended up commuting to work across the Channel every day.

So I was flat out when the alarm went off. And … errr … flat out when the reminder went off too. But then again, if you were in an amorous clinch with The One That Got Away during a nocturnal ramble, you wouldn’t want to wake up either.

At 09:15, I went for my little walk into town. Down the hill, down the ramp, and, something that I hadn’t yet done, a good stroll around the harbour. Lots of boats and quite a bit of activity too, and I fell in with a fisherman who told me about all of the fish that one catches here. Mind you, he wasn’t doing so well. In fact, he was doing pretty badly.

And it was around here that I fell in with one of my co-habitees. She had gone for a walk too. And so we chatted for quite a while about nothing in particular, and I went about my business.

That involved a trip to the bank. And sure enough, the payments that I wanted to check had been made, which is good news. The bad news is that my accounts from Pionsat STILL haven’t been transferred over.

This is … errr … unsettling me somewhat. When I go shopping tomorrow I shall go to see if I can find a pickaxe handle anywhere. Giving someone a message by tapping it into their thick skulls in Morse Code with a pickaxe handle usually works wonders.

Back here, thoroughly exhausted and boiling hot by 11:05. That was a nice walk.

And then I spent the rest of the day on the blog. I’ve done tons of it too, although much of my time was spent on just one particular day – another one of these ones that I briefly sketched out and then moved on.

Lunch on my little wall, a little doze in the afternoon too. I’m getting into something of a routine – and isn’t that uncomfortable?

Last of the curry for tea tonight. I shall have to be more adventurous tomorrow.

But with the shops, let’s see what’s on offer.

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Friday 30th June 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… buy myself a mini hi-fi today like I promised.

I stopped at BUT to have a good look around at all of the equipment that they had on offer, but there was nothing there that really tempted me all that much. And so I went on to LeClerc where I had seen some stuff before.

But having had a really good nosy around, I came away empty-handed.

My criteria are very simple –

  • CD player
  • USD port for data sticks
  • AM Radio (no point in having the live British football coverage on 5 Live from Jersey if I can’t pick it up
  • external data input (jack or RCA socket)
  • headphone socket
  • decent volume

And could I find one?

Not on your nelly I could.

So I went back to BUT to have a closer look, but it was now lunchtime and anyone who knows anything at all about France knows about the 2-hour lunch when the whole country grinds to a halt.

I’ve had a good browse on Amazon but with about 2,000 to choose from I’m pretty bogged down in a morass and my eyes have glazed over.

Last night was the worst night that I have had for a while. I was fidgeting for ages trying to find a comfortable position where I wouldn’t itch or womething, and it kept me awake for ever.

I must have dozed off though because it was the alarm that woke me up – and then I dozed off again until the repeater went off.

In that little fifteen-minute interval I went on a travel, to visit some kind of huge exhibition hall where there were just about half a dozen small stalls dotted here and there – rather like that famous supermarket in Poprad in Czechosolvakia (now Slovakia) when I took a coach out there when I worked for Shearings Holidays.

After breakfast I went, for the frst time, to LIDL here in Granville. No different than any LIDL anywhere else in the world, and the clientèle is the same too.

BUT was next, and then NOZ where I met the same clientèle that I’d left in LIDL. I bought some more spices (mainly for the jars that they come in) and a few other bits and pieces.

And here I struck gold.

Last time that I was in there they were selling some clothes airers. I’d seem them at €9:99 (which is an excellent price anyway) a while back and the last time they were reduced by 30%. I went to find them today (hopefully I’ll have my washing machine installed tomorrow) and there was just one left – reduced to a mere €2:00.

No prizes for guessing where that might now be found.

You’re probably thinking that at that price it might not be much good and that surely I’d be better off buying stuff to last. While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, I would say

  1. decent stuff might well last, but my medical prognosis is that I might not
  2. With setting up a new house, I need so much stuff that I can’t afford to go out and buy everything at top quality. Buying a pile of cheap stuff just to set me off on the road means that I will have it all fairly quickly, and as it wears out or breaks down, I can replace it bit by bit

Shopping in the food part of LeClerc came next, and then we had the abortive return journey to BUT

After lunch – spent indoors because it was now raining – I crashed out for quite a while. I blame the sleepless night on that. And I cracked on with the blog too.

Tea was the final instalment of the curry and now it’s an early night.

Washing machine tomorrow, with a bit of luck.

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Monday 26th June 2017 – I SEEM TO HAVE ACQUIRED …

… a washing machine. And it’s sitting in the back of Caliburn right now.

Terry rang me up – and at 08:30 too. “Doing anything? I can’t get the dumper to start”

Actually, I wasn’t in the mood right then and there. If you had been through what I had been through during the night you would not have been either.

I had had a dreadful night, and there was a time round about 02:00 where I thought that I would never ever go to sleep. So much for the early night that I promised myself.
But I must have done at some time or other because I had a visitor during the night.

I’m not sure why Nerina came to visit me but, as this little girl who was in my room at the time remarked, she was wearing a black cloak – and there were various references to all kinds of famous fictional characters. The meeting at first was quite acrimonious but after quite some time it mellowed and in the end we finally agreed to a division of our assets. But not our physical assets – agreement was reached over that years ago – but all of the paperwork. And there we were, during the night, dividing up all of the paperwork sheet by sheet, regardless of whether the division made any logical sense for the accounts or the correspondence that were involved.

Ohhh, how I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I did, and managed some breakfast -and while I was vegetating over a hot mug of coffee the telephone went. Fetching it back, I answered it and it was Terry.

I had a few things to do – like updating a couple of entries on the blog (I am determined to do some of it every day) and having a shave and a shower – and then I hit the road to Roncey.

Terry was right – the dumper wouldn’t start. But I made it start by pouring some drops of neat petrol down the air filter. Fired up a treat but it wouldn’t run on.

So knowing that it fired up, then it can’t have been an electrical or mechanical fault – must be fuel. Plenty of fuel in it and it was going down the fuel lines into the carburettor and the float chamber was full.

Here we were interrupted.

Liz has an old washing machine that only works on one programme and which rattles about the floor of the bathroom like a jive dancer on sherbet dabs. But having had a good month at work, she’s bought herself a new super-duper mega-washing machine and it came today. We signed for it and spent an hour mauling it into the laundry room and installing it.

What a beast.

And the washing machine is awesome too.

“Right, let’s sling the old one into the trailer. I’ll run it down to the dechetterie this afternoon”
“Why?” I asked. “Has it finally handed in its chips?”
“Ohh no” said Terry. “It still works like it always did – maybe more rattly these days – but it’s no use to anyone now we have this one”.
“I can think of someone who will have a use for it” I said. “Let’s sling it in the back of Caliburn”

I know that I decided that I would only have new things here in this apartment, and a new washing machine is high on my list of things to purchase, but you’ll remember that the other day I told you that I wasn’t going to spend any more money for a while and go to have a good time in Canada instead.

So it’s the launderette for me then for the rest of the year and that’s extremely inconvenient for all kinds of reasons. So any old washing machine that will keep running for 6 months or so will be a big bonus for me. It’ll save me €50:00 down at the launderette as long as it keeps on going.

Back to the dumper, and with fuel getting into the float chamber, it was time to take off the carburettor.

The carburettor is held on by just two bolts. But if I were to tell you the performance that we went through in order to gain access to the two bolts, and then to disconnect all of the throttle and choke linkages, you wouldn’t believe me. It was like that stupid Hyundai Trajet that I did two years ago – all assembled onto a subframe on a bench and then fitted into the framework, so you can’t get at anything.

That took us to lunchtime.

After lunch with the carburettor in my sweaty little mitt I went to take out the jets – but they are fixed in – can’t be dismantled. So I had to work out where all of the air passages were and use a compressor to blow them out backwards.

Sure enough, I eventually discovered a passage that was blocked and so with a fine wire I probed the orifice and eventually cleaned it out. And then a few more blasts of air to make sure.

I checked the float to make sure that it wasn’t holed, and then reassembled the carburettor. And then, I had to stick it back on the engine – which was even more interesting than taking it off.

The good news was that with the first pull (it’s a recoil starter) of the starter it fired up correctly. And Terry and Liz (who was by now back from work) reckoned that it was running better than it had for quite a while.

Liz made a gorgeous tea and afterwards we sat around in the beautiful evening sunshine chatting about this and that.

And now I’m home. And with a washing machine too. Terry and Liz think that they might be on their travels at the weekend so they will pop by and help me bring it upstairs and install it. So this weekend I might even be able to do my own washing. And isn’t that progress?

It’s looking more like home every minute.

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Wednesday 21st June 2017 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

… a day of a few major issues, and for a while here we had a very unhappy bunny.

It didn’t start off too well because I couldn’t sleep because of the heat. And so I fetched the fan in, and then couldn’t sleep because of the noise. So I switched it off – and then couldn’t sleep … well, anyway, you get the picture.

The alarm awoke me and I staggered into the bathroom, and then staggered in to breakfast. At 09:00, I went to fetch the baguette. Things were going well at this point.

Back here, there was a message on my telephone. “Your bank account is overdrawn …”. Well, no it flaming well isn’t – or, at least, it shouldn’t be. After all, I went yesterday to the bank to check that my money had arrived and they assured me that it had.

So I called the bank – no answer.

In the end, I called the bank’s head office. It seems that only SOME of the money has arrived from Pionsat. The rest must be en route (and this of course will be the reason why my bank cards aren’t ready, won’t it?). So when they gave me the €100:00 yesterday, it overdrew the account.

Of course, no point in giving the girl on the end of the phone, as annoyed as I was. It’s not her fault. She’s just in a call centre. And anyway, she came up with an effective solution. But next time I go down to the bank, they will need to redecorate the place because the heat from my tongue will cause the paint to blister.

By now, it was almost lunchtime. I opened the fridge and was promptly drowned in the cascade of water. The thing seems to have stopped, and everything has defrosted (luckily my pie was covered over). GRRRRRRRR!

So I made my butties and went to sit on the wall. I wasn’t out there long either as the heat was far too intense so I came back here. And at 14:00 I was on the phone to the agents about the fridge. “I need to transfer you to someone else” said the girl – and promptly cut me off.

So much for that! My blood pressure went up another couple of notches.

Speaking to the people at the SNCF wasn’t much better either. This baggage service has been “revised” due to “current circumstances”. They will now only pick up and drop off your suitcase at a private address. And so it looks as if I shall have to haul my suitcase around with me all across Paris – something that I was dying to avoid.

And so I booked my train to and from Brussels to the airport for my flight to Montreal. And discovered that there seems to be no return train from Charles de Gaulle to Brussels – I have to go back into Paris. And the itinerary that they have given me (which Bane of Britain didn’t check until he received it) allows me just 7 (yes SEVEN) minutes to go from the RER terminal at Paris-Nord to the departure of my train to Brussels.

As if that is ever likely to be possible with the big suitcase that I have?

And when I went to pay, they declined my Belgian Bank Card (why would they do that?) and I had to use my UK one.

Tonight while I was making my tea, I noticed that the fridge had started up again. So what was happening there? I dunno.

At least my pie and mash (done once more in the steam cooker) were good. I shall have to do that again!

But I’ve not had a very good day today though.

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