Tag Archives: eric hall

Monday 5th December 2011 – UP WITH THE COCK …

… this morning.

But that’s enough about my personal habits, isn’t it?

This morning I was awake bright and early (for me, anyway) and after a rushed breakfast Caliburn and I hit the road for Montlucon, the Auchan, and the new computer which I had mentioned yesterday.

Mind you, on the way to the Auchan I had another think.

I remember that it had always been my plan at one time to buy one of these small notebook computers for travelling – lightweight, extremely portable, and the battery lasts for hours.

Not much in the way of facilities, but back at home, have an external screen, DVD recorder, mouse and keyboard for when I’m working at my desk. And had I not had a similar emergency in the UK last time, that would have been exactly what I would have done as well.

Musing on this thought, I wandered around the informatique section of the Auchan where they had a the huge selection of notebooks. One thing that caught my eye was an Acer Aspire 1 – 500GB of hard drive and 4gb of RAM, on offer at just €299.

Further enquiries revealed that they were sold out and there was only the display model left. And if I would take that, they would do me 10% off. Do bears go to picnics in the woods?

So now I’m the owner of a new lightweight notebook and a new keyboard. And believe it or not, there’s a DVD reader somewhere around here. There’s also a flat-screen that works off 12-volt over there on the bench, a mouse and an external keyboard somewhere too.

So I returned back here ready to start to work on my new toy, and the blasted internet is down.

Now there’s a surprise!

Sunday 4th December 2011 – YOU ARE PROBABLY ALL WONDERING …

… how come I didn’t post this entry on Sunday night as I usually do.

Or even Monday morning, which I do if I’m too tired to go on line.

The truth is that we have had a tragedy.

On Sunday morning when I was organising the football photographs and text from last night, the battery went flat on the laptop – which it does quite often, as you know.

And so I plugged it in to charge up, like you do, and went back after a couple of hours to start up work again. Switched the computer on – but nothing happened. No charge in the battery.

So after much messing around with AVO meters and the like, I worked out that power is getting to the recharging unit and out the other side, but it isn’t getting to the battery to charge it up. And nothing that I tried to do would seem to make it.

Mind you, it might be a tragedy, but it’s not a catastrophe as it might otherwise been, because it was on its last legs since it fell off the roof of the car in Canada in September, and it was surely only a question of time.

And as it happened, when I was in Montlucon at the Auchan the other day I had seen a laptop for sale at €449 that had 1TB of hard drive and 6gb of RAM. I quite liked the look of that so I shall be going for a little wander tomorrow, I reckon.

Good job that there was no footy this afternoon, wasn’t it?

Saturday 3rd December 2011 – I HAVEN’T DONE …

… anything at all today.

A miserable wet windy Saturday was enough to keep me up here.

All I’ve done is to tidy up (just a little), do a little work on the radio programme, and read a book on Canadian railways. It’s a long time since I’ve had a lazy day like that.

f1.4 50mm lens fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot puy de dome franceThis evening I went to Pionsat with the new lens to watch FC Pionsat St Hilaire. I’ll post a pic up here so that you can see what it looks like, but action night shots at 1/640 on ISO1600, and sufficient light to do it as well is amazing.

And with being manual focus, the reaction time is instant.

However one slight drawback is that the focus doesn’t stay locked and I didn’t realise that. It floated off from infinity and I didn’t notice, and one or two pf the photos at least are not much good.

I’m curious to see what the rest are like

But I’m going to do that tomorrow. I’m pretty tired again right now. All of this lazing around is no good for me.  

Friday 2nd December 2011 – IT’S FRIDAY …

… but it’s not Five o’clock, and it’s not Crackerjack either. But it is the last Friday that I’ll be spending here for a week or two. I’m hoping to go to the UK at the end of next week.

And despite having gone to bed quite late last night, that didn’t stop me being wide awake at about 07:00 this morning. This sleep thing is becoming ridiculous.

Liz and I arrived at Radio Arverne’s place in Gerzat at about 10:40 for our 11:00 appointment and eventually it was about 11:47 before we started recording.

We did the four Radio Anglais programmes for December and then Bernard sprung it on me. Would I write another Christmas Special for an hour, to be broadcast in … errrr …. 2 weeks time?

I shall have to get my finger out, won’t I?

We got back to Sauret-Beserve 20 minutes late after all of that and I shot off to Montel-de-Gelat and the sawmill to pick up a load of timber.

I had to wait around there for ages as well as they didn’t (despite what they said on the ‘phone) have any treated wood so they treated it while I waited, and that took ages too.

And while I was there I was chatting with the staff and it turns out that the office girl is the wife of the Montel goalkeeper whose photo that I took was published in the paper the other week, and the office manager plays for Pontaumur and one of my photos of him scoring against Pionsat was published a few weeks before that.

There were two clients there from Pionsat too. One of them had an old Transit pick-up that was clearly custom-made. A PTAC of 3.3 tons for a start – that’s impressive. And he had so much wood dropped in it that it was sagging right down at the back end and he crawled all the way back to Pionsat at 40kph. 

And when I returned home and unloaded my wood I realised that I had forgotten the demi-chevrons that I need to finish off the greenhouse.

D’ohhhh.

And so I went upstairs and crashed out for a while instead.

Thursday 1st December 2011 – GOING TO BED EARLY …

… does you no good at all if you roll over onto your staples at 04:00. It’s flaming painful and you can’t go back to sleep again.

And so I was up early again and breakfasted, and then I went out to cut more wood. That’s a couple more of the old chevrons and the tree trunks from 2 years ago all ready to burn in my nice new wood stove, with which I am almost as impressed as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin.

But then I had another idea and I cleared a space near the big front gates and laid out a couple of pallets. And then I moved one of the wood piles – the one that was at the side of the lean-to. That’s now on the pallets right at the front of the house and will be easy to get to in the winter, whenever that might be.

That pile of wood was formerly at the side of the lean-to on a concrete pad that was formerly the base of a chicken coop. This concrete hardstanding is now covered with plastic roof tiles – I did a safari around the garden and hunted down all that I can find ready for doing that roof, whenever that might be.

I also took out the plywood from the back of Caliburn and I’ve stood that upon the concrete pad. Even though it’s for exterior use, I’ve covered it up with a tarpaulin to protect it for a while from the weather.

All that’s left in Caliburn is the window and that’s rather heavy. But I have a cunning plan for that, more of which anon.

When it went dark I fetched a shelving unit that I had forgotten and I have put it in what will be the bathroom. I’ve started making a tour of the upper floors rescuing tools and so on, so that I know where everything might be.

But that’s not so easy as there’s just so much stuff. I really ought to have a good tidy up sometime.

Wednesday 30th November 2011 – FATHER CHRISTMAS …

… came early – as in “this morning”.

Or rather, it was the man from DHL who came bearing gifts. And I now have a 50mm f1.4 lens, and a zoom lens of 70-300mm for the Nikon.

The zoom lens was something bought on a whim as it was second-hand and quite cheap as well, and it’s something that I’ve always promised myself if ever I saw one around.

The other lens cost a great deal of money and it has a specific purpose in that my footy photographs at night are nothing like as good as they ought to be and it’s high time that I did something about it. I either have not enough light on the subject or else they are taken too slow and hence they are blurred.

The 17-105mm lens that I have currently on the camera doesn’t stop down anything like far enough – about f4 is its limit. But then again zoom lenses like this are never any good in poor light conditions.

They both came from the USA and the taxes and fees cost half the purchase price of the articles. That’s a huge disappointment and is threatening international commerce.

Apart from that, this morning I chopped up another pile of firewood. This fire really is impressive now that I reckon that I’ve figured it out. While I was having my evening meal last night it warmed up the place from15.4°C to 22.5°C with just one log of wood, and the insulation kept the place as high as 16.5°C this morning.

And this afternoon I built a huge wooden box out of scraps of wood that I had lying around. The mice are getting everywhere these days and there’s nowhere to leave any fruit or veg where it will be safe.

I tried a plastic container but the stuff just sweated. Wood is the answer as the wood will absorb the sweat but you can’t buy wood boxes like you used to be able to do – hence the home-made variety.

And with a really late night last night and a 7:30 awakening, I’m whacked so I’m going to bed early. Well, early for me anyway.

And I forgot to add that it rained yesterday – 4.5mm. The first rain that we have had since 7th November.

Tuesday 29th November 2011 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again.

And if I keep on spending it like this I won’t have any left.

First thing was to go to Marcillat in order to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse with Liz.

And from there it was to Montlucon.

At LIDL I bought nothing out of the ordinary but at Auchan I bought as well as the usual stuff a little present for Rob and Nicolette for having looked after me, and also a battery pack seeing as all mine are duff. There it was on sale and I said that at €29 it would be a good deal. But with an air compressor included and selling at €22.95 it was an even better deal.

At Brico Depot they had the plywood that I wanted. And 2mm thicker, it cost €9 less than at the other place. And so I now have all that I need. I’m not sure why though because I don’t have the scaffolding to fit it now, as I said yesterday.

What I can be doing instead though is to build the greenhouse but would you believe I forgot to buy the perspex for the roof.

D’ohhh! That was no good.

There’s an issue over my tubing as well. I can buy it from the steel mill at Montlucon but would you believe that a huge place like that (so huge it has its own railway network and locomotive – which you have seen before) they don’t have a bender.They’ve given me an idea where to go and so I’ll follow that up.

And I have my window! Hooray!!!! That’s safely in the van now.

But here’s a thing.

You’ll have noticed without doubt that I have been strangely quiet just recently on the subject of the front door that I would be fitting to the house. But there’s a reason for that. Brain of Britain has done it again and bought a door that opens the wrong way. Mind you, it was at a give-away price in a sale so there’s no harm done there.

But a casual chat with the sales people at Lapeyre revealed that the “exotic wood” selection – the selection from which I have chosen all of my windows – is being discontinued in February. And as a result, they’ve started a clearance sale. The door that matches my windows – a big one with double glazing all the way down the front, is just €374.

That’s too good a deal to miss and so I have bitten the bullet. Now I shall have to get working.

At Rob and Nicolette’s I gave them their prezzy and thanked them for their help the other day. I was grateful for the effort that they took.

But with me forgetting all sorts of things today, this bang on the head doesn’t seem to have helped me any.   

Monday 28th November 2011 – I HAD VISITORS TODAY.

Here I was – up early and breakfasted, and tidying up (for a change) in my little room when the ‘phone rang. “If we come and raise up the wind turbine can we take the rest of the scaffolding?”

And so that put an end to the tidying up (which was a shame as it’s not often that I’m in the mood for tidying up) and I went up and prepared everything.

It didn’t take long for the three of us to put the wind turbine properly into position and the scaffolding has now gone, and there’s even a roof of sorts on the lean-to (a few sheets of corrugated iron and a tarpaulin) although I don’t know why. We’ve not had any rain here since 7th November.

It was then that I noticed that the wind turbine pole must have been rotated while we were raising it, as the bracket that holds the wire guy ropes is now the wrong way round. And I’ve no idea at all what I can do about that now.

I bet that you are thinking “great. He can go ahead and put the roof on the lean-to now” – but I can’t. I need the scaffolding for that, don’t I?

Caliburn is now emptied ready for a shopping trip to Montlucon tomorrow, and I’ve also done some more work cutting down the fir trees to a reasonable height. This time I’ve managed to afford falling trees, falling off the ladder and the like.

But anyway I’ve managed a good day’s work.

Up here this evening I’ve had the new fire working. It was difficult to get it to work properly but that’s the kind of thing that will surely come with practice.

But one thing and another – a bunch of herring hanging up in this room would have benefited from my efforts.

>But I gave someone quite a hard time today. I’m getting all bad-tempered and tetchy in my old age. And then I remembered that yesterday I gave the President of the football club a real hard time. That’s not like me at all these days.

And then I had a flashback – back to 1987 and my car accident when I suffered a fractured skull and how that was the beginning of the end and how bad-tempered and miserable I became for quite a good while after that. And now I’ve just fallen off a ladder and landed on my head as you know.

Don’t tell me that I’m going to be going through all of this again. It was bad enough back then!

As Terry Venables once famously said – “if history repeats itself then we can expect the same thing again”. That’s rather a depressing thought.

Sunday 27th November 2011 – I WAS A BIT PUT OUT TODAY.

But before I tell you about that, let me first tell you the good news.

Although it was late when I went to bed, I managed to sleep for 6 hours or so. And after breakfast, I finished off the scripts for the radio programmes that we will be recording this week for Radio Anglais

I had to rush though as Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing away at Combronde at 13:00 but just as I was stepping out of the door to go, Percy Penguin chose that moment to ring me.
“You fell on your head? It might knock some sense into you”.
It’s nice to have friends, isn’t it?

And so at Combronde, 5 minutes late and the place all deserted. There was no-one around at all. So what’s going on here?

col de ceyssat puy de dome franceAnyway, that was an hour and a half and 75 kilometres wasted. There was clearly no point in staying on here so I fuelled up and went off to Ceyssat for the 1st XI match instead.

That long drive took me round by the Puy de Dome – right past the foot of it, and it was remarkable to notice the change in the weather. From my humble abode to round about St Bonnet it was grey miserable and overcast.

But south of there we had glorious sunshine. The Puy de Dome (and you pass within about 200 metres of it) was especially nice. But once over the Col de Ceyssat I drove straight into a fog and that was that.

I met Bernard the club president. he said that the 3rd XI match was cancelled, and so I berated him for not sending me a text – after all, I told him last night that I would be going. It’s a couple of times now that they have done this on me and I’m becoming rather fed up.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot olby ceyssat puy de dome franceBut the actual match cheered me up considerably.

Olby-Ceyssay were a pretty poor side and FC Pionsat St Hilaire had no trouble whatever in demolishing them 4-0, hardly breaking sweat in doing so.

it’s a shame that they can’t play like that every week.

From there I went on round to Liz and Terry’s where we rehearsed our radio programmes – we’re recording next week.

Liz had baked potato pie and rice pudding for afters, and she even made up a doggy bag and a lump of fruitcake for me to take home. It’s that kind of thing that makes it worth-while having good friends, and helps me to forget all of the worries and disagreements.

Saturday 26th November 2011 – OUCH!

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

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

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

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

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

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot clermont franco algeriens puy de dome franceTonight at Pionsat the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 2nd XI were playing against Clermont Franco-Algeriens and they were totally played off the park.

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

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot clermont franco algeriens puy de dome franceThe number of times Clermont broke through the weakest FC Pionsat St Hilaire defence that I have ever seen (and we’ve seen some pretty weak ones just recently, believe me) and blazed over the bar from five yards out – never mind only scoring 4, 14 would have been more like it.

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

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

And that won’t be at all popular.

Friday 25th November 2011 – YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN IN STITCHES …

CUTTING DOWN CONIFER TREES les guid virlet puy de dome france… watching me cut down the conifers at the front of the barn this afternoon.

But I’m not in stitches – I’m in staoles.

6 of them!

All across the top of my head.

I did something today that I vowed that I would never do – and that is to use a power tool to cut down a tree. When you are sawing away by hand, you can feel the tree start to give and you have plenty of time to move out of the way as it slowly keels over.

But with a power tool you can’t feel it and it takes you by surprise. And that’s not good if you are 3 metres up a ladder.

So it caught me under the chin, lifted me off the ladder and dropped me on the floor where my head struck the trailer with a glancing blow.

But I’m inpressed with that Ryobi 18-volt saw that I bought in the USA last year (almost as impressed, Rhys, as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin). It didn’t take long at all to go through this tree.

So let’s look on the positive side.

I was bleeding everywhere and so I went to Rob and Nicolette’s to get Nicolette to look at it as I couldn’t see anything of course. One look from her and Rob was detailed to drive me to Montlucon.

We waited for a couple of hours there (and I chatted to the father of one of the FC Pionsat St Hilaire footballers who had been admitted following a car accident) and then I was examined and stapled up.

What a waste of time that was, though. I have a stapler at home and Rob could have done that without having to waste 4 hours of his time. But I was grateful for his help – it’s nice to have good neighbours.

Of course we had all of the old jokes – “the Doctor examined your head but found nothing” and all that kind of thing.

But one piece of optimism is that many things work better if you give them a kick or if you bang them. I wonder if that will work for me now.

puy de dome franceWhat makes it worse was that I was only cutting down the trees for something to do while I was waiting for some paint to dry. It was so nice again today that I gathered up all of the pieces of wood from the greenhouse and I’ve painted them with a couple of coats of wood treatment and the first coat of the wood staining.

And I was only doing that because I can’t do the roof on the lean-to yet – the scaffolding is in the way.

I was going to give it all a second coat this evening and then start to assemble it tomorrow but badger that. I’m going to have a day off tomorrow.

Thursday 24th November 2011 – I’VE NOT DONE …

… a great deal today.

I started off by sweeping out the front of the lean-to where I’d been working these last few days, to make a bit of space.

And once that was clean I started to cut up some of the tree trunks from the trees that I had cut down a few years ago. It’s late November and winter is of course only just around the corner, and there’s no point in having a decent wood stove if I don’t have any decent wood to put in it.

But the saw that I’m using isn’t up to much and I need to get a really expensive one.

But it was round about then that the fun started.

I had someone from Canada ringing me up about supplying him with product and so I had to sort that out. And that got me sorting out another pile of orders too for other things and I ended up spending about 2 hours on the phone.

Not that I’m complaining though. With a trade card and a SIREN (a French trade registration) I’m getting some astonishing deals all along the line and it’s about time I started to make a bit of money. So more power to my elbow, say I

In between the rest of the phone calls (yes, we were having another one of those days) I managed to put a few lengths of tongue-and-groove on the stud wall just so that it looks like there’s something positive coming out of today.

It’s a shame that the light goes so early otherwise I’d be still out there (and you would have a photo of it). It’s not like me to be so enthusiastic as this.

I could of course put light into the lean-to but there’s an issue with that. I can’t find my metre-long SDS drill bit that I need to make a pilot hole in the right place. And this is what I bought it for, would you believe?

Mind you finding anything at all around my place is next to impossible as I’m sure you all know already.

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 – I’VE FINISHED …

steps up to first floor lean to les guis virlet puy de dome france… building the staircase to the first floor in the lean-to, and so you can really say that we have an upstairs and a downstairs now.

The staircase is more like a ladder in a sense, because it has rungs rather than stairs, but then again there’s only a confined space to work in so it can’t be helped.

The gas bottle is in its permanent home and I’ll be drilling a hole through the wall at the back (the top edge of the photo) to pass the gas pipe through into where the kitchen will be. To change it over, you jut drag it out to the right.

steps up to first floor lean to les guis virletpuy de dome franceAnd you can see the stud wall that’s in front of the stairs. I have piles of cheap tongue-and-grooving and that’s all going to be going on there in very early course (once I can find it in the barn).

The washroom, when it’s finished, will be a sort-of U-shape, from the back studding, down the side wall and then down to front wall to where the camera was when I took this shot.

We’ll have worktops (I’ve bought those already) with the washing machine underneath, a sink (there’s one of those lying about somewhere) and cupboards, which I can make. And, of course, a 12-volt immersion heater running off the surplus electricity that I generate

steps up to first floor lean to les guis virlet puy de dome france It doesn’t quite look like that now though. After I took the above photo I made the structure even stiffer by adding a diagonal bracing bar. That stiffened it up quite considerably and it’s all quite solid now. It’ll be stiffer even still when it’s cladded. 

You can just about make out the gap in the rear studding where the gas bottle will be coming and going through. And I’ll be covering most of that rear stud wall as well, once I’ve cut up all the scrap wood in the rear section and moved it out for burning.

As you can see, this is something of a long-term project.

And in other news, my new window for the living room is ready. I’ll have to go Lapeyre at Montlucon to pick that up this weekend.

And in other other news, I seem to have become something of an unofficial sports reporter for the local newspaper.

Following Marianne’s suggestion, I’ve been sending some of the photos of FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s opponents to the reporter covering the town where they come from. And now twice – two weeks in succession, the reporter concerned has asked me to send in a match report.

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 – YOU CAN SEE …

… what I’ve been doing this morning, seeing as I can’t move the scaffolding until the wind turbine is raised up.

STAIRWAY to upstairs lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve been working inside the lean-to and I now have the five verticals in place for the stud walls with the staircase in between.

The gas bottle is in its home where it will be living. The kitchen will be in the house right behind there, so I’m going to have to run a gas pipe through the wall eventually.

The way that the gas bottle will be moved when it needs replacing is between the two uprights to the left in the rear wall. It’ll just about pass through there and then I’ll have to bring it around to the front and then out.

The stud wall nearest the doorway will be covered with tongue-and grooving and heavily varnished. There will be a cupboard there and a worktop, with a small water heater over the top, running off the surplus electrical energy.

The washing machine will be in that little corner and there will also be a sink.

Now I have my diamond core drills for going through the stonework, the world’s my lobster.

And you did hear me correctly. “Morning”. Despite having had a bad night’s sleep I was up with the lark this morning and outside fairly early, just for a change. That enabled me to get cracking.

And not “this afternoon” either.

One of the projects that we have on the go for Radio Anglais is to do a programme about researching the history of your house.

And Marianne rang me to say that she had such a project to do this afternoon and would I like to go with her to the Mairie and look through the records. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

extracts of property records mairie pionsat puy de dome franceI’m glad that I went because it was extremely interesting there and I learnt an awful lot. But then again that is the point of going.

Records in France in the local mairies go back as far as 1833 (in places where the Germans didn’t burn them) and it’s fascinating to see the evolution of a property.

What is even more exciting is to see o the local tax rolls the reason for tax reductions. Just taking one example, a whole list of rate reductions on certain plots of land in 1884 clearly show exactly where and how the “new road” to St Eloy was built.

extracts of property records mairie pionsat puy de dome franceWe were there for hours going through everything, but it’s not always good news that you unearth.

The problem is though that searching through records can show up many surprises, some of which can be extremely unpleasant. And such was the case today. There’s a kind-of diary circulating around Pionsat, in which the author recounts quite freely a host of detail about his private life, including his birth almost 70 years ago.

But quite interestingly the Deed of Gift of this property back in the 1950s shows that the civil status of his mother was “divorced in 1936 and never remarried”.

So who was the fellow she brought back with her from Paris when she came to resettle in the village in the late 1930s?

The plot sickens.

But at least I’ve had my snow tyre fitted on my new wheel so I’m ready for winter.

I’m also ready for bed. Last night’s late finish and this early start this morning had finished me off.

Monday 21st November 2011 – WELL, I’M STUMPED!

“Howzat?” I hear you ask.

And I’m going to tell you.

When Terry and I were doing the preparations for the new roof, we put a conduit through the wall and into this conduit we put 3 pairs of 6mm wire. 1 pair was for bank 1 of the solar panels, 1 pair was for bank 2, and the third pair was for the wind turbine.

The two banks of solar panels are wired in and doing what they are supposed to be doing when and where they are supposed to do it, but putting an ohm-meter onto the third pair for the wind turbine, there is no circuit in EITHER of the two wires.

I just don’t understand this at all. I can’t think why this should be. There can’t be a break in BOTH wires, surely?

So anyway I connected up two wires in a kind-of ad-hoc connection and they are working fine and are now connected into the circuit.

And the surprising thing about this (although not surprising if you know anything about me) is that despite the last few days having tons and tons of powerful wind, the wind dramatically dropped the moment I connected up the wires. You could not have timed it better.

wind turbine les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhat I’ve also done is to make up the four guy ropes that will hold the wind turbine mast in position.

I need some special wall anchor mountings for this and I can only get them in the UK at Screwfix. Unfortunately my last order didn’t go through in time and so I can’t get this part done until I go to the UK and come back. I don’t have my contacts to post me stuff these days.

Terry said that he’ll come round some time in the near future and help me push the pole up another metre or so – height is definitely might in these circumstances.

I’ve dismantled part of the scaffolding already and the rest can go as soon as the turbine is in its final position. Once that’s out of the way I can make a start on the roof and I’m eager to get going with that.

“Not a lot of work today” I hear you say. But this does not include the relentless string of telephone calls, and also of visits that I had today.

For once I seem to be popular. I wonder what’s up.