Tag Archives: lie in

Saturday 14th August 2010 – A good few weeks ago ….

… I went to a talk about the history and one of the items that was discussed was the local railway network. With this area being situated on a coal seam and the existence of coal mines all over the place there was at one time a railway network around here that was much more comprehensive than you would think at first.

And most people immediately think of railways as being standard-gauge – 4’8.5″ with substantial earthworks and the like, and there is a great deal of evidence for that, especially for our famous railway down the hill here that was opened to traffic in 1932 and did’t even last 25 years.

I drive regularly (or I used to when I used to go to Brussels) along a certain road that runs into Montmarault from the Montaigut direction and I’ve been convinced that I’ve seen traces that correspond to what the Ordnance Survey would call “dismantled railway” along the side of the road, although there is nothing on any map that I have ever seen that would confirm anything.

But at this talk one of the items discussed was the railway line that ran from Marcillat en Combraille to Commentry. Now Commentry was a major ironworking centre and Marcillat has the remains of a few huge limekilns and so a line bringing the lime from the fields to the blast furnaces seems like a likely proposition. But the only line here as far as I am aware is the old standard gauge line that used to pass down here and which doesn’t go directly to Commentry.

But further enquiry revealed the existence of the “lignes economiques” – a whole series of narrow-gauge lines that ran on light railway principles with the minimum of earthworks, and the border area between the Allier and the Puy-de-Dome was littered with these lines. Anyone who has seen the the Father Brown film will recall what a “ligne economique” looks like.

The relics that I have seen not too far from Montmarault are in fact part of this light railway system but my attention for the moment has been seized by a narrow-gauge line that used to run from Marcillat to Commentry – and points beyond, as I have discovered. I’ve tracked down a list of the names of stations along the route but a casual look on an Internet satellite viewing program hasn’t come up with anything. That’s a shame – long-time readers will remember that we tracked down a bridge of James Brunlees by spotting it on a satellite viewer.

culvert underneath D2144 RN144 durdat larequille allier franceOne place however has crossed my mind as I have crossed it on many occasions. The railway passed through the village of Durdat Larequille somewhere and not too far from there is what looks like a hollow fold in the ground with what might be a bridge over it. And so on my way back from Neris les Bains I stopped for a look.

I’m right about it being an overbridge but if it’s for a narrow-gauge locomotive and train then it would have to be flaming narrow. I couldn’t stand upright in that tunnel under there

culvert underneath D2144 RN144 durdat larequille allier franceThere’s no evidence to suggest that the bridge has been infilled to any extent, suggesting that at one time it might have been of larger size, and I can’t see what might have been a track bed of a railway running to and fro underneath it.

I’m reluctantly coming to the conclusion that this may well not be a railway bridge after all, and that’s a disappointment – I had high hopes for this.

Yes – I was in Neris today. The weather is becoming colder and colder and there was no chance of a solar shower and so after shopping in Commentry (which was boring, I have to say) I went off there. 29°C in the water and only 20°C in the baths itself – but that’s because some person had for reasons best known to him-or herself decided to open up the side of the pool. It used to be an open-air pool complete with poolside cafe but it’s now covered with a balloon-type of marquee. And who on earth would want to open it up today in this weather?

But now I’m nice and clean so I’m going to change the bedding and have a good night’s sleep. And I need it too. I didn’t have the alarms on this morning and when the phone rang I crawled over to it and answered “ok Terry – see you in a bit” only to hear a French voice on the other end. Yes, I was totally out of it this morning. I’ll have to do better tomorrow.

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Friday 13th August 2010 – When we knocked off this evening ….

rebuilding stone wall collapsed lean to les guis virlet puy de dome france… there were still two buckets full of mortar left in the cement mixer.

And so “waste not, want not”, I took it round to my house and built up some of the wall of this lean-to that I have been slowly repairing.

You can see that I’ve built up around the central beam of the roof.

But I had an idea about this. Building with stone uses a lot of cement and you always end up with a filthy mixer full of dried cement and the like so I heaved a bucketful of gravel and a bucketful of water into the mixer to clean it. The gravel will scour the drum and the water will move it round.

rebuilding stone wall collapsed lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceI built a very narrow wall on the outside of the wall and a very narrow wall on the inside of the wall, with a large gap in between them. And when I finished and went back to the mixer the drum was quite clean with a load of what looked like very liquid concrete swilling around in it.

I tipped that into a bucket leaving the mixer nice and clean, and took the bucket down to my lean-to and poured the concrete solution into the gap. All nice and runny and you could hear it slurping its way down the fissures in the rocks and soaking into all the dry joints. It’ll take a while to set but when it does it will have done wonders for my stone wall. I shall be cleaning out the mixer like this every night.

roofing chevrons lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs far as the house roof goes, we are making enormous progress and if things hold out we may well be finished on schedule – and won’t that be a first?

You can see in the pic that we have built up all of the walls so that they are of the right height and all of the carpentry is now on. It won’t be long before the roof is finished, and then we will need to build up the outsides of the walls with a stone facing. Once that’s complete we will need to seal the top of the roof into the wall of the house and then just a few more small jobs will finish it off.

Mind you I didn’t want to get up this morning. I had slept through the alarm and was having a very pleasant dream for a change when Terry rang me to make sure I was awake. It’s sad when you have dreams like that – you don’t ever want them to end.

But it’s the weekend and I’m having a weekend off. I reckon that tomorrow I’ll go shopping in Commentry and then for a swim at Neris. The warm weather has let me down for the last few days and I haven’t been able to have a solar shower. If I’m not careful I’ll be picked up on radar soon.

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Sunday 8th August 2010 – It was Sunday today.

And there was a vintage vehicle exhibition and brocante at St Maurice pres Pionsat as well.

And so I stayed at home.

Mind you it was … errrr …. 11:30 when I woke up and so I’d missed a good deal of the day. And then with working on my web site until 14:00 I missed a good deal more. But I went into Pionsat to the baker’s – and it was shut! It seems that last Sunday was a one-off seeing as how it ought to have been Pionsat’s brocante last week. But as I was quietly GRRRRRing to myself, out of the door came the boulangere, and so she sold me what I needed. It must have been my lucky day!

Back at the ranch, seeing as I wasn’t going anywhere I lit a huge bonfire and burnt a pile of stuff that has been lingering around here, and I also burnt the dried weeds that I had pulled up when I was working with Lieneke. In fact one of the reasons why I’m still awake now is that the fire is merrily burning away and I can’t go to bed leaving it unattended. But make the most of the sunny day – it won’t last, this weather.

modular home made composting bin les guis virlet puy de dome franceI also installed the compost bin properly in its proper place this afternoon after the temporary installation last night and added the compost from the collapsed plastic composting bin. At the moment it’s four sections high and the three that are currently unused are in shot. I’ll have to think of a place to put them.

You can also see the chassis for the Citroen 2CV that formed the basis of the Lomax kit car I once owned. There’s also a solar garden light and one of the solar cookers for the composting toilet. The others have now been incorporated into the compost and given a liberal dosing of potash.

Nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus are the essential ingredients for any fertiliser. There are plenty of nitrogen and phosphorus in the contents of a composting toilet and wood-ash is a good source of potassium. So all the essential ingredients for my garden are right to hand. Now all I need to do is to work out how I can move the methane digester and add the contents of that to the compost. I reckon that I ought to neutralise its contents with plenty of wood ash and sawdust first though but that will just add to the weight.

Nevertheless, things are slowly moving around here. The composting bin was another thing that I’ve been meaning to do for ages and I’m glad it’s in position now.

I was so engrossed that it was 18:30 when I knocked off. And on a Sunday too! A nice hot 41°C shower rounded the day off quite nicely. Tomorrow I imagine that we will be back on that blasted roof.

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Sunday 1st August 2010 – Blimey!

This weather is totally crazy.

When I woke up ( at ….errrr ….. 11:33 this morning, and my excuse was that I was having a really good dream about a new house that I had bought) the weather was beautiful. So I had a leisurely breakfast and messed about a bit on the computer before deciding to go to the brocante at Pionsat.

But a flaming phone call interrupted me and I was there discussing the Palestine question with someone and it was gone 14:00 when I left. Bright sunshine when I left, and in the 5kms it takes to drive to Pionsat the heavens opened with a deluge. In the village square all the stallholders had gone due to the rain and that was that.

By the time I checked the stats at 31:45 we had had 22mm of rain and it’s still bucketing down. Thunder and lightning and all sorts. It had better clear up if we are going to have another go on that roof tomorrow.

In other news, I noticed a little giveaway phrase in a press report about the situation in Afghanistan. Hidden in all of the rhetoric is the little phrase that NATO “hopes to reverse the Taliban’s momentum”. Translated into English that means that the Taliban is advancing in Afghanistan and NATO hopes to push its forces back. Now if the Taliban is advancing, it means that NATO is retreating, so what a giveaway this phrase actually is.

But then again I’ve been saying for a couple of years that the Taliban has had NATO on the run and that Khazi’s writ doesn’t run any wider than the gates of his palace in Kabulseye (and only then with American permission).

To make matters worse, the Dutch pulled out of Afghanistan today. Not that the Dutch forces amount to much – who will ever forget the craven way that the Dutch Army, who had been sent to defend the town of Srebenica and its population, surrendered it to the Serbs and then stood by idly as the Serbs massacred the population – but it’s a sign that the Coalition of the Willing is becoming less and less Willing as the war marches on. What with the Germans also likely to pull out before the end of the year and the Poles and Canadians to be the next to run away, the Septics and the Brits are going to be left with the oeufs all over the visage. And with more and more countries pulling out, the likelihood of persuading more and more countries to take over so that the Septics can secure all of the mineral rights in Afghanistan will be less and less. It will mean that more and more Brits will be dying so that more and more Americans can become richer and richer.

July 2010 was the second-most-deadly month for NATO forces in Afghanistan. And when was the most deadly month for them? Why, June 2010 of course. But of course nothing of this is surprising. For every innocent child that NATO kills you have half a dozen people shouting for revenge. And Afghans and other tribesmen (“tribespersons please” – ed) are much more likely to pick up a gun and go to war that your average North American or British Couch Potato.

And how long has this war been going on? 8 and a half years? And instead of things getting better and better they are getting worse and worse. The Brits and Septics have been dragged into the very bloodbath that they promised that they would avoid. But then again, the way of dealing with a group of freedom fighters, most of whom were Saudi Arabians, led by a Saudi and financed by a Saudi company, leading to an invasion of … errrr …. Afghanistan was something that mystified almost everyone on the planet.

The funniest thing about all of this is that when the Russians invaded Afghanistan the Afghans fought the Russians off – armed by weapons supplied by the west. The Russians had the right to feel aggrieved by that. And 20 years or so later here are the Afghans fighting off the might of the west with no help from anybody at all. No wonder the Russians are p155ing themselves laughing.

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Wednesday 28th July 2010 – I had another day off today …

… because Terry was elsewhere, and I celebrated it with something of a lie-in.

After breakfast I did some more work on my website, which has fallen way behind schedule, and then I finally managed to do a big load of washing, what with the wind and the weather being all right for that sort of thing. It’s amazing how much washing there was but then again I haven’t done any for a while.

After a late lunch I emptied Caliburn out. I’ve lost my SatNav and I’ve no idea where it might be. It’s nowhere in Caliburn as far as I can see and it’s annoying me, this.

Terry suggests that I look elsewhere for it in case I may have taken it out of Caliburn at some time, but around here, where on earth do you start? You can be here for a week and only just scratch the surface. I reckon it’s well and truly gone.

But at least Caliburn is now fully empty, and he needs to be. We have a scaffolding to pick up in a week or so and the other trailer has now apparently gone tits-up. This is annoying me! We are going to have to collect it in the two vans.

When I knocked off I had a shower – the solar shower was showing 36 degrees and that’s warm enough. The automatic heater fired itself up as well today and reached 33 degrees, 11 degrees above the ambient. Add on another 11 degrees for a closed lid and another 11 degrees for insulation and you can see how this is all going to work when I install a tank instead. I noticed by the way that even with the fridge running and the water heater working there was still an excess of solar power. I might have to fit two elements instead of just one.

But talking of the fridge, there’s no thermostat on mine and so it runs 24 hours per day 7 days per week. And at 5 amps that’s a total of 120 amp-hours, or about 1.45Kw. But Conforama where I bought my bed settee from, they are offering a table top fridge – twice as big as mine – that uses just 0.37Kw per day – or about 32 amp-hours. And it’s an A+ so there’s bound to be a ton of insulation stuffed into it, so I’m currently thinking about abandoning my 12-volt fridge, buying a small inverter that will power the fridge and then having the inverter switched into the dump load. When the batteries are fully charged the inverter will fire up and run the fridge as well as the water heater and when the battery charge drops the inverter (and the fridge) switch off.

The big advantage of this is that on a good day it takes until about 12:30 for the batteries to be fully charged. with no fridge running through the night the batteries will be fully-charged in an hour or so and that’ll give me more time for the water heater and the fridge will be running away in the background on its minimal power requirement.

I shall have to look into this.

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Monday 12th July 2010 – No solar shower tonight!

And so the run stops at 8 consecutive evenings. But then again I’m not complaining because today it rained. The first time for what seems like ever and we had 8.5mm of the stuff. My plants needed that, and so did my water butts. Things are getting a little low here.

So this morning after a lie-in I was catching up on my websites until lunchtime. And then Terry came round to see Lieneke about this work that needed doing and so I took the opportunity of him moving his tractor to another place on the hardstanding, dragging out the trailer and loading all of the kwikstage scaffolding onto it.

And that really was my day. Nothing exciting at all. But tomorrow I have to help Terry with a barn door which means a start at … gulp … 08:00. Does that time actually exist anywhere?

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Friday 9th July 2010 – As I have said before ….

tractor trailer hay bales rolo montcocu virlet puy de dome france… if you are the kind of person who is always in a hurry or rushing around for appointments and the like then you don’t want to be living around here.

Not with leviathans like this roaming around the lanes round here anyway.

I encountered these two beasts on my way back from Commentry. The other side of Ronnet it was, and it wasn’t until we reached the Abbey of Bellaigues that they took the high road and I took the low road. About 6 miles of 25kph with nowhere to pass them. Ahhh well!

This morning I was awoken at 06:04 by a storm – howling winds and all that kind of thing. I was half-expecting torrential rain but when I finally crawled out of my stinking pit (09:40 – I was having a lie-in after my efforts on the roof) there wan’t a trace of anything.I surely can’t have dreamt it all?

So a couple of hours catching up on the computer and then off to Commentry for shopping. And nothing really interesting at all. But even more interesting – I’m trying to set up my water filters and can I elephants find any puzzolane. I asked inter alia at the local builders’ merchants and he had to look up in his catalogue before telling me that he didn’t have any. In case you are wondering what puzzolane is, it’s a certain type of volcanic lava – lightweight, porous and made of carbon and it’s a superb natural water filter.

In the Puy de Dome there are over 80 dormant volcanoes all of which have produced puzzolane, and not for nothing is this region littered with commercialised natural springs – Volvic being the prime example but there are many others. All the ground water is filtered through the natural puzzolane layers. So why can’t I get hold of any?

Back at Pooh Corner, having unloaded Caliburn, I made a desultory start on tidying up. But the weather clouded over and it looked like rain so grabbing hold of a few offcuts and odds-and-ends I’ve rigged up a kind of downspout system for one of my spare 203-litre water butts to catch the rain that might fall on the barn roof.

And badger me if, when I came in and read my messages, that Krys hadn’t written to me to suggest that I think about a way of collecting the rainwater that falls on the roof. Great Minds or Fools, Ms Stephenson?

And now it’s 00:30 – 7 hours after I fixed this downspout – and it’s rumbling away with thunder and flashing away with lightning and not a drop of rain has fallen. All my plants and I could do with a heavy downpour, especially through the night. I can’t wait to see the water cascade off the barn roof and into the water butt.

And another solar shower this evening. That’s 6 consecutive days. I was never this clean when I lived in my apartment in Brussels!

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Saturday 22nd May 2010 – I took the plunge this afternoon …

… and went swimming in Neris les Bains. For the first time ever it was warm in there – an air temperature of 26 degrees – so of course they left all of the doors open so a draught of air was blowing around. That won’t half cool down a wet body.

Just the usual suspects of course – no swimming galas or races or anything so it was something of a let-down but at least I’m now clean (in body, anyway).

So this morning I heard all of the alarms go off but badger that – I went back to sleep. I woke up … errr … some time later. So after breakfast and doing some work up here until 13:30 I went off to Commentry. Nothing exciting in LIDL or ALDI or the Intermarche either. Centrakor turned up trumps with a pair of plastic flip-flops for 2 Euros. Just the thing for wandering around swimming baths and muddy football dressing rooms. In Les Bonnes Affaires, the cheap shop, I spent 10 Euros, much of which went on interesting items of food but they did have a plastic stopwatch in there – good value for 2 Euros. I don’t wear a watch but I’ll need something for when I’m refereeing. That’s something useful.

On the weather side the Heat Exchanger recorded 63.9 degrees, the highest total this year and the highest since August 29 last year. In my room the temperature is currently 24.6 degrees – and at 01:30 too! It touched 26.4 degrees during the course of the day and that’s the highest since 9th September. The weather is certainly looking a lot more like it.

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Friday 21st May 2010 – I was at a meeting tonight …

hirondelle meeting hall ayat sur sioule puy de dome france… at Ayat sur Sioule with Marianne as part of our tourist information work for Radio Anglais when this bird decided to join in by flying into the room. It’s a hirondelle, so I’m told – whatever that might be. Keen followers of my outpourings will know that I have more than a passing interest in local birds, but none of … errr … this type of bird.

The meeting itself was a washout. It was to discuss tourist initiatives in the Combrailles and it was very similar to the one a few months ago. The same stories with the same old audience shamelessly networking away.

This morning I had something of a lie-in to catch up my strength and then until midday I was working up here. Later I did some gardening, planting outside another load of stuff and also some emptying out of Caliburn. And many of my “dormant” seeds have suddenly sprung to life. I’d given them up ages ago.

Tomorrow is shopping and I may well go to Commentry, followed by a swim. It’s a while since I took the plunge at the local baths. I wonder if there’s another swimming tournament. .

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Tuesday 11th May 2010 – Not that it will be of any surprise to anyone, but …

hanging cloud les guis virlet puy de dome france
… the good weather didn’t hold. The weather front that was slowly drifting across here last night seemed to have settled down for the day.

It was just like November here again. Patches of sunshine interspersed with torrential rain – another 12mm today – and not much point in doing anything outside. And it was like that even into the evening. As it was getting dark tonight at about 21:20 I looked out of the window to see another cloud rolling slowly up the mountain as you can see.

So it goes without saying – the torrential downpour that I heard when I woke up this morning prompted me to stick my head back under the covers and that was that until … errrrr … later. And after breakfast and a couple of hours on the computer I was a long way from doing anything. Lieneke came round for a chat and she stayed for ages. Not that I am complaining of course – it’s good to see her. We had a long chat and we looked at a couple of websites where she is featured. She also told me that my suspicions are true – Claude and Francoise have … errrr … left the area.

After Lieneke left I had lunch (well, more like an early tea) and then while I was trying to carry on working in the bedroom I had a whole series of phone calls, including a couple from Tracy which was very nice.

So I took the hint and knocked off at 19:00. No point in working if people won’t let you. I’ll try to have a better day tomorrow. But I know that the weather won’t be helping me.

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Thursday 6th May 2010 – I boarded up the fireplace today.

boarding up bedroom fireplace les guis virlet puy de dome franceI knew the offcuts from the tongue-and-grooving would come in handy sooner or later.

There’s a heavy-duty plastic sack at the back of this, and then a framework around the inside of the fireplace. Then the offcuts of tongue-and-grooving were cut to size and shaped to fill in the hole and finally I bunged up everywhere with filler.

Next step will be to screw some insulated plasterboard to the boarding and seal that all round and it should be a nice draught-proof seal.

This morning I woke up at 08:20 to the sound of the rain driving down on the roof. “Badger that for a game of soldiers” – and stayed in bed til 10:00. And after doing some work on my website I dodged the rain to plant out some more peas and beans and then to catch up with sowing some more succession seeds. I’ve a full greenhouse now and it looks impressive but nothing seems to be germinating. This year might be something of a washout in the garden in more ways than one.

But it stopped raining at about 15:00. Some blue bits appeared in the sky and by late evening there was even a sighting of that golden object that hangs around up there some time. But it’s still cold though and I had the fire on again up here tonight.

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Tuesday 6th April 2010 – I think …

… that Spring might actually have made it.

Yes, a glorious hot day, but of course we have had these before. What actually did the business though was that the temperature in the heat exchanger got up to over 50 degrees – the first time since as long ago as 8th September, would you believe – and in the 15 litres of water underneath the caravan window we had 32 degrees – easily and by far away the highest temperature since I installed a permanent thermometer a few weeks ago.

Yes, Spring might be here but this morning wasn’t. That’ll teach me to mess around with this 3D animation program until it’s starting to get light outside. The boulangere woke me up – at 11:30!

raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut as I said it was a beautiful day, and I took full advantage by planting the lettuce that I bought on Saturday. They’ve gone into a bit of a raised bed that isn’t covered off by a sheet of corrugated iron.

They don’t half look insipid when they are transplanted though and a really good watering didn’t seem to improve matters. They’ll probably need a day or two or three to revigorate.

And after lunch I started to dig out where I’ll be putting the megacloche. And that was none-too-easy as the whole area is honeycombed with tree roots. Of course I forgot to buy a handle for my pickaxe and unfortunately I broke my really good spade, leaving me with just a cheap one. I’ll have to scout around for a new one and it’ll have to be good. Cheap ones don’t last long round here.

I was interrupted by this TV presenter woman who wanted a chat. It seems that she’s serious about talking to us. Our fame must be spreading!

And would you believe it – it’s started to rain now!

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Sunday 4th April 2010 – Easter.

Yes, it’s a Bank Holiday and that can only mean one thing – a day off.

So coffee in bed once more and a lie-in until 10:15. After that I read a book and did some work on the computer and that is the sum total of my day.

In fact I’ve been having a bit of fun on the computer. There’s a 3D animation program that’s been doing the rounds – pretty old technology and ages out of date, and it’s just been released on freeware with a few specimen characters. Anyway I downloaded it (it took almost all afternoon because it’s huge) and had a play.

Actually it’s something of a misleading offer because although it’s true that it’s all free, you get characters that are for all intents and purposes featureless and although you can animate them as they are, you have to buy the accessories like hair, eyes, clothes and the like. The program is tremendously complicated and there is also no instruction manual or help facility – what there is is an on-line forum where the contributors, in typical internet on-line forum manner, just hurl all kinds of abuse at each other. Total waste of time.

But after about 3 or 4 hours at it and with a shed-load of perseverence I managed to create my first animation – not very exciting but it’s a start. It’s the kind of thing you can have hours of endless fun doing if you have the time to spare. But it’s not something I’m going to be chucking any money at.

In other exciting news it seems that our radio programme has attracted the attention of French television who want to be put in touch with the presenters (Liz and Yours Truly). It’s something to do with a television programme about the Combrailles. It all sounds thoroughly exciting.

And in other other news, I see that the Zionists have allowed a delivery of clothes into Gaza – the first since 2007 in case you were wondering. For a race that complains about the inhuman treatment that they received 70 years ago they should know better about treating others with even more inhuman treatment. And the fact that they claim so bitterly about “terrorism” when the territory they occupy was captured through terrorism is so ironic as to be insulting and indecent.

I have no sympathy with them at all – if they treat the Palestinians (many of whom are Christians) like dogs, then they deserve to be bitten.

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Thursday 1st April 2010 – We’re cracking on in the garden!

gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see the seventh raised bed – it’s the one on the extreme right at centre-height in the photo. Having dug over everywhere yesterday I made the raised bed – out of Brico Depot Bargain Basement shuttering board, of which I have a considerable amount as it is very handy stuff to have

The older raised beds were made out of board and were 1.40m square, but this board comes in 3m length so I have done this one 1.40 x 1.60.

Once I organised that, I started on digging over where the 8th raised bed will be – behind bed no7. This took ages to dig over – in fact it’s only had its first digging – on the grounds that there are tree roots everywhere and they all need to be hauled out. Mind you I might have made much more progress had I left my bed this morning long before … errr … 10:40. I dunno what’s happening to me about this.

After breakfast I did a couple of hours up here and I’ve put two of the footy web pages on line – this one and this one. Only another 12 to do.

This evening I went round to Michael’s and we had a bit of a jamming session. Because he’s not been playing guitar long I had to teach him some music theory, which is quite difficult as I don’t know it myself. He’s off to the UK in a couple of days time but we resolved that when he came back we would try to get together maybe once a week and see what we shall see. In the meantime I’ll have a rummage through my record collection and look for some 12-bar blues stuff (some Flying Aces stuff or JJ Cale – that kind of thing) and make up a disk of stuff to have a play with.

And all day we had intermittent showers, hailstorms, heavy rain – you name it, we had it. And last night the temperature dropped below freezing.

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Sunday 27th September 2009 – SO WHERE DID I GO TODAY THEN?

In fact, events resolved themselves, as they usually do if you let them.

Today being Sunday, I didn’t set any alarm and slowly came to in a kind of leisurely fashion putting this weeks’s plans into some kind of shape.

After a while and having the urge to go for a Gipsy’s, I crawled out of bed to notice the time – 12:24 pm. That put paid to any plans I might have had to go out anywhere. It’s been a couple of times that I’ve done this just recently. It gives you an idea of how hard I’ve been working during the week, even if it doesn’t look much like it.

A leisurely breakfast followed by some generally inactive kind of tidying up in the verandah and in my room and that was that, effectively. I haven’t done anything else.

In other news, the Confederation of British Industries, desperately in need of some brownie points and trying hard to ingratiate itself with Gordon Clown’s government, has leapt onto the bandwagon of demanding higher tuition fees and cutting back on student support.

It’s the Leitch Report all over again.

“At a time of economic crisis, when many hard-working families are struggling to support their offspring through university, I am astonished that the CBI should be making such offensive recommendations,” said NUS president, Wes Streeting – the NUS being for the most part a bunch of naive wet-behind-the-ears adolescents.

So, where’s the quote from the OUSA President?

OUSA is (so we are led to believe) a bunch of 200,000 or so distinguished grown-ups actively pursuing academic excellence in their own time at their own pace? Could it be that the BBC forgot all about the existence of OUSA? Or was it that the President had nothing to say on the subject? Or was it that whatever the OUSA President had to say wasn’t worth quoting?

Whichever way you look at it, it just shows how inconsequential OUSA has become under the “leadership” of the last few years. No concept of a sense of history, no sense of grasping the important moment, no sense of pushing themselves and their ideas into the limelight.

When the ideas of the Leitch Report were first sprung onto the unsuspecting masses (I say “unsuspecting masses” because there were a couple of us who had seen the Leitch Report mentioned in a paper of February 2007 and tried our best, but in vain, to urge the remainder to take it seriously) do you know what the clowns did?

They organised a petition.

We did things like that in primary school. I worked for 12 years or so in a major multinational organisation, the largest of its kind in the world, and I can tell you what happens to petitions because we used to get thousands from all over Europe. What happened to the petitions was that the organisations’s budget for toilet paper was zero.

During the review of the Leitch Report, the British Government set up a committee to look into its effects on part-time Higher Education. The Open University is the largest supplier, by a country mile, of part-time Higher education in the UK, if not the world and has the most students of any educational establishment in the UK. So which University was asked to send a delegate to sit on the committee?

You’ve guessed it. Those well-known suppliers of part-time Higher Education, the … er … Staffordshire University, or North Staffs Poly as it used to be called when I studied Accountancy there in the 1970s.

At an Open University committee meeting, I asked if this appointment was a slap in the face for the Open University. I was told “no – you can’t expect the OU to sit on everything that involves part-time Higher Education”.
So I asked “why not? It’s larger than all the other suppliers combined” and “what other equivalent committees are there in existence currently that the OU sits on?”
And no-one was able to give me a reply.

But that’s where the OU and OUSA sit right now – treated with total contempt by Government and the major British press. And having met personally many representatives of those two organisations, I have to say that I am not in the least surprised.

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