Tag Archives: eric hall

Friday 8th July 2011 – Well I finished the wiring today

And that’s hardly surprising given the time that I had to do it, as when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and about. How about that for a change of habits?

And so by 12:00 I was fed and watered, done a couple of hours on the computer and been in discussion with an American company about some stock and a dealership, I was outside.

The wires that come from the wind turbine and anemometer, and those which go to the solar panels – they are all sheathed now properly (and I seem to have got the hang of doing that now? and go where they are supposed to – down to where the new battery box will be.

And that wasn’t without difficulty either. I managed to finish off the hole in the floor that I started yesterday but as luck would have it, it’s right over the beam. So another hour or so to drill a couple of new ones and saw out between them to give me enough room to feed the conduit through. The charge controller is in place and the wind turbine is wired up to it. Let’s see what that does.

This afternoon I was working on the length of wire to connect the solar panel array to the batteries in the barn – the part of the wiring that is outside. That’s all nicely sheathed now and going where it’s supposed to. And after that, I was fitting the junction box onto the solar panel mounting rails.

That’s as far as I got, seeing as it was by then 19:00 and so a solar shower and that’s me finished for the weekend. Monday will see me finish off the junction box and cut the lengths of pipe that will stand the lower solar panel mounting rail off the wall at the correct 70°C angle. And then maybe I can start to fit the solar panels.

I’m glad that the anemometer is all mounted and that the wiring is properly installed. All I need to do now is to find the data head and I will be in business. But finding anything in my little attic room is an impossible task. Neitzsche said “Out of chaos comes order” but he had clearly never ever set foot in my attic.

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Thursday 7th July 2011 – I was right …

… about this wiring not being easy. I still haven’t finished it.

After a morning on the computer and another hour or two proofing this website for Dave, I had another start on the wiring. I’ve put the wiring in place on the mounting for the solar panels – that was the first thing – and then connected those wires up with those for the wind turbine and those for the anemometer and tried to feed them through the roof.

After about half an hour, perched precariously on the top of the ladder, I managed to make some progress, and so it was from there to inside the barn with the ladder to pull it all inside.

Of course, it was miles short and it didn’t look at all right. Yes, it was hooked up on a stone that was stopping it moving. And so back with the ladder outside, pull the cables back and then start again. Was it three or four times I had the ladder in and out of the barn? I dunno, but it’s finally all inside.

An added complication is that the join in the cable for the wind turbine is now right where it can’t be accessed – so I ended up back outside with the ladder, pull the cables back outside, make the join, and then pull it back again.

So now the cable is all in place, I need to cut a hole in the barn floor and I made a start on that. But going downstairs to search for something I noticed that it was 19:30. Where did the time go?

Anyway, I knocked off and I’ll have another go at finishing it tomorrow. And once that’s done, I can turn my attention to mounting the solar panels. Yes, there are all kinds of strange things going on here.

In other news, it’s not for me to comment on the affairs of the News of the Screws. All I can say is that it’s about time that Rebekah Wade got hers, but it seems that Murdoch would rather sacrifice a newspaper and 200 staff rather than a favourite acolyte. If you can guess the reasons why, write your answers on a plain brown envelope and post it to me. There will be a prize for the most interesting response.

But what of course will the usual suspects do on a Sunday morning now that the News of the Screws has gone? Well this is the whole point of this posting. A friend of mine in the newspaper world tells me that all of a sudden the domain names “Sundaysun” and “Sunonsunday” are “no longer available to purchase”. No surprise there, then.

Wednesday 6th July 2011 – If you look carefully ….

… at the bottom of the wind turbine pole on the barn, you will notice a new addition. Yes, I have a new toy – a professional anemometer.

I’m in the process of major discussions about having a wind-turbine custom-made, and one of the questions I’ve been asked is to what are the wind speeds here. I’ve a little anemometer but that’s not up to all that much and so I reckoned it was about time I had the proper kit. I mean – I’m measuring everything else around here, but nevertheless, the cost of every other data recorder in total (excluding of course the charge controller data panels) doesn’t add up to the cost of this anemometer.

I hope I have my money’s worth.

And so this afternoon I made myself a handy bracket (and wasn’t that a good move, buying that L-profile aluminium strip) and mounted it up on the wind turbine pole. I’d ideally like it to be higher up there but there is a limit as to what I can do and where I can reach when I’m on my own around here.

Feeding the cable through the roof apex is not easy. I’m going to have a good look at that tomorrow, but that involves taking the ladder into the barn. And that won’t be easy either.

And so that was this afternoon, but this morning was rather awkward. because I had a nocturnal visitor. At 03:30 a bat flew into my attic through the tiny open window. It took me an hour to find it – moving everything around in my room (which now looks like a US drone missile has exploded in here) – and then another hour trying to coax it out of the room into the rest of the house where it can do what it likes.

But …. DISASTER. I trapped the thing in the doorframe and that, unfortunately, was that. I was terribly dismayed by that.

But even worse. I was asleep dreaming about a very good friend of mine – no longer with us. She always vowed that she would come back to this life as a bat and it didn’t occur to me until much later that this bat might have been her – coming back here for a look around. And now I’m in a thorough depression after all of that.

A friend rang me up a little later for some computer advice, and that depressed me too, for although it might well have been a normal time for someone normal, I’m a night owl anyway and in any case I was dealing with bats until dawn.

While I was working on the website, Dave (who follows the blog and comments on here every now and again) rang up – he wants the new additions to his website proof-reading.

In other news, I have today been appointed the Central France representative for a French company selling small-scale renewable energy equipment, and I’m in active discussions with an American company that wants a European agent for its d-i-y products in the Renewable Energy field.

Things might at last be moving here.

Tuesday 5th July 2011 – I managed to make …

… the time to do the guttering this afternoon. All of that netting stuff that I bought for €1:00 per roll seems to work fine – there’s still some left on the roll after doing this – it didn’t take much.

I was going to hold it on with cable ties but while I was looking for something else I came across (and how often does this happen?)a reel of that green plastic stuff that is used for fastening plants to canes. That did the job exactly how it ought to be done, and this should hopefully prevent all kinds of nonsense falling into the guttering, and keep the internal filter much cleaner.

But the proof of the pudding is the eating and what we need to test it is some rain, but there’s no hope of that for a while. It was another glorious day here. My solar shower reached 44.5°C so I had another scalding shower (at 19:00 it was still 42.5°C) and the water in the immersion heater went off the scale – that is, more that 70°C. In fact the washing up water was scalding as well – at 22:00 when I washed up the water in there was 64°C.

But there’s no doubt that my hot water – at least in summer – seems to be working fine. In the winter of course I’ll be having one of those stoves that heats, cooks, and boils water. But that’s a long time off just now.

This morning I emptied Caliburn of all of the stuff that was still inside (and that was about half a tonne) and took the solar panel off his roof. And then Marc and I went to Montlucon for the plasterboard for Marianne’s house. It’s a good job that Caliburn has a good roof rack as 9 sheets of 13mm plasterboard weighs a tonne – that’s the reason I use 10mm plasterboard – remember I’m on my own and I have to manoeuvre it around myself. 10mm is of course lighter.

But at Marianne’s she showed me today’s local newspaper. There’s one of my photos in all of its glory, suitably cropped of course. But I wish that one day they will put my name up in lights.

And in other news, another event that I have been foretelling has finally come to pass. A Dutch court has ruled in effect that the Dutch Army was responsible to a large degree for the massacre at Srebenica.

If you don’t know about this, Srebenica was advertised constantly as being a “safe haven” for Moslems during the Civil War in ex-Yugoslavia (although why a safe haven was declared and why the UN didn’t insist on all of ex-Yugoslavia being a safe haven and enforcing that is something that I never really could grasp), and it was guarded by part of the Dutch Army. And when the Serbs invaded the area en masse the Moslems flocked en masse to Srebenica and what they were promised was safety.

However, when the Serbs arrived, the Dutch commander drank a toast to them and then kicked all the Muslems – even those working for the Dutch Army – out and stood by watching as they were all slaughtered. The Dutch commander said that he was outnumbered and outgunned and didn’t want to needlessly risk the lives of his soldiers. But “needlessly” – when over 8,000 civilians were being slaughtered before their very eyes – that was always a shameful comment. The Dutch soldiers never even fired a single bullet to protect these civilians.

Everyone (well, everyone except Yours Truly) is said to be surprised by this verdict today. I’m surprised too – but surprised that it took all this time for the correct verdict to be given.

Monday 4th July 2011 – What’s happening?

Yes indeed. I forgot to check the stats on my website last night and so I did that this evening. And to my surprise, Sunday (which is usually a quiet day) I had three times the usual average number of visitors. And today so far, I’ve had 50% more than usual. Clearly something is up.

That was more than I was this morning. Another late start again and then a couple of hours on the computer as usual – I’m touring Halifax at night at the moment.

And when the battery went flat, I went to work on my magnum opus for the Anglo-French group – as it’s Independence Day over there, I made a quiz of 30 questions for the group, and that took longer than I anticipated – it didn’t leave me with much time in the garden but I managed to do some weeding, move some more of the fallen tree and plant some lettuce that I’d bought at the weekend.

Another beautiful day and so a nice solar shower at 40°:C and then off to this demonstration about the closure of one of the classes at Pionsat’s Elementary School. Only about 50 or so people turned up, which was a huge disappointment.

What was even more surprising was that the manager of “La Montagne” turned up – but without his camera. And so Yours Truly became an officially-accredited Press Photographer for the evening. No sense in having a trumpet and not blowing it, and if you have friends in the Press you should be taking advantage of the opportunities that they pass your way.

Another surprise at the Anglo-French Group was that Pete turned up – and we haven’t seen him for ages. That was nice. It seems that there are all kinds of changes going on in his life right now and he needs a little company..

Tomorrow I have to go to Montlucon – Marianne needs some stuff for her house and needs a van to transport it. And I suppose that I owe her a favour for the evening’s work that she found for me.

One good turn, etc etc.

-1

Sunday 3rd July 2011 – Remember yesterday …

… when I said that today I would be working on the guttering and the water filter system? Well in fact that was what I did this afternoon and you can see the results just here in the photo. We now have full-sized guttering and a full-sized downpipe with a decent-sized sump that is angled down to where the drain is.

The tube down to the settling pipe is 80mm like the rest of the guttering, and from there on, nothing else has changed.

I’ve been trying to fit a covering over the top but I can’t get it to fasten down. In the end I’ll be having to resort to cable ties I reckon. Now where did I put my cable ties then?

I also said that I would be doing some bread baking, but the less said about that the better. Apart from dropping some of my mix on the floor, I ended up with a couple of soggy lumps of I’m not quite sure what – and that after spending I don’t know how long looking for a third shelf for the oven. I reckon that the “best before” date of April 2010 might have something to do with this, and so I’ll have another go with some fresh stuff and see what happens. But I really need a decent flat tray for the oven.

Marianne the local journalist from the newspaper La Montagne rang me up this morning to invite me to Roche D’Agoux for her presentation at the tourism morning. She drove in her car and I went as passenger.

This was not really such a sound move as I get bored with this kind of thing after about half an hour. I’m not really much of a socialite as you all know and 2 hours and more is more than enough for me.

And so after a while I slipped away and went for a little walk around the village. Only a little walk of course because there isn’t too much of a village to see.It’s only a small place.

Centre of every village in France is the church, and generally speaking, they are well-worth seeing. The one here at Roche d’Agoux is no exception and is, for a change, in an exceptionally-good state of preservation for such a small village.

One thing for which Roche d’Agoux is famous (because it has several claims to fame which we shall discuss in early course) is that it has a public 10-pin bowling alley – a jeux de quilles in the open air.

It actually works too, so I was told later, and I would have loved to have had a go. But I think that you have to bring your own bowling balls. But anyway, it’s not what you would expect to find in a village like this.

Back at the tourism exhibition, I discovered that the organisers were the people who organise the vintage fete at St Maurice pres Pionsat where they have all of the old cars. I had a good chat with one of the organisers about the Minerva – so much so that I’ve been invited to exhibit it there on August 14th. I need to get a move on and get it running.

When the do was over, I told Marianne about my little wander around the village and the visit to the church. She told me that the church is quite famous – one of the several things for which Roche d’Agoux is famous – and that we should visit the inside of it.

She went off on a voyage somewhere and came back brandishing the keys to the front door. She knew who held them and had gone off for a little negotiation on my behalf

In the immediate vicinity of Roche d’Agoux in the Middle Ages was a very large leper colony and they were isolated from the general community, as you might have expected in those days.

However, the lepers were obliged to attend Mass just the same as everyone else and so special provisions were made for them in the church. They had their own alcove away from the mainstream congregation and could witness the mass through a special leper window

Another claim to fame for Roche d’Agoux is that the village is built on an bed of quartz that runs for maybe 20 kilometres across the north-western Combrailles.

The village takes its name from one of the most important outcrops of this bed, It is full of quartz and semi-precious stones and has been exploited for its precious stones in the past as well as having been quarried for building material.

Now, it’s a viewpoint for the village and the surrounding area. There are steps around the side and you can climb up to the top for a look.

It’s often been said that the rock that we have just seen is part of a Medieval castle that was situated here in the village but that’s not correct. This was something that was written in a guide book in the 1880s and has simply been copied out liberally without anyone having actually come here to visit the site.

There was indeed a medieval castle chateau fort here in Roche d’Agoux, but that was over there on that eminence – the small hill over there about a quarter of a mile away from the rock.

Unfortunately we cannot go to visit it as it’s on private property and the owner doesn’t encourage tourists which is a shame. But apparently there are quite a few remains that can be seen, according to someone who went there many years ago.

There are some ruins visible here and it doesn’t take much imagination for them to be pictured as remains of the castle or even remains of a wall around the village, but that is pure speculation.

But anyway, all of this area was the fiefdom of Guillaume de Rochedagoux in the mid-13th Century. He was famous for having gone on one of the Crusades to the Holy Land. He passed through the land of the Armenians (you have to remember that back in those days the territory of Armenia was much bigger than it is in modern times), noticed the skilled weavers there, and brought some of them back.

This accounts for the history that this region had as a flax-weaving area in the past, and accounts for names of places in the area (for example the Moulin des Armenièns) and the surname Desarmenièn that you encounter around here.

Anyway the hospitality had been freely flowing at the fete de tourisme, so much so that I had to drive back.

And I still had time, after playing for a while with the rainfall harvesting equipment to go off to Arpheuilles St Priest and the brocante that they were having today.

There weren’t many stalls there – despite the glorious weather – by the time that I arrived and I wasn’t able to go mad. but “spend, spend, spend” it was indeed and I was out by as much as €4:00 by the time that I left.

But the brocante was not my only reason for going to Arpheuilles St Priest. We’ve talked … "at great length" – ed … about the tacot or ligne economique, the narrow-gauge line that meandered through this area of the Allier between Marcillat en Combraille.

It actually passed through (and that’s a rare thing – that the tacot actually passed through anywhere) Arpheuilles St Priest and so I reckoned that I would go and see if I can find any trace of the line.

And having waded through a couple of hedges and a pile of weeds (and someone’s nicely-mown lawn) this is, what I reckon might have been the track-bed of the line. It’s very much like the width that an abandoned railway line might be and it’s heading in the general direction of Commentry

And now that I know what a tacot railway station looks like, having identified the one at Marcillat en Combraille the other day, I could go off and look for a building that corresponds.

And here we are – following my track-bed backwards across the road I ended up peering through the trees at this building, and this is what my money is on. This looks like a tacot railway station to me if ever I saw one.

So wasn’t this a busy day then? It kept me well out of mischief and I learnt a lot too.

And so have you now.

-1

Saturday 2nd July 2011 – AND SO, AFTER …

… my day off yesterday and my new plans for the rainwater harvesting I went to Commentry today and bought everything that I need.

Cost me an arm and a leg again but I ought to be getting used to this by now.

And on the way home I thought of yet another potential improvement. But I’ll worry about that later.

And while I was in Commentry I spent a small fortune too – a lot of which went on toys.

Well, you might remember that I bought an eccentric sander for my workshop a few weeks ago. And today, LIDL was selling off its stock of sanding discs – 30 in a box and all for €1:00 a pack.

At that price I had to clean out the store as I’ll get through a pile of them when I’m body-filling. There were a few other toys as well and it all adds up.

One thing I did do was to buy some ready-mixed bread mix. My baker is on holiday and so when I cook my pizza on Sundays I can experiment with making bread. This ready-mixed stuff should make it easier.

And what I didn’t do is spend any money in Centrakor or Les Bonnes Affaires – and that must be an event worth recording too – it’s probably never happened before.

The swimming baths at Neris les Bains were crowded but it was all good fun. So hot was it that the sides of the baths were opened to the air. And I had to wait ages for my private shower – there was a queue.

A report on the other new toys – the SatNav and the new electric coolbox from Tuesday.

The satnav doesn’t display the speed at which I’m travelling and doesn’t have an audible speed alarm.
That’s a major issue. It’s not half as good as the LIDL one, wherever that might have gone to. But apart from that it does everything else that it’s supposed to.

And strange as it might seem, when I switched it to American English I was reunited with my old friend the Lady Who Lives in the Magellan SatNav that I bought in Canada. Yes, it is she. It’s just like old times now in Caliburn, with me, she and Strawberry Moose.

I’m half-expecting Casey – the Chrysler PT Cruiser from Canada – to turn up next.
The coolbox is impressive.
An ice-cream left in there for over an hour was still unfrozen – and that was inside the cab of Caliburn with the outside temperature of over 30 degrees.

The frozen stuff had defrosted after 5 hours but was still pretty cold, and so I suppose that this is doing what it is supposed to.

I’ll wire that permanently into Caliburn now and they can live happily ever after.

Tomorrow morning I’m helping Marianne at Roche d’Agoux, there’s the brocante at Arpheuilles-Saint-Priest, – first of the year, and then there’s the new water system to fix.

Good job I had the day off on Friday.

-2

Friday 1st July 2011 – I’VE HAD A …

… day off today!

And that’s not like me is it? On a Friday!

But I have,’t really had a day off. I’ve just been doing something different.

A couple of things, actually.

Firstly, since I moved on from Paint Shop Pro for my image resizing, I’ve been having issues with my thumbnails. Even at 93×140 , about 1/40th the size of the full-size images, they have been finishing up at about 60kb – about half the size of the full-size images.

I’ve tried everything that I can but I couldn’t resize them pro-rata and in the end I gave up. But messing around on PSP doing something quite different, I suddenly hit on how to do it – and once I’d worked it out I was off.

There were over 5000 images to edit but I could do it in batches, but that was still 24 batches – one for each month – and it took forever. Mind you it was worth it, the space I’ve saved on my hard drive and on my web hosting.

Second reason was that I’ve had another idea about refining my water collection. Is this the 6th or the 7th idea that I’ve had?

What has prompted this is the fact that the herb pots at the front of the verandah are waterlogged – seems like the water is overflowing the guttering again.

The trap isn’t collecting the dirt like it’s supposed to, due to where I’ve had to site it. Consequently the dirt is flowing down the tube and blocking the filter.

I’ve had an idea about fitting larger, full-size guttering, having a T-downspout with the drop arm as the sump, and the cross piece as the water pipe. Connecting up the 80mm pipe to that and feeding straight into the settling chamber.

Sounds rather complicated, but I’ll buy the bits tomorrow and you can see what I mean when I assemble it.

Thursday 30th June 2011 – This morning …

… I was awake with the alarm clock, just by way of a change, and spent the morning on the computer. I’ve finally reached Halifax, and that has to be anyone’s greatest wish for Halifax is the most beautiful city in North America without any doubt at all. and I had to sort Terry out too – he wanted to know my little secret route around Paris without paying a toll or getting stuck in traffic.

This afternoon I cleaned the trailer and photographed it a few times from various angles. It’ll be going on sale tomorrow to see what good it can do me – I need the money of course. And while I was looking in the barn for something I found the two hinges that I bought for the beichstuhl and then couldn’t find while I was making it. Anyway, they are on now

I’ve also removed some more of the tree that collapsed onto my vegetable beds. What a mess that has made, but I’m not going to be short of wood for quite a while with this lot.

In other news, I see that part of the UK’s nuclear energy creation programme has been brought to a standstill. Terrorists? Protesters? No – not at all. Would you believe Jellyfish?

You really can’t make up a story like that. Whatever is going to happen next to the nuclear industry? It’s a joke.

-2

Wednesday June 29th 2011 – I didn’t post this blog entry yesterday …

.. and for three reasons too

I crashed out early. Well asleep before midnight and that hasn’t happened too often
I didn’t think that much had happened
I lost the internet connection for a while and I couldn’t be bothered to wait until it reconnected itself.

And so I had to post it this morning.

Well, saying that nothing happened is not quite correct. It was something of a late start again – I was woken uo by someone from my ISP. Apparently my internet speed has been increased, which I can see, and to celebrate my 3 years of subscription, would I like an internet dongle for €1:50 per month extra, giving me 6 hours worth of surfing per month away from home where there is a mobile phone signal?

6 hours is nothing – hardly worth bothering with you might think, but it’s a start of a thin end of a wedge and it isn’t where we start, it’s where we finish that’s important. I’m going for this and I’ll see in due course if it can be increased to something reasonable – like “unlimited”. because this is the future of the internet. Forget your land lines and wifi hotspots. Internet via satellite on mobile phone wavelengths, that’s the way to go.

After that I had a lengthy chat with Rhys on the computer and then another phone call – from the President of Pionsat Patrimoine. Apparently in le Quartier there’s an old Roman well excavated by the Romans and used to supply water to Neris les Bains via an aquaduct, much of which is still visible. He wants to know if I could go sometime and photograph it. And as usual with him, a 5-minute chat turns into a recital of War and Peace, and that was the end of the afternoon.

I wasn’t feeling up to making tea and so I had a quiet relax and then an early night.

Tuesday 28th June 2011 – And just for a change …

I was up before the alarm clock at 08:30 – dunno what happened there. But it meant that I was in plenty of time to go down to the bank and pay for the bits for my broken anemometer before going to Marcillat en Combraille to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse.

The guy from the Danish company that sells the bits sent me a nice e-mail with all of the information that I needed to know – the IBAN account, the SWIFT number and all of that and so I duly printed it out and took it to the bank. The bank official took one look at it and said “what’s the company called?”. It seems that the information wasn’t as complete as I had thought.

And so after Radio Tartasse it was down across the Puy-de-Dome to Gerzat to record for Radio Arverne – but the major issue here was that the garage at St Gervais d’Auvergne had sold out of diesel. An enforced trip to Les Ancizes solved that issue but that took a good 20 minutes out of our itinerary leaving us with just enough time to grab a butty and a coffee at Chatel-Guyon.

While we were in the Radio offices we could see the storm break over the Combrailles and impressive was not the word. Magnificent is much better and it did really make us wonder what it was that we might be coming home to.

The Carrefour at Riom came up trupms again – not only did I do my shopping but they were selling off electric 12-volt coolboxes at €24:00 – not very big but big enough to fit in Caliburn’s footwell for when I’m on my travels and it’ll hold a good few items and (hopefully) keep them cool. But not only that it was having a sale of SatNavs and I now have a little Western European Mio Moov M305 – for all of €59:00, to replace the other one that mysteriously disappeared. It has speed camera warning installed but not only that, I can sign for a 3-year update of the speed cameras for €49:95 and maps of North America are available for €49:95 as well – meaning that I can sell the Magellan that I bought in Canada last year and get some of my money back.

On the way back home the devastation caused by the storm was impressive to say the least. We stopped between Manzat and Chateuneuf to take a pic of what looked like snow but it was in fact hailstones.

I measured them and they were about 20mm in diameter – and that was quite impressive too.

Back here, the temperature reached the high 30s but the storm had brought with it a total of 24mm of rain – and it’s still raining. It’s a mess here but then again the plants won’t be complaining. They will be loving it all.

But talking of coolboxes, I’ve been thinking again – which I know is dangerous. I’m using almost no electricity from the solar panels on the barn, except for the washing machine once a fortnight. And it’s a shame to waste it all. In addition, in a couple of weeks or so I’ll be moving them to their final position and adding the 4th panel that has been conspicuous by its absence.

It’s a shame to waste all of this electricity and so I have a cunning plan. From mystats I notice that in the year to 2009, which was the last complete year that I was relying on the panels over there, I generated 9000 amp-hours of electricity over there with 3 panels. So with 4 panels that should give me about 12,000 amp-hours in total. That’s in the region of 150 KwH. Now in that year about 40% of the days saw the batteries fully-charged, which meant that there was a good deal of electricity wasted. Add to this that with the solar panels in a much better position I ought to be getting much more electricity than I did back in 2009. Half as much again is not too much to hope for – I had 22,000 amp hours from each of the banks on the roof on the house – about 285 KwH.

Anyway, to cut a long story short “Hooray” – ed, I’ve been seeing some fridge-freezers – proper mains ones – that have a start-up motor of about 75 watts and (so they reckon) use about 135KwH on a normal daily basis – and so I’m wondering whether or not to splash out a bit of cash into a decent sine-wave inverter and small fridge-freezer, run it off the power in the barn and leave it in there.

That will be something to think about. But of course the most important thing to think about is where I’ll put it. You can’t even get a cat into the barn at the moment let alone swing it around.

-5

Monday 27th June 2011 – And if you thought …

that yesterday’s temperature was good, then it had nothing on today’s weather.

The temperature in the heat exchanger went off the scale – that means more than 70°C – and the ambient temperature reached 39°C or so. But where that gauge is though – that’s in the shade underneath the water tank. In the full sum the temperature reached an astonishing 42.1°C and I’ve never ever recorded anything approaching that before.

The really astonishing bit though is the solar water. That reached 47.5°C and I scalded myself when I had a shower this afternoon. I’ve never had a temperature like that either and I celebrated by having a solar shave – such is the high life that I live.

And so this morning I was burnt out of bed by the sun (well it was rather late, I suppose) and after breakfast I set about the radio programmes for the next month. But it was impossible to work up here and in the end I had to put a chair in the bedroom that I’m working on – it’s cooler there. But by 15:00, and a long way from being finished, I was burnt out of there too. By that time, the temperature up here had reached 34.1°C and I don’t recall ever having a temperature like that up here either.

With the water heating up in the electric water heater (I increased the insulation yesterday) I did the rest of the washing and now that’s up-to-date and I even have clean bedding for tonight. Whatever next?

Round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the programmes and they very kindly fed and watered me for which I am grateful – and so back here where, with the sun having gone down (but still 27°C outside and 42°C in the solar water) I watered all of the plants – and they needed it too. I used about 100 litres of water – everywhere is parched after the last few days.

In other news, this is an interesting article. It seems that a woman has been taunting a disabled policeman.

Now whatever you might think about the person and the offence served the Judges are thinking of sentencing her to “time served”. That means that she has been refused bail when she was originally remanded. How come you can’t get bail for an offence like this when only a week ago someone accused of murder was remanded on bail? And the murder victim – involved in a robbery with violence – was on bail for a similar offence? never mind Deep Purple and their “one law for the rich and one for the poor” – it seems that there’s one law for the civilians and another law for the police in the UK – as many people will no doubt tell you.

And being sentenced to “time served” – i.e. a minimum of 12 weeks – for this kind of thing when robbers and muggers and al those kinds of people are give suspended sentences or fined or conditional discharges – the UK is totally off its head, as I keep on saying.

Whether or not you agree with what the defendant said, that’s not the point. The whole point is that in a free country the existence of free speech is championed. But when you start to criticise the forces of law and order you get a prison sentence. The UK is just like Zimbabwe or China these days. Libya was bombed for less.

-5

Sunday 26th June 2011 – Just so as to show …

… everyone what today was like here, I’ve posted a pic of the temperatures that we had today.

The maximum temperature outside was 33 °C today and at 17:36 this evening it was still over 31°C. In the heat exchanger the temperature reached an impressive 63.7°C and the water in the solar water heater, the black plastic storage container with an old caravan window over the top was 42°C.

That was the cue for a beautifully warm solar shower and I didn’t miss out. It really was nice.

And so this morning Marianne forgot to ring me about this meeting at La Cellette but I was wide awake having had a severe attack of cramp in bed and so I made it in time. And with about 10 officials, one representative of the press and one photographer, they had a grand total of 0 visitors for the two hours that this meeting was on. Ahhh well ….

Marianne invited me to lunch which was nice of her and we had quite a chat afterwards, and back here seeing as it was such a nice day and with wind too, I did a huge pile of washing – something that I haven’t done for a while.

We followed that with the solar shower and that was really it. It’s Sunday, my day of rest, and so I’m not going to be working too hard today.

-7

Saturday 25th June 2011 – It’s been all go here today

Yes, I crawled out of the heaving pit rather late this morning, at about 10:30 to be precise, and it was off to Karl and Lou’s for their chantier. The girls spent the day painting the front of the house while Jean, Francois and I were building a woodshed at the back of the house.

There was the obligatory pause for lunch of course and I took advantage of the moment to take a photograph of all the attendees

I couldn’t stick around for long though because at 14:30 I had to piddle off to Marcillat en Combraille for this meeting. And now I know why they wanted me – apparently they didn’t have a translator and so Yours Truly was stuck with the task.

But it was well-worth going for I met a Dutch guy there who sells and hires out trailers. I’d talked to him a while back about car transporter trailers but he doesn’t do them, and so I made it clear that I had one that I might hire out if he says the magic words.
“Stop messing about Eric. You’ll be well-paid”
“Ahhh. So you know the magic words then!”

One thing led to another and it turns out that he plays music in a folk group of sorts. I mentioned my previous existence when I played bass guitar in a rock group and he’s going to pass my details on to a friend of his who plays in a folk rock group.

Later this evening we were all round at Virlet where we were going to have our annual evening walk, exploring the highways and, more importantly, the byways of the commune. Just for a change the weather was good this year and the walk was enjoyable even though it was done at the pace of a route march.

This here is the old road into the village, long-since replaced by a more modern route and that down there on the right in the photo is an old well for the village

Afterwards we had the traditional village bonfire – the feu de joie at the back of the church. There was a picnic too – the village had done us proud in this respect – and there was dancing to music provided by …. our friend with the trailer.

With the backdrop of the firework display at Montaigut en Combraille, it really was a most enjoyable evening and Jean, Elizabeth, Clotilde and Rosemary all certainly enjoyed it.

What with one thing and another it really was a good, enjoyable day and I’m off to bed quite happy for a change.

-4

Friday 24th June 2011 – Dunno what’s the matter …

… with me just recently.

I can’t seem to get to sleep at all these days. It’s almost 05:00 and I’m still wide-awake, and it was 05:00 last night when I retired. But this morning I was up at 10:30 and it was just as well because at 11:00 Terry rang me up. He’d had a few issues with the digger and needed a hand.

And so off I toddled and Terry and I spent most of the day sorting it out. It’s quite a learning curve, this machine, that’s for sure.

Afterwards I went off to the opening of this art exhibition in Marcillat en Combraille where I met Marianne Contet again. Danielle from the Anglo-French group was also there and so were plenty of other people whom I knew.

There were dozens of other people too milling around at this exhibition – it seemed to be quite a popular event, especially as there were drinks and a buffet laid on.

There’s a donjon – a medieval tower – in the centre of Marcillat en Combraille and it’s recently undergone a refurbishment programme.

I managed to blag my way in and went up to the top to have a good look around. There are some beautiful views from the top, including this one of the centre of the town. And there’s a good view of Caliburn too, parked over the road in front of the florist’s.

So I went back down to the exhibition and joined in once more with the socialising, but it’s really not my scene at all.

However, it’s just as well that I did because while I was down there, someone asked me “are you OK for tomorrow still?”. It seems that there is a meeting of English-speaking people in the Marcillat en Combraille area and I’m supposed to be speaking at it, but I had completely forgotten all about it.

So that’s another thing to fit into my schedule that it already bursting at the seams.

As well as that, it seems that the commune here (Virlet) has a vacant date in its social calendar and could I give a talk on the Trans-Labrador Highway? The date concerned is February 24th which, as astute readers will know, is my birthday and so how can I turn it down?

Back here I’ve been working on the computer again but now at 05:00 I’m going to be doing my best to sleep. I have a hectic day tomorrow.

-4

EPIC HALL

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