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Tuesday 5th October 2010 – SOUTHERN SHORE OF LAKE ERIE

This is my motel from last night.

It was rather out of my budget but

it was here
it was open
it had a room
it was nice and comfortable
it had a good situation right on the waterfront

and you can’t say fairer than that.

And remember years ago when we saw that lorry driving up the railway line and I thought that it was an optical illusion?

So here’s another one and you can see by the fittings underneath it that it’s not an optical illusuon and these lorries do actually exist. I had a chat to the workers – apparently they are rail welders and check the rails for cracks, which they weld up if they can, or signal for replacement if they can’t.

Lake Erie has a reputation of being the filthiest lake in the world, with all kind of industrial discharges into the water.

But that’s not all that is discharged into the lake, judging by this sign. And to think that there’s a beach resort just a couple of miles up the road. Not that the USA would care too much about that, I suppose.

This is the Vermillion Inland Waterways Museum, or some such name. It goes without saying that it was closed when Casey, Strawberry Moose and I visited. But then again, I wasn’t expecting anything else.

And Vermillion is the birthplace of Lester Allen Pelton who invested the “Pelton Wheel” type of water turbine. I had a quick look around but couldn’t see anything in the town to commemorate him.

The Vermillion Museum is situated in Ferry Road, which tells you such a lot about the history of the town, and it its fortune has always been based around the water.

Today, it’s famous for its marina and attracts thousands of water-borne tourists each year (who I bet haven’t read the notice in the harbour down the road at Sandusky). Nevertheless, it’s a nice pretty little place even in this kind of weather.

That’s Cleveland, Ohio, just down there. I was planning to park up and go for a little wander around but just after this photo I was engulfed in this most astonishing rainstorm the like of which I haven’t seen in ages.

That put paid to all of my plans – I wasn’t going to set foot out of the car in this kind of weather. I stayed put and carried on driving.

But one thing astonished me about Cleveland is that not only did it have buses, it had dedicated bus lanes too. Imagine that in the USA!

And that wasn’t all that surprised me about Cleveland either. Here on the corner of Lakeside Boulevard and East 315th Street is an Aldi. I had to go in for a look around.

And my conclusion? Well, the only resemblance that it bears to the European version of the shop is the sign on the shop front. For a start, the Bargain Section is total rubbish, something that would never be the case in a European Aldi, and no-one from Europe would ever recognise any of the products on sale here. The “German” potato salad bore no resemblance to any potato salad that any German Aldi has ever sold.

Oooohhhhh! Now take a look at this.

I’ve been musing to myself as I’ve been driving through Ohio that I haven’t seen any old cars around and that’s been something of a surprise. But here on the way out of Cleveland near Madison, I’ve encountered an old Rover SD1.

You don’t see any of these in the UK these days – they’ve all been broken for the V8 engines that people have fitted into Land Rovers, so no-one was more surprised than me to see this one looking comparatively fit and healthy in the USA. However did it manage to come here?

This is Ashtabula – one of the very few working harbours remaining on Lake Erie these days. All kinds of stuff – coal, gravel are shipped from here and it has the reputation of being one of the most polluted places on the lake – and that’s saying something!

Bob Dylan sang about it, Jack Kerouac wrote about it, it’s also been the site of one of the USA’s worst railway disasters, and the rail ferry that sailed from here across the lake to Canada sank just off-shore following a collision. It was 52 years old at the time.

From here, I cross into Pennsylvania having missed out on the fate that befell Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer (and, incidentally, Joseph Lewis, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Alan Canfora, Dean Kahler, Douglas Wrentmore, James Russell, Robert Stamps and Donald MacKenzie, the suffering of whom is largely ignored by the media).

In fact, you can tell that we are elsewhere other than Ohio by the amount of rubbish and old cars lying around. And I don’t mean that pejoratively either, because I’d been making little notes to myself all along today’s journey about how unusually (and unacceptably) tidy everywhere in Ohio is – it’s no place for me.

I’m running on fumes looking for a petrol station (which I eventually find, manned … "personned" – ed … by someone from Swindon, Wiltshire) and looking for a motel, as the night is upon me. Eventually, the town of Erie comes up with something and so I settle myself in.

It’s heaving down with rain and I’m not going out.

Monday 4th October 2010 – ENTER THE DRAG … UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Monday today. everyone is back at work or back at University, and so it’s time for me to be moving on. I rescued Strawberry and prepared to enter the drag … errr … the Untied States.

And another 3-hour grilling too – it really annoyed me. It reminded me exactly of when I used to go to the Soviet Union – exactly the same grilling and exactly the same reason – “the interests of National Security”.

The USA spent 50 years trying to destroy Communism and then went to install exactly the same system of controlr there. I’m waiting for some high-powered American politician to admit that maybe the Soviets had a point. But I’m going to have to wait a long time. When was the last time that you met a frank and honest politician?

Firststop for any transport fan has to be the Michigan Central Railway Station in Detroit.

Built in 1913-14 a long way away from the city centre as a deliberate attempt to pull the development of the city down to that end, at its peak it handled over 200,000 people per day, by far the greater majority of whom came by the tram network.

But the Depression dealt the expansion of the city and also the tram network a fatal blow and passenger use melted away. On 6th January 1988 the last Amtrak train pulled out of the station and that was that.

When I arrived here, there was a copper standing outside talking to some people and so I asked him if it was ok to photograph it. After all, you never know. This is the paranoid nation called the United States of America.

I asked him what they were planning to do with the station, and he replied
nothing
So now we know.

But the Depression hasn’t yet finished with Detroit.

Frankly, with all of the industry collapsing or moving away, the city is dying. And it looks like it too. Everywhere that you go, buildings that aren’t demolished lie abandoned and looted and the place looks something like Fallujah after an American offensive (and nowhere have the Americans been more offensive than in Fallujah).

This is the view across Roosevelt Park from the station. And it was this photograph, as well as several others, exhibited elsewhere, that let to the epithet “ruins photography” being hurled at my work. Still, I’m not here to please everyone – I’m only intending to please myself.

But some of the citizens in Detroit have managed to maintain their sense of humour despite everything that the world has thrown at them.

Here’s a walking advert for an auto insurance company, and he was pleased to make the acquaintance of a fellow-traveller. The scene certainly brought a smile to the faces of many people going past and makes a change from ruins photography, doesn’t it?

I wasn’t long in Michigan. Just a little further down the road is the Ohio State Line and I stop to take a souvenir photoin order to celebrate our crossing.

This is now much more like rural USA, where I am hoping to be. I find urban areas so depressing, even affluent ones. But I’m not too sure about the 45mph speed limit. I hope that that is only a local arrangement.

All around the southern shore of Lake Erie I’ve seen loads of signs “say no to wind turbines” – all identical and all supplied by an organisation financed by the coal owners of the USA.

But I haven’t seen a single sign against the nuclear reactor just here at Oak Harbor.

And that’s so surprising too seeing as in 2002 a large corrosion hole was discovered in the reactor head. The plant was closed down for two years “for maintenance” and the owners were fined a total of $33 million.

I think that that would worry me much more than a couple of windfarms. I just don’t understand the mentality of Americans who are so “suckered in” by corporate business-speak.

This is the County Court House in Port Clinton, a beautiful little lakeside town on the shore of Lake Erie (or it would be beautiful if there weren’t a suspect nuclear reactor just down the road)

What impressed me about the Court House is that it’s been extended (the USA being what it is, it’s hardly surprising) and although you can see the join, they’ve built it in stone, and matching stone at that.

They’ve clearly done their best, which is more than you can say for the UK. had this been on the other side of the Atlantic, a classic building such as this would have been totally disfigured by a glass-and-concrete monstrosity.

But while I was taking this photo a lorry clattered over the railway line behind me. I couldn’t believe it at first – thought that I was seeing things. I’ll have to look into that.

This is Marblehead lighthouse, with a beautiful view of the amusement park at Cedar Point which I have managed to avoid.

It also has a beautiful view of the city of Sandusky, which I have also managed to avoid, and they say that from the top of the lighthouse on a good day, you can see the tall buildings of the city of Cleveland 75 miles away, although why they think that that might be a selling point for tourists I really have no idea.

My road in the gathering gloom brings me into the town of Marblehead and its famous quarry, and overhead conveyor that takes the crushed limestone all the way down to the harbour, where it’s loaded into lakers and shipped off to wherever.

There’s only one motel around here and it’s quite pricey, but it’s too late to go to look for anywhere else that might be more suitable to my budget.

Mind you, it’s well-appointed and comfortable, and good value for money if I could afford it, and the view out of my front door is probably worth a couple of extra quid anyway.

In order to bring my buget a little under control, I had bean burritos for tea. It’s a long time since I had them – New Bern, North Carolina, in 2005 as it happens. And they were just as nice and tasty as I remember them too and filling.

I ordered two and with some chips and a salad from Arby’s and a huge mug of raspberry iced tea it was delicious. And it filled me up.

-2

Saturday 2nd October 2010 – THE WEATHER CHANGED …

As you can tell from the photo here. You can also tell that I’ve found my spiritual home part II – a Home Depot. It didn’t take me long, did it?

You can see Casey over there on the left, reversed into a parking space. And here I had an unusual encounter – someone actually came over to me and asked me why I had reversed in. I replied “because I can – I’m a European”. But the real answer, as everyone knows, is so that I can make a quick getaway if I spot any of my creditors approaching.

I’ve stocked up with a pile of electrical fittings – you ought to know by now that I use North American fittings (the plugs and sockets) for my 12-volt DC domestic circuit – and a few other bits and pieces that will come in handy back home in France.

I’ve also bought a SatNav. If I’m going to be here for a lengthy period wandering around in all kinds of obscure places, I’m going to be struggling for accommodation. I’ll have a few addresses gleaned from tourist information places, but I’ll need to know how to find them. I don’t want to be driving half-way around Labrador in a snowstorm late at night. And I’d have a mobile phone too if I could – but that’s far too complicated to arrange just like that.

I’ve also had a strange but interesting encounter in a Zellers shop. Grandma, Mother and daughter aged about 18, if that, dressed in headscarves and … errr … traditional dress. remembering my unfortunate encounter back in 2002 and how it set me back a little in 2005, I went to seize the initiative and interrogate them.

Apparently they are Mennonites, and believe that man is snbordinate to God, and Woman is subordinate to Man

So now I know.

Old cars a-plenty too, far too many to post here. But this one is exciting.

If you came with me when we drove through the Utah Desert in 2002, you’ll recognise this as a Nash Rambler American. But this one isn’t as good and has no running gear. But being an estate version, this is an extremely rare version.

I went off down to the waterfront this afternoon and found my steam locomotive. It’s an old Canadian National 4-6-2 “Pacific” called “Spirit of Windsor” and being “restored” by the Southern Ontario Locomotive Restoration Society.

But restoration here, as in the USA, consists of nothing more than slapping thick coats of gungy black paint all over the rust.

From the waterfront, there is, as you might expect, a really good view of the city of Detroit. That’s the USA across the river of course.

And I discovered all kinds of things along here too, including the remains of the old car ferry that used to cross here before the tunnel was built, although how it managed it I really don’t know given the volume of marine traffic along here.

And so back to my motel to pretty myself up ready for my meal with Katherine.

And you can see why I feel quite at home here too. It reminds me very much of Liverpool, or my garden anywhere that I have ever lived. There have always been a few cars parked up on bricks in my drive of course.

Katherine and I found an Indian restaurant where there was a running buffet – all you can eat for … errrr …$6.99 a head. And it was the best Indian meal that I have ever eaten outside Stoke on Trent. After that it was to Tim Horton’s for coffee along with dozens of other people – what a way to spend a Saturday night!

Monday 27th September 2010 – IN 24 HOURS TIME …

… if all goes according to plan, I’ll be in a hotel at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Browsing around this evening on the web and looking for some kind of accommodation, I noticed that the airport has a hotel booking service. So on a whim I typed in a request for the cheapest hotel possible within the airport limits.

And the price that came up was €106. So forget that!

But there was one of these Google advert things on the side of the page for some kind of wholesale hotel booking agency. And they offered me a price in the same hotel for … errrr ….€66. So with shuttle to and from the flight terminal included in the price I’m not going to mess around wandering around the city at weird hours of the night – I’ll get a good night’s sleep instead.

But the main reason for not wanting to hang around in Paris is the weather. Winter has come with a vengeance and it fell to 2.9°C last night. And it’s been grey and miserable all day too. I shan’t be sorry to see the back of this weather. Canada won’t be any warmer but at least the cold is different over there.

I was going to spend the day packing and tidying up but I’ve run aground again. It’s a tip up here at the moment with papers and all kinds of things lying around here. But that’s how it’s going to stay until I come back. I’ll just be glad when I’m on the train.

I’ve a lot to organise tomorrow morning, then I need to give Rob and Nicolette the instructions about checking up on the place, and then going round to Liz and Terry’s to park up Caliburn, and then recording 2 months’ worth of radio programmes. I’ll need a rest after all that.

But it’s been 5 years since I last went on a major adventure, and it’s 7 years since I went to Canada last. It’s about time I had a holiday!

-4

Wednesday 22nd September 2010 – This thing about Canada …

… might be happening, you know.

It seems that Connections, my travel agent in Brussels, might come up with the goods.

They have found me a flight for just €583 for a start, going via Philadelphia but then again you can’t have everything.

The difficulty is that it leaves at 10:40 in the morning on the Wednesday which means that I need to leave here on the 17:30 train at the latest Tuesday, but I can’t guarantee that we will have finished recording by then.

So I’ve asked them to see if there’s a similar deal for a plane on the Thursday, and if there is, then I’m taking it.

As for car hire, I told them about my difficulties. I told them the best quote I had found and the guy with whom I spoke reckons that they can beat it.

But the hire company they use only allow rentals for three-weekly periods. This means that there will need to be a changeover but that’s really out of the question as in the middle of my journey I’ll be nowhere near Toronto.

They are getting back to me tomorrow with the price and if it does beat the best that I have found then I’ll be going for that one too, as long as this changeover thing can be arranged.

But you’ve no idea how difficult it all is, I’ll tell you.

The banks have been organised too. I told the Royal Bank of Scotland that I’m going to Canada – I don’t want a repeat of 2002 when the first time I bought petrol in the USA it flagged up “unusual spending pattern” and blocked the card, leaving me to starve for two weeks.

I’ve paid a lump up front on both my credit cards and I’ll remember to keep them separate this time so as not to have a repeat of 2005.

What with a passport and a driving licence, the only thing that can now go wrong is that if I am arrested at the airport. Yes, 2002 was rather an eventful year for me.

I’ve also emptied all of the microcassette tapes and I’ll be taking the dictaphone with me if I remember it.

There are loads of other things that I need to remember but I’ve forgotten what they are right now.

-3

Tuesday 21st September 2010 – I’ve been really busy today ….

… and I couldn’t really afford to spend the time as I have so much to do.

This morning we had to go to this radio station in Marcillat en Combraille to discuss the arrangements for the programme they want us to do. And what we discussed was almost exactly the same and no different from the last time we were there. Mind you, the guy we talked to was as interested in the Ligne Economique as I am and he told me that he has ridden on it to Durdat Larequille. And seeing as the line closed in 1932 and he has ridden on it, then he probably has a good excuse for forgetting things.

He was minded by a woman who may well have been his wife, and while she was much more purposeful about things and helped to keep her husband on track, she had hearing issues. So as you might expect, this meeting was a bundle of laughs. But nevertheless we did fit in a good chat about solar panels, the Anglo-French group and Terry’s little business.

Then it was off to the Mairie to give them copies of the photos from Saturday.They are “internet” quality so if they want them at proper press quality (350dpi and all that) they can tell me which ones.

Then off to Marianne’s where I stayed for ages talking about Pionsat-Patrimoine, the Anglo-French group, the newspaper, the Foreign library and all that kind of thing. Things are moving around here, although you wouldn’t believe it.

The next people to have the pleasure of my company were the people at the bank. I warned them that I would be going to Canada shortly and so not to be surprised at my “extraordinary expenditure” and not to cancel my bank card – not like 2002. I suppose I ought to do that for a couple of other cards too.

I also bumped into Damien from the football club while I was in Pionsat.

Rob and Nicolette were out so I couldn’t give them their photographs (they were out later too) and so after lunch I wrote a few important letters (it’s great having a printer that works!) and carried on with my researches. And I might just be onto something. A company called Tiger Rentals might let me have a Toyota Yaris for just about $1500 CAN – about €1100. It’s said that this figure includes the collision damage waiver and all taxes, allows unlimited mileage and permits travel to the USA and the rest of Canada. Now this sounds too good to be true so I’ve sent them a mail for confirmation.

Watch this space.

Of course I need to pay for the accommodation on top but a Yaris does just about 50mpg whereas a motorhome will do just about 18 to the gallon if you are very lucky before you even think about the extra rental charges and whatever charges you might have to pay for camping.

-4

Monday 20th September 2010 – I’ve had a whale of a time today .

I’ve spent all afternoon trying to book a flight and a car hire. I’ve narrowed my options down to
1) a flight to either Toronto in Canada or Detroit in the USA
2) either the cheapest and smallest car possible, or else a small motorhome.

Now how difficult is that for any travel agent to come up with?

First port of call was Lastminute dot com. Their price for a flight as an unbelievable £1408. Now I can get a deal myself for €650 off the internet so that’s a non-starter.

But what was even more unbelievable was that they couldn’t offer me car hire. Apparently, that company is now owned by a car hire firm and they don’t do car hire in Canada in winter.
“Do you do it in the USA in winter?” I said, after recovering from the shock.
“Ohh yes” said the boy on the phone.
“So can you work out a deal for me from Detroit then?”
So he gave me some figures, which on the face of it were quite reasonable.
“And that’s unlimited mileage?”
“No – 1000 miles”
“Per week?”
“No, per Hire”.

Keen readers of my pages will know that I am capable of doing 1000 miles in a weekend in North America, never mind 6 weeks. Ahh well, that’s another speedo cable I’ll have to pull out, I suppose.
“And you can’t take it to Canada either”
“What?”
“Our hire company doesn’t allow its cars to go abroad”
Well’ as Burt Reynolds once said, “you’ve got to catch me first“. I’ve heard some stupid things in my time, I’ll tell you.

And you have to pay the first $7,000 of any damage too. If you want insurance against that so that you only pay the first €500, that’s an extra £20 per day”

Well, they can p155 off.and no mistake.

And any other internet company? They can do the vehicle hire. Or they can do the air fare. But can they do both? Ohhhhh no. It’s far too difficult.

The only answer is to go to the travel agent who organised me the last time I went to Canada and the last time I went to the USA. The only problem is that they are in Brussels and all their flights go out of Zaventem. So unless anyone reading this blog has any better ideas (and I hope someone does) then on Friday morning when I’m in Brussels I’ll be booking my flight and my car, attending to my business, coming back to here, recording our radio programme, sleeping overnight in Riom, caching the 05:40 train to Paris and then the 10:40 TGV back to Brussels, where I’ll get the airport shuttle.

But one good thing that will come out of it is that I’ll be so exhausted by all of this that once I’m on the aeroplane I’ll crash out all the way to North America. Which, seeing as I am something of a nervous traveller on aeroplanes, isn’t such a bad idea. But seriously, here I am trying to arrange for myself a less-stressful life and all of the events are conspiring against me.

-3

Tuesday 14th September 2010 – I haven’t done a tap today.

Well, that’s not strictly true – after breakfast I started on the website for this season’s adventures for Pionsat’s football club. Even though I might not be there as much as I have been in the past that is no reason for ignoring it and I already have match reports for four games.

When the battery went flat in the laptop I went outside to see what the postie had brought me. I was hoping it might be good news, after all it’s been a long time since I’ve had any. And – to my surprise if not total astonishment ……

…. Yes, I’m very quick with the criticism of French public service and beauraucracy (and not without reason in many circumstances) and so I ought to be just as quick with the praise. And so hats off to the lady in the Prefecture at Clermont Ferrand. Not only did my International Driving Licence arrive today, attached to it was a new bright and shiny French Drivers Licence with medical certificate for driving lorries and buses and also for cars and vans pulling heavy trailers. This latter bit is very important as a French driving licence specifically states that a car or light van pulling a heavy trailer (one up to 3.5 tonnes laden weight) is fully authorised. And of course, what is the total laden weight of our new trailer?

A short while later Bill came round. And he stayed here having a really good chat until quite late in the afternoon. I couldn’t download a driver for his old printer – it’s not supported – and in any case he told me the price of the ink cartridges he needed to buy to fire it up. Over €50, he said, so I pointed him in the general direction of these Epson SX115 all-in-one things that we have been buying. Complete with ink cartridges, it costs a mere €49.50 and the replacement inks are €4:00 for the black and €15.99 for the three colour cartridges.

We were also looking at dial-up modems (broadband hasn’t got to him yet) and the cost is unbelievable. They are clearly a breed close to extinction. But we did find that Orange was offering a basic internet connection on “dial-up” for just €10:00 per month so as he is going to Montlucon tomorrow he’ll stop by the Orange shop to see what they can do for him.

We spent a while looking at photos of old cars and so on, and the discussion turned round to next summer. He has an old Peugeot 106 at his place that hasn’t gone anywhere for a while and isn’t worth anything much as it’s right-hand drive. No-one else wants it so we’ve decided that we will bring it round here and strip it, and then prepare it for grass-tracking. Bill was a racing driver of sorts in his youth and I reckon it won’t take too much persuasion to get him behind the wheel again. And in any case we need to find something else to do in the summer when there’s no footy.

He had a good look around the Ebro and reckons that he will help me have a bit of a play with that too when I can make some space (whenever that might be).

But I also got to thinking again as well. Terry and I have a scaffolding and a heavy duty trailer between us. He has this amazing pressure-washer and I have a big diesel generator. Simon has a huge crepi machine. You can see where I’m going with this. We have all the basics of a little plant hire business here. A big petrol cement mixer which you can buy really cheaply round here and which I can fit my single cylinder diesel engine to is something else we can consider. I reckon that there might be some mileage in exploring avenues such as this.

Once Bill had gone the phone rang twice and each time it was someone reading War and Peace to me and it wasn’t worth starting anything after that. But still, things are slowly progressing and that’s a good sign.

-1

Friday 10th September 2010 – I found a hotel with free wi-fi …

… a Première Classe on the edge of the city near the motorway, but when I returned from this meeting on Friday night, I … errrr … crashed out! Mind you it had been a long day. I had to get up early to open up Lieneke’s for Simon – but he never showed up. Mind you I took advantage by catching up with some more web stuff. I’m really pressing on with that

And after lunch I went to Bill’s and fixed his computer as much as I could , but I couldn’t do it all as we need some new drivers and then after that I went to Clermont Ferrand for this meeting. And as luck should have it I fell into Auchan just as they were having a huge €1:00 sale – and there was also a printer for Liz and Terry too.

The meeting was the Annual General Meeting of the referees of the Puy de Dome where they discuss problems that have arisen during the past season and new proceedings for the forthcoming season. It was quite interesting, but not half as interesting as the “attitudes” of a few of the people in charge of the meeting. I wouldn’t have called them particularly friendly – not in the least.

I picked up something to eat on the way back and after that I crashed right out.

i’m clearly working far too hard these days.

Thursday 9th September 2010 – Here’s a pic …

… of our latest toy.

I told you a little while ago that Terry and I had bought a trailer between us – and here’s a picture.

It isn’t half a mega-beast, an Ifor Williams Trailer with a carrying capacity of 2.5 tonnes. Terry’s tractor and broyer went onto this and the thing didn’t even bat an eyelid. It’s a 4-wheeler with 12″ wheels, detachable sides and back, and a pair of ramps that would be the envy of anyone.

I have the Minerva and the 2000E estate to collect to Brussels some time when I have the room , and this will do all of that without any effort at all. I’m impressed.

So this morning I went down to Liz and Terry’s where we put one of the old caravan chassis on top of the other one and then put them both on the trailer.

Guillaume and his mate and then Simon came round in mi-chemin and once they had been sorted out Terry brought the load around here. We took off the two old trailers and dumped them round the side of the barn and then Terry loaded up his tractor and set off for home.

I put a couple of buckets of mortar onto the wall and it’s starting to look much better.

Tomorrow I have to go to Bill’s to fix his computer and then I’m off to Clermont Ferrand for a meeting that starts tomorrow evening and finishes on Saturday late afternoon.

If I don’t blog tomorrow night it will because I won’t have been able to find a wi-fi point.

-1

Thursday 2nd September 2010 – I had a little fun today …

… with the Nikon. As you know, I’ve started to work on a little website about Virlet, and the major claim to fame of the village is the Dominican Abbey of Bellaigue.

You can see it from the end of my lane, way down in the valley below and so I took a pic of it. And considering that it’s about 6 km away it’s come out rather well.

The camera by the way is set to images of 4200×3000 or something like that, and the quality of the image is set to HIGH.

What I have done with it though is to reduce it to 800×533 and set the quality to 42% – what I always do for images that I’m posting to the web.

The next bit was the exciting part. What I have done is cropped out a section that is just 350 x 220 or thereabouts and blown it up to 800×533. I had to sharpen the image a little but I reckon that this has come out superbly.

Like I said, it’s 6 kilometres away from where I took the pic. Spending that money on that 105mm (3xzoom) lens has been well-spent if you ask me.

>Now despite what I said yesterday, I didn’t go to Clermont Ferrand today. I made it as far as the mairie but the secretary was involved with some complicated with someone and it took 40 minutes while I was there! So by the time I had my paperwork and had reached Clermont Ferrand, it would have been lunchtime and I would have been hanging around for a couple of hours.

But she had given me a list of doctors authorised to give medicals for truck and bus drivers, so I rang them to see about an appointment for me. The first one said “mid-October” – the second one said the same. And none of this surprised me. Long-term followers of my outpourings will remember all of this from before.

The next doctor I tried said “Friday 18:00”.
“Like tomorrow?” I asked with disbelief
“Yes, tomorrow” he confirmed.

So badger going to Clermont Ferrand this afternoon and trying to blag my way around getting my commercial licenses somehow. I can go on Monday with all of the paperwork properly complete. I worked hard to get my commercial licenses so I’m not going to surrender them lightly, that’s for sure.

So this afternoon I added a couple more buckets of mortar to the wall. And ended the day with a solar shower. Only 35.5°C so it was rather cool, but welcome nevertheless.

-4

Tuesday 31st August 2010 – I’ve been out and about …

… for part of the day today.

One of the places that I visited today was Virlet, the village that is my postal address. And while I was there I went to take a few photographs.

Now that my website is practically up-to-date I’ve started on doing some new stuff and one of the things I’m working on is a page about the village. There’s nothing at all in English about it.

While I was there for the brocante I took a few pics but I really wanted one of the church. There has never been a decent one because it’s surrounded by clutter – a stone wall, trees, the village hall etc.

So I had this idea of driving right across to the other side of the valley, using the 105mm (3x) zoom, doing a nice long-hop (it’s over a mile away across there) and then cropping the church out of the photo.

And do you know, it’s come out rather well. It really is the only position where you can see it to its best advantage , and in fact I’ve never seen a photo of the church taken from this position. I’m well-pleased with this.

So why was I in Virlet today?

Two reasons really. Firstly to obtain an attestation that I am a resident in the area and secondly to have a copy of the list that gives the names and addresses of doctors who are authorised to give medical examinations for commercial driving licences. If I’m changing my driving licence for a new one I may as well change my truck and bus (and taxi) licences too while I’m at it. You never know what might happen.

But of course, as you would expect, it wasn’t all plain sailing. The mayor’s secretary is away today and he doesn’t have a clue what to do. So I’ll have to go back on Thursday. You’ve never ever seen anything like this place for chaos. But at least the guy at the Driving Licence centre answered his phone this morning and he was even helpful. I don’t have much time to apply for this licence so I need to put my skates on. I’ll go down to Clermont Ferrand on Thursday when I have my attestation.

So this afternoon I carried on with the pointing and it doesn’t half take ages to do. You can see just how far I’ve done today – the grey-mortared bit at the lower edge of the wall. That’s about one-sixteenth of the wall done. At this rate it will take for ever but I’ll keep on plugging away at it as long as the weather lets me.

And that might not be for long – last night the temperature fell to 7.2°C, the lowest so far. I ahve all the windows closed up here and I’m wearing a jacket – in August.

And in other news, Terry and I are now the owners of an Ifor Williams 2.5-tonne trailer. Fed-up of messing about with old trailers that won’t even carry a set of scaffolding when they are working properly, we have bitten the bullet and paid up. It’ll move the scaffolding and Terry’s tractor quite nicely, help me fetch all my cars down here, and we can hire it out as well to make a little bit on the side, like we do with the scaffolding.

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Monday 30th August 2010 – No photo tonight people.

That’s because I forgot to take one, and probably there wasn’t anything worth photographing anyway. But what a day it was!

This morning started with the website. I’m trying to bring August 2010 right up to date and then that will be all the arrears sorted out and I can move on to doing some new stuff. I’ve not had the opportunity to do anything to it properly for over a year.

So when the battery went flat I went outside to try to sort myself out a wheelbarrow. The Caliburn-coloured one won’t be going anywhere for a bit. It was okay until a huge pile of slates from the house roof landed in it from a great height last year and that blew the tubeless tyre off the beading and try as I might I can’t get it to go back. So into the barn to look for the B&Q wheelbarrow that is in pieces and I eventually tracked all of the pieces down, despite doing a good deal of tidying up … “Aren’t you feeling well?” – ed … and discovering more things I never even knew that I had.

That inner tube is perished and the two tubes that Claude gave me – so are they and so that was that. I’ll have to bite the bullet and get some wheels or tubes the next time the lorry comes round, or see what there is on ebay.

This afternoon I played a round of the French national sport of “here we go round the mulberry bush” trying to get a Social Security number. Seven different numbers I was given, and seven different people I spoke to until I finally found someone who could help me with this. Apparently I need to produce a birth certificate giving not only the details about myself but also the details about my parents.

Now many people reading this blog, especially Turdi de Hatred and everyone else from OUSA, will be wondering how I will be able to find out the details of my father, and they would be surprised at how close they might be to the truth.

But having said all of this I can understand why it is that so many people in France work on the Black Economy. It’s not that they have any lack of goodwill, it’s just that they get totally fed up of this absurd and relentless paper chase and I can’t say I blame them as I was pretty fed up by this time too and ready to renounce my registration and do it all stumeling, as they say in Flanders.

And the best is yet to come. I need to change my driving licence over to a French one so I rang the sous-prefecture. They told me that I can’t do it there but at the prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. They gave me the number but told me not to ring as apparently the guy doesn’t answer his phone in the afternoon. And do you know what? They were dead right too.

It’s not surprising that no-one ever does any business around here.

I mentioned Turdi de Hatred just now, and that reminded me. When I was at the brocante yesterday I came across a video entitled Return Of The Living Dead. You know, I had no idea that anyone had filmed her reading out the Open University Students Association election results.

So after my marathon session on the phone I went into the garden and sorted out the veg for tea – a veggie burger with onions and garlic, and with spuds, carrots, beans, spinach, sage, rosemary and mint from my garden. Beautiful it was too.

But the meal is in the future. While the veg was soaking itself I mixed a bucket of mortar and started on the pointing of the house wall in the lean-to. High time I did that so I can put the lean-to roof on again. But it’s going to take me forever I reckon. It doesn’t go as quick as you like it and you might remember what happens if you take the cheating way out and just crepi it to hide the gaps. There’s a pic of the results of that on this blog from a few weeks ago.

When the bucket was empty and it was 17:40 – not worth mixing another – I went to chop some wood. An after a little while I rediscovered the branch cutter that had seized up and stopped working. Now that I have a workbench and a place to work I stripped it down to look at it and sure enough there was a bolt that was badly worn that was distorting the cutting angle. So I swapped it round with a less-important bolt from another part of the machine, cleaned and greased it, and now that’s that fixed.

My day isn’t finished yet either! Bernard from the footy club rang up. Apparently my name is now on the referees’ list for the forthcoming season and so he gave me the telephone number of the sports outfitters who supply the club, and told me to order what I need in the way of referee’s clobber.

No wonder I’m knackered after all of this!

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Sunday 29th August 2010 – It was the Virlet brocante today

Virlet, the village where I live (well, where I don’t live – it’s about 4kms from where I live but it’s my postal address as there isn’t another village any nearer) is the last outcrop of the Combrailles.

We’re looking north-east here right along the scarp slope that forms the edge of the Monts de la Combraille (the pinky orange scar right on the upper-right edge of the photo is the quarry where our sand and gravel comes from). The view is, of course, quite impressive from here as the village is situated on an outcrop – a kind-of finger that points north-eastward across the valley and the plains.

This spot where they are preparing the pig roast is the kind of place that any half-decent and self-respecting baron would have thrown up a castle back in the dim and distant dark ages because it’s just like this on two sides.

The third side is something of a similar ilk but not so steep, and the fourth side is a ridge-top that brings the main road up from Pionsat and part of which was the old Pilgrims’ Way that runs to Santiago De Compostela.

The Pilgrims would spend the night at the Abbaye de Bellaigues down there. The Abbey is a Benedictine Abbey founded in the 11th Century and situated down the steep slope to the north-west of the village.

The Pilgrims would leave the Abbey next morning and then they would climb up here and walk along the old ridgeway through Les Coursieres and through the forest path that passes about 200 metres from my house on the way to the next stop at La Cellette and the refuge at St Hilaire la Croix.

So that’s the exciting bits over. And I’m glad that there was something exciting because the brocante certainly wasn’t, unfortunately.

Dozens of stalls, dozens of vendors, a huge crowd of people (including some from the Footy Club with whom I had a good chat) and loads of interesting objects.

But the prices!!!!!

Someone wanted 40 Euros for a milk churn. Someone else wanted 30 Euros for a 1930s handpump. And 25 Euros for a manual coffee grinder. And 15 Euros for a car CD player etc etc. It’s a far cry from when I bought a chest of drawers for 7 Euros, a table-top washing machine for 10 Euros, a table-top saw without motor for 5 Euros etc.

The Virlet brocante used to be one of the best around but these prices will just scare everyone off. Some people have a very exaggerated idea of values, that’s all that I can say. The only think that I bought was a 1960s Michelin “Green Guide” of the Auvergne – tatty and falling apart but a respectable one Euro.

At least we had some entertainment, and that wasn’t too bad. There was a brass band – a fanfare as they are called in French – playing on a temporary stage by the village hall and they weren’t all that bad. I’ve seen much worse than these.

As well as that, there was the optional lunchtime meal and also a buvette – the beer tent. You can’t have a public gathering anywhere in France without having a buvette.

The most exciting thing at the brocante was parked up in the car park. A superficially-nice but underneath-the-paint-really-quite-tatty Citroen type “H” van that had been transformed into a mobile home was parked up not too far from Caliburn.

Now I have always liked these vans and have been looking around for one in something of a desultory fashion for many years.

And if I did find one, turning it into a caravanette would be quite interesting. They are mostly petrol but some were fitted with an old Perkins diesel engine and that would be quite interesting. A nice low-pressure pump that would run on vegetable oil would suit me fine.

Thinking about things, apart from Caliburn of course it’s been ages since I bought a car – 4.5 years in fact. A nice old collectors’ car or van would suit me fine, now that I’m starting to make some space for myself at home.

So apart from the brocan’t, I spent the rest of the day bringing my website up-to-date. All the photos since July 2009 are now on line and the monthly photo pages up to July this year are now on-line too. I can now start catching up on a few other things.

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Friday 27th August 2010 – It’s been an exciting day today.

This afternoon I had a good wander around the vegetable plot checking up on things as it’s been a while since I’ve had a really good look, what with one thing and another.

One of the things that I did was to check in the smaller cloche where I have the strawberries and the one surviving cucumber plant. That has just been growing and growing with plenty of flowers but nothing much else, however today I noticed for the first time that the cucumbers are set.

There’s just three of them at the moment, still quite tiny but it’s nice to see some kind of progress in there. If the way that the courgettes have burst into life is anything to go by, within a week they should be monsters.

After that I went and checked on the tomatoes in the mega-cloche. They are just growing and growing with tons of flowers and fruit and so I took an executive decision and topped them all. No point in growing stuff that is never going to ripen and letting perish the fruit that is already there. Topping them will hopefully concentrate all of the energy into the fruit and they may even ripen.

There’s a stray tomato plant in the greenhouse so I went to check on that. And fighting my way in past the gherkin plants I noticed that they are finally starting to do stuff.

And that’s about time too. Thousands of flowers and not the least sign of a fruit, and all of a sudden a few of those have burst into life.

Now what do you do with a gherkin? If I could get malt vinegar over here I might be tempted to pickle them but I can’t so I’ll have to think of something else. All suggestions are welcome

I followed that up by pulling the veg for tea. I had a veggie-burger lined up and so I pulled up some carrots and spuds, and picked some beans, spinach, sage and rosemary. Add a garlic clove and an onion to that lot and it really was a nice tea. Quite enjoyable. And I sowed the last of my parsnip seeds in where I’d removed the carrots. I’ve no idea what they might do but they won’t do anything in the packet.

The rest of the afternoon I’ve been sawing wood. I need to move the wood to erect the dividing wall in the lean-to where the composting toilet is. I keep on moving this wood around and nothing ever happens to it so I’ve decided to remove it by cutting up for burning, no matter how long it takes (and it will take a while). Winter’s not far away, you know.

This morning though I spent until midday working on my website. It’s almost up-to-date – I reckon another week will see the monthly pages done up to August 2010, and about time too. Nevertheless I was interrupted by a buzzing coming from across the yard – the water boiler that Smon gave me sprung into action at about 10:00. The weather today was terrible (it’s still pouring down now) and there wasn’t enough current to really fire it up, but it ran for a total of 3.5 hours. And more of this anon.

Once I’d knocked off computing at midday I went with Caliburn round to Lieneke’s and tidied up there. It seems that Terry and Simon have finished.

I rescued the breeze blocks, the sand and cement, a huge pile of buckets my tarpaulin and ladder and a host of other stuff, heaved it all into the Sankey trailer and brought it round here.

I reversed it down the lane (hard to think that 20 years ago I did that for a living) and parked it next to Terry’s tractor where it can live for a while.

And it’s amazing how much room there is on there. I still reckon that the money I spent on having that done was money well spent. There’s room for another couple of cars on there I reckon if I tidy up a little bit better.

But the exciting bits involved the water heating.

Of course the day that I get everything ready for blast-off is the day when the weather turns miserable. The immersion heater in the house ran for a grand total of two minutes. But it was trying its best to fire up as the charge in the batteries bounced along the critical voltage. It was quite a windy day so I reckon that if there had been a wind turbine on the roof it would have worked a treat. I’m going to have to sort out this wind turbine.

As for the water boiler, even though the solar energy levels were pretty miserable it fired up in early morning once the batteries in the barn were fully-charged and ran for a total of about 3.5 hours. And the water, all 2.5 litres of it, was boiling away merrily to itself. So much so that with it being POETS Day ….
“POETS Day?” … ed
“Yes, that’s right. P155 Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday!”
… today I had a lovely hot wash and shave out of that boiler at 17:30 when I knocked off. And had it been less windy, I would have gone for the hybrid shower – the solar water (that struggled to reach 30°C) diluted by the 2.5 litres out of the boiler. Now THAT would have warmed it up.

I topped up the water with cold water once I’d emptied it, and it carried on warming itself for a short while until the sun went down and the solar charge stopped. And when I went to do the washing up after tea at 22:00 it was not very far short of being hot enough to do the washing up. A couple of minutes on the gas ring sorted that out.

All in all, I reckon that this is major progress and I’m really pleased with all of this. This place is slowly starting to take shape one way or another. I just want a nice sunny day now so that I can see what the immersion heater will do. But with all this rain that’s going on right now that isn’t going to be for a while.

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EPIC HALL

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