Tag Archives: caliburn

Friday 11th March 2011 – I’m going to be having an early night this evening.

And I’m not the only one either. Terry and Liz are quite exhausted too, and I’m not surprised as we’ve been working really hard again.

I emptied out my bedroom and then Terry and I tidied the garage downstairs so that we could move all of the stuff down there. We also loaded Caliburn with some stuff for the dechetterie, whenever it will be that we will go there. But that’s not going to be for a few days yet as most of the furniture that remains will be going with it.

I came back upstairs and put the second coat of paint on the door frame and the first coat of paint on the wall of the back terrace while Terry finished the walls in the hall. During all of this, Liz was cleaning the bedroom.

While Terry redid the walls in the hall, Liz and I set about the bedroom. What with Liz on the paintbrush and me on the roller we had two coats on the ceiling and one on the wall in no time flat. We even took the radiator off (that’s all of the radiators that have been off now) to do behind it.

We then went out onto the front terrace and scrubbed down the guard rails and the new tiles, and that is looking quite pretty now. And while I went off to buy more paint (we are getting through that rather quickly) Terry and Liz finished off cleaning and waxing the floor in the living room.

No wonder we are all exhausted.

So the plan now is –

  • tomorrow the second coats of paint on the back terrace wall and in the bedroom, and cleaning and waxing the floor in the hall.
  • Monday will be doing everything else that we have forgotten.
  • Tuesday morning will be emptying the apartment of absolutely everything and me going to the dechetterie. But I have to be back at 11:00 as that is when the estate agent is coming.
  • Once he has gone we will be taking up residence in a hotel for two nights and using Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday to clean the place from top to bottom, and then loading up the two vans.
  • Thursday morning will see the Cortina on the trailer and then it’s off back home. I’ve decided to take the Cortina regardless and come back for the Minerva. It’s easier to do it that way round.

But back home on Thursday?

Can I remember the way?

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Tuesday 1st March 2011 – AND NOW I’M NOT!

I’m back on the road again heading to Brussels. I’ve had a hectic few days just recently and it isn’t going to stop either any time soon.

This morning I woke up in the cold to a typical Combraille-type hanging cloud (isn’t it good to be home?) and after a somewhat late start I emptied Caliburn of everything that I had taken down to the farm. It’s all stacked in the barn now and I’ll tidy it up in due course. Following a doze for an hour or so, I went to this CREFAD meeting at St Gervais where I was one of the guest speakers.

I met a new English couple there and their daughter. They haven’t long been in the Auverne, having moved from near Haltwhistle. What attracted them to the area was that it looked “just like home” and I can echo that. “I wanted a stone house” said the wife. “I’m a true border reiver and stone doesn’t burn”.

That of course brought back memories of my former connections with the border and Archie Fisher’s album Windward Away – “every time I think of you I see a border reiver”. That of course leads on to the story of the 9 year-old boy who knew how to make a marriage work – “you tell your wife that she is beautiful, even if she looks like a truck”. And of course from there we have “every time I think of you I see a Leyland Reiver”.

Once the meeting was over, I shot off straight back to Brussels. I didn’t make it all the way back (which is only to be expected seeing as how late it was when I left). I made it as far as St Florentin which is between Auxerre and Troyes, where I crashed out in the big lay-by there at the side of the road.

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Monday 28th February 2011 – I’m back at home ;-)

Well, for less than 24 hours as it happens. I’m speaking at this doodah thingy tomorrow evening at 20:30.

And so this morning I loaded up Caliburn with all of the wood and shelving that I’ve had lying around in the garages for years. It’s all quite good stuff and suitable for various products. Also in Caliburn is a pile of vegetable oil for running the diesel Escort on, some leftover construction material (some of which needs to go back as it happens), a few bits and pieces, and my motorbike.

I bet you didn’t know that I have a motorbike. Most people would say that it isn’t very exciting but it’s certainly special. It’s a CZ125 of early 1980s vintage – the first of the “post-angular” series – but was one of six unassembled ones in crates that was “overlooked” in a CZ dealership that closed down. When the premises were cleared in 2000, they were discovered, built up and sold on eBay. I paid £395 for it. It’s done just about 150 miles since I’ve had it – the journey from Dover to Brussels and then a lap around the town.

Back in the flat we’ve hit a major problem. There’s water infiltration in the wall next to the front balcony and when we took off the radiator, half the plaster fell off as well. So we chiselled off the rest and we plan to plasterboard it with the hydrofuge stuff, having first sealed in the balcony and weatherproofed the walls.

And so I set off down here at 15:30, and was in my room at 00:15 and that includes stopping for tea in Auxerre. Caliburn seems to be in good form right now after his stay at the garage, although he’s more thirsty than before.

Tomorrow I’ll unload him, go to this meeting, and then head back to Brussels to see how the troops are doing. It’s over 5 weeks since we went there and everyone is quite fed up of the place but soon we will be back home permanently. And I shan’t be sorry.

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Wednesday 23rd February 2011 – We are back in Brussels again

Liz, yours truly, and also Caliburn who is much better and thanks everyone for the best wishes he was sent.

So yesterday I went back to my farm in the Ka (which I got to like much more than I did the first day I drove it) in order to hunt down some paperwork. It didn’t take me long to break in and once there I did some chilling out. Quite literally as it happened as the temperature was a mere 5.6°C in my attic. While we were away the temperature there had dropped to as low as -0.6°C which is hardly surprising as the temperature outside had dropped as far as -12.4°C on one occasion.

We then headed off to Riom for shopping and it was there that the garage rang to say that we could pick up Caliburn and so once we had sorted ourselves out we set off for here. On the way home the gorgeous sunny day slowly descended into a grey miserable wet evening and by the time we were climbing into the Ardennes at the back of Chalons sur Marne it was snowing heavily. Crossing over the Ardennes into Belgium was fraught, having to pick our way around abandoned lorries, sliding around roundabouts on the handbrake and so on. Poor Liz went about 50 miles with her eyes closed. It was not a journey that I would particularly like to do again unless I have to.

03:00 when we arrived back in Brussels after all of this, and Terry was waiting by the window for us. He’d heard about the weather and was rather anxious for our well-being which was quite nice of him.

But now, I’m off to bed to make up for what I’ve missed out on. I’m exhausted.

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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 – Poor Caliburn

Caliburn is not very well at the moment and is currently at the menders awaiting spare parts. And so Liz and I are still here and Terry is still there.

We started the morning by a quick breakfast and a quick search for stuff that we needed to take back to Brussels, and then we had to shoot off to Marcillat to record Radio Programme Number 1. But Caliburn was coughing and smoking a little too much and was not in the best of health so it was more of a leisurely drive.

After that, it was round to my place and to unload him of all the things that he had brought down from Brussels. While we were there, Radio Arverne asked us to come a little earlier to record the programmes for them – this meant dropping everything and shooting off to Gerzat. But Caliburn was a little worse by this time. Stopping for fuel for the return journey at the Carrefour just outside Riom and it was clear that we would be struggling to make anywhere, never mind Brussels, so it was off to the mender’s on the outskirts of Riom.

What is happening is that there’s a valve in the emissions circuit that controls the air intake and exhaust, and it has stuck closed. There’s insufficient air reaching the combustion chambers and so Caliburn is running far too rich and that is the reason for the unburnt fuel and sooty smoke. A new valve has been ordered and hopefully will arrive tomorrow. At the same time, Caliburn can have his (overdue) service and hopefully he’ll be feeling much better and normal service will resume.

ford ka sauret besserve puy de dome franceMeantime, we have a hired Ford Ka to bring us back to here (it was cheaper than a taxi and of course there is no public transport around here since the railway line closed down 2 years ago) and that will give us a chance to do those things that we were going to do.

I was planning to go back to my house and find some papers that I need but it seems that I have .. errr … left the keys to my house on Caliburn’s keyring which is of course with Caliburn at the menders.

D’ohhhh!

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Monday 21st February 2011 – Now talk about a change …

… here I am sitting in the Auvergne. But not in my little attic but in front of a rip-roaring fire at Terry and Liz’s.

This morning, having fuelled up Caliburn, we went to load him up with another pile of stuff and to load up the trailer to with stuff to take back here. But Caliburn is a little poorly right now – the pump-timing has slipped out one notch so he’s not pulling as well as he might – and in any case with the new plan which involves throwing away most of the stuff in the garage, there didn’t seem to be much point in dragging a quarter-full trailer 750 kilometres to here and then dragging an empty one 750 kilometres back.

Without the trailer, Caliburn bounced along quite happily. Leaving Brussels at about 09:40 and stopping for lunch and for afternoon coffee, we were back here (through the snow in the Ardennes and the rain from Auxerre southwards) by 19:45.

clamecy twinned with grandes piles quebec canada franceThere are some beautiful spots along the old road south of Auxerre so I took a little time out to show Liz some of the scenery.

Clamecy is a particularly beautiful little town and one of these days I’ll spend some time there to have a really good look around. In the meantime though, I shall just tantalise you by letting you look at the town in Quebec, Canada, with which Clamecy is twinned. My imagination is boggling – I dunno about yours.

Back here at Liz’s, it’s really cold and in a stone house that has been empty and unheated for a month in midwinter, it’s even cold inside. But with a huge blaze going it’s quickly warming up. Mind you, after driving all this way it won’t be long before I’ll be climbing the little wooden hill to Bedfordshire.  

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Sunday 20th February 2011 – And today was Sunday.

And so, we …. errr … worked.

Liz finished painting the woodwork in the toilet while Terry and I went a-breaking and entering. Those of you with long memories will recall that I lost the keys to the apartment while I was at an OUSA meeting at Wyboston in 2008 and although I cobbled together a spare set of keys, there was no garage key to be found.

So this morning we drilled it all out and replaced the lock and then sorted out the stuff in there. A third of it went into Caliburn – all my tools and so on – another third I’m undecided about, and the remainder is destined straight away for the tip without any further discussion. I cannot think why I reckoned, even in my befuddled state, that I needed three double beds for in here. There’s tons of stuff like that which is better off down in the dechetterie.

Mind you, I found all my skiing gear and I washed my ski suits. I quite fancy going on the piste some time in the future but I reckon that I’ve missed my chance for this year. However Banff in British Columbia looks quite exciting – I wouldn’t mind going on the piste over there. I have to admit that I’m disappointed in the facilities down the road at Super Besse. There’s never usually any snow and when there is, there is a low hanging cloud that obscures the runs and you can’t ski there anyway. No wonder everyone is piste off.  

There is a reason for our haste today. On Tuesday we need to record our radio programmes in Marcillat and Gerzat but we are a long way away from finishing here. So we have decided that Liz and I will take Caliburn and the big trailer, duly loaded, down to the Auvergne tomorrow, record our programmes on Tuesday and then unload Caliburn and the trailer, and then come back here on Wednesday to carry on. That will mean that half of the stuff will have gone and that will save a trip or two – we may as well combine what we can.

With the radio programmes, it meant that I had to dash off not one but two scripts – firstly one on education for Radio Arverne and then rework the script on Building Regulations for Radio Tartasse. And so I’ve been a busy little bee and it isn’t long since I finished.

And so with all of the travelling that I need to be doing over the next few days, I’m heading for the hills earlier than usual.

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Thursday 17th February 2011 – I’m not going to be here much longer tonight either.

Yes, it’s taking it out of me. And early though it is (for us, anyway) I’m the last one up. Everyone else has retired a while ago.

This morning while Terry carried on in the toilet Liz and I uprooted the tiles and cement and sand and everything else from off the terrace at the front of the apartment. And then we took it all down and loaded it into Caliburn.

After that we stripped the terrace at the back of the apartment and loaded that all into Caliburn too. What with the old toilet and cistern and other bits and bobs we were pretty well loaded up.

After lunch it was down to the dechetterie with all of the rubble. And €12.10 later, Caliburn was empty. And that was quite astonishing as there was quite a load, as I have said. We then took a few bits back to Brico for a refund and came home to find Terry looking for the drain hole for the toilet sink
“Where did you put it?”
“On top of the old cistern while I cleaned the pipework
“Errr …. ohh dear”
So finishing the sink will have to wait for another day.

We also have a shower screen for the bath and it looks splendid. It really sets the bathroom off. It cost about €80 if I remember correctly but it was well-worth the money just for the aesthetic pleasure. And while Terry was fitting it I went through all the boxes of tools, fittings and the like, sorted eveything into the correct boxes and threw away a pile of stuff.

Me! Throwing stuff away! Whatever next?

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Friday 11th February 2011 – We have one room finished!

third bedroom expo avenue de l'exposition jette brussels belgiumThe third bedroom is now done, well, give or take the odd bit of touching up. And if there is any touching up to be done, I’ve had my face slapped more times than enough so in the words of the late, great Bob Doney, “I’m your man”.

Terry and I finished off the skirting board this morning and then filled and sealed all around it while Liz put the second coat of paint on the woodwork in the bathroom. After that, we cleaned and vacuumed and scrubbed the place a little and another load of stuff went outside for the tip.

Once lunch was out of the way Liz cleaned some of the furniture and we installed that in the third bedroom. There’s one of the sofas, the table and chairs, a standard lamp and two occasional tables (whatever they are for the rest of the time is no concern of ours) and now we have a clean and tidy living room. The other sofa, the carpet and a few other bits and pieces then went into the back of Caliburn ready to be abandoned in a needy area of the city tomorrow night and all the tiles I bought yesterday came upstairs. All of the stuff such as tools, construction material, paint and so on that was stored on the inner side of the living room was then moved over to the outside and then I started on washing down the walls on the inner part ready to wallpaper it (Marianne and I painted the ceiling a few years ago and it’s still the best part that I did of the house).

I was going to help Liz wallpaper the bathroom but it’s pretty small in there and two people working in there would be difficult and so she managed on her own. Half of that is done now and the rest should be finished this weekend (we’ve abandoned our weekends off now as we all want to go home).

Terry has been grinding out the grouting in the toilet ready to redo it and while he is waiting for the dust to clear he’s taking the old tiles off the terrace and putting them downstairs. But I’ve had a brainwave about this – the President of the Residents’ Council says that no-one can find the tiles to replace any broken ones that they might have as they aren’t made any more. So instead of me weighing them in (at €36 per tonne!), why not ask around if anyone wants them? That should save me quite a few bob I reckon.

But there are some weird things going on here. Liz told me at lunchtime that she was “going to put the soup on and then clear the table”. The mind boggles. What exciting times we are having right now.

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Saturday 29th January 2011 – We went to the seaside this afternoon

I say this afternoon, because this morning we were busy. Terry finished off the electricity in the bathroom and fitted the tiles in the kitchen (the grouting needs to be done), Liz painted the ceiling in the toilet and rubbed down the one in the bathroom, and I emptied more junk out of the third bedroom and plastered the wall behind where the radiator will be.

But you can’t make a DiY-type noise in these apartment blocks after 14:00 on a Saturday, it was a gorgeous (but freezing cold) day, and I had promised that I would take Liz to the seaside some time while we were here, and so this afternoon was a good bet.

And it was freezing too and there was a bitterly cold wind blowing, but we still had a walk along the prom and round the harbour at Oostende, as well as coffee and waffles in a cafe. And as pure luck would have it, as I was trying to show Liz and Terry around the huge church there (but there was Confession going on there so we couldn’t go round) we noticed a huge old-clothes repository. And so back to Caliburn and we deposited the sacks of no-longer-needed clothing there, and that was that.

grote markt grand place brugge bruges belgiumOf course you can’t be in that neck of the woods without going to see Brugge and so we went for a wander around in the evening. Places always look so much better at night, all lit up, and Brugge is no exception. We wandered around the main square there and soaked up all the atmosphere, went for a meal and I bought a restaurant. At least, I imagine that that was the significance of the amount on the bill, unless I was paying for everyone else in the restaurant.

So scintillating is my company that Liz and Terry fell asleep on the way home, and we finally arived back here at 23:00. Not bad at all for just an afternoon out at the coast, was it?

Tomorrow is a day of rest and if Esi remembers to contact me, we will also be eating out tomorrow.

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Saturday 8th January 2011 – I had to go …

…and lie down for an hour in a darkened room today.

Yes, I’ve been to order my windows for the bedroom and the bathroom. A whopping great €1100, for which they wanted a 50% deposit on the spot. I’ve never spent that much money in my life, and you should have seen the moths come flying out of my wallet when I unlocked it. These windows at Lapeyre are three times the price of Brico Depot windows but then again they are supposed to be 100 times better. I hope so.

Apart from that, there wasn’t much of any excitement happening in Montlucon. I’ve bought another pile of stuff that I need to carry on working in the bedroom and I did my monthly shopping. But I had a huge GRRRRR at the Auchan. I have €8:50 in credit on my card there so I asked the girl to cash it up – but having checked me out she then forgot to do it and if I’m not careful I’m going to lose this money. I only have until the end of the month to claim it.

At Brico Depot someone from a florist’s left a note on Caliburn for me to go round there to chat to them – one assumes about solar panels and the like. But there was no-one at home so I dunno what that was all about. Next stop was the swimming baths at Nerys-les-Hughes where I spent most of my hour in the water watching half a dozen kids aged about 9 or 10 having a load of fun on a huge foam-rubber raft-type of affair. It’s a long time since I’ve seen kids have so much fun without any adults moaning at them.

I was told that tonight there was to be a football match at Pionsat – one of the matches that was postponed from December. But the place was in total darkness – apparently the game has been re-rearranged for tomorrow. But there were lights on at Marcillat. Their first team had a game and so I wandered off up there for a couple of hours. A Promotion League match this was. That’s about one division higher that Pionsat’s 1st XI but in all seriousness Pionsat’s 3rd XI could have stuffed rhe both of them – at the same time. The standard was pretty dire.

But you can see that I’m slowly emerging from my winter hibernation – I’m getting ready for footy again.

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Tuesday 28th December 2010 – BACK TO WORK TODAY

Well, sort of.

And with not too much enthusiasm either, particularly as the morning opened with a rainstorm. Not all that much, but enough to start the thaw and with the snow sliding off the barn roof (metal roofs are wonderful) we were on our way.

I spent the morning chopping a huge pile of wood and there’s enough to keep me going for a week with that. A mixture of wood from the lean-to and wood from the old laths on the barn roof and all of that should burn quite nicely.

I’m also collecting wood that’s been lying around the place, and stacking it in the impromptu pile under the left-over bits of plastic roof from the verandah. And that seems to be working – they are drying out a treat under there.

This afternoon, after a long chat with Liz, I fitted the new radio into Caliburn. That’s a useful piece of kit because it contains not just an SD card slot but also a bluetooth telephone receiver and thats what I really wanted.

Trying to talk to anyone on my bluetooth “oyster” is pretty nigh impossible in Caliburn when I’m on the move. This has a mike that hangs down from the ceiling and plays the received calls through the radio speakers. That’s much more like it.

And so I then started to build the box to put Caliburn’s old radio CD player into – that will be my mobile workshop music player and household CD player too. I didn’t finish it as, no surprise, I ran out of light.

I had another weird dream as well last night. I’ve been having a few of these just recently. It concerned an area of a town that I reckoned was Crewe and how this whole area had been abandoned ready for demolition – the only premises still occupied was the derelict and run-down attic in which I was living and which was a total shambles of dereliction and decay – much worse than how I’m living right at the moment. And I recall having had this dream before. The dream then went on to feature a white Mark IV Cortina, and white must be about the only colour of Mark IV Cortina that I’ve never actually owned. And this one was being transported on my towing dolly.

But it wasn’t half a strange dream.

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Saturday 11th December 2010 – I SPENT A FORTUNE TODAY …

… in the shops in Montlucon. Easily €600  reckon. And poor Caliburn creaked and groaned on the way home under the weight of 50 breeze blocks, loads of pine boards to do my wardrobe (and why is it that a 300mm pine board costs €5.75 yet a 600mm pine board costs … errrr … €12.15?), tons more insulation, a load of wire and trunking and (says he, hoping it does the job) a new wheel for his wheelbarrow.

Yes, forget your €15:00 in some shops and your €17.95 on the tool vans that come by, how about a Brico Depot special at €8:75? Much more like my kind of price.

But I had lots of time to spend all of this money as I was up and about at some ridiculous hour and was actually camped outside the door of the new Aldi in Montlucon before its 09:00 opening time. And that’s a change isn’t it? Normally I struggle to make my kitchen by 09:00!

>And it was a gorgeous day to be out as well. Not quite your Alpine winter day but as close as we can get and the solar panels here on the house racked up about 180 amp-hours of charge. That was quite welcome too. We’ve been struggling for a decent charge for the last few weeks and I’ve been on something of an economy drive as far as the electrical energy goes.

On the way home I managed to fit in a visit to the swimming pool at Neris-les-Bains. I didn’t stay long as it was perishing in there but I managed a decent soak and a good warm (not hot, unfortunately) shower so I feel all clean for a change – at least on the outside.

Tomorrow I’m told (for at Auchan I bumped into Michel from the footy club) that there might be some footy – Pionsat’s 2nd XI have a match at St Maurice and it might even be on – so I might even have an afternoon out.

I’m missing the footy. What with this weather there has been none for ages.

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Tuesday 7th December 2010 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY.

I was quietly drinking a coffee ready to go out and cut wood for this evening when Liz rang me. “Terry and I are on our way to Montlucon. Anything you want?”

Well, as it happens, this very morning I had been making a list of things that I want from Montlucon so I enquired “will you be going to Brico Depot?”
“Of course”
“Well, do you want an extra passenger?”
And so instead of working on my bedroom, I went to Montlucon instead.

I tried a couple of places but no wheel for Caliburn and I also bought a few useful things, including a small coffee pot thingy to fit on my little stove (€25 in the Auchan but only €6 in Gifi) but what was so depressing about the journey was that blasted flaming perishing Brico Depot was blasted flaming well closed for perishing stock taking.

So 30 kms there and 30 kms back for me (and add on another 20 kms each way for Liz and Terry) and the place was closed. So no extra insulation, no bits to finish off the wardrobe.

GRRRRRRRRR at Brico Depot!

But the temperature is crazy right now. It was a grey hazy day with just the odd burst of sun through the clouds but the temperature reached 15°C today. In the heat exchanger it reached 22.3°C. In a space of just about 36 hours the temperature has increased 20°C.

There’s clearly something wrong with this weather right now. But I’m not worrying about it. I didn’t get much sleep last night so I’m having an early night.

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Saturday 4th December 2010 – IT TOOK ME WELL OVER AN HOUR …

… to dig Caliburn out of a snowdrift this morning. The weather broke and we had a glorious Alpine winter’s day for a change (at least until early afternoon) and seeing as supplies are getting low I decided to go into St Eloy and do some shopping.

But that useless whatever in the snowplough – he’s been down the lane and instead of coming down to me and clearing out, he drove past down the other lane to where there is absolutely no-one at all and left me with a big snowbank across the top of the hill.

So after chopping more wood and so on, clearing snow from the cloches, the heat exchanger, the solar water, the solar lights and the compost heater, I dug Caliburn out and he’s now mobile.

After a wash I limped gingerly into St Eloy (you have no idea how bad the roads are) and not only did I do my shopping I did a pile of washing too in the laundry. Quite a big stack had built up around here and there’s no possibility of doing it myself here in these conditions.

What with one thing and another, though, I was late getting to the shops and so I didn’t have much time to use the dryer there as I wanted to be back before dark and it starting to freeze again. So I have a huge pile of damp washing hanging up in the verandah and I don’t know when it will ever dry.

But back to this Alpine morning. I’ve noticed quite often that once a cloudy day ends and night falls, the weather front shifts by about 50 miles and we have a marvellous Alpine night with millions of stars. And as soon as it dawns the weather front shifts back down again and we are plunged back into doom and gloom.

This morning though the sky stayed clear enough for me to have a decent charge on the batteries for the first time since I don’t know when and tonight is clear again so who knows? We may even have a decent day tomorrow but I am not holding my breath.

In other news, I’ve had another letter from the car hire people. Having given up on the idea of trying to stick me for excess mileage they are now trying to charge me $110 for cleaning Casey, saying that I returned it in a dirty conditions.

casey chrysler PT cruiser trans labrador highway canadaI think that this is outrageous and I have a good mind to write and tell them so. Of course I would never ever hire a car and get in into an appalling state of (lack of) cleanliness. regular readers of these pages will of course be well aware that in matters of tidiness and cleanliness I am second to none.

Of course I’m several thousand miles away from being in a position to dispute the charge so I don’t know what I can do about it. It’s certainly not fair – as if I would ever get a hire car into such a condition.

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