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Wednesday 25th August 2010 – Just by way of a change …

… I went to another one of these local history afternoons – this time at St Hilaire. It was more-or-less the same as the one that we went to a few months ago at La Cellette, but there were a few additions.

And just for me they had done some more research into the railway network. Still only the line between Montlucon and Gouttieres, though. No mention of the “Ligne Economique” between Marcillat en Combraille and Commentry. I can see that there is a book waiting to be written about that, and muggins here will have to be the one to write it.

Still, I suppose it could be worse.

But one thing that came out of it is that they are to finally form this Local History Organisation and register it as some kind of charity. The first meeting of the new committee is to take place on Saturday afternoon in Pionsat, and the presenter reckons that it would be a good idea if someone from a foreign background was co-opted onto the committee to liaise with the non-French speakers and to bring a different viewpoint on to the group – someone nevertheless with an interest in local history and history in general. And do you ever get that funny burning sensation when thirty pairs of eyes all turn round and focus on you?

Serve me right too, and I was looking forward to going for a swim on Saturday afternoon too!

This morning I carried on with updating my website and then I did some washing seeing as it was such a nice day. I’ve sorted out everything I need for my water heater and I cut the top off this 30-litre container too. This thing might take shape tomorrow if I am not careful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I shall have to look into this.

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Monday 12th July 2010 – No solar shower tonight!

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

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

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

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Saturday 10th July 2010 – There was no mistake this morning …

… about the weather. I awoke quite early to the sound of what was without question a driving rainstorm. And when I went out a little later we had had about 4.5mm of rainfall through the night.

That may not sound like a lot and over a surface area of 6.5 square metres (the verandah) where about 155mm of rainfall would make 1000 litres, then the 30 litres of rain from today is pretty small beer.

But off just one side of the barn roof, which has a footprint of about 16m x 3.5m, or 56 square metres, then almost ten times that is quite a lot.

You’ll see the impromptu drainage system that I’ve rigged up (don’t worry that it is neither straight nor square – this is just a temporary lash-up) and if you look closely at the 203-litre water butt, you’ll see that it’s overflowing. And quite right too!

So much so in fact that I’m going to change some of the drainage around on the house so that the drainage on the lean-to (all 8 square metres of it plus the part of the house roof that falls onto there) will drain into the water butts at the verandah.

Terry has found me some puzzolane and I’ve also thought of yet another amelioration to the water supply and so I reckon that next week I’ll have a good go at this.

Lieneke woke me up this morning. She needed to talk to Terry and so I gave her all of his contact details. It involves The Folding Stuff so it’s pretty important. And after computing for a while I did a couple of odd jobs. I now have a bracket for holding the ramps onto the towing dolly and I’ve also done something with the guttering on the far side of the barn.

I haven’t shown you anything of the solar shower yet. I spent some time this afternoon working on it and now that it is sort-of finished for the moment, all can be revealed.

We’ve started off with a black IKEA storage box, of which I have more than a few lying around here. I’ve drilled a hole in the bottom and fitted a connection with a tap. And then we have a simple shower pipe and head from my old place in Brussels.

But that’s not the most exciting part of it. I’ve erected a metal framework using an old set of shelving units and put the storage box onto the top, covering it with an old caravan window. It’s nothing exciting, but it all seems to work.

I’ve an idea about filling it too but that calls for yet more engineering, but seeing as it was 19:15 when I knocked off (and I still managed to find the time to fit in a solar shower from the old system) I called it a day instead.

But I’m intrigued to see how this new siting of the solar water will fit in with the temperature readings that I have been keeping. It’ll attract the sun much earlier in the day for a start, that’s for sure.

And in other news, my brassica have now been attacked by the Cabbage White Butterfly and four times a day I’m engaged with stripping the caterpillars off the plants before they strip the plants. So far it’s a draw but it’s hard work.

And in other other news, it seems that I was rather careless when potting up some seeds. I now have a huge tomato plant growing in the middle of the greenhouse.

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Tuesday 29th June 2010 – No photo tonight, folks.

I haven’t really done anything to warrant one.

This morning with Terry having gone to mow a meadow, I profited by doing a big load of washing (this little tabletop washing machine that I bought in a brocante is proving its worth), watering all of the plants and doing some desultory tidying in the verandah.

This afternoon was in the Sauna or Black Hole of Calcutta otherwise known as Radio Arverne in Gerzat where we melted away while recording our programmes. And not just that – we had to record a trailer in French and I also had to translate part of the website into English. All for free, of course. No chance of turning our new-found popularity (we are being described, apparently, as “our favourite Anglophones”) into any of the Folding Stuff.

In other news, I see that an art exhibition in the Tate Gallery is hitting the headlines. This exhibition concerns a couple of means of transport being stripped of useful parts and lain on their sides for people to walk around and stare at. Now those of you that have been to visit me around here and other places in which I have lived will know that in my garden and my field I have several other means of transport stripped of useful parts and lying on their sides for people to walk around. And they have been called many different things by many different people, but “works of art” was never one of them.

And as my unmade bed on a bad day can match the best that Tracy Eminem can turn out, I’m getting rather fed up of my clearly well-developed artistic talents going unnoticed or being subjected to ridicule.

But seriously, I remember Whistler suing the art critic John Ruskin for saying that one of Whistler’s latest works was “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”. But if you look at these aeroplanes on their sides, or look at Tracy Eminen’s unmade bed, or look at anything that Richard Serra has ever churned out, then who is kidding whom? If anyone living in the Combrailles feels the urge to visit a gallery of Modern Art then they are quite welcome to come for a visit here.

And if they do, then perhaps they can explain to me the difference between what is on display and described as Modern Art in some of these high-ranking tourist traps, and all of the rubbish and junk that I have lying around here?

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Saturday 12th June 2010 – Long Distance Runaround

Well … errr … Yes. No wonder I’m feeling Fragile “That’s quite enough of that” – ed.

And I bet you never ever imagined that there would be a steam locomotive involved in today’s rubbish either. Especially not a North American “Mikado” 2-8-2, but nevertheless, here you are.

And in case you are wondering all about it, I’ll tell you more of this anon.

Just for a change for a Saturday I woke up early “lucky Early” – ed and after breakfast I went to fetch the two spare wheels for the caravans.

And I know that they are here in my barn. I remember very well having a blow-out on each of the two caravans when I brought them down here and changing the wheels at the side of the road. And I know exactly where I put the wheels with flat tyres when I arrived here too.

But the way things are around here, if they aren’t in their proper place then I’m well and truly snookered.

In the end I turned over the four piles of tyres but they weren’t in any of them and that has really got me puzzled now. But no matter – off to Liz and Terry’s to get the two off the trailer. And I really didn’t want to do that as I need those two to stay inflated so that I can move the other caravan chassis around but it really can’t be helped.

The trailer wasn’t there of course, it was out on a chantier with the scaffolding and so I had to go around there to liberate the wheels.

This chantier is taking place at the old railway house at the Viaduc des Fades, about which I have written a great deal in the past and there’s an excellent view of the Viaduc from there. As you might expect, his calls for a photo.

So having liberated the wheels, it was off to Commentry to the tyre place. And it was indeed the guy who I had met at the autocross back in 2008 and who reckons he can source all kinds of unusual tyres. So having posed the question, he replied “well, I’ve switched the computer off now. Come back Monday afternoon and I’ll order them. We might have them by Tuesday night”.

But Tuesday morning the tractor needs to be on site so that’s no good. Off to St Eloy les Mines to the new tyre place. And the only 13-inch tyres that he had were “reinforced” – not even “commercial van”. And there he was, insisting that they would be good enough. I don’t like the guy at that place and I never did and I’m not putting any old tyres on that trailer just for the sake of it.

So off to Pionsat to referee this challenge match. And the pitch all overgrown and full of weeds and two players practising their golf on it.
“When’s this match taking place then?”
“September” Matthieu replied.

Ahhh well.

But in for a penny, in for a pound. I had an unexpected couple of hours of freedom and an urgent task to undertake so I went chaud-pied to Montlucon to the tyre place at the back of Carrefour – he who had done me proud with tyres for Caliburn in December.
“What’s it for?” he asked
“A caravan chassis that I’ve converted into a trailer for carrying heavy loads. The existing tyres just collapsed under the load”
“What kind of load will it be carrying? A tonne?”
“At the very least” I replied

So a rummage down at the back of his storeroom produced three 10-ply steel radial commercial van tyres. “These will do you fine” he replied.

Downside is that I can’t have them fitted until Monday as he is full to the brim. But that gives us Monday afternoon to play about with them.

He is also having a sale on tyres for Caliburn – buy two and get the second half-price. And I need two to go on the front as I don’t want to wear out my snow tyres. These will set me back €216 which is a far cry from the €272 that I was quoted back in December. All of this is working out expensive.

So then I realised that I hadn’t done all my shopping (I’d bumped into Bill in Carrefour and while we were waiting for the tyre place in St Eloy les Mines to open, we went for a coffee) so off I popped to the Intermarche at the back of LIDL.

The parking borders on to the railway line and there was a crowd of people gathered around the fence peering through it. It seems that it’s some kind of Open Day at the railway roundhouse and there were several old and interesting objects on view.

One of the things that caught my eye was this delightful rotary snowplough. It’s not a patch on the rotary snowplough that I saw at Chama in the Rocky Mountains in 2002 of course, but it’s quite impressive for around here.

France’s railway – the SNCF, or Société Nationale des Chemins-de-Fer Français – underwent a huge modernisation programme in the 1950s and 1960s just the same as most Western countries. Steam locomotives were retired from service and diesels took over.

Everyone who travelled around France in the 1960s and 1970s will remember the typical red-and-cream diesel multiple-units and railcars that replaced the steam shuttles and it was nice to see a couple of them on display here.

Pride of place, however, has to go to the Mikado. It’s a 2-8-2 in Anglophone notification, although the French, who count the axles not the wheels, would call it a 1-4-1.

It’s one of the R class – number 420 in fact, and was built by Baldwins in the USA just after the war as part of the “Marshall Plan” to re-equip the European rail network after the ravages of World War II. France ordered 1340 of these (to give you an idea of how much of the French railway network was destroyed during the war) but only received 1323.

The other 17 are lying at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Newfoundland, due to the ship that was transporting them – the Belpamela from Norway, sinking in a heavy storm on April 11, 1947.

The type remained in service with the SNCF until as late as October 19th 1975 when R.1187 performed its last duty.

R.420 had been stored by the SNCF but was put up for sale in June 1976. Luckily it fell into the hands of a preservation group in Clermont Ferrand.

It is one of the 12 survivors of the class, although the fate of three of these is hanging in the balance since the company that was restoring them went bankrupt.

It underwent a full restoration and was passed fit for rail service in March 1982. Today, it’s the equivalent of the British “Flying Scotsman”, performing steam excursions.

As an interesting aside, in July 1987 the locomotive was officially classed as a French Historic Monument.

Tonight was the cheerleaders or majorettes competition in St Eloy les Mines and I was planning on attending. Piles of girls in skimpy costumes chucking sticks about and sometimes even catching them – but after today’s exertions I don’t think that I could stand the strain.

I hope Terry is grateful for all the sacrifices that I’m making on his behalf so that we can get his show on the road! Missing out on a display of girls in skimpy clothing is not something I would do lightly.

And in other more depressing news, here, in the comfort and safety of my own attic, I have been flaming well stung on the leg by a perishing blasted wasp!

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Tuesday 8th June 2010 – How about this for bizarre?

As you know, I spend some of the winter cutting down trees for firewood and the first that I cut was the old tree just in front of the house that looked like it had died (and a good move it was to do that too as it immediately revitalised itself and went berserk)

.The wood that I cut down I chopped into lengths and stacked neatly (for once) at the side of the barn to dry out ready to burn.

However, one of the the lengths sprouted a branch or two so I reckoned that there must have been tons of sap still in it. But not at all. In fact when I tried to move it during my tidy-up session I noticed that it had pushed some roots out and grown back into the soil.

Now THAT‘s unusual.

But I’ve not done much in the way of tidying up for the simple reason that the weather has been against me. I did a machine load of washing yesterday and it was such a beautiful evening last night that I left it out to dry. So of course we’ve had nothing but torrential downpours all day and everything is thoroughly soaking. I spent the morning computing and after lunch did some of the moving around but dodging the showers was difficult and in the end I made a coffee and came up here to watch a film.

But there’s been so much rain that my hardstanding is like a squelchy sponge again. I was hoping that it would stay dry to give me a chance to tamp it down. And ironically the puddle that was soaking wet and into which I spent a day embedding rocks into it, that’s currently the driest and most stable part of it now. That’s weird too.

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Monday 7th June 2010 – I had another gardening day today.

You can see in the photo that I’ve rediscovered my bean and pea frame, so seeing as I now have three pea plants and four bean plants ( and isn’t that disappointing?) I put it up so that they will have something to cling to. When I saw the lack of beans and peas this year then I needed something to cling to for support, but I hadn’t recovered the frame then.

The radishes I planted a couple of weeks ago are going berserk and the spinach is now coming up. maybe things are putting in a late burst.

I’ve sown another row of carrots in place too, and transplanted the first showing of cauliflower and the second showing of broccoli. The cucumber plants I planted in the small cloche and to do that I had to take out the trays of herbs. They are on the window ledge of the house for now.

You might recall that I brought my herbs back from Brussels and planted them in a trough. I had some more in small pots and so I made up another trough and those herbs have gone into there. I’m putting them in troughs so that in winter I can take them indoors.

The mint I left in a pot and planted the pot in the trough for the simple reason that mint goes berserk and spreads everywhere if you don’t contain it.

The soil in the trough by the way is 50% compost from LIDL, 50% soil from when I dug out the earth beichstuhl and a dusting of wood ashes to give it all some potash.

So that was the afternoon. In the morning I was computing and before lunch I did a load of washing – the first for ages down here but you might recall that I did a few loads in Brussels when I was there and Liz kindly did a few loads for me while I was helping Terry.

This evening was the Anglo-French Group. Mark prepared a good game for us and we had some fun. We were somewhat divided into two groups though – some of us working upstairs and the others talking and smoking downstairs.

So tomorrow now that the garden is done for this week I’ll carry on moving stuff from the side of the barn. I want to get all of that stuff moved as soon as possible.

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Thursday 3rd June 2010 – I went outside this morning …

… and had another look at that damp patch. I went to have a dance in it and sure enough a whole pile of water welled up in my footprints.

I have mixed emotions about this. I’d like the new hardstanding to dry out as quickly as possible so that I can use it, but on the other hand I can see the advantages of digging out my own well.

So I dunno. Bernard reckons that it might be 8 days before it’s safe to drive onto the hardstanding – to give it time to settle and to tamp down, but this damp patch he reckons will take much longer. I’ll be interested to see what it’s like in a fortnight.

But I was right about this morning. I had a nice leisurely breakfast, did some work on the computer and spent most of the afternoon in the garden planting. I’ve more veg coming through but it’s still weeks behind down there. Mind you we had a good hot windy day with the wind now blowing from the east. I’ve done some tidying up as well and I can now get into the barn for a change.

And talking of the barn it won’t be long before we start on that roof. At least all of the stuff that’s lying around in the way can be put on the new hardstanding.

Tomorrow I have an early start. I need to be in Pionsat at …errrr…. 09:00. No idea how I’m going to manage that.

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Thursday 27th May 2010 – One of the things I did today …

… was a job that I had been putting off for a while.

well, not exactly putting off but one that I keep on meaning to do but always forget about – until today, that is.

When I did the lean-to roof back in August I did the guttering but due to the lack of stock in Brico Depot I couldn’t do the downspout so I just had a length of pipe shoved in there. After several months of this I suddenly remembered about the downspout when I was in Brico Depot once not so long ago and as they had the stuff I stocked up.

I prmoptly forgot about it and the occasional flashes I had always seemed to occur when I was too busy to do it. Even the tempest blowing it down coincided with something else of urgence that I had to do.

But not today! I was wandering somewhat aimlessly around the place this morning after my customary 2 hours on the computer and so I searched out all of the stuff and did it.

I’ve not finished off the bottom as I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I have it simply draining onto another piece of guttering and that runs away down the field as a temporary measure.

I’ll now have to think of more permanent arrangement to complete it because I can’t leave it like this. It’s a waste of water for a start.

I’ve also done some more gardening. I’ve put out some of the aubergines and planted some spinach and more radishes. I’ve also sown a few lettuce seeds in a pot to create some kind of succession. The radishes that I planted 6 weeks ago are looking good and I reckon that on Monday it will be lettuce and radishes from my own garden.

To finish off, I’ve started boarding the back wall in the bedroom where the wardrobe is going to be, and as you might expect, I don’t think that I have enough OSB boards left over from when I did the barn floor. That’s a disappointment.

Still, it’s almost the weekend and I can nip off into town and buy some more to finish the job. But it is depressing that I always seem to run aground just when I’m in the right kind of mood to press on regardless.

In other news, we were in the studio on Tuesday recording our programme for June. We didn’t have a guest because the guy I was trying to contact didn’t call me back. So of course, he called me back yesterday. Our programmes that we recorded are for the month of June so today I received an e-mail from a Tourist body telling me about events in the Puy-de-Dome in … errrrr … June.

You can’t make up this kind of nonsense, can you?

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

… the good weather didn’t hold. The weather front that was slowly drifting across here last night seemed to have settled down for the day.

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

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

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

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

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Monday 10th May 2010 – I was working this afternoon …

… in the bedroom. I’ve put the first layer of battens on the left-hand wall, added another strip of insulation (the last I have as it happens so I need to buy some more) and put all of the counter-battens on the back wall.

Tomorrow I’ll be putting some on the side wall and then starting to put the polystyrene insulation on top.

You’re probably thinking that it’s due to the weather that I was working inside, but ohhhh no. It’s true that when I first woke up it was raining heavily but by the time I had woken up definitively there was a beautiful blue sky and for much of the day it stayed like that.

This morning after working on the computer I planted out the first sprout plants, put the beetroot out to harden off and did some more sowing. I also noticed that the cauliflower are now starting to show themselves. And with the damp conditions in the greenhouse for the last few days followed by the heat today I’m hoping that a few more might take off.

After lunch it was working in the bedroom. I might have to go back to Brussels in a couple of months or so and I’ll be bringing a pile of domestic stuff back with me. I’ve nowhere to keep it as yet so getting the bedroom ready might come in handy so that I can use it as a storage space for now.

This evening we had just a couple of little showers and a thunderstorm as a weather front moved across from the East. But I hope this weather keeps up for a while – we need it.

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

I knew the offcuts from the tongue-and-grooving would come in handy sooner or later.

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday 13th April 2010 – Just for a change …

… I woke up early this morning. So after breakfast I came back up here and carried on with my website updating for a couple of hours until it was work time.

Once I had done a couple of hours of that it was downstairs and working on this extra bed again. It’s finished now thank heavens for it wasn’t half a backbreaking task. I reckon I uprooted 12 trees and pulled up about a mile of root segments.

I also pulled up a load of exciting bits and pieces of which the most interesting was part of the brake mechanism for a racing bicycle. I wonder what that was doing there

And while I was at it I started to locate amongst all of the undergrowth the original fruit trees that I planted in 1999. So far, one apple tree and one pear tree and they are both budding.

The new bed will be about 3mx1m and just the job for sowing a load of spuds for this year. The earlies are not far off being ready and they will churn up this new bed quite nicely. But germination of seeds in the greehouse is soooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooow. Not very much has germinated so I reckon I need to sow another load.

And you know how they say that if something is too good to be true then it usually is? Well I have something simmering away on the back boiler that sounds a bit like that and I am waiting to see what the catch is.

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EPIC HALL

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