Tag Archives: caliburn

Monday 21st June 2010 – Sometimes when you do house clearances …

foot forward tandem bakfiets les guis virlet puy de dome france… you strike it lucky – although it’s not all that often. Most of the stuff that Kate had to dispose of had already been disposed but she did keep a couple of things back for me, including this magnificent “foot forward” tandem, for which I’m extremely grateful.

It’s a home-made effort made up of bits of bike cobbled together and although the idea and the design look sound enough, the workmanship is somewhat rudimentary and it needs finishing.

But what is extraordinary about it is that I’ve been looking for a bakfiets for years and having a good look at this, I can see that parts of it actually started out as a bakfiets and so it will be a comparatively easy task to convert it back.

I could be on to something here.

But the move was exciting in more ways than one. Due to Guillaume’s van having broken down I was asked if I could deliver Rebecca’s stuff to her. But a constant change of plan meant that the boxes and so on for her were in and out of the van on numerous occasions before Karl and Lou ended up taking them. For most people this constant change of plan wasn’t an issue but for one person, who wasn’t even involved in the move and who spent most of his time standing around and watching, it was a total crisis. If it had been anyone that I had known, he would have had a smack in the mouth long before we had finished. I dunno how people put up with behaviour like this.

So I took my leave of Kate, which was disappointing because I quite like her and I wish that I had got to know her better, and I went off with Karl and Lou to look at their house. It’s a nice little place in Lapeyrouse. we’re having a chantier there on Saturday to help progress the work

. At the moment they are living in a caravan with a huge awning and I can safely say that it is the first time ever that I have seen a caravan awning with a fitted kitchen. Definitely a step up from the days of the camp camp.

This afternoon after unloading Caliburn I did some gardening. I’ve planted out a few more plants and I’ve done some more succession sowing.

Those of you who have been following my adventures will know that all of the water consumed on the premises is from the rain that falls on the verandah. It drops down a pipe into a sump that catches the stones and heavy rubbish and then backs up into a pipe that goes through a mesh filter into a 203-litre water butt with a tap for water out. The tap is situated about 10cms off the bottom to allow anything that falls into the tank (sticks, stones, leaves etc) to sink to the bottom.

There’s another 203-litre water butt that is connected to it. Of course all water destined for human consumption is boiled beforehand.

But an examination of the water butts the other day showed that the water in the “in and out” water butt is not as clean as I would like it to be whereas the tank in parallel is spotlessly clean because nothing ever drops into it – it’s all fed in by the connector pipe which is at 10cms off the bottom of the other tank.

rainwater harvesting home made filter les guis virlet puy de dome franceThat situation can be altered by feeding into the rearmost tank and drawing the water out of the front tank and it’s a modification that I’ve had in mind for a while.

But at Brico Depot on Saturday they had the bits I needed and so I cleaned the mesh filter, cleaned out the pipework, swapped the lids over and routed the rainwater pipe into the rear tank.

The bits that drop into the water will stay on the floor of the rear tank and the front tank should stay quite clean.

But there are two other mods that I can do. I’m going to build an in-line filter and fill it with puzzolane, the volcanic lava rock that has impressive water-filtering capabilities, and seal the two tanks so that nothing can creep in underneath the lids.

And this morning I went to the medical centre at St Eloy les Mines for my medical for this refereeing lark. I passed pretty much although I have to go to Montlucon for a test d’effort and an ECG. But the doctor told me that he thinks that my blood pressure is up.
“Well, so would yours be if this weather has done to your garlic what it’s been doing to mine”. But having to have a tetanus injection is exciting. I was given a prescription to go to the chemist’s to buy the injection, and then I have to go back to see the nurse to get her to give it to me.

Tomorrow Terry has another engagement so I’m going to do Bill’s starter for him.

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Saturday 19th June 2010 – Now is the winter of our discount tents.

now is the winter of our discount tents camping exhibition montlucon allier franceWell, it was something like that that Shakespeare (or Bacon) wrote in “Richard II” – and quite right too.

If you click on the pic to enlarge it you’ll see exactly what the weather was like today – miserable, grey and overcast. And in a desperate attempt to drum up business the local sports shop in Montlucon was having a tent demonstration. I suppose the idea is that you go and have a look and choose the one that has let in the least water.

The end of season sales are going to be exciting stuff – all these shops having bought all of this summer and camping gear and no-one will have bought anything. There will be tons of stuff on offer.

I also went to the tyre fitters to have Caliburn’s new tyres fitted. And seeing that I’ve spent so much money in there this last week he let me off the puncture repair from the other day which was nice of him. But I’m not too impressed with the scrapyard at Durdat.
“Have you got any 15-inch wheels for a Ford Transit?”
“No we haven’t” replied the manager
“Not even on that one there?” I said, indicating a late-1980s Transit that was partly dismantled down in the corner but still had its 4 wheels on.
“No. Sorry”.
You can’t even give money away to people these days. It’s too much trouble for someone to go down the yard with a trolley jack and a wheel brace. Of course in the good old days before Health and Safety you could go down the yard yourself with a trolley jack and a wheel brace but Central Government has put paid to that.

It’s quite ironic really – they talk about saving natural resources and energy and so do all that they can to encourage recycling, and then another Government department comes along and does its best to stop you recycling anything. Car scrapyards has been one of the earliest forms of recycling and is sooo environmentally-friendly yet they are doing away with it so that you have to buy new stuff thatnks to the arm-twisting that the Auto Lobby applies to politicians. I spend a lot of time in scrapyards – many things that I use in my Renewable Energy projects are from old cars – 12-volt clocks, cables, fuse boxes and the like and I don’t really know what I want until I go down a yard and have a nosey around.

But I digress.

I had no plans to but anything in Brico Depot and so the bill of over €160 took me by surprise. But it’s all useful stuff, including the huge drum of wood-treatment for the new barn roof timbers, 4 sacks of cement in case we need it for the roof and three sacks of chalk for me to do the end wall.

I drove off from LIDL with my two cartons of orange juice on the bonnet of Caliburn and when I got to the swimming baths at Neris les Bains there was one still on. How about that?

And I’m nice and clean now for a change, and talking of change I’ll be changing the bedding too so that I can make the most of it. Tomorrow I was supposed to help Katie at the brocante but she’s called it off – apparently they’ve announced a torrential downpour all day. But so that I wouldn’t be lonely, Bill rang me up. His car has broken down and if it’s not a simple repair he will need me to tow him back from St Eloy les Mines tomorrow.

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Friday 18th June 2010 – One of the major advantages …

caliburn caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome france… of having a trailer is that you can buy a huge load of wood all at one go and move it back home without any problems.

It might have cost a fortune in tyres but I shudder to think of how many loads to Brico Depot, at 70kms per round trip, I would have had to have made instead of just one trip to the sawmill at St Gervais d’Auvergne.

The wood is much, much better quality than at Brico Depot, and about 60% of the price too. Mind you, he cottoned on that he had underquoted me so I replied “well I did try to tell you the other day”. And as a reward he heaped on a few more demi-chevrons.

I’ve had good value from the sawmill and I’ll be going back there again.

The trailer pulled nicely with this load on too. Although the trip back was slower, Caliburn never struggled at all, not even going over the Font Nanaud.

Once I’d unloaded the trailer I had to take it back to Terry’s. They have finished with the scaffolding on that chantier and it needs collecting. I’m busy now until Tuesday so Terry will take the trailer round there and load it up and then either he can bring it here next time he’s passing or I can collect it next time I’m passing.

It’s a really useful idea having a trailer.

And the weather? Only 4.5mm of rain today and I’m running out of dry clothes.

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Thursday 17th June 2010 – Today started off quite nicely …

caliburn caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome france… and so I heaved myself out of my stinking pit quite early in order to catch up on what I should have done yesterday.

And by the time I’d finished, I’d made substantial and real progress. Not only do we now have another trailer, I’ve even managed to put the bent one onto the new trailer, as you can see in the photo just here as I prepare to do a little moving about.

caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceTaking the wheel off the bent trailer was comparatively straightforward and once I’d freed off the brakes on the new trailer (whose idea was it to leave it parked for 12 years with the handbrake on?) I could set about winching it out of the barn with the chain winch.

By the simple expedient of tying the body to the beams of the barn, the trailer came out of the barn without its body and I just shovelled up the debris and heaved it back into the barn again. I’ll tidy up another time.

All the loose wiring and gas pipes on the chassis were sorted out and then I had to position the trailer, swap the wheels around again and then winch the bent trailer onto the new trailer. I took all of the wheels off the bent trailer to stop it rolling around, put the good wheels and tyres onto the new chassis and then tied the bent trailer onto the new chassis so it won’t move at all.

That took me until 15:30 and I didn’t stop for lunch as the weather was changing and sure enough we had a torrential downpour. And with no trailerboard (mine was cannibalised for parts for the old trailer) I had to take the lighting board off the Sankey trailer – and that needed a total rewire. So I did all of that in the pouring rain. 15.5mm we’ve had, and it all fell in a four-hour spell this afternoon.

But soaking wet as I am (yet again) I can at least move the bent trailer and I have the other one to fetch my wood tomorrow for the barn roof, if the weather ever stops raining long enough for us to make a start.

I’ve always said I work much better under pressure and having to give Terry a hand to set his business up, I’ve accomplished far more this last three weeks back here that I ever would have done if I had been left to my own devices.

But I wish it would stop perishing raining.

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Monday 14th June 2010 – This is a significant photo …

hardstanding caliburn parking les guis virlet puy de dome france… and for two reasons. Firstly, it’s the first pic of Caliburn in his new home. At lunchtime I took him for a drive on the new hardstanding to flatten it down a bit. But the ground hasn’t dried up enough (and it’s still p155ing down now) so it’s no surprise that at one stage he bogged down. But I was expecting it and I had the chain winch ready.

It’s also significant in the respect that it’s the first pic with the new Nikon D5000. I was in fact all ready to use the Pentax K100D but the battery was flat and the ones on charge wouldn’t fire it up. So it seemed to he the right time to fire up the Nikon.

But never mind being bogged down – this was one of those days where problems seemed to come along in droves. After Terry came round for some of my scaffolding poles, I went into Montlucon to pick up these tyres for the trailer – and I had a puncture.  Then of course there was the bogging-down, and then on the way to St Gervais d’Auvergne I got stuck behind a circus convoy – “Showman’s Goods” as they are described in British Road Traffic Law or “Les Forains” as they are described over here. So it was 30kph (if we were lucky) all the way there.

And at St Gervais d’Auvegne I’ve ordered all my wood. The guy in the sawmill has undercharged me, and I pointed that out to him (I don’t believe in taking advantage of small businessmen – I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me) but he insists that he’s right. But €126 for one thing and €99 for another and then a few other bits and pieces will never ever make €167 no matter how hard anyone tries to make it.

st gervais d'auvergne birdwatching centre ornithologique puy de dome franceOnce everything was sorted out in St Gervais d’Auvergne the next stop was to Liz and Terry’s to fit the wheels and tyres on the trailer.

The route as usual took me past the birdwatching centre at the back of town, which is my favourite spot for photographing the Puy de Dome. Now that I have the new Nikon D5000 I can take a pic from here and compare it with one of the photos taken with the Pentax K100D and we can see if there’s a difference.

Terry was out earning some folding stuff when I arrived and so I put the new wheels on the trailer and then helped Liz with some weeding.

Now we are all ready for moving this tractor tomorrow. What with all of the effort we’ve put into it, I hope it all goes according to plan.

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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. 

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier franceAnd 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.

viaduc des fades gorges de la sioule puy de dome franceThe 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.

rotary snowplough allier franceThe 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.

french sncf diesel railcar montlucon allier franceFrance’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.

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier francePride 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.

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier franceThe 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.

american mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive 141 R 420 montlucon allier franceIt 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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Saturday 5th June 2010 – I was in Marcillat en Combraille this evening …

… for a meeting about tourism. I arrived promptly at 19:30 to find out that the meeting actually started at 17:30. At that time I was in the swimming baths at Neris les Bains.

But nevertheless I was well-entertained by the woman who runs the tourist board and towards the end of our discussion I realised why it was that I had been invited. It seems that the Allier’s equivalent of SMADC also run some kind of programme on local radio – in this case Radio Tartasse – and they are interested in an English-language programme. Of course, before I say anything I need to speak to Liz about it but I did suggest that they talk to Christian at SMADC and see about syndicating what we do for them.

donjon marcillat en combraille allier franceAfter the meeting I went for a drink with Marianne at the local hotel and in there drinking were Geoffrey and Francois from the Anglo-French group. We had a good chat about things while we were there.

On the way back to Caliburn, just as the sun was setting I couldn’t resist taking a pic of the village square and the donjon. It was just at the right time too – not too light and not too dark either – and it’s come out pretty well. It does help, having a good tripod.

new fence between field and potager les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt’s been probably the hottest day of the year today. The temperature reached as high as 35.8°, which is the highest temperature since 7th September last year.

Not much chance of having me working in that. I spent the morning watching the local farmer repair the fence at the back of the house here and then bring his cattle along, and then I spent the rest of the morning doing some work on the website.

This afternoon was shopping and nothing exciting, and then into the pool at Neris.

But I’ll tell you what – I’m noticing more and more tattoos on more and more people over here and I can’t do with tattoos at all. There was one woman in the pool, clearly in her early 50s and with a figure that most women half her age would die for – and she knew how to show it off to the best advantage too – and covered with tattoos. I just don’t know how people can do it and I don’t know what pleasure there is in it either.

There was another woman in there too – and as she went swimming past me on her back I thought of saying to her “for God’s sake don’t breathe in!”.

So here I am in my room tonight – it’s 00:20 and I’m shirtless and it’s still 27° in here, even with all of the windows open. In fact it reached 28.7° degrees in here at one point.

Heaven knows what it’s going to be like in August.

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Tuesday 25th May 2010 – What amazing weather.

Indeed.

This morning was bright and sunny – it was really beautiful and we were heading for another warmest day of the year. The drive down to Gerzat to record our radio programme was hot and sweaty just like an August day and the temperature down there was 31 degrees.

When we left there it had risen to 32 degrees but by the time we hit the motorway to come back there were these huge and onimous grey clouds streaming in from the west at a rapid rate of knots

All of a sudden the temperature plummeted. From 32 degrees it dropped to just 14 degrees in a matter of minutes and as we climbed up into the Combrailles it started to rain intermittently.

After I rescued Caliburn from St Gervais d’Auvergne I drove back here and the skies started to clear.

steam on road rainstorm hanging cloud font nanaud pionsat puy de dome franceBut suddenly it would cloud over again, we’d have the most tremendous rainstorm and then the clouds would depart leaving us in bright sunshine.

The temperature would rise back into the low 30s almost immediately and the heat would cause all of the roads and the vegetation to steam – just like in this pic near the top of the Font Nanaud on the road between St Gervais d’Auvergne and Pionsat.

Despite what it looks like, it isn’t a hanging cloud.

Back here at home though (just 10 kms from the Font) things had clearly been much more dramatic. 17mm of rainfall had fallen and my water butts were full again.

It cleared up in late afternoon but for the last hour or so it’s been raining heavily, and aren’t my plants grateful for that?

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

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Sunday 16th May 2010 – Football isn’t everyone’s cup of tea …

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire puy de dome ligue de football league france… and as we were all staggering off towards the pie hut at half-time today during the match at St Maurice pres Pionsat I couldn’t resist taking this pic of a Biollet St Maurice supporter overcome by emotion due to the hectic pace of the game.

But the young lady fast asleep by the touchline and the blue sky will give you some idea of the weather today. Summer seems to be back – and about time too.

puy de dome franceMind you, I can’t blame the girl for falling asleep because it was one of THOSE games this afternoon. The heat was clearly getting to everyone and so it was played at something of a leisurely pace and in the end, finished as a 0-0 draw.

Pionsat were the better side though and did have one or two chances to take the lead during the match, but I do have to admit I’ve seen many more exciting games than this one. At least, is was a pleasant day out.

I woke up at 09:57 to the sun streaming in through my windows here. It looked beautiful and I couldn’t resist thinking to myself that it was so nice that someone was bound to spoil it. And right on cue the phone rang. Bernard, the football club chairman, wanted to tell me that his son (he who has the digger) wanted to talk to me and could he come round.

So I hauled myself out of bed to wait for him. I asked Bernard a while back if he knew of someone with a digger who can dig out where I want to park Caliburn and he recommended his son. But he was stuck on a chantier in all of this bad weather. It now seems that they’ve been able to work and it may well be that by Friday they’ll be finished. So he came to see the job and reckons he’ll ring me on Friday or Saturday to tell me when he can start.

I told him about Simon’s job and he’s keen to do that too. And by the purest coincidence it seems that where Simon is living is the old workshop of Bernard’s uncle and Bernard was born in the house just next to Simon’s.

This world is getting far too small for me.

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Wednesday 28th April 2010 – Today was busy.

This morning first thing I had to go round to Michael’s. He’d just come back from the UK and bought me 10 kilos of oats. And as he was off again this afternoon I needed to rescue them (and pay him) before he went.

Back home I had time to plant some of the seeds that Clare had given me before leaping aboard Caliburn, my trusty steed, and heading off to St Gervais d’Auvergne to meet Liz and go on to Gerzat to record our radio programme. And of course to meet this photographer guy who wanted not just to photograph us but to interview us too. It seems that in the Combrailles we are becoming major news and our publicity is reaching its height. Yes, we are going to be the feature article in … errrr …. a free advert-type newspaper in the Combrailles with a circulation of about 350.

Not quite Le Monde or Paris Match I know, but we remain confident that one day we will be there. I’m eagerly awaiting the day that we will be asked to open our first brocante or be the guests of honour at a concours de belote.

Back at St Gervais d’Auvergne Liz and I went for a coffee or two and discussed our plans for next week. We are going to hit the Chambre de Metiers et de l’Artisanat in Chamailles and get all our business affairs in order. Neither of us has received our formal inscription of our business registrations despite having had an acknowledgement almost a year ago. High time we did something about it.

Back here I planted all of my early potatoes. And I think I’m going to run out of room for the lates and so I’ll have to invent something about that. And I should have gone to football training this evening but today was the hottest day of the year and it’s still 25 degrees up here even with all of the windows open. That’s not a temperature for someone of my age and my level of fitness to be running around. But the weather is supposed to break tomorrow or Friday morning, with rain (the first since April 9th) and a major drop in temperature. If that holds, then training at the Friday night session is a distinct possibility.

Now where have I put my footy boots????

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Monday 26th April 2010 – It was another good day today

And I didn’t miss any of it really seeing as how I had another early morning phone call. So having dealt with that and having breakfasted I then missed almost all of the decent weather by having to come up here to work. It seems that our guest for this month’s radio programmes has gone AWOL and it’s too late to arrange for anyone else.

So I had to have a rummage around in the darkened corners of my mind and I’ve come up with a lively topic – FURTHER EDUCATION. Liz and I can talk about that for hours as we both have experience of it. And with people desperate to fill in their spare time it seemed to be a good option.

There are four categories too, which will fit in nicely with the four weeks –

  1. GCSEs and A Levels
  2. Higher Education
  3. Vocational training
  4. Learning for Pleasure

and so I have been researching.

I had a break for a few hours and did some more unloading of Caliburn. You can’t move up here for stuff now. I had a rummage through the tools that were in the LDV and remade the toolbox contents in Caliburn with the best of the stuff. When I had my taxis 25 years ago I used my tools an awful lot – hardly surprising given the cars that I had, and many of those tools from those days had found their way into the mobile toolbox. And strange as it is to say it, just feeling those tools and feeling just how comfortably they fitted into my hands again  – it was just like meeting up with good old friends.

Normally I don’t go in for the pretentious prose and garbage and that kind of thing, but it really was something extraordinary.

But on the subject of vocational training I met Elodie at the football. She’s quite cute and I have a soft spot for her. I hadn’t seen her on the tills at Auchan for a while, and she told me she had left and was now back in full-time education. One of the courses she is taking is in shorthand-typing and having learnt of Terry’s injury, she suggested that it might be a career opportunity for him.

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Saturday 24th April 2010 – I’ve just watched …

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire cebazat puy de dome ligue de football league france… this ...errr....interesting football match this evening.

We had all kinds of blood, guts and thunder for 90 minutes, and played almost entirely between the two penalty areas. Matthieu in the Pionsat goal had to be at his best to claw away a free header from the corner and the Cebazat keeper had to save two weak shots, but that was the sum total of the attempts on goal.

Yes, I'm back at home after all the excitement of Friday evening in Brussels. And what with the late finish getting everything ready last night, I didn't make it home all in one go. I ended up having an overnight stop at Clamecy where I froze to death in a layby (yes, it's still perishing cold at night)

Still, the one thing about that was that it made me have an early start, and I didn't lose very much as I stopped for the weekly shopping at the Carrefour in Moulins.

I was back here by the early afternoon and promptly crashed out for two hours on my sofa. That set me up nicely for the trip down to Pionsat and the football tonight.

As Golden Earring once famously said, "it's good to be back home".

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Friday23rd April 2010 – I’ll be back …

… on the road in about 10 minutes. And I’ll be very late getting away tonight, much later than I wanted to be, but then again, a lot has happened.

Firstly we had yet another “end of an era”. Long-time followers of this organ will recall the white LDV that I bought in 2002 and which ran for ever once we put a new engine into it but which was defeated by rust and lack of spare parts. It’s been sitting outside the apartment at “Expo” for three years since Caliburn came along and everyone was moaning about it, so I had someone come along and take it away.

A vehicle dismantler in Brussels has an LDV and he can’t find spares for it either so he gave me €100 for it, which I reckoned was excellent value.

Cleaning it out discovered hordes of goodies that I had forgotten all about too as well as a full set of tools, so it was quite profitable all told.

After that I went for lunch with Mike, who is doing my old job as chair of the Open University Student Association’s North European Revolutionary Forces. And I had quite a laugh as on the way there I saw a billboard saying “You have won the lottery. Where will you be dining now?” Well, I had effectively won the lottery with disposing of the LDV and I was taking Mike to a fritkot. My generosity knows no bounds.

And so, after paying all of the bills and so forth, I cleaned up Expo just a little bit, loaded up Caliburn, and hit the road.

I also found some time to call in at the IKEA Anderlecht (where I was one of several persons involved in an argument on the car park) for one or two things that I need at home.

And so, all in all, it is going to be a very late departure and I’m not planning on making it all the way home in one go. After all, I’ve had quite a busy day.

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Thursday 22nd April 2010 – I can’t be doing …

… with this tidying up nonsense

I’ve been at it for most of the day and don’t seem to have made any progress at all. But then again I’ve taken 6 full bin liners down to the dustbins, packed up another three ready to donate to the clothes collection, and I’ve also done four washing-machine loads.

But you can’t really notice any difference and anyone who comes here and recalls this posting will wonder what on earth the place looked like before I started to tidy it up.

Having said that though, it IS three years since I’ve lived here and so there’s bound to be piles of dust and the like, and with renovations going on simultaneously in two rooms (long-term readers of this blog in its previous guises will recall all about that) it’s hardly surprising that things got just a little out of control.

Tomorrow I have some bills to pay and then I need to load up Caliburn with stuff. That’ll empty the place somewhat and it will make moving around so much easier. I still haven’t worked out where I’m going to put everything when I finally empty out the place (I’m just bringing stuff that can be left outside) so it seems to me that my priorities need to be to finish the bedroom back at the farm when I return and get that emptied out of tools and slates and the like. That’ll give me somewhere dry to keep everything while I have a good ponder.

But there’s some kind of plan simmering around underneath the surface for this place too, but more of this anon.

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Tuesday 20th April 2010 – AND RIGHT NOW …

… I’m in Expo, my apartment in Brussels.

As I said yesterday (or to be more precise, first thing this morning) I’ve had to rush back here as a matter of urgency as there are a couple of things that need my urgent attention.

There are a few other things that I would like to do too. Not that these are important, but I can combine all of these things together and that’s a few more issues solved too.

But back in Brussels I was almost run down on a zebra crossing as soon as I got out of Caliburn, and then I was involved in the Great Brussels paperchase.

And that includes the fact that my Brussels id card is out of date and not accepted in the bank, but my driving licence, issued on the same day and with the same photograph, is accepted.

And then being stuck in the Brussels rush-hour traffic that I had forgotten all about for hours, watching a motorist deliberately ram her old and rusting Opel into someone’s big and spanking-new BMW.

To think that I used to work amongst this for 10 years.

And then finally getting back here (having done first everything that was important just in case I was overwhelmed by the excitement of it all) and walking right into the middle of a raging controversy.

I am not glad to be back and I can’t wait for Friday night when I can come home. I’ve only been here for a few hours and I’m fed up already.

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