Tag Archives: caliburn

Monday 26th October 2009 – I didn’t do an awful lot today.

In fact, it was a day of interruptions.

Starting as we mean to go on, I wasn’t upstairs 10 minutes before the phone rang. The man from Nazar …. errr… DHL rang to seek directions to chez moi. I carried on with tidying up last night’s wiring efforts and Terry rang, asking if he could borrow my compressor.

Then Terry came round – and he helped me finish the wiring. I was struggling to get the 2x10mm cables for the heater element through the conduit – not something it’s easy to do yourself, so while Terry started it off I went to look for my patent cable dragger. And by the time I came back with it, Terry had threaded it through on his own. It pays to have an expert around the place.
In fact, I had a friend who was acknowledged as an expert by everyone else.
But in that case, it was spelt ex-spurt and ex is a has-been and spurt is a drip under pressure.

After that the man from DHL turned up with a little package for me, and then it was lunchtime.

Once lunch was over I played the usual game of “hunt the keys for Caliburn” and when I eventually found them I drove Caliburn round the back here and loaded him full of scaffolding to take round to Terry tomorrow – all the time half-expected to be confronted by The Ghost Of Farmer Parrett and his pitchfork again.

attic concrete base woodstove tile brick edge
In the attic I did manage to do some work today. All of the chimney is now connected up, sealed and clamped together, and I’ve also done something to the concrete base.

If you follow the comments to the various entries (they are often the most exciting part) you’ll know that Krys and I have been discussing the edging to the concrete. I wanted to put a raised edge around it although Krys thinks (and rightly so) that it will be difficult to keep clean.

I’m still worried about flying embers though, but there’s no point in soliciting advice if you don’t intend to take any notice, so what I did was to put a raised edge around the front and most of the sides, and leave the back open so I can brush out around there.

And what did the man from DHL want? Well, he brought me my new lens that I talked about the other day. And that was quick delivery – I wish Amazon would be this quick from the States. And €36 customs and charges – that’s an enormous rip-off if you ask me.

I’m disappointed with the lens though. It’s very small and you would hardly notice it. Freud had a thing or two to say about camera lenses, something along the lines of them being substitutes for part of the anatomy in the same way that guns and sports cars might be. And I was hoping for a whopper. The filter size is 49mm, which I don’t have, so that means a 20-quid order to the 7-Day Shop.

The lens is a manual focus (not a problem because with the footy, the focus is always “full on”) and that reminds me of a story I heard about the two blondes on the beach, being approached by the beach photographer.
“Keep still” said one. “He’s going to focus!“
“What? Both of us?“

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Saturday 17th October 2009 – In a major departure …

attic floor concrete base woodstove… from my usual habits, I did some work this morning. I built a framework on the floor, lined it with a plastic sheet, and then concreted it. This will be a slab that will be tiled and the woodstove will be placed on it. Once I take away the framework, the slab will be held in place by the laminate floor that I’ll be fitting.

I’ve had to make the slab with a lot of stones so that it will knit closely together – after all, it’s only 2.5cms thick – but I made it too wet. There is nowhere for the water to drain away of course, with it being in a plastic sheet, so the water has floated to the surface and pockmarked it in places. But it’s not a problem as I’ll fill the pocks with tiling cement in due course.
fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire riom>After the shopping we had the footy tonight. And GRRRRRRRRR again to Pionsat. The match against Le Quartier was cancelled so I had a wasted drive down there and back again. I drove down again for the match at 20:30, only to find that it had kicked off at 20:00. As I got out of Caliburn, Riom broke down the field and scored, and as I walked into the ground, Pionsat went up the other end and they scored. I had also missed a penalty, but Riom didn’t miss it, and they ran out winners 2-1.

In other news – do you remember my footy photo from last weekend? It seems that the local newspaper, La Montagne, has published it. That’s a few of my photos the newspaper has used now. No money, of course (and I could do with some right now) but at least some of my work is getting an airing and they wouldn’t use them unless they thought something positive of them. And who knows where it might lead?

And tomorrow I’ll be tiling the back wall behind the slab. That’s where I’ll be stacking the wood so tiles will enable it just to be wiped down to clean. That’s a better idea than wallpaper. And that’s a novel idea too – working on a Sunday.

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Friday 25th September 2009 – AND JUST FOR A CHANGE …

fitting stud wall attic les guis virlet puy de dome france… today’s pic is taken from almost the same spot as the previous two.

You can’t see the battens that I affixed to the wall but you can see the insulation that I attached. That is on the rear wall to the left of the wooden framing, and in the apex above the door. There’s even a shelf up there now – that’s where I’ll be fitting the water tank.

You may be wondering why it is that I haven’t fitted the insulation to the rest of the wall. Two reasons really –

  1. it is outside the limits of my room so I don’t need to do it just now. I’d rather concentrate my efforts inside my room
  2. I ran out of insulation

I’ve also fitted all of the rest of the flooring – one piece of which was not without some considerable effort.

The orange cable that you see is an American 110-volt extension cable, bought in Farmington, New Mexico, in September 2002 and brought back to Europe in my hand luggage. I use American 110-volt fittings for my 12-volt circuit on the farm as it’s capable of handling a much heavier current than European fittings. And I needed the extension cable because with fitting the flooring I’ve had to take out the temporary circuit that I installed the other week.

And of course I clean forgot that I had moved the cassette player across the room. Consequently, in a moment of inattention, I kicked it down through the hole in the stairs all the way down to ground level. I bet that’s done it a world of good.

But cassettes are so depassé these days and CDs are in and as I don’t have a 12-volt CD player I will have to see if I can’t liberate one from a brocante some time and make a more modern 12-volt hi-fi.

Terry and Liz came round again too. They had been to get more sand and came round to see if I had any cement. There were three bags in Caliburn and as they are temporarily in the way I donated them to the cause.

Tomorrow, no Brico Depot. Caliburn is still choc-a-bloc of stuff so I’ve plenty to be going on with. I may well have a run around Commentry tomorrow – it’s quite a while since I’ve been shopping there and there are an Aldi, a Lidl, a good DiY place and a couple of cruddy cheapo shops that are sometimes worth a poke around.

And in other exciting news I’ve had an e-mail from Simon. He wasn’t able to pick up a cheap woodstove for me from Machine Mart as he was leaving last night and delivery wasn’t until today. But a change of plan means that he isn’t leaving until Monday so he’s picking up a stove for me. Many thanks to Krys and Terry for teaming up to work that out for me, and for Simon for putting it into operation.

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Wednesday 23rd September 2009 – NO VEGAN CHOCOLATE CAKE! SHOCK! HORROR!

But there was vegan ginger cake instead so that was ok.

And I reckoned I earned it too. Caliburn certainly did, hauling almost 2 tons of gravel over the Font Nanaud in the Sankey trailer. And then we had to unload it and bag it afterwards.

Terry offered me a shovel – a standard size one but I had my LIDL special – a long handled variety.
“It saves my back – I can shovel up while I’m stading upright”
“But the long-handle means you bash people with it when you turn round”
“Anyone who has worked with me for any length of time ought to know not to get too close to me no matter what tool it is that I’m wielding”.

space blanket insulation erecting stud wall attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceMeanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ve started to erect the other pillars and cross beams for the partition around the head of the stairs. This is the part where the door will go.

I’ll be fitting the water tank in the space over the top of the door but it’s looking smaller than I expected it to be. I have a 200-litre tank that someone gave me but I don’t think that it’s going to fit and so I’ll have to actually go out and buy … “you do know that word then” – ed … a smaller one.

Talking of buying, I’ll be having a weekend of not going to Brico Depot. Caliburn is still chock-full of stuff from last weekend and I’ve nowhere to store it, so I’m going to have to work on using all of the material that’s hanging around in order to make some space.

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Saturday 12th September 2009 – GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire equipe 3 neuf eglise puy de dome franceThe footy season commenced this evening and Pionsat’s 3rd XI (who were in action aganst Neuf-Eglise’s 2nd team) started where they left off at the end of last season. Damian in goal with his teflon gloves and a 3-0 defeat.

The 1st XI are in action at Miremont and the 2nd XI are in action at Pontaumur tomorrow afternoon. Both away from home and I haven’t been to either ground before so I’m rather spoilt for choice. I can go to Pontaumur again as their 3rd XI are in the same division as Pionsat’s 3rd XI but seeing as it’s the 2nd XI’s 1st game in Division 2 following their promotion, I reckon I’ll be wandering off there to give them my (im)moral support.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I went into Montlucon today and spent a record low 200 Euros at Brico Depot.

And there is a good reason for that. Most sheets of construction material are of a standard size – 2.40 metres long. And short wheelbase Ford Transits are 2.42 metres long in the load bed to take this into account. So I have absolutely no idea why sheets of insulation-backed plasterboard weigh in at 2.50. It’s totally illogical.

I need about 20 for my attic but of course they won’t go inside Caliburn with the door shut and you can’t drive 30 kms with both the back doors wide open, and you can’t leave them in the back of the van until you need them. So if you stand them sideways upright with just one door half-open you can get 13 in which is enough to be going on with, particularly as you have to unload them and put them somewhere (like standing upright outside the house covered by a tarpaulin).

And they are big and awkward to manoeuvre. There’s no way I’ll be getting these up the ladder into the attic in one piece. I’m going to have to cut them to shape outside and then get them up into the attic. And where I could in theory fit a whole one, it’s still going to have to be cut in at least half so I’ll be able to handle it safely.

Mind you, the spending spree continued as I ordered my bed-settee (340 Euros) and my occasional table (I don’t know yet what it is for the rest of the time) and I had to pay a 25% deposit. It’ll all be ready for early October which is my deadline for doing the attic out. A lot of money for a bed-settee you might think, but I’ll be spending a lot of time on it and so I may as well be comfortable.

They also had a really comfortable office chair (like the old one in Brussels that I have curled up and slept in on numerous occasions) and a really dinky miniature gas cooker which has caught my eye for the future.

And as luck would have it they were having a sale of bed linen at the Auchan and I now have 2 quilt covers, 4 pillow cases and 2 fitted sheets for a grand total of 25 Euros. And all in matching colours too! All I need now is a room to put it all in.

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Friday 11th September 2009 – I HAD ANOTHER ONE …

space blanket wall insulation attic flooring counter battens les guis virlet puy de dome france… of those days where I couldn’t seem to get going.

Mind you, I was so exhausted after yesterday’s exertions that I had a lie-in until 10:00 to recover and it wasn’t until 11:00 that I got to work.

I finished the wiring at the far end of the room and then finished off the insulation down the two side walls. That involved fitting the battens and then xylophening them to protect against woodworm and the like. Then I had to stretch the insulation across the battens and staple it on.

space blanket insulation attic flooring les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon I started to fit the rest of the floor.

This involved pulling up the old pallets that I’d been using as flooring, xylophening the beams and then fitting the sheets of OSB.

A couple of them needed trimming down and cutting for shapes and I did such I good job of this (I even impressed myself!) that one piece took about an hour to tap into place. And I was giving it such a whack with the mallet that I’m convinced I’ve broken my finger when I missed my aim with the mallet
“Your whole finger?”
“No – the one next to it”
I’ve done almost as much as I can now before the major engineering starts and it was at 19:45 when I came down from the attic. By the time I’d unloaded Caliburn ready for the fray around Brico Depot tomorrow it was 20:15.

It’s all working though. The lowest temperature in the house is higher than the lowest temperature in my room – and that’s saying something. Just wait until the floor and the insulation are finished and there’s a wall around the head of the stairs.

Today was grey. miserable and overcast. No snow though although we have been told that it’s on its way. Only 13 amp-hours in the barn but over 60 in the house. A good move putting these panels on the roof.

And in other news, the footy restarts tomorrow night. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

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Sunday 30th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

… early again today, but not as early as yesterday. But early nevertheless bearing in mind it’s Sunday.

After breakfast I tidied up the verandah, in the garage and round about, and as you might expect, my visitors didn’t show up.But while I was waiting I also cleaned and tidied up the cab of Caliburn, so as to silence my critics on these pages, Graham.

After lunch it was off to the brocante at Virlet. Not as good as usual and not as many stalls but I did manage to find a chest of drawers – four drawers and quite big and just fits nicely under my bed – all for 7 Euros.

But so much for minimalisation – I have far too many clothes to go in it. I shall have to have a spell of throwing away clothes. There’s far too many for what I need down here.< That gave me an opportunity to have a decent in-depth tidy-up in my room. And this constant smell like something has died in here is due to the damp that is ingressing. I'm surprised that I haven't gone down with pleurisy or pneumonia - not like Christopher Robin who, as you all know, went down with Alice. Fitting the guttering may well help to do something about the damp but moving into the attic is the logical answer. If I get damp in there then I know that I've REALLY got a problem.

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Saturday 29th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. Long before the alarm went off, actually. Not like me, this. But at 08:45 I was on my way to Montlucon for part I of my mega-shop.

Nothing of interest in Carrefour or Vima, and only some new vegan burgers in Amaranthe. But Noz came up trumps again. A copy of an old Donovan album at 1:90 was something, but a triple-pack of Nice CDs at 3:90 was even more exciting – especially as the whole lot was reduced by 50%.

At Auchan I bumped into Rob and Julie and their kids. This was a complete surprise – older readers of my organ at its previous location will recall that it’s usually at Brico Depot that I bump into them. And poor Julie has been quite ill for a few months, although she’s recovering slowly now. That’s nice – I like them and their daughter Ashleigh is quite a big fan of His Nibs.

Brico Depot was exciting. I had two constraints – firstly money and secondly (and more importantly) space inside Caliburn. Interior space was important as I had forgotten to take my ladder with me so I can only reach a very short distance onto the roof-rack to tie stuff on. That stymied me a bit.

But we have the two windows (one of which needs some planing down to fit the hole), some more paint, loads of polystyrene and plenty of wood battens, as well as quite a bit of other stuff. That’ll keep me out of mischief for a week or so and I can go and get another load of stuff next weekend. It’s all very well buying it all in one go but firstly you have to transport it and secondly you have to store it.

I did also pick up a 70x70cm shower base. This was crucial as I’m building the bathroom around the shower and the dimensions need to be worked out fairly soon in my plans. It was the last one in the shop as well so I was quite proud. But as you might expect, as I was walking around the shop it slid off my trolley and smashed into a hundred pieces. Ahh well.

I also went to the “Conforama”. It’s a big furniture shop and it regularly sends out its publicity. Even though it’s only just across the road from the Auchan, in all the years that I’ve lived here I’ve never ever been there, but today I had good reason for going.

They are having a sale on these “click clack” sofas that transform themselves into double beds with a space underneath for storing your bedding. Now, I had one of those in Brussels and I was quite impressed with it for what it was. And so I’ve decided that I want another one to put up in my attic to sit and to sleep on.

The raised bed that I built here works fine but after nearly two years it’s fairly uncomfortable and so I’ve decided to push the boat out and get a really good quality one with a decent mattress. There’s 15% off until the 14th September and delivery is within 3 weeks so if I order it in 2 weeks time it should be ready for when my room is finished. It’s going to be expensive but a good bed is worth its weight in gold.

One problem though is that they don’t do a blue cover – one that will go with my room when I’ve painted it. The assistant who minced over to talk to me talked to me with a lithp, so I was on safe ground talking to him about colour co-ordination and soft furnishings. I suppose I should have profited from the situation to discuss curtains with him.

Talking of beds, tomorrow is Sunday, but no lie-in. A prospective customer wants to come round and talk to me about solar panels. Well, I’ll get out of bed early if there’s a possibility of amounts of folding stuff changing hands in my direction.

And it’s Virlet brocante in the afternoon. Always a good one, that.

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Saturday 15th August 2009 – I SAW THIS MOST MAGNIFICENT CLOUD …

anvil cloud thunderstorm clermont ferrand puy de dome france… on my way to Liz and Terry’s this evening. A finer example of an “anvil” cumulonimbus cloud you cannot hope to see.

It’s hovering just about over Clermont Ferrand so I reckon that the good citizens of that fair city are having a right pasting this evening, for “anvil” clouds are associated with heavy thunderstorms.

So what was I doing at Liz and Terry’s this evening? You may well ask.

In fact it all starts this morning at about 11.45. There I was casually nailing my fascia boards to the ends of the chevrons when suddenly Terry put in a dramatic appearance.

“There’s a damsel ( or was it a damson?) in distress at the Brico Depot in Montlucon” he announced

Of course, someone’s antlers pricked up at that. All his life he’s been in training for just this moment and despite one or two false starts
“Help help I’ve been tied to this tree and ravaged by the entire crew of the HMS Victory” cried a damsel in distress, tied to a tree in the forest.
“Well, it’s just not your lucky day, is it?” Strawberry Moose
, unbuckling his tunic.
he was well in form.

He leapt into Caliburn, his trusty steed (in the old days when I used to be a superhero all on my own and the job didn’t pay as well as it does now, some of the vehicles I owned were rather less than reputable and were more like rusty steeds, but certainly not Caliburn) and as his driver, I leapt in beside him and we chaud-pieded it to Montlucon.

This digital revolution and mobile communications has brought about some significant benefits and so on – but also a major disadvantage that as far as I know, everyone else has overlooked. In order to be a superhero you need to have your underpants on outside your trousers, and telephone boxes are the traditional places for superheroes to change their clothing.

But try finding a telephone box these days now that everyone has a mobile phone! Strawberry and I had to search for ages until we found a suitable telephone box to change in, and that’s in the Auvergne where mobile phone coverage is patchy at best. How is Superperson managing in the USA where telephone boxes are all but redundant?

Superheroes will have to find new venues in which to change.

Public toilets are likely to receive plenty of support, and I have indeed made use of just such a venue on a previous occasion. But these days you have to fight your way into a public toilet past the drug abusers, the cottagers, the cross-dressers (“Mabel, if you don’t let me wear your tights I’ll smash your ****ing face in!”) and the like.

Mind you, I did have a brother who almost always used to come out of a public toilet with his underpants on outside his trousers, but that was more to do with his status as being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic rather than any superhero status he might (or might not) wish to claim.

So Strawberry Moose
, Caliburn and I duly arrived at Brico Depot and found Terry standing guard over a trolley with a pile of windows too large to go in the back of his car.
“Where’s Liz?” I asked
“Ohh, she’s going to take advantage of you while you’re here” he replied.
Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s a long time since anyone has ever said anything like that to me, and my surprise was quite clearly written all over my face.
“She wants to make use of Caliburn now you are all here by getting some more windows”
“Ahhhh” I replied, this time with disappointment all over my face.

Liz asked me if I could deliver the windows this evening.
“Might that involve some of your vegan chocolate cake?” I enquired.
“I’ll see what I can do” she replied.

And hence my visit to Liz and Terry’s this evening. And not only was there vegan chocolate cake, there was some vegetable curry with rice, and some vegan chocolate cake to bring home.

We have a system round here of chantiers communaux – where if anyone has a work project that needs many hands, we all do a blitz on their premises to get the job done. And whenever there’s a chantiers communaux at Liz and Terrys, you are usually trampled to death in the stampede, so well-known is Liz’s vegan chocolate cake.

And in other news, it was the hottest day of the year so far – almost 42 degrees – and I’ve fixed the fascia boards, tacked on the guttering (I can’t fix it on until the scaffolding is moved) and put on the first row of tiles.

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Thursday 13th August 2009 IT OCCURS TO ME …

space blanket insulation interior attic les guis virlet puy de dome france… that I haven’t posted a pic of the interior of the attic. so here’s one to put the record straight. It’s as well that I post one now as this afternoon I started work up there.

You remember that I mentioned the other day that I had to face the walls under the eaves at the front, to keep the bugs and the weather out. At the rear though it’s not possible to do it like that so I’ve been facing the walls under the eaves from the inside. And they needed it too – you can actually see daylight in a couple of places.

So what I’ve been doing is ramming stones up underneath the insulation on top of the house walls to block up any holes and then infilling with mortar. Some rain and some animals might get under then eaves at the back but at least they won’t get into the house.

This morning I attached the downpipe for the guttering to the side of the house. I tried the new Hitachi battery-powered SDS drill and it went into the wall like a hot knife into butter. This is going to be some purchase.

And you might be wondering why that was all I did this morning. But most of the morning was spent turning the inside of Caliburn upside down looking for the downpipe fasteners.

kwikstage scaffolding lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome franceTomorrow, Terry’s coming round and we are going to take down most of the scaffolding and fit the plywood sheets onto the roof here. And that will be Terry finished round here (until we start on the barn roof, but I haven’t mentioned that to him). All that will then remain will be to fit the membrane, the slates, the fascia panels and the guttering, and we’ll be done!

Then I can get cracking on the inside of the house. I want to be settled in before October.

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