Tag Archives: tidying up

Friday 19th July 2013 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day today.

And although it might not look at first glance that I’ve done much, first thing that I did was to deal with a huge amount of correspondence.

I’ve done most of it (still a few bits and pieces left), especially the important stuff, and I feel rather better about it now.

Amongst the piles of mail was one from Trixi. The house that she was buying has … errr … fallen through and so now she’s hot-foot after another one. That’s in the same neck of the woods as where Nina lives and they’ll get on like a house on fire.

This project of a woodburning stove with back boiler, and solar tubes for hot water in the summer, exactly like what I’ll be doing here, is still on though and so my usual late-autumn voyage to the UK might have a purpose just for a change.

It was nice to see her last year when I was in the UK – doesn’t Facebook have a lot to answer for?

Apart from the post, I finished up tidying up in the bedroom.

All of the plasterboard is now flat on the floor where it’s supposed to be, the rest of the floor is comparatively empty, and I have also fitted a work bench.

It even has power – mains AND 12 volt. Luxury indeed! You won’t recognise it in there.

That took me until 19:20 – yes, POETS DAY indeed – but I would have finished earlier except that I had a mid-afternoon interruption.

It seems that there’s a project to photograph everyone in the village (all 280 of us) and they wanted to know when it might be convenient. So tomorrow at 11:00 it is. I shall have to smarten myself up.

In other news, the city of Detroit has gone bust. That’ll teach the Septics to laugh when an EU country goes bust.

But, interestingly, when an EU country goes bust, the other members rally round to help the country out. I haven’t seen a single offer of assistance from any other American city for Detroit. Serve them right.

derelict run-down detroit october octobre 2010But Detroit is a depressing place.

In the 1950s it had almost 2,000,000 people. Now it’s down to just 660,00 and consequently huge areas of the city are abandoned, derelict and decaying.

I was there in early October 2010 on my way to the Trans-Labrador Highway and the place looked appalling.

They have serious trouble in that city, that’s for sure, with the dereliction, decay, murder and violent crime, and having no money to pay for support isn’t going to help them.

I’ve seen some poor neighbourhoods on my travels but Detroit beats them all.

-5

Thursday 18th July 2013 – MYSTERY SOLVED

It wasn’t the old abandoned house that fell down the other night. I managed to have a wander around there to see, and although I walked past it twice without seeing it, because it was so covered in ivy and weeds and so on, it’s still there, or, rather, what’s left of it is,

But I know what it was that made that noise.

I managed to make my way down to the compost bin today (high time I emptied the composting toilet – it certainly needed it) and I’ll tell you what – a cordless Ryobi Plus One hedge trimmer makes a magnificent strimmer for dealing with tall grass and weeds and the like – it’s a long time since I’ve been as impressed as this.

But back to the plot

There are piles of dead wood and twigs and branches covering the bottom end of my garden and there, in the next field where Lieneke had a huge old tree of some description, well she doesn’t have it now.

There’s about two metres of stump and then there’s absolute carnage. I’m not surprised that it heaved me out of bed.

shower room false wall plasterboard les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the shower room, well, it’s all finished as far as I can go until I buy the tiles.

And it was finished at lunchtime too (mind you, it was 14:45 when I stopped).

The good news is that the sink is not 50cms at all but just 43cms. That means that I can have a 45cm worktop instead of a 52cm one and that will give me much more room.

I have to admit that, in all honesty, my shower room is not going to be the place to be for anyone suffering from claustrophobia.

But there will be plenty of shelving and even a very small 20cm deep linen cupboard.

But seeing as I had finished by 14:45, how come I didn’t knock off until 19:45 then?

The answer to all of that is that, as I explained just now, I fought my way down to the compost bin, and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either as you can imagine.

And once I had finished attacking the vegetation, I emptied, cleaned and recharged the composting toilet. And it needed it too, as I have said.

After that, changing the habits of a lifetime, I attacked the the room which will be the bedroom and which I’ve been using as a workroom.

A pile of wood went straight out of the window for a start, and then I started to sweep up and tidy up. 3 large bin bags of rubbish and a bin full of sawdust for the toilet, and it’s not finished yet.

But it’s amazing the space that you can make if you put your mind to it.

I’m going to have a serious go tomorrow and see if I can’t make enough space to lie flat all of the sheets of plasterboard instead of having them propped up against a wall bowing away to themselves alarmingly.

They ought to be lain flat but I’ve never really had the space to do it.

Tons of tools recovered, as well as tons of nails and screws, and I bet that there will be others recovered tomorrow. But I’m not going to do too much – I have a pile of correspondence to deal with and some of that is urgent.

I felt like cooking tonight too, and ended up with a gorgeous meal – potatoes, carrots, cauliflower in a cheese sauce and a veggie burger. Absolutely marvellous.

Went down a treat with the ice cream sorbet that I bought for myself as a treat for finishing the shower room.

And we’ve had a storm tonight. First rain since July the … errr … 2nd? And we needed it too as the water situation was getting desperate.

I’m glad that I cleaned out the filters the other day.

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Thursday 11th July 2013 – WELL, THE ANGLE GRINDER …

… idea worked just fine.

Mind you, I had to strip it down, remove the safety guard and the side handle, and fit a worn-down diamond disc. Then I could just about get the thing in the hole that I made.

Although it took ages to work out the best way to use it and how to control it, I managed to carve a deep groove into the head of this stubborn lump of ironstone.

The SDS drill, in the stationary position and with a chisel attachment, fitted some way into the hole (after I’d stripped all kinds of surplus stuff off the drill) and after several good poundings I knocked a lump off the rock.

And that was how I proceeded – cut a groove in a lump of rock with the angle grinder, pound away with the SDS chisel, and then use the core drill until it grounded out again.

hole in wall shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt took ages too and then of course eventually the angle grinder and the chisel bottomed out and that was that.

But I did find a 500mm 22mm SDS drill and so I used that to punch a whole row of holes, rather like perforations, around the groove made by the core drill. And at about 16:30 this afternoon I broke through and that was that;

Now the pipe is in place, cemented in from the outside and with the filter fitted. It’s mostly filled from the inside but of course the air vent and fan won’t be fitted until the tiling is done.

While I was waiting for all the cement to dry, I had a little (yes, just a little) tidy up in what will be the bedroom and I found loads of stuff that I had been looking for. But now I’m whacked, and that is that.

But back to this morning.

Cécile and I were up early and loaded her car with all of the stuff she’s taking to her mother’s, which was uite a considerable amount.

I then ran her into St Gervais d’Auvergne to post a letter at the Post Office, where we ran into the guy who runs the sawmill. It’s always closed in July and August while he does the harvest, but he did mention that he had a workman down at the mill just then.

Upon hearing that news, I took full advantage and came back with a load of demi-chevrons.

A really good investment, Caliburn’s roofrack.

So now Cécile has left the area, probably for good, and I’m back here making rapid progress now in the shower room.

What’s going to happen next to jam a spanner in the works?

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Wednesday 10th July 2013 – OHH GOOD! COMPANY!

st gervais d'auvergne fire brigade la batisse puy de dome franceAnd how!

Yes, the pompiers – the fire brigade from St Gervais d’Auvergne came to call upon Cécile this evening. And at Cécile’s request too.

As I told you the other day, she’s put her house up for sale, but a group of squatters has other ideas.

st gervais d'auvergne fire brigade la batisse puy de dome franceA swarm of bees arrived and seem to have taken up residence in Cécile’s chimney.

She needs to encourage her visitors, not have them stung to death by bees.

No local apiarist was available and so she did the next-best thing, which was to call out the fire brigade.

st gervais d'auvergne fire brigade la batisse puy de dome franceIt’s amamzing, the things that you learn. I didn’t realise that this is a free service in the Auvergne, although one is expected to make a contribution to the Fireman’s Ball.

Apparently they hold a Fireman’s Ball every December in St Gervais d’Auvergne, and the fireman is becoming rather fed up of it.

Anyway, by about 22:00 the fire brigade had gone and Cécile and I carried on working.

This morning I was up as usual and after breakfast I didn’t hang about.

First job was to empty out Caliburn – I don’t know where all of the rubbish inside him comes from.

having done that I drove round to Cécile’s to pick up my stuff and to help her organise herself, although what good I might be at that I really don’t know.

While I was there, I ended up working on the Berlingo. This is Bill’s old car but Cécile has bought it as her Micra is creaking a little around the edges.

The Berlingo failed its controle technique on a couple of silly things, like a frayed seat belt where the Hound of the Baskervilles had had a go at it, so I was sorting all of that out.

Nan came round too to say goodbye to Cécile so we had a really good chat.

Nothing like a convivial evening among friends.

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Sunday 7th July 2013 – YES, IT IS …

… Sunday today and, as is usual for a Sunday, I’ve done next-to badger-all.

I say “next to” of course because in my effort to bring order out of chaos I’ve tidied up the kitchen table and given it a scrub, and I’ve also tidied up around the floor a little.

That’s not too bad considering that it was 10:00 before I heaved myself out of my stinking pit.

Not quite as bad as last week when it was 11:00 but it’s still good enough.

And I’ve made a startling discovery – I’m running out of water.

I know that that might be hard to believe after the weather we’ve had this year but remember that it’s at least 6 months since I cleaned the filters.

The volume of water that’s been cascading down the roof and into the pipework could easily have disturbed stuff in the settling tank and blocked the filters.

I’ll have to have a good look at that and lean the filters – it’s either that or there’s a split in the tank.

And Cécile came round with some more of my stuff from her house.

After much deliberation, she’s arrived at the logical decision which I had been expecting her to make, and it’s what I would have done too in the circumstances so I can’t say that I blame her.

She’s put Ice Station Zebra up for sale and she’s moving out on Thursday to take care of her mother full time on the Ile d’Yeu.

I’m going round on Wednesday to rescue the rest of my stuff and take a pile of her rubbish down to the dechetterie, and that will be that.

I don’t know when we shall meet again, but it will probably be at Philippi.

-3

Saturday 29th June 2013 – WELL I WAS WRONG …

… about my weather prediction today. In fact it started off grey, wet and miserable and simply got worse and worse.

And in something that must be a new world record, I was in Montlucon, a quick round of all of the shops and back home by 12:30, would you believe?

What has contributed to that a great deal is that theres a new Leclerc hypermarket opened just a little way down the road from Brico Depot.

It’s huge, clean and tidy, the parking is really easy, the aisles are nice and wide and, in common with most Leclerc hypermarkets, there are plenty of checkouts and they are always well-personned so there are none of these enormous queues that you find in the Auchan and the Carrefour.

For these reasons alone, the new Leclerc will get my vote for shopping for the forseeable future.

I didn’t in fact leave my notebook at Brico Depot. It was in my pocket all the time.

Nevertheless I went and redid my shopping there this morning and with no pressure from any outside influence I bought everything that I’m likely to need to finish off this bathroom properly.

I’ll restart in there on Monday and put my back into it.

I came back a different way that usual and I’m rather glad that I did.

1962 opel rekord domérat montlucon allier franceDespite everything that I’ve recently been saying about old cars on islands, you do still occasionally find them on the mainland too.

And here just down the road from LeClerc at Domérat I stumbled across probably the most exciting car that I’ve seen for quite some considerable time – Peugeot 230 pickups excepted of course.

And isn’t this a real beauty?

1962 opel rekord domérat montlucon allier franceShe’s a 1962 Opêl Rekord 1700 P2, in almost-mint condition, one owner from new and with just 67000 kms on the clock.

It’s for sale at just €7500 and I could easily be tempted by this, although Opel did make a pick-up version and a convertible, one of which would be even an more exciting find,

Even nicer though would be the Soviet Union’s copycat GAZ M21 III but I wouldn’t have a clue where even to start to look for one of those.

This afternoon I did a little (yes, just a little) tidying up here and then, despite the miserable weather, it was time to go out.

fete de st jacques virlet village walk puy de dome franceRegular readers of this rubbish will recall that at the weekend round about the Fête de St Jacques it’s the custom here in Virlet to go for a walk to beat the bounds of the commune and have a little party afterwards.

Despite the miserable weather, a hard-core of about a dozen or so of us set out, up tp our knees in soaking wet grass and sliding about on the mud.

It made me feel quite at home.

fete de st jacques virlet village walk puy de dome franceIt did brighten up slightly as we made our way around, and it became much easier to walk once we were on the metalled road.

Neverthless, it was still far too wet for our traditional feu de joie, but someone did bring a DVD, a copy of the Fernandel film En Avant La Musique – a tyical whimsical film of village life in Italy during the war, and we sat around and watched that instead.

All in all we had a good time. I wonder what tomorrow will bring me.

-3

Sunday 23rd June 2013 – I WAS IN CHESTER …

… during the night in the street where I first went to live when I moved there in September 1972, only last night it was where I was working. Parking in this street was usually problematic but last night it was snowing lightly and there was hardly a car about. It had me worried – was it a working day or not?
But anyway I went in to my building which was a modern building of brick, concrete, aluminium and glass, well spread-out but not too tall, and with a couple of friends we went to the restaurant. But with having spent so much time talking, we arrived just in time to see the aluminium shutters lowered down, for it was 10:00, the time that the restaurant closed.
Just after this, there was a fierce banging from the other side of the shutters- it seemed that someone had been locked in behind them. I went off to the reception area where there were three women, one of whom by her behaviour clearly had the air of being in charge, and so I told her about this person behind the shutters. “That’s too bad” she replied. “She’ll just have to wait there until 11:00”
“Can’t you unlock a service door?” I asked with surprise. “There must be a way out of there”
“No – I don’t have access so she’ll just have to wait”. Our conversation after this became rather heated, but she still wouldn’t budge.
At this point the front door opened and a group of kids, dressed up as an American marching band, complete with instruments, came marching in, and behind them came three men, clearly officers of some import and wearing képis and cloaks of the style of the Royal Dutch Army. The senior of these was an enormously tall métisse, probably close to 7 feet tall, so I went up to him and told him the story of this woman locked in the restaurant behind the shutters. He went over to the woman at reception and said a few words to her that I did not hear, but she went bright red and took a set of keys out of the drawer in front of her and went down the corridor, opened a door, and let out the woman who was locked in the restaurant.This woman, for reasons that I did not undertand, was wearing an orange rotating light on her head.

That was another one of these dreams that it seems a pity to leave, but leave I did because Cécile bought me a cup of coffee in bed, which was extremely nice.

Yes, it’s Sunday, which means a day off, or, at least, it’s supposed to. But Cécile has so much to do at her house (well, I’m not convinced, but she is) and only a short time in which to do it, so we ended up repairing cupboards and moving shelves around and so on.

Sunday is also pizza day and Cécile cooked a lovely example for lunch (thanks, Rosemary, for fetching the vegan cheese), but as we were about to restart work, one of Cécile’s friends came round for a chat. Consequently we were late for Liz and Terry’s.

Terry is now a very happy bunny, seeing as he has all of the slates (and a darned sight more as well) to do the roof on his new extension, and I am aslo an extremely happy bunny, having been repaid in Liz’s home-made chocolate cake.

And after running through the radio programmes for tomorrow, back here and that was that. Tomorrow is another day;

-5

Friday 7th June 2013 – WELL, I’M OFF.

But then you all knew that already.

The Postie delivered my monster CD order and now I’m free to leave at any time I like for a couple of weeks. Liz found me a cheapo ferry on the site that she uses – it’s at 04:00 so I’ll be leaving in a bit for the UK.

That’s really all that I’ve done today apart from clearing up and dealing with this load of web stuff that I mentioned the other day. The apartment here is still a mess and I’m not really making much progress but I will have a couple of months when I come back to deal with it all and isn’t that famous last words?

I’m not sure when I’ll have internet access again. After the UK I’ll be off to Fromentine and the Ile d’Yeu to do the two weeks’ work that I promised Cécile in exchange for her two weeks here back in April and there won’t be any internet access there, that’s for sure.

after that, it’s back to Pooh Corner, the radio, and two weeks working on the bathroom here as when I return to Brussels at the beginning of July I want to buy all the tiles from that guy who did us so handsomely when we were working on Expo in early 2011.

So, see you soon. Don’t wander away in my absence.

-3

Thursday 6th June 2013 – I MIGHT HAVE BROKEN …

… the back of all of this paperwork. I think that I’ve found it all and I’ve sorted it into at least things that need to be taken home for a further sorting or things that I can simply throw away. A mere 14 sacks there are – and that’s just the stuff for throwing.

Anyway, I’ve started emptying the sideboard in the living room now and that’s exciting too. I opened one of the doors and a couple of bats flew out – it’s that kind of sideboard. I’ll be here for a bit yet.

That was this afternoon though. This morning I made a rather startling discovery – or, rather, rediscovery. I went to Labrador in 2010 as you ll know by now and I wrote all of the web pages to cover the journey from Baie Comeau in Quebec all the way round to getting on the boat at Channel-Port-aux-Basques in Newfoundland that was going to take me across the Gulf of St Lawrence to Cape Breton Island.

But while I was ferreting about looking for something else, I came across a huge file that was in fact a large part of the journey, all properly written up as far as New Glasgow, and I can’t think why I never finished it all off. Anyway, I reckon that now I’ve done all of the radio stuff for the next while I deserve some time to myself so for a couple of hours each morning I’ll be doing that.

And pet hate of the day? When someone asks for my advice and I give it, and they go off and do something else completely, and when that all goes pear-shaped they spend half an hour ranting at me. Agatha Christie wrote in the Sleeping Murder, “Good advice is almost certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason for not giving it” – I’m not convinced of that if I’m going to be getting a pile of earache. I have better things to do with my time.

-5

Wednesday 5th June 2013 – HELLO AGAIN.

I thought that I would have a nice interesting introduction this evening, because in all probability it will be more exciting that the rest of the post.

Basically, nothing much has changed since yesterday. I’m still up to my ears in papers. Mind you, the wardrobes and wall unit in the main bedroom have been emptied and most of the stuff has been packed away.

I suppose that that is progress.

There are three large sacks full of clothes and one of shoes (Marianne seemed to like shoes) and they will all be headed for a clothing bank next time I take Caliburn for a joy ride. Someone else may as well have use of it all.

So apart from that, what else?

Ahhh yes – Julie went into St Eloy-les-Mines today which was quite lucky because today was the day that the compost bins that we ordered from the VALTOM were to be collected. So thanks for that, Julie.

And in other news, I’m going to the UK – to Dymchurch in fact – for a day quite soon.

Just as I was wondering where I can get boxes and packing tape from in bulk and regretting that there was no Screwfix nearer than Dover, and how I was feeling like a day out by the seaside, Terry rang me up. He’s just won a job lot of 400 slates on eBay and they are in Dymchurch, down on the edge of Romney March about 10 miles from Dover. Fuel and ferry fare offered, and you can’t say fairer than that.

It’s a region that I know quite well of course, and if you were following my adventures in March 2009 you will know that I spent a pleasant few days just down the road at Dungeness.

Yes, a nice day out this weekend would just suit me fine. I hope that the weather stays fine.

-2

Tuesday 4th June 2013 – I’M UP TO MY KNEES …

… in papers right now, trying to start the packing. But somehow it’s just not happening.

Someone once saif of Ford Madox Ford that they could put him in a totally empty room and come back later and find the place in total chaos. Anyone who comes here right now will understand exactly what they meant by now.

But never mind. Nietzsche famously said “out of chaos comes order”, but that was many years before I was born.

It depresses me, though. I’m not sure why it is but when God or whoever it was was handing out the tidying-up gene, I dunno where I was. I somehow make the place even more untidy until it looks like a total tip and then I lose interest or something and it’s always the same. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

I’ve been going round finding all of the DC appliances in the apartment, and believe me, ther are tons of them. But not a charger or transformer in sight. Anyway, today, I came across a drawer full of DC chargers and transformers, And not one of them labelled either. This is going to be fun, mating them all up.

And apart from that? Nothing at all. But then, that’s quite enough to be going on with, I reckon

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Saturday 25th May 2013 – There’s a strange round object …

… out there in the sky. It’s a golden orange colour and it hurts my eyes when I look at it. Also, the sky is a funny colour. There are parts of it that are a strange blue colour, not the usual grey that I am used to. It’s absolutely weird.

Not like yesterday, though. Fighting the snow and the rain, I emptied Caliburn. And while there wasn’t a great deal of stuff that I threw away, the fact that it is all tidied up inside means that there is tons of space inside. And that’s good news.

After that, I went off to Pooh Corner and sorted out Caliburn’s summer tyres ready for changing. He has his MoT on Monday morning and then I’ll be changing them over and putting the winter tyres in store. I found the mountain bike that needs to be taken over to Rosemary’s, and I also sorted out my CDs and started to fit the CD racks that I had bought in IKEA in Brussels. The first time I’ve seen some CD racks that actually do what I think that they ought to do.

Back here though, a bit of bad news. Cécile’s mother has had another funny turn and so after Caliburn’s MoT we are hitting the road, but to Fromentines, not to Brussels. I’ll have to drop Cécile off to catch the ferry out to her mother’s island and then I’ll have to head off to Brussels from there – a mere 880kms again.

It’s all happening here.

-1

Tuesday 12th February 2013 – I was dead right …

… about the weather.

This morning was horribly grey and overcast with a hanging cloud. And it didn’t get any better than that either. Talking to Terry a few hours later, he said that it was snowing round by his place, and sure enough in the late afternoon it started chucking it down here too.

With regard to Bill’s affairs, it was too cold to go round there and so we stayed at Marianne’s and went through a huge pile of paperwork and did the accounts to date. After that I went with Pascal round to Bill’s and we moved some more furniture out.

This afternoon was yet another afternoon without working in the bathroom and this is becoming a tale of lost opportunities. Terry wanted to go to Brico Depot and wanted me to go with him. It was only fair and I’m not complaining as after all, a huge pile of stuff was for me but none of this is getting my bathroom done and for the last few weeks I’ve been continually sidetracked by one thing or another and it’s beginning to get on my nerves. What made it worse was that I was building up a list of things that I needed to buy next time I was there, and it went clean out of my head.

This evening I was at St Maurice. There’s a series of walks around France taking place every weekend and in 2 months time they will be walking around there, so they had a meeting of potential volunteers. I went along to find out what was happening.

 Back here, it was oven chips and baked beans for tea, and now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow we’ll have more hanging clouds and snowstorms. And who is going to come along tomorrow to put me off working in the blasted bathroom?

-3

Friday 4th January 2013 – IN A CHANGE …

… to the advertised programme, I’m not actually at home right now.

I was this morning though, and it was one of those mornings where nothing much out of the ordinary really happened.

After breakfast, I cracked on with the website for quite a while and then had a few little jobs to do here and there around the place.

Once lunch was out of the way I went round to Cecile’s to help her prepare for her do tonight. That took a while because her preparations are much more thorough than mine ever will be, and she’s far more adventurous too when it comes to cooking.

We were four at the table, all enjoying ourselves which was nice, and then after the others had left we did the tidying up.

The one thing that can be said about more preparation and more adventurous cooking is that it takes much longer than it should (in my opinion anyway) to clear up and wash up.

And when you’ve had a very late night with company, it’s even later still by the time that you have finished.

I was exhausted too and didn’t feel up to driving home and so I ended up staying the night.

Serves me right.

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Thursday 3rd January 2013 – WHAT A LOUSY …

… day

Grey, wet, miserable, depressing

But that’s enough about me – the weather was even worse.

So with almost no solar energy today I didn’t do all that much. When I opened my eye and saw the weather, I closed it again and went back under the duvet.

And if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary to visit the beichstuhl I’d probably be there now. 

After breakfast and working on the website for a while I started on the floor in the shower room. But I wasn’t there as long as I might have been, and for a very simple reason too.

I will swear blind that I bought 5 packets of tongue-and-grooved flooring planks, but I’ve only been able to manage to find four – there’s one missing somewhere. And the result of that is that I ran out of floor with two planks to go.

GRRRRR!

So that means a trip to Montlucon and Brico Depot on Saturday, doesn’t it? I’m never going to finish this blasted flooring seeing as how all of the fates are conspiring against me.

To pass the rest of the time I started to sort out the firewood in the lean-to in order to make more space.

I could have cut it up as well but I have to do that outside and with it pouring down with rain it wasn’t much of a good plan. But there’s progress all the same.

This evening I had another meal the same as last night and it worked just as well, if not better.

Having a rip-roaring blaze at the beginning is definitely the key to cooking with the wood stove. It heats the oven up quicker and that cooks the potatoes better.

Basically, 2 hours for the spuds, 60 minutes for the sprouts and 90 minutes for the rest of the veg. The veggie-burger takes about 20 minutes or so.

I had a few phone calls too. Cécile called me twice and spoke to me for hours. She’s giving a dinner party tomorrow night and wants to know if I can help her tomorrow afternoon to prepare.

Seeing as I don’t have the wood to finish the floor, that seems like a good plan.

Marianne also rang up for a long chat and to tell me about her adventures at Riom hunting down old historical documents. One of these days when I’m not busy, whenever that might be, I’ll have to go with her.

As for me, this afternoon I telephoned the hospital at Montlucon to enquire about Bill.

The receptionist wasn’t all that forthcoming. After much verbal fencing, she expressed an interest in knowing who I was, and so I explained that I was neither family nor close friend but just an everyday run-of-the-mill friend of no particular significance.

She then said that she couldn’t give me any more information, but would I care to leave my phone number so that she can pass it on the Bill’s daughter – his next of kin

I don’t like the sound of that one little bit

-2