Tag Archives: shower

Thursday 28th June 2012 – ONE OF THE REASONS …

… and there are many of them, to be sure, as to why I keep a blog is that I can refer back to it and find out when I did something.

I forget all too easily these days what I’ve been up to and when I was up to it – and just remember, before you start laughing, that you will be as old as me too one of these days too.

So I looked back and found that it was exactly a week ago today that I planted the courgette, cucumber, gherkin etc seeds, and sowed some lettuce seed in pots.

And while I was sorting out the herb buckets (those nice heaps of oregano and tarragon have gone – cut down now and hanging up to dry in my attic) I happened to notice that the lettuce were growing.

Blimey! That was quick!

So they had a really good watering, and they need it too in this heat.

And so, out of curiosity, I went to look at the beds where I had planted the courgette etc seeds.

And guess what?

Absolutely! They are rearing their pretty little heads too.

There’s even some beetroot from what I planted a week earlier, but the carrots are once again doing nothing at all.

Anyway, it seems to be all go in the garden again.

I didn’t manage an early start today, unfortunately. It was so hot that at 03:00 I was still up and about and I would probably still be flat out on my back right now if a hornet hadn’t come in at about 08:45 and chased me around the bedroom.

Still, makes a change from Percy Penguin, who doesn’t feature in these pages half as much as she deserves, chasing me around the bedroom.

This afternoon I started to draw up the plans for the next stage of construction work, and began to make a list of the bits that I need. Right on cue, Rosemary rang me up and asked if I would be interested in going to the Brico Depot in Montlucon.

Seeing as how it won’t be very easy getting all of this wood onto Caliburn’s roof rack all on my own, and it’s no skin off my nose whether I go tomorrow or Saturday.

And when I heard that half a day’s gardening was the reward on offer, then that was it, mercenary that I am. It’s a good job I emptied out Caliburn yesterday, wasn’t it?

In between the surveying I dragged out the tabletop washing machine and did a load of washing seeing as I had a pile to do, it was gorgeous and warm, and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus solar energy was at 60.5°C.

To finish off the day I treated myself to yet another solar shower seeing the temperature of the water in the black plastic solar hearing box had reached 41.5°C. And that was gorgeous too

It’s all go here right now, isn’t it?

-3

Wednesday 27th June 2012 – 28 DEGREES CELSIUS …

… it was this evening at 19:15. So you can see what the weather has been like all day.

After having several days of mediocre weather, cool, wet and windy, too. So you can tell that there was something afoot.

As indeed there was. We had another one of our walks. Bound to be a heatwave (or a torrential downpour) today.

You may remember from a couple of weeks ago that Marianne and I went off to do a recce of Chateau-sur-Cher. In her capacity as approved tourist guide for the area she is doing a programme of walks around rhe various villages.

It’s the kind of thing that interests me deeply as you know, so I’ve gone along as Minder. And here we are today in Chateau-sur-Cher

I have said, on many occasions and at great length too, that here in rural France, the situation of many old churches gives reason to believe that they are sited on old historic fortress sites.

The mounds and the sometimes stunning defensive positions of the buildings underlines this – for example, look at the view that you have from the site where the church at Chateau-sur-Cher is situated.

Any nobleman bent on maintaining his power in the region (and many were as bent as they come) would have had a fortress up here in a flash as soon as he were to see the excellent position

Anything passing on the road down there would be under his immediate surveillance and he would soon pounce in a twinkling of an eye to launch an attack or to exact a toll.

The valley in the middle is the River Cher, to the left is the département of the Creuse and to the right is the département of the Allier. We ourselves ae in the département of the Puy-de-Dôme.

In the days before the unification of France, these were all independent Provinces and with the only bridge over the River Cher for miles being situated just down there at the foot of the hill, he would be in a magnificent position to control the trade, and his fortress would have been pretty-much impregnible to a surprise attack from another province

How this would have all come to pass would have been that the nobleman back in the days prior to the arrival of the Romans would have stuck his oppidum up here straight away.

Christianity slowly came to the area and when it took hold, he would have himself been amongst the first to be converted, and he would have provided a little place somewhere in his oppidum for worship to be held.

During the passage of time as the region settled into more peaceful ways (remember we are long before the period of the 100 Years War which devastated this region) the need for a fort grew less and the population expanded.

Hence the need for a bigger church, and much less need for a fort. And in the end, the fort would fall into decay.

And that’s exactly what has happened here in Chateau-sur-Cher because during some archaeological excavations in the past, they did actually find some evidence to suggest this was indeed a fortified oppidum occupied by the Gauls.

But the key to the village was the fort. And why the fort was there was because of the key position that the promontory held – over looking the only practical crossing of the River Cher for many miles either upstream or downstream.

A packhorse train of goods or a herd of cattle crossing over the bridge from the Creuse into the Allier or the Puy-de-Dôme and our noble could swoop on it like a hawk and exact an appropriate amount of tribute.

That estaminet there would have been an exciting lively place 150 years ago in the days of pack horses, drovers and horse-drawn waggons, everyone stopping for refreshment after a long arduous travel through the mountains

Today though, the estaminet is long-since closed and the village is pretty-much abandoned. From a heyday of well-over 700 people living here 150 years ago, the number of inhabitants now totals a miserable 78.

The sites of many abandoned buildings that have crumbled away into nothing are quite evident, and many other buildings are lying abandoned, likewise to suffer a similar fate.

The exodus to the urban regions of France from little communities like this is tragic. As you know, on my own property I have the remains of half a dozen houses.

We ended up going for a walk along the bank of the river heading northwards, because there was something important to see here, at least from my point of view.

There’s a mill – the Moulin de Chambon – down here and although it’s long-since ceased to function and its machinery is all dismantled today, it’s nevertheless quite an interesting place to be

Interesting for several reasons too.

the water arrives via a system of weirs and locks, rather than the more usual millrace.
it’s a hybrid mill, in that the water powers a system of pulleys and that other machinery – not just a corn-grinding wheel – was operated here. There was even talk of a sawmill in one of the sheds.
it’s an undershot wheel ie where the water passes underneath, not an overshot wheel where the water passes over the top

. It’s such a shame that I couldn’t have a better view of it.

It was a shame that there were so few of us out for our walk today. It was a really beautiful afternoon and this was, from my own point of view, probably the most interesting walk that we have undertaken since we started doing them.

We were ready for a drink after all of this and so Marianne and I headed back to Pionsat and refreshment. Nothing of course available here.

And this was when I noticed the temperature.

I nipped back home quickly where the water in the solar shower was still 36°C, and had a nice warm shower. I needed it too.

This evening, while watching one of the most boring football matches that I have ever seen, I sorted out a pile of paperwork. That’s not like me. I must be feeling the heat.

You’re probably thinking “what an exciting day” but I’ve not told you the half of it yet.

This morning I was up and about long before the alarm went off. Before 08:00 in fact, and that’s not something that happens every day.

I worked for a few hours on my web pages and then went outside for some more tidying up and throwing of stuff down at the dechetterie. That’s all gone now and I can move about comfortably in the barn where the Ebro is.

And it’s been a few years since I’ve been able to do that.

>Tomorrow I need to measure up for the stuff that I need for the next stage of renovations, and to do some washing if the weather stays fine.

I’m also planning some more shelves in the barn now that I have the space to stick them up.

Watch this space.

-3

Thursday 21st June 2012 – I’VE HAD ONE …

… of those days that doesn’t happen very often, where I can sit back at the end of it all and say to myself “haven’t I done well today?”

Take the garden, for instance.

I was out there at about 13:00 hoeing at the raised bed that you can see in the foreground.

The front two rows are spinach, and I weeded and cleaned out a space behind them and that is where I planted 5 of the tomato plants that François gave me yesterday.

You can also see that I planted some bamboo canes there and I’ve tied the plants to them to keep them off the ground. And they needed it too – they are over 30cms tall.

As for the other 5 tomato plants and the chili, they are in the mega-cloche. You can see the bamboo canes that I put in there to hold up the plants.

If you look in the bottom left-hand corner you will see two old caravan windows covering part of another raised bed.

When I grubbed away a pile of weeds from in there, I discovered that half a dozen or so beetroot had taken and were busy growing away. So what I did was to clear a corner of the raised bed just there and plant a few more to see what happens

The carrots though have been a disaster. I planted a few rows before I went away and I have ONE CARROT. I hoed right through the part of the bed where I planted the seeds and I’ve put in another row to see what happens with that.

Everything that I planted, I covered with the caravan windows. It worked in spades for the leeks and spinach, covering them over while they germinated. It’ll do no harm to see what it does to the carrots and the beetroot.

At the bottom of the garden, the beans that I planted before I went (well, the four that did anything) are now really running wild.

As well as that, those that I planted the other day are bursting out of the soil like nobody’s business.

I had a rummage around in the barn and turned up with a couple of offcuts of wire netting and so I grabbed a few of the laths that we ripped off the barn roof in 2010 and made three climbing frames for the beans.

I’m going to need a lot more than three and so does anyone want to swap some brassica thinnings for any wire netting? Otherwise I’ll have to go into Commentry on Saturday and buy a roll.

You’ll notice too that the pea frame is doing fine too. The peas are finally starting to appear and the frame will give them something to cling onto too.

This morning I spent three hours on the laptop (I was up early for once) and I made an index page for my recent journey to Canada and uploaded another few pages.

I’m up to late morning of Day Four so far. It’s going to be a long, hard trip.

This evening I had a lovely, warm shower. The solar heat had pushed the temperature up to 37.5°C this afternoon but by 19:00 it had cooled down to about 34°C. However the hot water in the dump load was running at about 62°C and so 5 litres of that into the solar tank pushed that back up to 39°C and it was gorgeous.

And so this new nice and clean me then then went and hit the road to St Gervais d’Auvergne to see this music extravaganza that I had been promised, and much to my surprise I met Liz and Terry there, as well as a few other people who I know.

That’s a group that features on keyboards the young guy who is the assistant at the controle technique. They weren’t too bad but the drummer wasn’t up to much.

But then I come from a background that is much different than here and I have greater expectations. Living in this part of the world, I have to bear in mind the words of Samuel Johnson, who once famously said “it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all”.

However, all in all, a good time was had by all and if the temperature hadn’t have plummeted I would probably be still there now. A good way to celebrate the Solstice.

A very good day for a change.

-3

Thursday 14th June 2012 – I WAS LYING …

… on my palliase this morning, wide awake, thinking that I really ought to heave myself out of the aforementioned stinking pit. I have a lot to do and I’ve been letting things slide rather

And so after about half an hour of musing, I had a glance at the time. All of 07:10. It’s been a long time since I’ve been up and about voluntarily at that time. That early night last night must have done me some good.

It’s also been a long time since I’ve breakfasted and been for a walk and started work before the alarm clock at 08:15.

walk! Yes! It’s been a beautiful day today – a real and proper summer one. So much so that the water in the solar water heater reached 36.5°C and this evening I had my first solar shower since before I went to Canada.

The water in the 12-volt immersion heater (a black plastic storage box with a 12-volt electric element powered by the excess solar energy once the batteries are fully-charged) reached 69.5°C and so we had electric hot water to wash the dishes this evening.

And that’s not all – at least for now anyway.

while I was rummaging around the other day I came across an object that I had forgotten – a small 400-watt steam cooker. There are two banks of solar panels on the barn and they are almost always fully-charged. One of them is wired up to a 600-watt inverter and so if this weather keeps up I’m going to have a go at cooking some steamed vegetables and see what happens then.

As you know, I’m trying to get away from bottled gas. The new woodstove has given me some considerable help in this direction for the winter, but it’s clearly impractical to use it in the summer. The electric steamer, a slow cooker, and – who knows? Maybe even a microwave oven? That would work in summer if only it would stop raining.

This morning I had a pile of packing to do – another load of stuff to be shipped off to Canada in this little business enterprise. And it’s a good job that I have loads of old advertising flyers round here – the electric shredder shreds them all up nicely and the shreds make lovely padding inside the boxes.

I’ve also made a start on the web pages for my voyage to Canada just now and I’ve put the first one on line. I’m going to be doing this from now on – not waiting for a pile to be ready – just add them on as they are done.

This afternoon I did a pile of tidying up – emptying the bedroom of some of the stuff that I don’t need and putting it upstairs in the lean-to now that there’s a roof on it.

And then I emptied the cupboard at the back of the stairs so that I can work in there and do something with it, such as to store another load of stuff and get that out of the way of me tripping over it.

I even managed a huge pile of weeding on the path too while I was wandering around.

It’s all starting to look a little more healthy here now.

-1

Monday 11th June 2012 – IT’S ASTONISHING.

Today, the weather was so much better. Only 14mm of rain.

So once again I awoke to the sound of a torrential downpour but no staying in bed today. We had to be a-radioing at 10:00 and I had a lot to do before I could set out.

But it wasn’t as if it mattered any. The woman who does the engineering for Radio Tartasse at Marcillat-en-Combraille forgot that we were coming and so we had something of a wait until she arrived.

The best-made plans of mice and men, and all that.

But eventually we managed to record our 6 weeks of programmes. Luckily I did 2 rock programmes before I went away and so they are up-to-date too.

Back at Liz’s, I was very kindly permitted to have a shower and to wash some clothes. This depressing, miserable weather has meant that I have had no hot water for a week and more, and so I’m really grateful for the good friends that I have.

No need to worry about quantity, as I have said before. It’s the quality that counts.

Down in Gerzat at Radio Arverne this afternoon we did another 6 weeks-worth of programmes and so that’s everything recorded until the end of July.

On the way back, we stopped off at the Carrefour in Riom to buy some of these ethylotests. The law in France from July 1st is that every car should have a breathalyser fitted for the use of the driver and the supermarkets are selling them for peanuts. I bought a kit of 2 for €2:00 and you can’t say fairer than that.

I also had another bit of good luck there.

Last year I bought a neat 25-litre 12-volt coolbox for Caliburn for €27:95 or something like that and it’s useful for when I’m out shopping and when I’m on my travels – I need a place to store the cold food in the hot van.

I drove all around Canada just now wishing that I had had one in the car there too, and here they are in the Carrefour again – this time for €24:90.

So I’ve bought another one and I’ll pack it in the suitcase and fill it with clothes or something next time that I go over and then I can leave it in my storage unit over there in Montreal to keep the cool food and drink in.

It’s MoT time for Caliburn too and so we called in at the testing centre on the way back. Caliburn of course passed with flying colours and so we are all happy

At the Anglo-French group it was nice to see Clotilde back from Annemasse.

Yes, I’ve been rushed off my feet today and not had a moment to myself. That’s why I’m blogging early – I’m off to bed in a minute for an early night.

-1

Friday 20th April 2012 – We’ve been recording today.

Liz needs to make an urgent departure for the UK and I’m off on me ‘ols, so today was the only day left for recording our radio programmes. It was just as well that I spent that week a couple of weeks ago churning out a pile of stuff to keep in reserve because it’s currently being used.

And how!

We recorded 9 radio programmes today which is something of a record. 3 for Radio Tartasse and 6 for Radio Arverne – that all covers a period of 6 weeks and so takes us through to mid-June when we should all be back again, unless my aeroplane crashes, one of my ferries hits an iceberg or I run away with a couple of nubile bimbos.

And you’ve no idea just how tiring it is doing all of this. So much so that I crashed out for 10 minutes or so at Liz’s when we returned. But very kindly, Liz let me have a shower there, which has saved me a journey to Neris and the swimming baths and means that I can spend all day here tidying up. No point in going to the shops when I don’t really need anything before I go. For my Sunday pizza I’ll make one on a bread base with some mushrooms out of a tin, a chili, some olives and tomato. What can be simpler?

Back here, I watched a cattle – chronologically-disadvantaged-person film (well, hardly, seeing as how the action in the film is taking place in 1951) about which I have spoken before at great length. It’s Riders of the Whistling Pines starring Gene Autry and what makes the film particularly noteworthy is that it concerns the widespread use of DDT and heroes and villains. The heroes are the ones who want to spray the forest with DDT and the villains wre the environmentalists who prophesy that the waters will be poisoned and all of the fish, cattle, and everything else that comes into contact with it will die a horrible death. And it’s all accopanied with scenes of the goodies flying their aeroplanes and the huge clouds of DDT that are emitted therefrom.

Yes, imagine that today!

And what with one thing and another I was searching around the internet for a group called “Eyes of Blue” – a Welsh rock band featuring inter alia “Taff” Williams and Phil Ryan (later of Man) and “Pugwash” Weathers, later of Gentle Giant. And astonishingly, their two albums, Crossroads/in Fields of Ardath are available on Amazon. And so that set me off and I discovered some even more obscure albums from other Welsh bands of the late 60s and early 70s likewise available. And so I’ve been spending my money again. And more than maybe I ought to as well, but these albums are quite rare and extremely sought-after and so copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say … "you said that the other day" – ed.

Having these albums in my letter box waiting for me might encourage me to come back home after my trip.

-4

Monday 26th March 2012 – AND SO AFTER MY JOHNNY …

… Cash impression yesterday – you know, “I walk the line” – which is so much better than my impersonation of Glen “I am a linesman for Notts County” Campbell, I had a quiet day today and I hardly went out.

Seeing as I was in the mood – which doesn’t happen all that often – I wrote a huge raft of stuff for the radio programmes. As well as a few more of the 20 questions I did an article about how to appeal against a speeding ticket and also some more useful phrases in French for our non-French-speaking listeners.

That was really about it, I suppose.

But I did have a heated shower.

The temperature in the 12-volt home-made immersion heater that I use as a dump load went off the scale again and so I tipped 10 litres of the hot water into the solar-heated shower tank (which raised that up to a glorious 42.5°C) and put 10 litres of cold water into the dump load, which cooled that down to 62°C.

Tomorrow we are radioing in the morning and in the afternoon I’ll have a bash in the garden. I have garlic, onions and shallots to plant, as well as the shrubs that I bought the other week.

And not forgetting the raspberry plants that Liz gave me either.

-2

Saturday 24th March 2012 – JUST FOR ONCE …

… The 2nd XI of FC Pionsat St Hilaire had a little bit or two of luck in a football match.

On several occasions Loubeyrat’s forwards broke clean through the centre of the Pionsat defence with only François to beat – a rather regular occurrence unfortunately – and twice they hit the woodwork and on a couple of other occasions they either put it wide or over the top.

They did actually score two goals, but so did FC Pionsat St Hilaire, and the match ended 2-2. It’s the first point that they have won in an age, and considering that Loubeyrat are second in the table this is a good result for Pionsat.

This morning though I was working up here – preparing for a radio programme or four. Doing the gardening bit and also the French expressions.

Tomorrow I have to do the main part of the programme – the information.

We’re running out of stuff to present but I collared Max at the football tonight. He’s the part-time secretary at a couple of mairies and he did promise me to let me have copies of the arretes prefectorials – the local by-laws.

But he keeps forgetting.

And so I have to keep on reminding him.

And seeing as it was so nice today not only did I have a solar shower (35.5°C and with a saucepan of hot water from the dump load thrown in to warm it up even more) I did a load of washing.

“Up-to-date” I hear you say, and it’s true that everything that was hanging around, as well as what needed washing from this last week has now been attended to, but of course I found some more stuff lying around that I had overlooked and so the pile hasn’t diminished any.

What was nice about the wash was that the temperature of the water was well over 70°C. What I did was to run part of the clothes through the wash at 70°C and then left them to soak while I went off to do a quick bit of shopping at St Eloy les Mines.

When I came back the water had of course cooled down and so I put the woolly jumpers in from winter and gave them a run round in the machine. That will have sorted them out.

But what with one thing or another there seems to be plenty of surplus energy around. I think that I’m going to have to switch the fridge on for 24 hours every day so that the batteries can run down a little overnight.

If it’s a miserable grey day I can always unplug it in the morning.

-3

Thursday 15th March 2012 – MY HANDS ARE …

… all tingling like heck

Yes, I’ve spent the afternoon pulling up stinging nettles.

I’m actually quite immune to them and having lived with Nerina for many years plunging my hands into a bed of stinging nettles and pulling them up doesn’t cause me much of a problem.

But about 30 minutes later my hands start to tingle and then I notice it, I can tell you.

So being awoken by the alarm – for the first time for ages – I went a-computing for a couple of hours this morning. And then outside in the glorious sunshine, because it really was nice again today.

The farmer was working in the field next to here and so I waited uintil he went, and then dropped a lighted match into the garden refuse that was on the site of where the greenhouse will be. That lot went up like Joan of Arc, with it being so dry, and within an hour it had all effectively burnt itself out.

I’ve never had a garden fire go up as well as that one before.

Where I had the fire yesterday, I raked that out levelled it all off. That involved putting the big leftover peices into the brazier that I bought a while ago and much to my surprise, that all caught alight straight away as well.

I then moved the pieces of the greenhouse (the frame and the windows) down to there so that they are now close to where they are supposed to be, for me to assemble when I’ve dug over the plot where the greenhouse will be going.

After lunch, with the weather being so nice, I did another load of washing. Water at 68°C in the dump load as well – that ought to get it clean and just to be on the safe side I did the wash cycle for 30 minutes.

It’s not made any impression on the leftover dirty clothes from last time – what I washed today were all clothes that had accumulated in this last week.

But that little tabletop washing machine that I bought for €10 from a brocante over three years is worth its weight in gold.

A full cycle of machine, if you can call it that because I have to do the filling and switching by hand, uses just 0.14 of a KwH of electricity and you can’t knock that.

While the machine was going on, that was when I was pulling up stinging nettles.

I had the bits for the greenhouse laid out bewteen the barn and the house and once they had been moved, I could see millions (and I mean millions) of stinging nettles and their tracks forming, ready to burst into life.

Consequently I spend two hours pulling them up and piling them up ready for burning.

I’ve even cleaned down the side of the house there opposite the barn.

All in all, it’s made quite a difference although there is still too much rubbish, as always.

Final thing was to check the solar-heated water in the black plastic tank. 31.5°C at 18:45, with it having reached 36°C at one time during the afternoon. But 5 litres of hot water out of the dump load brought the temperature back up to 36.5°C and I had another solar shower with it.

I’m all clean now and that makes me feel so much better as well. And with clean clothes too, I’m starting to become civilised once more. I hate the winter where having a shower and having clean clothes are something of a luxury, and I look forward to spring when things start to happen, such as solar hot water and washing and so on.

And spring seems to be here with a vengeance right now, doesn’t it?

-1

Wednesday 14th March 2012 – WHAT A SHOWER!

Even though it is soon to be the annual conference of an … errrrr … organisation (said he, using the term loosely) that featured quite heavily in these pages at one time or another, it is not to that which I am referring.

Neither am I referring to my visitors either.

And I use the term in the plural because I had more than one today.

First off at 09:00 this morning, the phone rang and it was Désirée, the local estate agent.

And 09:00 too, you might be thinking, but to everyone’s surprise, including Yours Truly’s, I’d been up for hours. And I mean hours as well. I’d been trying to speak to Désirée for a while and at last she was free and so she came round here for a chat.

Amongst the things about which we chatted, and probably the most important, was the building that I own in Montaigut. Long-term readers of these pages will know that I own something like a derelict warehouse there and I use it to keep some cars, namely the Traction, the 2000E and the Mark V Cortina estate.

Above it though is a large space that was formerly six large rooms on two levels, but the dividers, both horizontally and vertically, are long gone. I need to do something about this place and converting the upstairs into two apartments is what I have in mind.

And so I had a good pick of Désirée’s brains – after all, she’s the professional.

Another visitor was Bill, who came round with a radio-cassette player out of an old car. There was a tape stuck in it and being an electronic unit you can’t get the tape out without power.

At least, most people can’t get the tape out but with the aid of three long fine-pointed screwdrivers and a pair of fine long-nosed pliers, I can manage to do it.

All these years of a misspent youth, that’s what I put it all down to.

In between the visits I finally managed to light the fire, the first of the year. And that is busy (even as we speak) disposing of much of the waste wood and the weeds that I have been pulling up this last couple of weeks.

You’ll notice though that it isn’t on the site of where the greenhouse will be. There was far too much stuff to burn, and the trees were overhanging far too much.

But I’ve left some over there – I’ll burn that off tomorrow and that should kill off many of the weeds on the site of where the greenhouse will be.

But back to the shower thing. At 18:00 I noticed that the water in the solar water heater was at 31°C today, and that the water in the dump load was off the scale again. So 5 litres of that water into the solar water heater gave me 38.5°C and I had my first home-grown shower of the year.

Just for a change I actually feel properly clean.

And I was right about the wind as well.

Wednesday 7th December 2011 – SO WHERE WAS I …

… last night when I should have been posting my blog entry on-line?

The answer was that I wasn’t here.

I was probably fast asleep on a Motorway Service Area somewhere on the edge of Paris.

Now that my stay here is going to be permanent (well, it always has been since 2007 but having sold my big apartment in Brussels in the summer, I now have no choice) I need to upgrade my electricity system.

The solar panels are of course permanent but things like the inverter, the batteries, the cabling and so on have been “job lots” picked up here and there and while they might be okay for a casual arrangement, things have changed.

I’ve ordered some additional panels and a new inverter, and … gulp … 8 200-zmp-hour sealed gel batteries, each one of which weighs about 60 kg, from my suppliers. And the delivery costs are astronomical, to say the least.

It works out to be far cheaper for me to travel there and collect them, so that was what I decided to do.

And I had a good drive there too. The Transport Cafe near Gien was open and so I even managed a shower, so I’m nice and clean, which makes quite a change for just recently.

But parts of the drive were exciting. At some small town round near Nemours somewhere, there are five or six traffic lights in sequence on the road through the place and they are always against you. And when I stopped at the first one the car behind me overtook me and drove slowly through the lights.

And did that all the way up to light number 5.

At number 6 you do have to stop as it’s a major road and I caught up with him there just as that turned to green – so I was past him again and back in front.

So now I’m settling down for a good sleep and I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow.

Monday 22nd August 2011 – It was 09:30 …

… this morning when I was burned out of bed by the heat. It’s quite astonishing just now, all of this. It was only a week or so ago that I was complaining about the cold weather.

Anyway, I’ve finished the web pages for the Nova Scotia Museum of Industry and they are on line. And well-worth a read too because I managed to blag my way in to see the world’s most controversial railway engine. But that’s all the web site stuff that I’m doing now until I go back next week – is it really only a week away?

The web pages took me nicely to lunch and I actually managed to find a decent tomato in the megacloche. How nice that was as well. Afterwards I was back up the ladder again. It’s now right into the apex of the roof – I can see over the roof line – and sfter today’s exertions there’s not all that much more to do up there. I’m out tomorrow afternoon so I’ll finish it off on Wednesday.

A short while after working in the garden I went for my solar shower. And a max temperature of an astonishing 60.5°:C was recorded. But don’t get carried away by that – I forgot to fill it yesterday and so the temperature sender was reading the air temperature. 41°C was much more like it.

Tonmorrow I have to go to the mairie at Pionsat for some stuff for Radio Anglais. And then, I have to pick up another oil tank. This will be the “before” for the used cooking oil. I’ll also make up the leads for the batteries over in Canada.

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Sunday 21st August 2011 – Well I was right …

… about the heatwave. It burned me out of bed this morning at 09:45. And on a Sunday too! Whatever next?

But I put my early rising to good use by cracking on with a new series of radio programmes. I managed to find some information on the Auvergne Regional Parliament at Clermont Ferrand, and so I spent all morning doing that.

After lunch I worked on the Radio Anglais blog and brought it up to date as far as I can – there are a couple of programmes missing and I shall have to find them if I can.

Once I finished that, I changed the habits of a lifetime and did some work. It started off as grovelling around looking for some battery terminals and ended up as something of a sort-out. I’ve found quite a bit of stuff that I had mislaid and eventually I did discover some terminals. Tomorrow evening I can make up some kind of connection system for a secondary battery.

In the solar water heater the temperature reached 45°C and I had to wait until about 19:30 until the water had cooled down enough for a shower, if 14°C can be called cool.

I’ve also tried my hand at jam-making with some blackberries off the brambles. But I dunno whether I’ve put too much sugar in it but it seems to have transformed itself into toffee. Ahh well – I’ll just have to practise more.

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Friday 19th August 2011 – What I would be doing this evening …

… is to post a photo of where I finished on Thursday with the pointing, and I did go out this morning to take a photo. However, despite a thorough search, I can’t remember where I put the camera afterwards. It’s defnitely getting to me, all of this.

So after working on the web site this morning I went out and did some more searching for stuff that I need for Canada. And I’m badgered if I can find my box of battery terminals. I’ve about 50 somewhere but your guess is as good as mine.

What I’m intending to do is to buy a caravan battery over there, but to have two terminals with me, with a solar charge controller, a multi-cigarette-lighter socket, a couple of 12-volt sockets and a 12/120 volt inverter wired up to it so that all I need to do is to slip them onto the battery and wire the solar panel to the charge controller. Then I’ll be all set up for my voyage. But where are these blasted terminals?

This afternoon, down to the bank to transfer some money, warn them about my visit to Canada (I don’t want to have another cash card swallowed up by “unusual spending patterns”) and to obtain a certificate of no claims for my insurance over there in case I decide to buy a car. I also went to the Mairie at Pionsat to get some info for the radio programmes.

I still had time afterwards to go up the wall, and I’ve extended the ladder almost right up the the apex – that’s about 9 metres and of course I’m 2 or so metres off the ground before I start, being on the roof of the lean-to. It’s decidedly shaky and being up there with no hands on the ladder while I chisel out the decaying mortar between the stones – I’m just not looking down.

The good side of today though was that the solar water reached 40.5°C and I had a gorgeous shower. What a way to start the weekend? I might even to to the swimming baths tomorrow.

For a little entertainment this evening, I watched the John Wayne film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. It’s said to be one of his classics but it’s not a patch on El Dorado or Rio Bravo, his two best films by a country mile if you ask me.

What is interesting though is that She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is set in Monument Valley in the Utah-Arizona desert and it brought back all kinds of happy memories as keen long-term followers of this rubbish will recall that I visited there in 2002 when I was first off work ill, and I’ve never ever forgotten that journey. Yes, this evening I saw all kinds of sights that I had seen in the flesh, as it were. I’m definitely getting to be all broody about North America, aren’t I?

What is even more interesting is that they had the Cavalry marching out of the camp to the tune of “Garry Owen”, but that was in 1950 and they wouldn’t ever dare do that now. “Garry Owen” was the marching song of the 7th Cavalry, the late and unlamented General Custer’s regiment and ought to really have died with him at Little Big Horn because it played rather a sinister role in the American Ethnic Cleansing of Native Americans.

Back in 1869, Custer and his cavalry were on the trail of a small band of marauding Cheyenne raiders but losing the way in a blizzard they stumbled upon the camp of Black Kettle, a peaceful Cheyenne chief whose camp on the Washita River, well within the confines of the concentr … errr … Reservation. Setting his band up on a bluff overlooking the camp, Custer had them play “Garry Owen” while he and his soldiers raided the village, massacring every man, woman and child they could find, inculding a white woman and child who Black Kettle had liberated from a raiding party a short while earlier.

The atrocities that were committed on the dead and dying by the 7th Cavalry, described in all their gory – “that’s not a spelling mistake” …ed – by Custer in his book My Life on the Plains and also by many other soldiers at the battle and they make horrific reading.

Of course, this film was made 20 years before the release of Soldier Blue – the first film to blow the lid off the myth of the “heroic” US Cavalry and reveal them as the butchers and sadists that they really were. Soldier Blue concerned the earlier dreadful and notorious massacre of peaceful and innocent native Americans at Sand Creek – the event that brought home to the native Americans that whether they surrendered or whether they resisted, they were still going to be massacred (as indeed they were) and so they stood and fought.

Such was the horror of what happened at Sand Creek that an American Investigating Committee said of Colonel Chivington and his soldiers that
“(we) can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the verist savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumental to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their in-apprehension and defenceless condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man. Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities”.

Of course, by the time that the Washita came around, some 5 years later, nothing at all of any criticism was levelled. “Manifest Destiny” was now official Government Policy and extermination of the native Americans was all part of the plan.

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Thursday 18th August 2011 – I thought that I would …

… post a photo of where I finished on Wednesday afternoon so you can see how I’m doing. It is quite high isn’t it?

And this afternoon I’ve gone another metre or so higher. In fact I’m at the stage where I need to stand on a ladder so that I can reach the top half of the ladder to push it higher, unless I can rig up some kind of rope to do that for me. I reckon another week or so with no interruptions and I will have finished this right-hand side of this wall and I can think about mounting the wind turbine.

That will be exciting – especially as we have had wind gusting to 25mph today (and I’m up there on top of that ladder without using any hands as well).

Apart from that, when I knocked off (at 19:10 – I was engrossed) the water in the solar shower was at 38.5°C and so I had a solar shower. And that’s the sum total of my day, apart from working on the web site of course.

But last night I had a kind-of disturbing dream. I dreamt that I was the owner of a large black dog (and I don’t like dogs at all) and I had left it in my car for a whole day while I was in work. The dog hadn’t died in the heat, and it hadn’t fouled the car either and so I took it for a long walk through the outskirts of a town, chatting to a couple of young women, and then I went down along a river where the riverside path became narrower and narrower until I could barely keep my balance as I walked along it.

What was that all about?

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EPIC HALL

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