Tag Archives: tidying up

Saturday 7th July 2012 – It’s flaming well raining again;

It’s not like me to use bad language – in fact I only swear when it slips out, as the much-maligned Percy Penguin, who doesn’t appear in these pages anything like as often as she deserves, will be only too pleased to testify, but this weather is rather getting on my nerves.

This morning we had a few clouds and the weather slowly improved during the day, to such an extent that when I was shopping in St Eloy this afternoon I treated myself to a sorbet. But this evening it clouded over, and then we had the storm.

I was late going to St Eloy too – 16:00 or so. and I didn’t spend long (or much) there either – just a quick whizz around. But our water butts haven’t come (as if we were really expecting them) and that’s bad news.

So what have I been doing that’s been holding me up? Well, I’ve sold some photos to a book publisher and of course he wants the originals, as you might expect. But could I find them? I could find everything except the ones that I wanted and so I’ve been on a frantic search. Eventually I tracked them down on a long-unused hard drive (no idea where the DVD backup for that period went) and so that was that problem solved. But having reached the conclusion that my photo filing is total rubbish, I’ve spent all day (and probably tomorrow too) sorting them all out and filing them as they ought to be filed. And when that’s done, I’ll redo the back-up photo DVDs.

And while all of that was a-doing, it gave me an opportunity to start filing away the European Paper Mountain. if I’m not careful I might find myself all organised and that will never do.  

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Thursday 5th July 2012 – 24mm of rain.

hanging cloud les guis virlet puy de dome franceThat’s what we’ve had so far today. And this photo aside tells its own story – a nice hanging cloud drifting slowly up the valley behind the house. That sums up the weather – it was like that all day and I’m fed up.

In other news, I had to make more muesli for breakfast, and it seems that I have run out of desecrated coconut. That’s not very good. And after breakfast I worked on the web pages for a while but I’m also not ashamed to say that I went back to bed for half an hour too – this weather is so flaming depressing.

Later on, I switched the inverter on and sanded down the polyfilla that I had put on all of the joints of the plasterboard in the cupboard – may as well take advantage of the weather. After lunch, I put another layer – the final one – on the joints. At the next available opportunity I’ll sand that off, paint the walls and fit the new laminate flooring. Then I can build the shelves and start moving the stuff in there from out of where the bathroom is going to be.

I had an hour in the lean-to too and I’ve sorted out a pile of stuff in there too. That was something else that needed doing. And then, by way of surprise, it stopped raining briefly at about 18:00. Briefly, I say, but long enough for me to finish putting the first coat of of wood treatment on the exposed new wood on the lean-to. When I have the chance, I’ll put the second coat on there and then paint the rendering.

It’s amazing how much you can do when you have the time and place to do it all. I really Am starting to become organised.

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Tuesday 3rd July 2012 – I didn’t do a tap …

… of work on the house today. Just recently, as you know, I’ve been in great demand. If it’s not Rosemarie after my services, it’s Marianne. But today it was Bill who rang up. I can’t think what I have done to be so popular. It isn’t like me.

Anyway, Bill had to go to St Etienne or thereabouts this afternoon to pick up a dog. It’s a long way and he wasn’t sure of the route and so he asked me if I would go with him. And it was a long way too – 6 or 7 hours all told there and back (it was actually half-an-hour beyond St Etienne) in the glorious sunshine. Still, a nice drive out for a change.

This morning though, I was on the website again, except for 10 minutes when I was having a blazing row with someone from the electricity company. She wanted to check the pylon but she couldn’t approach it because there are too many brambles and nettles and so on in the way. She had a right old go at me about it and I patiently said nothing until she finished, when I told her that the land out here is actually the property of the commune, not me, and I would be grateful if she would moderate her language when she spoke to me, remove herself from my presence, and go to see the mayor and use the same offensive terms to him. It really was quite an animated discussion and she won’t be back here in a hurry when I’m around.

Apart from that, I’ve been dealing with the European Paper Mountain this evening and making enormous progress. I won’t know myself at this rate.

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Sunday 1st July 2012 – This is a rare event for a Sunday.

Yes, I was up and about and breakfasting long before 09:00. Mind you, I don’t think that anyone at all could have slept through the torrential downpour that we were having. It certainly was impressive. And all my clothes from the washing that I did the other day – they’ve had another rinse.

La Bourrée de Vergheas open day folk dance danse folklorique roche d'agoux puy de dome auvergne franceIt was Roche d’Agoux where I went with Marianne this morning. It’s the start of the tourist season and so for the next 8 Sundays my lie-in will go for a burton while I act as Marianne’s technician for all of the Open Days in the Canton.

As the highlight of the exhibition, we were treated to a display of local folk dancing by the local folk dancing group here, La Bourrée de Vergheas. They even invited people up onto the floor to learn the dances which is an excellent way of keeping the music and the dancing alive.

We went back to Marianne’s after us and she made lunch for us. And then it was back here to carry on with the European Paper Mountain. I’ve found piles more papers that need sorting and filing, and so I can see this turning into a “Forth Bridge” job.

That’s about it, really. I’m tired after my early start and so I’m going to bed for an early night and badger the paperwork.

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Saturday 30th June 2012 – IT’S POURING DOWN …

… with rain outside.

The first time we’ve had a really decent downpour for a few days, and you can see how much I’ve become embedded into the local agricultural way of life with my potager – looking forward to the rainstorm.

This morning I slept through the alarms for a change. I was having a nice dream about a former friend and his family and it’s a long time since I’ve had a really pleaant dream.

But anyway after breakfast I did some more work on the laptop and then went out shopping.

I’ve bought a few new toys too. LIDL was selling Brother PC label-makers a while ago and I was tempted at €20 but I didn’t bite. Anyway, they were reduced to €10 today and so I grabbed one.

I also met Rosemary and we went to Cheze where they were selling 510-litre water butts for an incredible €32. Rosemary wanted one, and I’ve decided to buy two of them.

What I shall be doing with mine is that when I take the scaffolding down after I’ve finished the wall of the lean-to, I am going to put up some guttering to catch the water off the lean-to roof and sink a large tank into the ground to catch it all.

But meanwhile I can link these two together and use them as settling tanks with the take-off for the subterranean tank about half-way up the side. That will still leave 250 litres of water at the bottom of each tank.

If I put a tap at the bottom of the first tank, then I can use the water in there (which will be pretty dirty) for watering the vegetable plots. That will help empty the dirt out of the tank.

But I’m getting more and more fed-up of Brico Depot.

We went for the guttering for Rosemary’s barn yesterday but what they had on offer was all badly-damaged rubbish sold by surly staff.

At Bricomarche in Commentry she paid a little more but got everything she wanted and in pristine condition too.

There was some stuff that I wanted too but Brico Depot don’t sell it. They suggested a work-around, but that would cost a fortune.

However, Cheze had exactly what I needed. They also had an inner tube for my wheelbarrow, that has saved me a fortune on a new wheel.

Tomorrow I’m off out with Marianne. She did tell me where we are going but I have forgotten. I suppose that I will find out soon enough.

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Tuesday 26th June 2012 – THIS PHOTO …

TIDY GARDEN LES GUIS VIRLET puy de dome france… probably won’t be all that significant to most of you but it certainly will be to Liz and Rosemary because they have seen the front of the house since I came back.

You have seen it too, in a general sort of way, and you would have seen how you couldn’t move out there, the weeds having grown so tall and so thick.

But anyway, there you are. I finished the weeding in front of the house this evening and I can actually see the pathway that I laid out all those years ago.

You can see the table and chair too, on the terrace thingy made of old pallets with an old tarpaulin underneath it. And wasn’t it lovely sitting on there to eat my butty at lunchtime, and even to eat my potato and lentil curry tonight?

All of the weeds, by the way, were pulled up by hand. Huge handfuls of the stuff. That was the hard bit

And can you see the herbs in their pots in front of the verandah? They really are going berserk and if I can have three or four days of dry weather I’ll cut them back and bring them up here to dry like I did last time.

That’s not all I’ve done either. I weeded the path that led down to the greenhouse and I’ve also weeded in front of the barn by the entrance to where the Ebro is stored.

I can now open and close the garage door.

As well as that, I’ve filled a few more bags of rubbish ready to go to the dechetterie at Pionsat tomorrow and while doing that I found the vertical-axis wind turbine that I bought a year ago and promptly forgot all about.

It’s currently stuck on the roof of Caliburn, held on by its magnetic mounting, but I will have to think of a more permanent way to attach it.

But it’s lovely being able to walk around in the garage part of the barn now, and I’ve not finished in there yet either. I’ve not found a roll of wire netting though, and I know that there’s one in there somewhere that I bought on my travels.

This morning I was up and about before the alarm and I spent 4 hours on the computer. I’m cracking on with these web pages but I’m only a couple of days from Québec and that’s something that will slow me down a little.

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Monday 25th June 2012 – ROSEMARY CAME ROUND …

… this afternoon.

She owed me a couple of hours work from the other day and so she turned up at 14:30 armed with a few gardening tools and set to work.

By the time that we stopped for a coffee at 17:00 she had weeded 6 of the raised beds and done a far better job than I could ever do in that time. I was ever so impressed.

In the meantime I planted the aubergines that I had bought on Saturday and the pepper and chili plants that Liz gave me on Saturday night, and weeded a few more of the pathways.

All in all, it’s looking pretty impressive right now in the garden and I’ll tell you what – when there’s two of you working, somehow the work seems to be completed much more quickly than if there is just one person working twice as long, if you know what I mean.

And in some kind of indication of how much I was motivated, after Rosemary left, I weeded the path outside the front of the house, lifted up the two pallets that I was using as a kind-of terrace, put an old tarpaulin down to kill off the weeds, and then put the pallets back and set out the garden furniture.

And it was all of 19:45 when I finished – a long time after knocking-off time but at least I have my outside table and chairs in position for whenever the summer finally arrives – it was another miserable day today.

This morning though, I went off to the Post Office in Pionsat to post the … errr … 9 letters that I had written yesterday. I’m glad that they are all done and dealt with now.

Returning home, I finished off the web pages that I had recently written, to find that the one that I’ve just been doing, instead of being at my grand maximum size of 34kb and hopefully less than that, is all of 57kb.

That’s going to need dividing into two, but I’m not sure where the join would be.

Once I’d done something with that I moved a few more things downstairs and then went outside and started slinging stuff into the back of Caliburn. It was then that Rosemarie arrived.

So all in all, another pile of progress today. If I’m not very careful I might be starting to organise myself, and that would never do. 

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Sunday 24th June 2012 – AND SO …

… after all of my exertions of the last few days, I’ve been taking it easy today. In fact I’ve hardly set foot outside the house, that’s for sure.

Much of the day has been spent watching a few films on the DVD player but in news that might come as quite a shock to most of the regular readers of this rubbish I’ve also been having a really good tidy out of my room.

I’ve thrown away a huge pile of stuff into the back of Caliburn to go down to the dechetterie in Pionsat next time that I’m passing, and not only that, I’ve dumped a lot of stuff downstairs to empty the place a bit.

Over the last coule of days I’ve been having a rather desultory go at dealing with some correspondence that has built up over the last while and today I reckoned that I’d finished.

A mere 9 letters, that’s all. It’s a long time since I’ve worked so hard.

It does actually look a little (yes, just a little) less cluttered right now although I’m sure that that won’t last very long. 

Pizza and garlic bread for tea (just for a change) and that’s your lot. I’m off for an early night all ready for the (af)fray tomorrow.

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Wednesday 20th June 2012 – AFTER THE USUAL …

… couple of hours on the laptop I went off to Rosemary’s for the afternoon.

On the way there thought I had a couple of interesting encounters, firstly with the German guy – Heidi’s husband or partner or something – who lives over the back here, and then with Francois Carriat who lives at Barrot.

Francois was full of energy as usual – “on your way back, drop in. I could do with a hand”.

memorial to the fallen nazi puy de dome franceOn my way around to Rosemary’s, I came across this memorial. I can’t think why I hadn’t noticed it before, because I’ve been up and down this road quite a bit.

Many people criticise what the perceive as the lack of resilience of the French population to the Germans in World War II.

Leaving aside the question that I don’t recall the British civilians of the Channel Island doing too much to resist the German occupying forces – even down to the extent of sitting on their hands in starvation conditions for 9 months after the war had passed them by, the real fact is that there was quite a considerable amount of French resistance!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the numerous plaques that we have seen scattered around the countryside honouring people who were fusilés – shot – or decapité – decapitated – by the Germans, and we’ve seen the cemeteries at Ixelles and Evere in Belgium.

I wonder how these critics would cope if they were running the risk of being shot or decapitated every day.

Round at Rosemary’s we made some space in her barn, put my door in there and loaded up Caliburn with the rubbish, as well as a few bits and pieces that she knew that I would like.

Then we had a coffee and a chat to put the world to rights as we usually do.

I brought the rubbish back here because I have some stuff here that needs throwing away …{thud] …[thud] and I can heave that into the back of Caliburn and make just one trip down to the dechetterie at Pionsat.

Francois certainly did need a hand too. He’s had a rotavator in his small field and turned it into some kind of market garden, and a friend offered him “some” tomato plants. This “some” turned out to be about 150 and they were about 10 inches high with flowers on them.

Anyway, to cut a long story short …”hooray” – ed … Francois did the planting and I followed on behind with the watering cans and we managed to plant most of them before it went dark.

For my trouble Francois gave me a dozen for which I am grateful, and also a chili plant.

Not only that, he fed and watered me too, and we had a good chat about all kinds of things. Including the fact that tomorrow there are four groups of musicians who will be roaming the Streets of Saint Gervais d’Auvergne playing in all of the bars.

Now that sounds like a fun evening and so I might just as well go out and see what’s going on.

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Sunday 17th June 2012 – IT’S SUNDAY TODAY!

And that’s the day when I usually do a little informal tidying up in my little room to try to make the place look a little respectable.

And so why, you wonder, is it looking like a total tip right now?

The answer is that I have been busy doing other things, and that has created a mes entirely all of its own.

audacity prolectrix usb turntable les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve sorted out the Prolectrix USB record turntable that I bought hundreds of years ago in ASDA in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK.

It has been sitting in its box for all of that time doing nothing in particular and as the summer, when I normally have loads of spare electricity, is slowly passing by, I reckoned that it was time to do something about it

I discovered a box with “LPs” written on it clearly visible in the European Cardboard Box Mountain downstairs when I was doing some tidying up a while back and so I brought that up here and unpacked it.

And this is where the problems started because despite what was written on the box it was full of all kinds of other stuff too. And all of that, I’m afraid, ended up scattered all over the floor as I’ve been rather preoccupied.

Had the thing worked right out of the box as I imagined it might, I woud have been all done and dusted a long while ago but it took ages to figure out how it all worked.

Nothing happened at all when I switched it on and don’t say “why didn’t you look at the manual … "PERSONual" – ed …?” because it didn’t come with one.

Ohh yes, I surfed the internet to look for one, and did 100 other things too, including changing all of the fuses and eventually after much binding in the marsh I hit on the solution.

The reason why no notice light comes on when you switch on the power is because there isn’t a notice light. And the means of starting up the turntable is to take the arm off the arm rest and move it across to the album.

The sound doesn’t come across in the USB cable either. There’s a built-in cable with two RCA plugs, and while I have do an RCA lead with a stereo jack on one end, the RCA connectors on that lead are also plugs.

And I don’t have a plug-to-plug converter lead.

As for the program that comes with it – “Audacity”, it’s called, I don’t think too much of that either. No automatic track-seeking, no automatic scratch and rumble filter.

In other words, all of the editing has to be done by hand, and that will take forever.

Oooooh for a copy of Polderbits or something similar. When I had a copy of that for recording my tapes onto CD, you could hardly tell the fact that it was not an original CD.

I’m going to be hard-pushed to do that with this program.

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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.

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Sunday 10th June 2012 – FLAMING JUNE?

It’s more like blasted November right now.

It’s been flaming raining all flaming day. 17mm (not cm, Krys) has fallen so far and a quick referral shows that since I came back from Canada there has been only one rain-free day.

I woke up at 09:20 (and that’s early for a Sunday, isn’t it?) and heard the torrential downpour that was going on outside. That was enough to make me turn over and go back to sleep and there I stayed until a much-more-reasonable 11:30.

No point in getting up in this weather.

After breakfast I watched a film while I reviewed the latest edition of the magazine that I receive that gives me info that I need for the radio programmes.

A few likely topics in there as well as a few extra questions to add to the “20 Questions” that I keep in reserve for if ever we are caught short-handed for news.

After lunch I started to tidy up a little in here. Only a little – I can’t get the hang of this “tidying-up” lark. But I did make a useful discovery.

The wooden box that you may remember me building to keep the fruit and veg in makes a useful and quite comfortable seat and so I’ve moved that into the kitchen in the verandah where it ought to be, and put a load of stuff in it.

This evening I went round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the radio programmes. 6 weeks for each of the two radio stations. That should take us up to the end of July which is comforting, and keeps us out of mischief.

Liz made some really nice chick-pea and spinach curry as well as a really tasty cake.

I asked Terry if he could order some ink for me for my printyer seeing as how I have run out, but he did better than that. A few of us bought the identical printer a while ago, one of these Epson SX115 all-in-one machines that were on special offer at €49.

While they work just fine, they are rather sloooooow. So Liz, who has to print out loads of stuff for her teaching, has bought a new laser printer that does 17 pages per minute rather than the Epson’s 17 minutes per page (that really is unfair – there is nothing at all wrong with these Epsons in an ordinary domestic environment, especially at that price and at the price that the ink refills are available).

Conseuently I’ve ended up with a box of inks and a spare printer, for which I am extremely grateful.

And it’s still flaming raining.

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Friday 8th June 2012 – I WAS UP …

… this morning at 08:30.

That was surprising seeing as how it was well after 04:00 and starting to dawn when I went to bed, never mind to sleep.

What was the spur to my leaving the depths of my darkest pit was a phone call telling me that I was going to have a brief visit. I had a few things to do before then, tidying up being not the least of them either.

menat gorges de la sioule puy de dome franceAfter that, it was off to visit Rosemary. She’s had car issues and needed something sorted out at the garage, but didn’t understand what the guy there was telling her.

And so yours truly was summoned to appear …

Rosemary lives in one of the most beautiful parts of the Gorges de la Sioule and the view from the road up to her house is phenomenal – it’s well worth the price of the drive up to visit her.

But anyway, we sorted out her garage man and that part of the story ended happily ever after.

Seeing as I was out and about and I am going to be busy this weekend I nipped to LIDL in St Eloy-les-Mines and did some shopping for next week – no sense in me going out tomorrow if i’m out today.

This afternoon I steam-cleaned the kitchen area of the verandah. Well, some of it anyway. It was in a pretty sorry state.

But I think that I ought to spend some time in my busy schedule doing some kind of cleaning up. The place is looking unhealthy after my long absence just now.

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Sunday 22nd April 2012 – It was another day today …

… when I hardly went out at all. However, after the traditional Sunday lie-in (until all of 09:40) and breakfast I started packing. And that’s it – all done. All I need to do now is to round up the rest of the electrical equipment I shall be taking, and I wish that I knew where the spare camera battery is.

All of the tickets are printed off too, and they are safely installed in their wallet in the pocket of the suitcase. And Strawberry Moose has tried out the suitcase and he’s quite comfortable in there too.

I’ve cut my hair as well and so I’m ready to go. All I need to do tomorrow is the 9 things that are on this list that I have prepared. Tuesday morning I’m recording radio programmes and then making sandwiches, locking up the place and I’ll be off.

In other exciting news, I’ve been searching for years for a copy of the Inspector Hornleigh films from the late 1930s. These films, starring Gordon Harker and Alastair Sim, are real and proper classics. And just by chance tonight I’ve tracked them down – not only free to view but free to download – at The Internet Archive.  

There are thousands of films there and I’m really disappointed that I didn’t discover this site earlier. As it is, I’ve downloaded half a dozen or so films and I’ll download some more as I get the chance. It will be nice when I’m out in the wilderness somewhere at the side of the road to relax with a classic black-and-white film and a can of spruce beer.

And what has made my day about this is that I noticed the internet speed. Two or three years ago I was struggling with 18 kbs. I’m downloading these films at an average of about 250 kbs. Not as fast as you might be having but it’s comparative luxury for me. 

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Wednesday 11th April 2012 – It’s been another …

… busy afternoon on the gardening front. First job was to make some potting compost to plant my seeds into. This ended up being 12 measures of sterile compost from a supermarket bagful, 4 measures of dry sand and 2 measures of dry wood ash. And if anyone has any better ideas about making a compost for sowing seeds I would be absolutely delighted to hear it.

So once I had done that I went and collected a load of those plastic pots that soya desserts come in. Already nicely washed, I piled them together in heaps of 10 or so, heated up a baked potato skewer until it was red-hot, and then poked it through the heaps of pots four or five times to make drain holes.

Once the drain holes were pierced, I washed the pots again and then filled them with my seed compost, and planted all the “fragile” seeds, like aubergines, peppers, chilis, cucumbers, courgettes, gherkins and a few other things too. And with what was left, I prepared a few seed trays and put leeks and lettuce in them.

There is a reason for all of this. For a start, why the soya dessert pots? The answer to that one is that they come in all varieties of shapes, sizes and colours. And I am heavily into colour coding. I can tell by the different colours, shapes and sizes of the pots that the seeds in them are all of the same type of plant.

The second reason is much more interesting. I’ve decided that I need a holiday, and so I’m planning to go away. And while I’m away Liz is going to babysit my plants in exchange for half the crop, which I think is a good deal in anyone’s terms. That’s why there’s the rush to do the potting up.

And so this morning I was planning my holiday, and the logistics of it are proving to be a nighmare – it’s nothing like as straightforward as it ought to be. But then this evening while I was tidying up, I had a brainwave about my trip and so I’ve spent most of the evening sitting here with an atlas. And I reckon that I can do this in another fashion.

So tomorrow I’ll be scrapping everything that I have done so far and starting again.

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