Tag Archives: barn

Wednesday 8th September 2010 – It finally stopped raining …

… sometime about midday. Which was just as well as we were being thoroughly drowned out again. As the battery was then flat on the computer I nipped out and did two more bucket-loads of mortar on the wall. I reckon I’ve not done about one-sixth of it, so this time next year I might be halfway round.

That took me until about 15:00 when I knocked off for a late lunch. And just as well because it started to rain again just about then.

So this afternoon I’ve moved the old computer into the barn where I’ll be using it for more technical applications and so on, taking advantage of the bad weather to clean up the hard drive and remove all kinds of unwanted files that were hanging around on there. I have one of these portable hard drives and I’ll be using that to transport files back and to – no sense in having two copies saved at different dates on two computers – I’ll only over-write the more recent one with the older version or do something silly like that.

At about 17:15 the rain stopped so I put yet another bucket of mortar onto the wall and then went and picked my veg for tea until the rain drove me back inside again.

So what have I been doing on the computer these last few mornings? Well, I’ve written a few web pages about Virlet, the village that is my postal address, and I’ve put them on line today. Now you can see all about the village and read about its history.

Talking of history, the Americans’ much-vaunted retreat from Iraq at the end of August is now history. It lasted all of 5 days before the much-prophesied Civil War that erupted grew so far out of control that the troops were sent back in, and only a day or so later that they suffered their first casualties. As I (and many others, it is only fair to say) prophesied, the Anglo-American tactic of invading a country that was the only friend of the Westerners in the Middle-East and overthrowing the only pro-Western government in the Middle East, making them hate us with an intensity that cannot be measured on any scale known to man, and replacing them with another group of Middle-Easterners that already hate the west with an intensity that cannot etc etc, was short-sighted to say the least.

And now it seems now that the Septics are stuck there for a while yet. And no surprise either, because they will probably remember what else that I said – that once the occupying farces have pulled out there will be in due course a dictator of the country that will make Saddam look like a Boy Scout leader and the west will wish that they had him back in power.

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Monday 23rd August 2010 – It seems that …

… my inolvement in Lieneke’s roof has come to an end.

All that remains to be done is the plasterboarding, followed by the pointing up of the end wall, and then the tidying up. No labouring of any description is required and so after opening up the house for Terry and Simon I was paid off (well, not actually paid off because I’m not actually being paid). And I am not displeased by this either, as you can imagine.

First thing that I did was to stack all of the wood. There are tonnes of new wood lying around here that I haven’t managed to put away over the last few months and all of that is now neatly stacked and I know how much of it that I have. That took all of the morning.

After lunch I was in the barn, finishing the tidying up of the workbench, fitted the new vice that I bought in July last year, and did some more sorting-out of stuff. I can actually move around now inside the barn and that is progress. And the stuff that I have rediscovered ….

Tomorrow I’m going to make a start on the composting toilet and get that fitted. That involves making a box to put the bin in, and building a couple of walls. So all of these demi-chevrons and cheap tongue-and-grooving will start to disappear.

High time I organised the hygene around here.

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Sunday 22nd August 2010 – You’ve no idea …

storm lightning birdwatching centre ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome france… how long I was standing on the birdwatching point at the back of St Gervaisd’Auvergne, watching this storm rolling across the ridge in the distance – the one that I live just a couple of miles behind.

Nor how many photos that I took either. What I was trying to do was to take a photo of a flash of lightning, and for a while there was plenty of that but I just wasn’t quick enough. And after a while the storm drifted off the the north-east as the wind swung round from the south.

But the storm was impressive from up there and you can see in the pic the sheets of rain that were falling down

I’d been round to Terry and Liz’s to discuss business and the like. We have a lot to organise – including trying to record SEVEN radio programmes at our next recording session. It seems that my trip to Canada (have I mentioned this yet?), if it comes off, clashes with Liz and Terry going back to the UK for a week  and so we will have our work cut out.

But this morning (or what was left of it) and the early part of the afternoon I carried on with the tidying up in the barn. I’ve found tons of stuff I had forgotten all about and which is now all put in boxes, and I’ve cleaned up half my workbench. I can now get into the drawer where the power tools are, and that is real progress.

Once Lieneke’s roof is finished off (and I’ve been saying that for a while now) I can do some more and have the place looking just a little more shipshape. It’s about time, too!

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Thursday 12th August 2010 – I shan’t be sorry …

… to see the back of this roof. The rainstorm that we were promised for today never arrived and so we were up there all day. Well, Terry and Simon were mostly. I was out for some of the morning looking for supplies. And you can’t believe that a builders’ merchant would have no 40×27 laths in stock, and not expect any more until September. I had a little bit of a hunt to track some of them down after that.

But once I returned and we carried on with our production line method of roof-building, we made enormous progress as you can see in the photo below.

roofing chevrons lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome france We’ve attached chevrons to the top crossbeam that we fitted to the house wall a couple of days ago, and you can see them fitted to the other crossbeam that we embedded in the cement on the top of the wall that we built up previously.

And now it’s all looking thoroughly impressive. I reckon that another 10 working days or so might see the job completely finished. And I shan’t be sorry for a moment.

So when we knocked off this evening I had to move Caliburn, and Simon got into his van and piddled off – and so did Terry – leaving me to put the tarpaulin on all on my own. Luckily Terry remembered and came back to help, otherwise it would have been embarrassing.

Once everyone had cleared off I took my life in my hands and moved the methane digester that had been by the barn. And once I had manhandled … "PERSONhandled" – ed … it down to the compost bin that I built the other day I tipped it all in and covered it with wood ash.

That’s the end of my experiments with the methane digester for now and I’m not sorry about that either. I can sit out on my terrace now.

After that I came in and crashed out again. I’m totally whacked. I’m not as young as I was and it’s not so very encouraging.

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Monday 2nd August 2010 – We talked about the rain.

And I can tell you with complete confidence that in the 18 hours from about 14:15 to 08:15 this morning we had a total of 42mm. Now that is not all that far short of a record, and it gives you some kind of an idea of what kind of weather we had just now.

The morning was dark and miserable – at about 10:00 I was getting a total of about 2 amps of my charging system, a right winter’s day type of charge. Mind you this afternoon it brightened up considerably and it was quite warm. But it didn’t last and as I was leaving Pionsat after the Anglo-French group meeting we were having torrential rainstorms again.

sunset rainstorm heavy cloud les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs I turned up the lane to here I noticed the sun setting between two heavy rain clouds and so I quickly took a pic. I didn’t have much time to set up and what with the driving rain it’s not come out as well as it might.

But it’s impressive just the same and I’m getting to like this new Nikon D5000 camera. And that’s just as well, considering the money that I spent on buying it. I’d be disappointed with anything else.

We managed to get a load of work done on the roof today in between the rainstorms. All of the chevrons are on and they are bricked in and cemented into position. It looks quite impressive. Tomorrow we can add the laths and the voltige and put the tiles back on, that is if the weather lets us. It’s looking pretty ominous outside there right now.

roof collapsed lean-to fitting new beams flooring les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter we knocked off on this roof Terry came to give me a hand in this lean-to for 10 minutes, for which I was grateful. We took out the collapsed beam and fitted the new one, and then fitted the other new one into the beam hangers against the wall.

After Terry left I had a root around upstairs in the barn and came across some 25mm planks. They are now fitted and you can see the hole in the floor where the stairs will come in from downstairs.

Once the floor was fitted I roofed the place over with a pile of corrugated iron sheet that I have found over the years in various places. I have some others but they are underneath firewood, gravel, hardcore and the like, preventing that from being infiltrated by weeds. I looked out for a tarpaulin but the only one I could find was a 6×4 meter and I don’t want to waste that. I’ll have to buy another 4×2 metre that should do, and I’ll need a thin piece of 25mm to fit against the wall.

And I was carried away doing that and so almost missed the start of the Anglo-French Group meeting tonight. That shows you how keen I was.

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Monday 12th July 2010 – No solar shower tonight!

And so the run stops at 8 consecutive evenings. But then again I’m not complaining because today it rained. The first time for what seems like ever and we had 8.5mm of the stuff. My plants needed that, and so did my water butts. Things are getting a little low here.

So this morning after a lie-in I was catching up on my websites until lunchtime. And then Terry came round to see Lieneke about this work that needed doing and so I took the opportunity of him moving his tractor to another place on the hardstanding, dragging out the trailer and loading all of the kwikstage scaffolding onto it.

And that really was my day. Nothing exciting at all. But tomorrow I have to help Terry with a barn door which means a start at … gulp … 08:00. Does that time actually exist anywhere?

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Thursday 8th July 2010 – Wahey!

kwikstage scaffolding roofing sheets barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, I now have a barn roof duly completed, complete with ridge tiles and guttering, all cut nicely to shape.

We started off this morning by bending the ridge tiles to fit before we took them up and in 45 minutes with no worries and no panic they were all fitted. I wouldn’t say “nicely” but they are all on and firmly fixed and cover up the ridge of the roof.

And then the fun began.

We coupled up an inverter to power the jigsaw for cutting the sheets but the inverter burnt out. So after some messing around we went on a tour of the local shops in Youx, Montaigut en Combraille and St Eloy les Mines for a decent heavy-duty metal saw but without luck. We then tried another inverter and the Scorpion saw but that was no better. In the end we had a brainwave – and the Ryobi circular saw came to the rescue. It badgered up the blade well and truly but it did an excellent job.

But then we realised that the roof had been cut too long and the blade was too badly damaged for another cut, so Terry fetched his huge battery-powered saw and as luck would have it the blade off my 650-watt mains saw fitted right on.

kwikstage scaffolding roofing sheets barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome franceAll that remained was to fix the guttering. We did as much of that as we could but we didn’t have an angled joint for the bend, and it was too sharp to wrap the guttering around. I can do that at a later date, or else I’ll have to invent something.

I also need to re-position one of the brackets at the end of the roof but that can be a ladder job too.

solar panels aspire recycled plastic slates house roof les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce all of that had been done, we needed to take down the scaffolding. No reason to leave that up against the barn when it can be doing other things.

But before we did that I climbed up on the roof to seize the opportunity to take a photo of the house and the solar panels. I haven’t had a good shot of those yet. And it looks as if I’ll have to fix the guttering on the house roof before I’m much older, doesn’t it?

Now the scaffolding is down and Terry has gone and it’s all absolutely superb. I’m really impressed and a major thanks to Terry for giving me so much help and getting me organised.

Krys asked me what I intend to do in the barn when it’s finished. In fact it’s going to be for storage, a workshop for joinery and engineering projects, and a garage workshop for my collection of old cars that I can now go and rescue.

Tomorrow will be a day off as I’m whacked. And I sincerely hope it rains buckets because I’ll go outside and watch it.

And yet another solar shower this evening. I’ve abandoned (for the moment) the LIDL garden shower and am using a hand-held shower head.

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Monday 5th July 2010 – Today was an important day …

roofing sheets barn roof air 403 wind turbine les guis virlet puy de dome france… in the story of the barn roof for if you look closely at the image just here you will see that all of the roofing sheets are fitted and the kwikstage scaffolding has been taken down.

And not only that either but although you can’t see it clearly we have guttering all down the side of the roof too. No downpipes as yet but that’s not an issue as I still haven’t solved the question of the evacuation of the water. Nevertheless this is progress.

kwikstage scaffolding air 403 wind turbine solar panel mounting frame barn wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn the previous photo you could make out the wind turbine. In this photo you can see it much better now that it’s in its permanent home at the other end of the barn.

We are also well-advanced in the fabrication of the framework to mount the solar panels down there too. We were well on our way to doing that but we came to a shuddering halt as we couldn’t find the three T-brackets that I used to mount the solar panel on the garden fence back in 2007 when Liz came here and that was annoying.

But a discovery I did make was the little mains angle-grinder that I bought a while ago. The cordless Ryobi is good enough but you’ll be amazed at how quickly it drains the battery. Cutting the pipe with the little mains grinder was no problem.

But now that the scaffolding is down we are going to erect it on the other side of the barn tomorrow and take off the tiles from there. Because of the way that the land slopes around here the other side of the roof is nothing like as high so we don’t need as much scaffolding and what we do need will be erected pretty quickly.

Who knows? We may even have this roof done by the weekend.

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Friday 2nd July 2010 – Up until about 21:00 this evening …

… the weather was magnificent. In fact it was far too magnificent to work.

solar panel mounting kwikstage scaffolding barn les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis morning we put up a small scaffolding at the southern end of the barn and while Terry was drilling and screwing into the wall for the mounting brackets I was sawing and cutting scaffolding pipe to make a framework to mount the solar panels that are on the roof of the Luton Transit.

I’ll be fitting them permanently onto this end of the barn along with the wind turbine that we took down from the north end of the barn.

But we were defeated by that most unusual phenomenon – overheating batteries. When they went flat in the Hitachi SDS drill (and what a good purchase that was!) they were too hot to take a charge. Mind you, it was only 37°C today – the hottest of the year.

guttering barn roof kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome franceNot to be outdone however we started on the guttering of the barn as you can see. I told Terry that there are four classes of people in France

  1. the peasants – the ones with the leaky roofs
  2. the lower class – the ones with roofs that don’t leak
  3. the middle class – the ones with guttering on their barn …

    4. “What’s the fourth class?” asked Terry

  4. “The ones with drains to take away the water!”

But having seen how dry the house walls have become since I put guttering up, then my barn will have it too. I’m sick and tired of being up to my neck in mud. But I’ll have to wait a bit for the drains though.

The chevrons are much too short for the roofing (I went for a long overhang) and so a fascia board is out of the question but they did have at Brico Depot yesterday some galvanised straps with the facility for a sliding attachment. If you bend the straps so that the sliders are at about 60° there’s still a good 9 inches or so on the straps and they fit nicely onto the chevrons and you can bolt the gutter mounts to them and they are then perfectly vertical.

We did what we could bearing in mind that we had no joints (moving the scaffolding out to give us clearance was fun) but by 15:00 it was no longer possible to work up there. The combination of a searing hot metal roof, blinding sunlight and tools too hot to touch made us call it a day.

I did a little some while later and then history was made by my not only having a solar shower  (and this LIDL garden shower thing needs some attention) but a solar shave as well. And no surprise – the water temperature was a phenomenal 46°C

We had a barbecue round at Clare’s tonight. Esther hosted it and very kindly invited me, and of course Strawberry Moose met some of his admirers. James and Julianna drew some good pictures of him too.

But by 21:00 we were having thunder and lightning and we even had some rain. But nothing like as much as we need. And right now the sky is a clear cloudless starry night promising much more sun for tomorrow. I have to go to Commentry to look for joints and downpipe and then it’s a toss-up as to whether I come back to do the guttering or go for a swim.

We shall see.

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Thursday 1st July 2010 – I mentioned yesterday …

roofing sheets barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… that one side of the barn roof is finished. And so, here’s a pic that I took this morning not long after I woke up.

It’s quite impressive this roofing stuff isn’t it?

I’ve been quite busy today, although it might not seem much like it. I started off with a little gardening and then went into Pionsat for 11:00 to meet Max the secretary of Pionsat’s football club who had to sign a document or two for me.

Then it was back to gardening again and everything that is going to be planted this year is now planted and that is that.

That took me until 13:10 when I went chaud-pied into Montlucon. First stop was LIDL as they were selling some more 12-volt LEDs and at €3.99 too – I bought a pile of them. And then to Brico Depot for the guttering, the nails and stuff. No downpipes and no joints (it’s a rather familiar lament isn’t it?) but tons of other stuff, including a pile of drawers (not THAT kind of drawers, Rhys!). Yes, here I am planning to build myself a fitted wardrobe and a fitted kitchen and there they were with some end-of-range drawer kit – deep 40mm ones at €3.50 (you can’t even buy the sliders for that) and deep 60mm ones at €5.00. I now have 8 of each which is impressive.

Following that was my test d’effort. They put me on a running walkway thing for 7 minutes and attached a load of electrodes to me. I ran about 2.5km in that time (and in that heat too – it’s been glorious today) and the verdict is “very good condition for his age”. I sound like a horse or an old Ford Cortina.

I’d missed the post by then and so I had to drive all the way to Clermont Ferrand to deliver my file to the Referees’ Association, taking in a visit to the Auchan on the way. And I can’t find my satnav now – another thing I’ve mislaid.

But the highlight of the day had to be in the doctor’s this afternoon. He was helping me fill in the medical form –
“Sex?” he asked
“Put down ‘yes’ for that” I replied.
“Errrr … I think they wan’t you to put down ‘M’ or ‘F’ there” said the doctor.
“Okay – put down ‘M’ then” I said. “It’s been years since I’ve had an ‘F'”.

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Monday 28th June 2010 – Today’s pic …

new carpentry woodwork roofing sheets barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… features the work that we have managed to do today. All of the horizontal laths are on and we have done about one quarter of the roof covering.

We could have done so much more too but we were beset by a whole series of interruptions.

Firstly I had to go to Pionsat just before lunchtime to have a document signed. “Come at about 11:45 and the notaire will fit you in between two clients”. So there I was at 11:45 and I was seen at 12:30! And the notaire took his time to witness my signature – clearly going for his money’s worth.

Back at the ranch Lieneke came round for a chat and a gossip. She brought us some fruit too. She needs some work doing on her house but her husband is getting to the age where he feels unsafe on a roof – hence Terry’s involvement.

Then we needed to sort out the sheets. They are in two sizes – one for each side – and of course the ones that we wanted were on the bottom as you might expect so we had to move all of the others.

Once we had got the sheets round to this side of the barn then they were not strong enough to support their own weight when hauling them up the scaffolding. After giving it much consideration, talking about making cradles and the like, I hit upon the idea of sliding them up a ladder (one of us can walk up in front pulling and the other walk up behind pushing as the sheet slides up the stringers), Terry added the idea of a sling and then we were in business.

The sheet sit quite nicely on the framework and the special screws with silicon washers do a good job. All in all it’s a good fitting but you struggle with the weight and height when there are just two of you.

It was 17:00 when we knocked off. The sky had greyed over and we were exhausted. And not long after Terry had left, Claude and Francoise came round!! They have indeed moved down south. Apparently their daughter had found a small house for them and so they rang up a furniture removal firm in that area. And it just so happened that there was an empty lorry in the region travelling light back home. A good deal was arranged and that was that.

I also had a quick flashback to yesterday evening when I was leaving Terry’s – he accompanied me to the door.

“are you being polite or are you making sure that I’ve gone?” I queried
“Well actually” said Terry “I’m making sure that you don’t nick anything on your way out”.

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Friday 25th June 2010 – If you compare this pic …

replace woodwork chevrons barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… with the pic from yesterday you’ll notice something of a change. In fact we’ve put the new woodwork on the roof.

Putting the chevrons onto the ends of the beams was exciting. The beams were so perished that there was little to nail to. All these years of exposure to the weather have taken their toll. The chevrons however went on quite easily but getting the old ones off was quite something else. I’m going to have to buy a bigger crowbar.

Some parts of the main woodwork have been attacked by the damp and by the beasties and so I’m going to have to treat them to some xylophene. In two places I’m going to have to put some strengthening pieces into take some of the weight. I think that I am just in time with this roof – it wouldn’t have held out for much longer.

rotten woodwork chevrons barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome franceDisposing of the old wood was quite easy as you can see. But it’s made something of a mess of my garlic bed

The original plan was to keep the old wood as it might be trimmed off to do for the shorter lengths that are required for the other side. But most of it is in a pretty poor state and there won’t be much to salvage. And I won’t be short of firewood either.

Seeing as it was Friday we knocked off earlier and just as Terry was leaving, Lieneke my Dutch neighbour came round. She was impressed with my new parking space and she was also impressed when I told her about Terry’s new business. She’s going to have a chat with her husband over the weekend and then have a chat with Terry on Monday. As I have said before, there are three secrets of success for the kind of business that Terry is undertaking with his homme a tout faire and they are “talk” “talk” and “talk”. Everyone around here has jobs that need doing but they don’t know how to go about them or they don’t know who to approach for advice and assistance.

Lieneke had the usual conducted tour of the premises and after that I set about having a solar shower seeing as the water in the bucket was a delightful 41°C. But the water pump in the new (well, new last year) shower kit has stopped. The impeller that pushes the water round is only an interference-fit (or push-fit) onto the shaft and it has worked its way loose. Cheap substandard Chinese rubbish. Whyever couldn’t they make a splined shaft? Is that really too difficult?

 In the end today I went into reverse-technology mode.and dug up the old footpump-action pump out of the caravan and used that. It was quite nice being outside and showering but I’m fed up of these electric pumps – it’s the third one that has failed on me. Trying to find a decent reliable low-volume submersible 12-volt pump is proving to be quite difficult. I reckon that at the end of the day I’m going to go into even more reverse-energy mode and go for a gravity shower – that involves building a framework 2m high so I can put the bucket on that and then stand underneath it.

Tonight was a very important meeting, the AGM of the Pionsat Football Club. And it went totally out of my mind and I clean forgot about it..

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Thursday 24th June 2010 – So as I said last night …

kwikstage scaffolding barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… we finished the erection and we started on the stripping.

We had enough scaffolding left over to do another three bays and so it goes right round the corner and halfway along the short wall where I’ve done the car parking. In fact, we reckon that with another half-a-dozen 3-metre uprights, some more planks and some 4-foot cross pieces we could even do a full half-size of my barn – a run of about 23 metres.

kwikstage scaffolding stripping barn roof chevrons les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo once we had the scaffolding up we ripped off the slates – not that they needed much help from us, it has to be said, and then had a go at the laths. The laths were mostly in reasonable condition but we ripped them all off on this one side, but some of the chevrons are horrible and I’m surprised that they have lasted.

But stripping off the roof revealed the usual mouse nest complete with mice, and this time the added excitement was due to uncovering a pair of wasp nests. And they weren’t too pleased either.

Tomorrow we’ll take off the chevrons on the roof this side, and see how far we get fitting the new timber. Saturday we are chantiering, Sunday we are preparing our radio programme so it won’t be until Monday that we can start putting the roof covering back. I bet you any money that we’ll have torrential downpours all through the weekend.

frog barn les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhile I was wandering around checking on what had been left out I came across this beastie. He was clearly hopping mad at the work that we were doing and he didn’t like the broken slates at all. In fact at one stage he was trying to climb up the scaffolding pole but he was experiencing something of a difficulty getting his leg over.

He’s clearly an armed serviceman type of amphibian (“a frogperson?” – ed) in his camouflage clothing.

And that reminds me from back in the mid-2000s when I went to Cosford Air Force base with a friend. Standing guard on the gate was an airman in full camouflage kit – with a high-visibility jacket. Why didn’t he just take off the camouflage gear?

But I’m not going to be up long. I’m aching all over, partly due to this heavy cold that I’ve managed to catch and partly due to climbing around all over roofs. Mind you, I did manage my first solar shower today (well, a solar hair wash actually) as my hair was full of dust from the old slates.

And I was thinking too. Last year when we did the house roof it was glorious weather for most of the time and my boulangere had gone on holiday. This year we are starting the barn roof, a full two weeks earlier than last year’s house roof, yet we are now having glorious weather and my boulangere has gone on holiday.

I suppose that must mean something, but I’m blowed if I know what.

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Wednesday 23rd June 2010 – I said the other day …

kwikstage scaffolding barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… that the scaffolding was back chez moi. Well, not only is it back but it’s now up at the barn – or at least most of it is.

This is what Terry and I have been spending most of the day doing. And it was hard work too. We haven’t quite finished but we’ll be erecting the bit down the short end and around the corner tomorrow and that’ll be one whole side of the barn covered.

It really is an impressive piece of kit and we can be well-pleased with our purchase. There are 8 bays of about 2.5m width and 6 metres high – about 120 square metres of the stuff.

Once my barn roof is done we will be hiring it out to all-comers and it will become another string to out income-generating bow. And I’ll be needing the income, bearing in mind how much I’ve spent on this house and barn this last 12 months.

Of course, today was the day that summer decided to return so we were erecting it in the sweltering heat. But we knocked off early as Terry wanted to go home and watch the footy. I dunno why though, as they didn’t come to see him when he was bad.

But Slovenia were unlucky not to equalise. If only they had played Scracanic and Sonofabic instead of Ivanic and Shagabic they might well have made Ingerlund suffer.

So tomorrow, once we’ve finished the erection, we can start on the stripping.

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Tuesday 22nd June 2010 – It was 19:04 when I knocked off this evening.

barn wood beams chevrons xylophene wood treatment les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut I’ve been having a temendous amount of fun.

This afternoon I’ve been painting the woodwork for the barn roof with some xylophene – the stuff that kills all the beasties and so on that try to infest it. I’ve done about half so far – enough to do one side of the roof. That’ll do to get me started once we have the scaffolding.

It’s quite easy to spread the stuff on the wood too. It’s quite thin so it goes on really easily and quickly with a paint roller.

But this morning was even better. The starter had gone on Bill’s car and he has a similar car for spares so I went round there, took the starter off the scrap car and swapped it with the duff one. It took a while to do it as you have to move all kinds of hoses and filters and so on and I ended up covered to my armpits in old and dirty oil but it was just like old times when I had my taxis. Hardly a week went by without me having to change a starter or an alternator and strangely enough I used to enjoy it.

But the enthusiasm has started to fire up my imagination. When the roof is on the barn and I’ve disposed of the body off the caravan I’m going to set up a decent workshop in the barn. I’ll resurrect my old gas-welding gear, get some oxygen and acetylene bottles, buy an engine crane and rescue all my decent tools from Brussels.

And then I’m going to have some fun.

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