Tag Archives: Brico Depot

Saturday 16th June 2012 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY.

In fact I went to Montlucon.

And even though I had a late-ish start I was still out and round and back earlier than usual.

The impetus was that you my remember me receiving a text to say that my new front door needs picking up, and if I didn’t get a wiggle on I would lose it. So offI went to pick it up.

It’s not very substantial at all, being just a sheet of double-glazing with a wooden frame around it, and it’s not going to be used for ages yet. But the reason why I chose it when I did, for those of you with short memories, is that it’s the same style as the windows that I bought for the house and the range was discontinued at the end of March.

The fact that it was the cheapest double-glazed door has nothing whatever to do with the argument, of course.

My luck was in too. At the Amaranthe health food shop there was some soya cream that had gone past the sell-by date and so they were giving a carton away to each customer. That will do very nicely for a mushroom and onion fried rice later in the week.

At at the rubbish shop (NOZ, for the benefit of the foreigners) they were selling a load of flavoured rice milk at just €0:75 a litre. There’s a nice long sell-by date on those and so of course there are now none left in the shop.

Almond-flavoured rice milk on my breakfast muesli – that has to be the way to go.

dammi multi vitamin fruit drink noz montlucon allier franceAnd Dammi if I didn’t find some of this on sale at NOZ as well.

It’s a multi-vitamin, multi fruit drink. And I had a good look at the list of ingredients and, sure enough, it contains vitamin B12. being a vegan as you know,
I have lots of issues about my vitamin B12 intake so I’m always on the lookout for different food items that might contain it.

And with a name like this, it ought to be good too!

It was piping hot too – hottest day of the year for me and so I really fancied a swim, but I had left my swimming trunks back at home. Never mind – Auchan was having a sale and so for €5:00 I treated myself to a pair of new ones.

I took the plunge and went to the Centre Aqualudique at the back of Montlucon. I’d heard a couple of good reports about it.

And it was certainly a far cry from Neris-les-Bains – tidal pools, a fast-flowing current, bubble-massage seats in the pool. And many more people there than at Neris so there was much more to see.

Ohhhh yes – I still chase after the women. The problem is though that at my age I can’t remember why.

€5:00 admission though – and that’s quite a difference from €3:20, and nothing like as intimate. I’ll just have to save the Centre Aqualudique for special occasions such as midwinter when it’s far too cold to be at Neris-les-Bains.

At the Brico Depot I bought 4 demi-chevrons and 3 sacks of sand. And you might be wondering why. The demi chevrons because I want to put shelves up in this cupboard downstairs and I want to do it the next time the weather is bad, without having to wait for a trip to the sawmill for the wood.

And the bags of sand?

There’s some sealing joints that need to be made on the roof of the lean-to that I fitted earlier this year. I’ve no sand here and so I need to dig out the Sankey trailer, change the wheels, trundle down to the quarry, load the trailer, bring it back here and bag up the sand.

With having the sand here I can have the job finished before I’ve even changed the wheels on the Sankey.

But I hate the people at Brico Depot. I loaded up Caliburn and then went off to pay for it “you need to bring your vehicle here” said the girl in the office. Walking 20 metres was clearly too much for her.

And so I brought the vehicle to the door and she came out – and then started chatting to a fork-lift truck driver.
“When you can spare me the time, if it’s not too much trouble for you” I said, and so she shrugged her shoulders to the driver and slumped over to me to check my load.
Yes, the staff at Brico Depot needs a collective smack in the mouth. It’s just like being back in Belgium and how I hate that country.

Back here I sat down to watch a film and the next thing that I remember was that it was 20:00. A long time since I’ve crashed out like that too.

And for the football we watched a team of bouncing Czechs pole-axe their opposition to advance to the next stage of the UEFA Nations Cup.

-1

Saturday 17th March 2012 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… bad night’s sleep last night.

But I was still up and about at 08:30 in time to go to Montlucon.

The trouble is though that after only about 3 hours sleep I’m never in a good mood, I can’t concentrate and I can’t think straight. I couldn’t remember what it was that I needed from Brico Depot and when I did find some things I wasn’t able to summon up the energy to load them up onto Caliburn’s roof rack.

In fact, for several reasons I wasted my time in going.

It didn’t help in that the Auchan only had early seed potatoes. No onions, no garlic, no shallots, no maincrop seed potatoes and so that was a washout. In the end, I went to Mr Bricolage to see if they had anything exciting.

Nothing at all, as it happened but firstly I bumped into Rob and Nicolette from down the road and we had a good chat;

And then who else should turn up but Liz and Terry. We all had a good chat and then Liz, Terry and I went down the road to Jardiland. They had everything that I needed in the vegetable line, but at quite a price.

Never mind though, Liz and I went halves on most things and so it wasn’t too bad.

After a coffee together my early start ended up being one of the latest returns from Montlucon that I had ever had and I almost missed the start of the footy matches back at Pionsat.

There were two tonight – the 3rd XI of Pionsat St Hilaire against Biollet-St Maurice and the Ist XI against Malauzat.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot biollet st maurice puy de dome franceIn the away match at Biollet St Maurice the 3rd XI had led for much of the game but faded away at the end to lose. But today, with a full team out (but no goalkeeper) they looked the business.

At one stage they were 3-0 up but faded away at the end and hung on grimly for a 4-3 win. And if Biollet St Maurice hadn’t have missed a penalty earlier in the game it would have been a different story again.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot biollet st maurice puy de dome franceBut a win is a win, and it’s a rare enough event for the 3rd XI so they are quite right to celebrate it.

The big difference in the team today was that Simon, who used to play for the 1st XI, was out there playing at centre-forward. He now lives in Switzerland but luckily the club has retains his French football registration.

He he had come back this weekend to visit his family and one of his friends from the football club had talked him into playing.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot biollet st maurice puy de dome franceIt was his irst match for over a year, he told me after the match and to be honest, it looked like it too,

But there was no denying his skill and ball control, and he and Stéphane Gomet, playing on the left wing, spent most of the match tearing the Biollet St Maurice defence to shreds.

It’s a shame that they can’t find a decent goalkeeper for the team because that really is the difference.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot esv malauzat puy de dome franceFC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI were playing ESV Malauzat in the second match and they also won their match.

2-0 the final score was, and they never ever at any moment looked under any pressure. I don’t recall Matthieu having much to do in the FC Pionsat St Hilaire goal.

However ESV Malauzat’s keeper was working overtime and if it wasn’t for him we would have had a cricket score this evening.

The weather broke too at about 22:00 and now it’s pouring down. And I’m off to bed because I’m really whacked.

-2

Friday 16th March 2012 – I HAVE HARDLY …

… been outside today.

I’ve been a busy boy inside – piles of paperwork that all needs completing by Tuesday and so there’s no time like the present to do it even though I’m not really in the mood.

Apart from that, I had to change the batteries over in the outside temperature gauge and that meant moving the dustbins with the sawdust and the kindling. And while I was doing that I cause a huge pile of wood to fall over that was propped up there and so all of that had to be repositioned.

Such is the exciting life that I lead.

But in other news, the dump load was registering off the end of the temperature gauge as early as 14:00 and there was that much power going through the dump load controller that the heat sink was positively boiling – and I had a few papers and a plastic fuse holder sitting on top.

I’m surprised that the whole thing didn’t go up like Joan of Arc like the brazier did yesterday.

This dump load is clearly to small for summertime use – it needs more than 25 litres of water. But if I do that, then there will be not enough useful heat in the winter.

What I need is two tanks therefore, each with its own water heater element.

But the overload controller only handles 60 amps, and each water heater element is rated at 500 watts, which (at 13 volts) is about 40 amps or so, and so it won’t handle two elements. And anyway, imagine how hot the heat sink would be.

The clue for this might well be twofold, and as I don’t know the implications of what I’m talking about, I’ll write it here and invite comments.

Basically, I could have two elements and have them both wired to the battery circuit, but have them wired via relays that are powered from the overload controller. After all, the relays that would drive the heater elements need just enough power to overcome the resistance of the spring, namely a few milli-amps or so. That way the heat sink wouldn’t be so hot.

But a refinement of this is to have the second relay wired to a heat switch that is attached to the side of the water tank that is heated by element number one.

If the switch were set to close at, say 65°C, then when the water in the tank is heated to that temperature and the heat switch detected it, it would switch on the second relay to heat the element in tank 2.

What would happen then though would be that the current would be split 50/50 between the two elements, so that would mean that the temperature in tank 1 would continue to rise as the temperature in tank 2 was continuing to warm up.

So supposing I had another heat switch on the side of tank 1 – this time a switch that opened at say 70°C and wired to the element in this tank. When the water in tank 1 reached 70°C the switch would open and this would cut off the supply to the element in tank 1 and stop the temperature rising.

Without heat the temperature in tank 1 would slowly fall and when it fell to 65°C it would cut the supply to tank 2 and restart the heat at tank 1.

This all sounds thoroughly complicated to me, but that’s the way that it would have to work. I just wish I knew enough to work out what the pitfalls would be in all of this.    

Tomorrow I’m going to be heading to Montlucon if I’m up early. I need a bulk shopping session seeing as how I haven’t been there since January, and I need a pile of stuff from Brico Depot.

-1

Tuesday 29th November 2011 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again.

And if I keep on spending it like this I won’t have any left.

First thing was to go to Marcillat in order to record the Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse with Liz.

And from there it was to Montlucon.

At LIDL I bought nothing out of the ordinary but at Auchan I bought as well as the usual stuff a little present for Rob and Nicolette for having looked after me, and also a battery pack seeing as all mine are duff. There it was on sale and I said that at €29 it would be a good deal. But with an air compressor included and selling at €22.95 it was an even better deal.

At Brico Depot they had the plywood that I wanted. And 2mm thicker, it cost €9 less than at the other place. And so I now have all that I need. I’m not sure why though because I don’t have the scaffolding to fit it now, as I said yesterday.

What I can be doing instead though is to build the greenhouse but would you believe I forgot to buy the perspex for the roof.

D’ohhh! That was no good.

There’s an issue over my tubing as well. I can buy it from the steel mill at Montlucon but would you believe that a huge place like that (so huge it has its own railway network and locomotive – which you have seen before) they don’t have a bender.They’ve given me an idea where to go and so I’ll follow that up.

And I have my window! Hooray!!!! That’s safely in the van now.

But here’s a thing.

You’ll have noticed without doubt that I have been strangely quiet just recently on the subject of the front door that I would be fitting to the house. But there’s a reason for that. Brain of Britain has done it again and bought a door that opens the wrong way. Mind you, it was at a give-away price in a sale so there’s no harm done there.

But a casual chat with the sales people at Lapeyre revealed that the “exotic wood” selection – the selection from which I have chosen all of my windows – is being discontinued in February. And as a result, they’ve started a clearance sale. The door that matches my windows – a big one with double glazing all the way down the front, is just €374.

That’s too good a deal to miss and so I have bitten the bullet. Now I shall have to get working.

At Rob and Nicolette’s I gave them their prezzy and thanked them for their help the other day. I was grateful for the effort that they took.

But with me forgetting all sorts of things today, this bang on the head doesn’t seem to have helped me any.   

-2

Saturday 5th November 2011 – ONE THING …

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot puy de dome france… that I will never understand is how tonight Pionsat’s 2nd XI, with a full complement of players, a decent goalkeeper and several players back in the side who have been missing for ages, can totally outplay an opposition so convincingly and STILL lose 4-3.

It simply beggars belief and those who were watching it will still be pinching themselves tomorrow about this. It seems like as if the football team has been and gorn and done it again and it’s driving me to despair.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot puy de dome franceMind you, what also had many spectators scratching their heads was why one of the left-backs and who had played sweeper so successfully for the 2nd XI the last time he played, was playing as an attacking midfielder.

And why a guy who had played in central defence for the 1st XI so successfully (to such an extent that he won my “man of the match” awards the other week) was playing in midfield, and why one of the usual centre-forwards was playing at centre-half.

And why this formation was persisted with after the guy who was playing centre-forward this week (and who was quite effective too) was carried off injured after 30 minutes.

It was all totally mystifying.

This morning I was up early and into Montlucon. I picked up the new wheel for Caliburn that I had ordered last week and I also bought some stuff in Brico Depot, including some cheap kitchen worktops that I’ll use in my laundry room.

But pride of place, and the reason why I went to Montlucon today, was to go to Lapeyre to order the window for the downstairs here.

And Terry was perfectly right, as he usually is. A made-to-measure window for the bedroom cost me €650 back in the early part of the year. The window in the living room is larger but rather than go for a made-to-measure window, there’s a standard-size window that’s 1cm narrower and 2cms shorter than the opening.

If I don’t mind filling in around the window opening, then that window will cost me all of €342. Do bears go for picnics in the woods? 

And it will be ready on 25th November as well. That means that it will be installed before the severe winter sets in.

So what I’ll do on the next rainy day or two is to plan the fitting of the front door. It probably won’t be glazed, but I’ll screw a board and some insulated plasterboard over it and that should stop the draughts.

And with the new fire, I might even be warm here this winter at this rate.

-1

Saturday 29th October 2011 – IT TOOK …

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire puy de dome france… just 30 seconds of madness for Pionsat to throw away a football match this evening.

4-3 up and in the dying minutes of the game against a team 2 Divisions higher up, one of the attackers elects to take the ball down to the corner flag and sit there to waste a minute or two.

But he loses the ball, it’s played hurriedly upfield into space deep into the Pionsat half. There’s a race on for the loose ball, which is won by a Pionsat defender

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire puy de dome franceUnder pressure from two attackers, and after all that I have said and after all that I have written and after all the time that I have been saying and writing, he goes to whack it upfield instead of playing it out into touch to give his fellow defenders time to come back.

His kick is poor as you might expect, and it cannons right into the midriff of one of the attackers, and then bounces out into the path of the other who has only Matthieu in goal to beat and that, dear reader, is that.

So it’s now 4-4, and Pionsat go to kick off.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire puy de dome franceAnd from the restart, Pionsat lose possession and Clermont go on the attack. The forward is brought down and a quickly-taken free kick is fired into the penalty area and headed home while the Pionsat defence is still trying to organise itself. And Pionsat are out of the cup and thats a shame because this was an excellent match played at high speed and in a good temper.

One of the best matches I’ve seen played here since I’ve been following the team, in fact.

Today was shopping in Montlucon and I was off on the wrong foot again as I slept through the alarm and so was 2 hours late going.

And I spent a fortune too. I’ve all the hydrofuge plasterboarding for the shower room seeing as how it was on offer at Brico Depot, and I’ve bought a wheel for Caliburn. That’s because I have two snow tyres that I fit in winter and one of them is on the spare wheel but the other is not on a wheel at all and I have to keep getting it swapped over with one of the summer tyres and that costs me €15 a time.

It makes much more sense to pay €65 for a wheel and keep the tyre on it around here like that, and then I can swap the wheels over whenever it suits me to do so.

But I have also spent €279 on a new woodstove for in here. You may recall that I bought a cheap pot-bellied stove for up here and though while it does what it’s supposed to do it has a very small capacity and it needs to be filled every 15-20 minutes, which is quite difficult when you are chatting for 30 minutes to someone on the telephone.

What I saw in Mr Bricolage a short while ago and which I mentioned at the time was a more conventional woodstove with a glass front. It’s larger and it takes logs of 33cms. It burns horizontally and not vertically, then I can stack it up and it should last for quite a long time without reloading.

But that’s not the exciting bit. This woodstove has a rear exit for the smoke and I recall mentioning that the top of it has a lift-up lid, under which is, I suppose, a small top-loading oven about 6 inches or so deep. I’m immediately thinking “pizza”, “shepherd’s pie”, “oven chips with spicy been taco rolls”, “baked potatoes and baked beans”, “rice pudding” and loads of other things besides.

Yes, when winter bites and I feel the need for hot food and it’s too cold to go downstairs and cook in the verandah at -10°C, and when I want to boil some coffee last thing at night and put it in a flask so I have hot coffee in my room first thing in the morning, I can see a lot of benefit in this new stove and its oven.

I’m hoping to have my money’s worth out of this machine.

The pot-bellied stove isn’t going to be lost, though. I have a cunning plan for that, more of which anon.

I also managed to fit a swim in this afternoon at Neris les Bains. And it was perishing freezing in there again. Even the Polar Bears were complaining. I’m going to have to give the piscine at Neris les Bains a miss for a while if it carries on like this.

-2

Saturday 30th July 2011 – Do you realise …

… that the next time that I do a monthly mega-shop, I shall be doing it in Montreal? I didn’t realise until I was on my way home from Montlucon where I have been today.

Yes, supplies are running low here and so it was time that I did a monthly mega-shop for all of the tinned stuff, the health food supplies and the like. And I spent over €100 with not very much to show for it either – no toys or anything. But at least the cupboards are no longer bare and I’ll be able to eat for the next month.

At Brico Depot (and I haven’t been there for ages either) I bought all of the tags for the shelving units that I bought in the IKEA sale. Even more exciting, they had 300mm pine planks on sale too, just what I need for the shelving units. A good idea to go there, it was.

On the way back I went to Neris les Bains and had a good swim and a shower. Summer is finally back again. And it was quite pleasant in there too and now I am clean – at least on the outside.

This evening I’ve made a start on packing for Canada. The most important thing to take is the music – I can’t go anywhere without music and so I’ve been recording all of my mp3s onto CD so I can take them with me. I just hope that the car’s CD player recognises mp3s. If not, I’m a bit stuck.

And so Montreal. I’ve made a list of what I need and it’s rather silly. A saucepan – knife and fork – tin opener – all that kind of stuff. That’s a Dollar Store job and if not, an IKEA and that’s why I’m landing in Montreal – there are no IKEA branches further east.

Another thing too – I saw soneone take a photo of Caliburn this afternoon. An elderly man and his wife. Does this mean I should be expecting a phone call about solar panels? It’s really a good move plastering your vehicle with advertising if you are in business. I don’t care what anyone else says.

-2

Monday 2nd May 2011 – It was a bank holiday today …

rainwater harvesting les guis virlet puy de dome france… well, actually it wasn’t. But seeing as the Bank Holiday was Sunday I normally take the next day off. But not today though – I was busy.

After the usual couple of hours on the computer I made a start on the water butts again and they are finished for now – until the next revision. You can see the taps at the back of each of the butts and the drainage tap in the middle in case I need to drain the back one for cleaning purposes. But I’m not at all impressed with the quality of the Brico Depot tap connector – you can see how much it has kinked with just a simple tightening. I’m going to have to change that for something decent.

At the moment I have it switched so that it will just fill the rear tank. Then I can chack that for leaks, then switch it into the connecting system to check that for leaks, and then let it into the front tank.

rainwater harvesting home made water filter les guis puy de dome franceI also made a new settling chamber and a puzzolane and sand filter chamber and they are in position screwed to the side of the verandah. The settling chamber is about 6 time bigger than the last one and uses 100mm pipe rather than 80mm and so there should be enough room in there even in a heavy rain to store the water as it percolates through the filter.

And in a departure from tradition, I’ve taken out the plastic bowl filter from inside the tank and replaced it with another internal settling chamber made of 100mm pipe. It is of course inside the rear tanks and sealed at the top and bottom, with a 40mm pipe from the filter that goes inside it. The water that passes through the filter falls into the internal settling chamber where any particle that manages to get that far can simply fall to the bottom, and the water will rise up inside the chamber and eventually overflow it into the tank.

What I shall do eventually, when I find my missing steel mesh (which could be anywhere) is to fill that full of sand and use it as a sand filter. It’s all complicated stuff.

animal les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut I wasn’t alone when I was working on the tanks – I had company.

I’ve no idea what it is as I’m useless at flora and fauna, but it lives in a burrow at the side of the barn and kept on popping its head out to eat some clover and so on.

If you have any ideas what it might be, let me know. But it was interesting anyway, and it wasn’t all that scared of a human presence.

It wasn’t the only bit of wildlife that I saw today either. The fox that loiters about around here was out and about hunting in the field next door. He’s a beautiful creature – I don’t know how it is that people can hunt animals like that. It really beats me.

Anyway, tomorrow we are recording, and I’m hoping that it rains so that I can try out the new tank system.

-2

Saturday 30th April 2011 – Well, it was all go at the footy tonight.

Firstly, Pionsat’s 3rd XI had a most unlikely 3-1 victory against a team much higher than them in the league. I’ve no idea what happened though as I wasn’t there to see it. I was there though in time to see the 2nd XI brushed aside 4-1. They are, I fear, doomed for relegation. Short of ideas up front, the defence was woeful – even more so than usual. The defence always was suspect but when they had a lightning-quick attack it usually compensated for it. But with illness, injury and suspension the attack has long gone.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire nord combraille puy de dome ligue football league franceI wasn’t at Pionsat for the 3rd XI game because I was at St Eloy to see the 1st XI take on Nord Combraille, and just for a change, thrash them 7-2 which is always very pleasant to stuff one of our local neighbours. It adds spice to some of these local derbies.

The Miners could only put out 10 players, which is astonishing for a 1st Division match, and while their attack was quite useful, the defence was way beyond woeful and at times passed into the comical.

puy de dome franceIn one four-minute spell (I counted it) we had –

  1. a Pionsat cross from the by-line driven into the area to no-one in particular (there was no Pionsat player forward) cannon off a St Eloy defender tracking back and go into his own goal.
  2. A high Pionsat cross from the by-line into the area to no-one in particular, and the keeper palmed it into his own net
  3. A long high ball forward from Pionsat to no-one in particular- the keeper shouts “to me” to his centre half – the centre-half heads it backwards but with nothing like enough power – the keeper has to dive miles forward to gather it up, but he spills it – his forward momentum carries the ball quite some distance forward to an unmarked Nico who simply sidefoots it into an empty net.

All of that in four minutes!

I was in Montlucon this afternoon buying stuff for the water system. It cost me €100 more-or-less but it’s all good-quality stuff and that should keep it all in good condition and done up properly, with taps between the two tanks to isolate them, and a central tap to drain them.

But I had a brainwave. I was going to join them up using some pipe connectors and some transparent pipe, but fot the same money I bought one of those stainless steel flexible tap connectors  That’s much more like it.

Yes, Brico Depot now selling bulkhead connectors make a whole load of things much more possible.

And now I’m off to bed. Nice clean clothes and nice clean bedding too – I was at the swimming baths this afternoon too.

-3

Saturday 23rd April 2011 – I haven’t done much more today either…

tacot ligne economique gare durdat larequille puy de dome france… although I have made an important discovery. Acting on information received (from Henri at Radio Tartasse as it happens) I managed to track down the railway station for the ligne economique, otherwise known as the tacot, at Durdat – Larequille about eight or so miles from where I live.

And here it is, with grateful thanks to the owner who gave me permission to photograph it.

For those of you who haven’t been following my blog for all that long, you probably won’t know that back at the turn of the 20th Century the Département of the Allier was honeycombed with railway tracks belong to the Lignes Economiques, a system of metre-gauge railways that ran all over the place.

I say that they “ran all over the place” and that isn’t an exaggeration because they very rarely ran anywhere near the villages that they were supposed to serve and the one here at Durdat is well over a mile from the village. In fact one early commentator described the railway stations as “seeming to have the purpose of just adding decoration to the countryside“. The engines wheezed and coughed and spluttered around the countryside, gaining the nickname Tacot, which is French for an “old banger” or “rattletrap” and by 1950 or so they had been all swept away by road transport.

tacot ligne economique gare durdat larequille puy de dome franceYou can see, if you look carefully, the outline of the railway trackbed just in front of the station building.

The line, which ran from the lime kilns at Marcillat to the steel mill at Commentry, was the first to go – being abandoned in 1932 when the standard gauge line from Montlucon to Gouttieres arrived at Marcillat.

And, ironically, the main line was closed in 1939 due to wartime circumstances and never reopened for passengers, meaning that Marcillat was isolated as far as passengers were concerned long before the rest of the ligne economique system was abandoned.

I’ve found most of the stations and some traces of the line but the station at Durdat-Larequille was always elusive, until Henri told me where it was.


All of this came about because I was in Montlucon shopping today. I’ve stocked up with food and all kinds of things, as well as almost everything to finish the water butts (Brico Depot is hopeless) including the nylon stockings for making my sand filters. Why ever didn’t I think of Noz before?

A swim at Neris on the way back, fit the new tap onto the water butts, and that was me, done. But there I am saying tat Brico Depot is hopeless – here they are after all this time of me harassing them and here they are now stocking BULKHEAD FITTINGS – the hollow threaded tube that you pass through the sides of water tanks. I’ve been nagging them about these for ages and now they finally carry them. This will make my life so much easier.

But in Montlucon I had two interesting encounters. A guy at LIDL stopped me and asked me “is that your van outside?” and so we had a long chat about wind turbines and solar panels and he’s coming to see me next week.

There has been a lot of discussion just recently about advertising and people have different opinions about different things, but for me, having corporate colours and a corporate logo, and having clothes that match the van for the colours and the logo – that seems to work for me.

And then on the Brico Depot car park, Julie and Rob came over for a chat and to tell me that they want me to go over and chat to a friend about solar panels. Having a vehicle that is a distinctive shape, a distinctive size and a distinctive colour – that seems to work too.

People can see me coming a long way off, and at the very least it gives them plenty of time to hide.

-4

Tuesday 19th April 2011 – I’ve been in the garden again this afternoon.

This time though it’s the heavy engineering stuff.

You may remember that between the greenhouse and the mega-cloche was a patch of land covered by a tarpaulin – where I was going to erect the aluminium greenhouse. But following a donation by Simon of the old windows from his workshop, I changed my plans.

I promised the aluminium greenhouse to Liz and Terry and I was planning to build a balloon-framed structure that I could fit the windows into.

digging base for greenhouse les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnyway, to cut a long story short, this afternoon I cleaned up all of the rubbish that had accumulated there, removed the bits of aluminium greenhouse, rolled up the tarp and set to digging out a square trench.

With the land sloping downhill quite steeply there, I’ve had to dig out so that the square trench is more-or-less level, and I’m setting a row of breeze blocks into the soil there – the purpose of those being to make some kind of horizontal level and keep the wooden frame of the greenhouse out of the damp soil.

Once I’ve finished the breeze blocks I can make a start on building the framework for the greenhouse. The back wall will be covered in the cheap tongue and grooving that is on sale at Brico Depot – I’ve tons of that. The roof will be plastic corrugated sheeting like the verandah, although I’ll invent a system of roof openings to allow the air to circulate, and I’ll build a door for the uphill side. Everything else will be Simon’s windows.

This morning though Liz and I were in the recording studio at Radio Tartasse doing our programmes for the month of May. And Henri, the old guy who helps out there, had a chat with me about the Tacot – the old narrow-gauge railway that used to run from the lime kilns at Marcillat to the steelworks at Commentry. He showed me on the map the traces of the old line, and said that next month he would bring me all of the paperwork that he has on it, including a book on the subject.

Won’t that be exciting?

0

Monday 28th March 2011 – It finally stopped raining this afternoon.

But not before I’d become soaking wet.

I’ve been gardening for most of the day and the first thing that I did, after digging through the beds again, was to plant the new potatoes – the important stuff.

gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd then I made two frameworks for some more raised beds, pulled up the large one that I made to fill a gap last year, laid these two down and dug them in. And that took ages as well for much of the soil where these beds are is virgin soil, full of roots and thistles and brambles and so on.

But anyway, they are in place now and I planted the onions. Some that I pulled up last year have sprouted and so they have gone back, and there were a couple in last year’s bed – they have been moved.

On Wednesday I’ll be planting the shallots and garlic – not tomorrow as we are in the recording studio. And that reminds me, if you want to hear our Christmas Special and the programmes for January and February you need to go here.

Tonight I had a gorgeous tea – the leftover veggie burgers from last night with potatoes that I discovered in the ground when I was relaying the new beds. And beautiful it all was too. I can’t wait to get going on food that I’ll be growing in my garden this year.

-3

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 – I knocked off early today …

… which might come as a surprise to many, seeing as it was probably the nicest day of the year and that I didn’t wake up this morning until … errr …. 10:20 and so I owe myself a couple of hours.

But once I was up and about I started on the vegetable plots, and not before time either. I cleared away some more of the jungle and that will be where I’ll be putting in another line of raised beds – the spuds will be going in there this year to start them off. You’ll remember that I have about 10 raised beds, in 5 rows of 2. I’ll be putting in a sixth row and also a third bed in that row – the extra bed going behind the compost bins. Ultimately there will be three beds in each row, but that won’t be this year.

I needed the pickaxe to pull up a few tree stumps too – there were in somewhat deep. It’s harder work the further down the slope I go because the further down, the longer the ground has remained undisturbed and the ground alder has got a severe hold down there.

Mark, who comes to the Anglo-French Group, gave me an idea too. He doesn’t use a chainsaw for chopping wood (neither do I) and while I’ve been struggling with all kinds of methods to cut wood, he says he uses an ordinary saw but one with huge teeth. A while ago I was in Brico Depot and saw exactly what he meant – a scie de coffreur – or joiner’s rough-cut saw. I bought one back then, and today I tried it out and I’ll tell you that there’s some mileage in this. It did an excellent job of cutting down overhanging branches.

And so why did I knock off early? Well with it being so nice just now (3 days that I’ve had the fridge running and 2 days that I’ve had no heating) I happened to look at the water in the solar shower tank at 17:00. 28°C. And seeing as there was no wind, it was 15°C outside and bright sunlight, I filled a kettle, boiled it up, made myself a coffee and tipped the rest of the hot water into the solar tank. That brought the temperature up to 42°C and I had an impromptu, unexpected but most welcome solar shower. In March as well. That’s a new all-time record.

And with the water temperature in the home-made immersion heater reaching 59.5°C today, I’m going to keep my eye on it. And if it gets up to that tomorrow, I’m going to do a load of washing using the home-made immersion heater to fill  the machine.

That will be exciting.

-3

Friday 19th March 2011 – I didn’t get my early night last night after all.

I was just on the point of going to bed when someone who I hadn’t spoken to for a while came on line. We had quite a bit to talk about and what with one thing and another it was almost 04:00 when I went to bed.

And so I crawled out of my pit at 08:00 feeling like death, and went to Montlucon. It was a big mistake to get my windows fron Lapeyre. I need an empty van for when I go back to Brussels, and while we got these windows in, getting them out on my own without breaking them – that will be something else.

It was gardening day at LIDL and so I have 6 more fruit trees for the Liz Ayers Memorial Orchard, a pile of seeds, and some onion sets, seed potatoes and seed shallots. I shan’t abandon the garden entirely this year. At Noz I spent a fortune, mostly on DVDs and I now have 5 or the 6 Don Camillo films, starring Fernandel. I really enjoyed the books when I was at school and I saw one of the films once and that was just as good.

At Brico Depot I set a new world record by buying nothing at all, but I was in tears nevertheless. Door Strips in Brico in Belgium €10.73 – same one in Brico Depot here €3:49. White Spirit there €3:89 – here €2:09. And it was all like that. I don’t know how they can get away with it in Belgium, I really don’t.

But I’ve made a conscious decision that now that I’m a little more financially sound, first thing that I’m going to be doing is to improve my diet. And to that end I bought a few things that I wouldn’t normally buy such as half a kilo of grapes (which I munched on the way home) and a little packet of sugar-free sweets.

I didn’t go swimming – I was too early and in any case I was whacked. So back here to crash out for a couple of hours. And it was a mistake to eat the grapes and the sugar-free sweets so quickly as I was in … errr … some discomfort for a while.

I went to the footy too this evening. Pionsat’s 3rd XI playing the league leaders so you would normally expect a hammering, but the 2nd XI have no game tomorrow and so there were several … errr … discrete changes to the team line-up, And although they had yet another makeshift goalkeeper (who did really well and I was surprised by that) they had a 2nd XI centre-half playing and it was amazing how much it stiffened the defence.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire bromont lamothe puy de dome ligue football league francePionsat actually won 2-1, with two disputed goals. One was scored by three players cantering off down the pitch while everyone else was waiting for the offside flag. I was in no position to judge but one of their spectators thought that the ref got it right.

I’ve been saying all along that there isn’t much wrong with Pionsat’s 3rd XI that a real goalie and a couple of decent players in key positions can’t put right, and it was proved right tonight.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire bromont lamothe puy de dome ligue football league francep>Pionsat’s second goal was a penalty – a clear foul, no mistake about that, but as to whether it was in the area, all I can say is that I was almost level with the area and the Bromont players had some of my sympathy. After that, the match became a little naughty and we had a running feud down each touchline for a while.

Still Bromont should have buried the game and they only have themselves to blame for losing it. Clean through on goal three or four times and one shot round the post, one off the bar, and two straight at Stephane (and didn’t he do well to hang on to them with forwards charging in and he’s never played a real match in goal before?)

But now I’ve had a doze this afternoon, it’s 04:00 and I can’t sleep at all. Crazy. 

0

Saturday 15th January 2011 – It’s been another day …

 where things might have been better.
Not the weather, though. we had a beautiful day today. The solar panels on the house roof generated almost 200 amp-hours today and the batteries in the house are now almost fully-charged. The batteries in the barn have been fully charged for a couple of days of course.

So up with the lark and off to Montlucon for my insulation. And they just had one pack of 20mm sheets left and so I shall have to make do with that for now. I also picked up a pile of door handles for €2:00 each and a few other bits and pieces too in the sale, but the huge disappointment was the sliding doors. They had a pile on sale at €15 each, quite reasonable light oak with inset mirrors and so I immediately went for four of them. But much to my dismay, only the first one was light oak and all of the others were a dark gloomy colour that won’t match the drawers and won’t match the worktop either. So back to square one with that.

I was back home before midday too, despite fitting in a trip to the Auchan, and I did some more on the Holiday Lettings thingy that we are talking about on the radio just now.

At 17:55 I nipped down into Pionsat to watch the 3rd XI play Montfermy, a match specially arranged at that time at the request of the visitors. Not many matches at all on tonight so they had even, for the first time that I can remember, been able to find an official referee for a 4th Division match and so we had the ref, we had 14 Pionsat players – and no opposition.

They simply didn’t turn up.

-1