Tag Archives: freezing outside

Wednesday 5th May 2010 – This is just flaming ridiculous!

snow in may 2010 col des goules puy de dome franceIt’s the 5th of May today (did you all have a good Star Wars Day yesterday?) and we have had a heavy snowfall. It’s unbelievable.

We were out and about on our travels today, as I told you yesterday, and on the way down to Clermont Ferrand we noticed in the rain that at times it was looking like snow. In Clermont Ferrand we saw one or two cars that had a covering of snow, which surprised us greatly.


snow in may 2010 col des goules puy de dome franceBut that was nothing like the surprise that we had as we were coming back over the Col des Goules near Orcival we were greeted by the sight in this photo. This is just absurd.

Mind you, in certain respects I whouldn’t have been surprised. When I woke up this morning, the temperature in my attic had dropped to a mere 12 degrees, just like winter in fact and the driving rain that we had through the night was still falling .

Still, never mind. I set of for chez Liz and Terry through the rain and all in all it was very unpleasant but we managed to accomplish all our tasks.

We obtained the tax certificate for Terry’s van and then doorstepped the lady at the Chambre de Metiers who, despite her surprise, received us and gave us all of the information we needed.

After lunch (thanks, Terry) we went to the URSSAF to enquire about why our applications for this auto-entrepreneur registrations for Liz’s and my business plans had never been processed. It turns out that we had missed out a vital step in the process so the woman there (probably the most helpful and friendly French Civil Servant I have ever met) completed mine on the spot (so now I am a properly registered French businessman), gave Liz the advice she needed to complete hers, and told Terry what he needed to do to make his application.

What was funny about the visit to URSSAF was that we couldn’t quite find the building on this Industrial estate so Terry helpfully suggested “it’s a Government organisation so look for the poshest building”. And he was right!

At the Tribunal de Commerce the reception staff were much less helpful – hurling abuse at us as we tried to find out where to go but one of the administrators who we doorstepped in his little office put us on the right track.

But back here, even though it’s cold and miserable and wet (I have the fire on here right now) there is only a scattering of snow. But we have had TWENTY EIGHT mm of rain today and it is still pouring down. You really cannot believe this weather.

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Tuesday 4th May 2010 – I’ve been working inside today …

bedroom fireplace les guis virlet puy de dome france… and I’ve made an exciting discovery. In the bedroom there was a wooden fire surround with a small coal-fired stove and a metal backplate. So as my insulating of the walls is now about to move around the corner I need to remove the stove and the fireplace.

Once I had done that the backplate came away and a whole pile of dirt dust and rubble fell away with it leaving (after I had cleared it up) a big fireplace.

Including a fire basket too, When I think of all of the time I have wasted looking for a fire basket and there we are with one bricked up in a wall.

So why have I been working inside?
The answer is –
water bucket max temp 11; min temp 9.5. Solar energy in the barn 0.0
Yes, a full and heavy cloud that has stopped any sunlight getting through, and has stopped the heat radiating back into the sky at night.
There’s no need to tell you that rainfall was a whopping TWENTY SIX mm today. You’ve probably worked that out already.

And so there you are.

Tomorrow Liz Terry and I are going to the Chambre des Metiers. I rang them up first thing and the woman explained that she would have someone call me back that morning. Of course they haven’t so it’s doorstepping time

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Thursday 1st April 2010 – We’re cracking on in the garden!

gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see the seventh raised bed – it’s the one on the extreme right at centre-height in the photo. Having dug over everywhere yesterday I made the raised bed – out of Brico Depot Bargain Basement shuttering board, of which I have a considerable amount as it is very handy stuff to have

The older raised beds were made out of board and were 1.40m square, but this board comes in 3m length so I have done this one 1.40 x 1.60.

Once I organised that, I started on digging over where the 8th raised bed will be – behind bed no7. This took ages to dig over – in fact it’s only had its first digging – on the grounds that there are tree roots everywhere and they all need to be hauled out. Mind you I might have made much more progress had I left my bed this morning long before … errr … 10:40. I dunno what’s happening to me about this.

After breakfast I did a couple of hours up here and I’ve put two of the footy web pages on line – this one and this one. Only another 12 to do.

This evening I went round to Michael’s and we had a bit of a jamming session. Because he’s not been playing guitar long I had to teach him some music theory, which is quite difficult as I don’t know it myself. He’s off to the UK in a couple of days time but we resolved that when he came back we would try to get together maybe once a week and see what we shall see. In the meantime I’ll have a rummage through my record collection and look for some 12-bar blues stuff (some Flying Aces stuff or JJ Cale – that kind of thing) and make up a disk of stuff to have a play with.

And all day we had intermittent showers, hailstorms, heavy rain – you name it, we had it. And last night the temperature dropped below freezing.

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Monday 15th February 2010 – Well, the Pentax is Kaput!

Or rather, no it isn’t but it very soon will be because I’ve just had the bill for repairing it. FIVE HUNDRED AND TEN EUROS. That’s about as much as it cost new and a new body only in the USA I can buy for FIVE HUNDRED AND FIVE DOLLARS – or less than €400.

Totally ridiculous – and why Pentax couldn’t have pointed this out to me and made me an offer on a new body I just do not know.

But in any case there’s a major sale on in a leading camera supplier in the USA and there is a Canon EOS with lens on offer at $499 (plus VAT when it gets over here) and I’m wondering if that might be the route to go down. They use lithium battery packs instead of AA batteries (and AA batteries was a major selling point) but if I buy a spare and keep it charged up that might be another consideration.

I can then flog all my Pentax gear and use the dosh to buy a decent lens.

The RRP of the Canon is $799 – Body only by the way so this looks like a good price to me

I’m giving this some serious thought.

It was absolutely taters this morning – I dont think that it’s ever been so cold at 09:15 so after breakfast I came back up here and warmed up.

Once I had reached a decent ambient temperature I dressed up – not in fishnets and stockings, basque and high heels Rhys – but in two pairs of trousers, two fleeces, two pairs of socks, my overalls and a coat and then went to seal off the fireplace downstairs so that I can run the woodstove up here.

I had a piece of leftover plasterboard that was a good size and so I trotted off to find the silicone sealant. And you might or might not believe it but it was frozen solid! In a tight-fitting plastic tube. It took ages for it to thaw out.

But it seems to have worked because the small fire that I lit in the stove burnt away to nothing in minutes without the slightest trace of a smell around the house.

I’m going to track down a sack of compressed wood pellets now and see how they burn.

This afternoon I carried on with the battening of the rear wall in the bedroom but the batteries in the power tools kept on going flat so I gave it up in the end. But with the sun shining gloriously and the day warming up (it reached 6.5 degrees in the verandah) and with fully-charged batteries in the house and barn I felt much better.

But once the dusk gathered the temperature plummeted and as I set off for the Anglo-French group it was already minus 4. But still – 18:40 and it was still daylight. So the days are lengthening considerably. It wasn’t so long ago that I was packing up at 16:30.

The roads were gruesome and the return journey was even more gruesome as the temperature has dropped to minus 8. A clear blue sky with thousands of stars and a strong easterly wind. The moment the wind drops the temperature will fall through the floor.

We could well be on course for the coldest night of the year.

And tomorrow we shall all be radio stars!

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