Tag Archives: shower

Wednesday 17th August 2011 – My signs arrived today.

You can see one of them on the front wing of the Minerva. They are small but nevertheless they are pretty eye-catching. All I hope for now is that I’m not offered a white car. That would be unfortunate.

I also had a phone call this afternoon. Someone asking me if they could bring their car round for rustproofing.
“What number have you dialled?” I asked, somewhat bewildered.
“That number that’s in the directory – 982-2129”
The penny dropped
“Ahh – you’ve dialled the wrong number. This is 982-2199”
And so my Canadian number is not only up and working, the transfer to my French mobile phone works too and that’s exciting. And a beautiful sing-song Atlantic Canadian accent it was as well – made me homesick and I started to become all broody. I’m clearly out of place here in Europe.

In case you are wondering, the phone number quoted belongs to Portland Rust Check, 51 Williams Ave, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. And her car will need rustproofing if she drives it across the Atlantic to me. It reminds me of when I was talking to Colleen – this woman who I met in Labrador last year. She expressed surprise that I had travelled the Trans-Labrador Highway in Casey who, as you know, is a Chrysler PT-Cruiser.
“Most of the time it’s down to the driver” I told her. “You can take a motor vehicle almost anywhere if you have a decent driver. In fact, for my next voyage, I shall be crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike”.

So what with computing this morning, I spent some time making a collection of tools and so on to take to Canada with me. Not that I really need them because I can soon buy some more, but it’s just that I have a baggage allowance of 25kgs and so far I’ve managed to pack not even 10kgs. It’s pointless going with an empty suitcase when there’s stuff I can be taking with me. I’ve organised a “drop” in Montreal at about $8 (that’s about a fiver) a week where I can leave them for my next visit. I intend to leave all of my stuff there because there’s no point in dragging it back and forth across the Atlantic and I’ll be going back quite frequently.

This afternoon I was pointing again and now the ladder is up past the window. It’s quite high and fairly precarious so I’m doing my best not to look down but it really is a long way up. And don’t forget – the ladder is standing on the roof of the lean-to and that’s about 8 feet off the ground.

At about 18:15 the sun went in, and I noticed that the temperature in the solar shower was 38°:C. That called for a shower to wash all of the dust out of my eyes.

home grown potatoes les guis virlet puy de dome france No point in going back pointing the stonework after that, and so I dug up all of the new potatoes. There aren’t all that many of them, so what’s happening there? Has someone else been eating them? Anyway, I’ve left them outside to dry and tomorrow I’ll be cleaning them and storing them away.

But what’s the plant on the left-hand side? is it a Parsnip? What’s that doing there in the potato patch? It’s nothing that I’ve planted and prior to the potato patch, that land was part of the meadow so it’s not anything that anyone else has planted. How bizarre. For its size, it came out of the soil quite easily too.

Now that the new-potato patch is empty, tomorrow I’ll be planting chicory in it. Some nice big witloofs, I hope. I also have tomatoes and chilis too in the cloche and that’s all exciting.

In other news, my campaigning over the last few months seems to have paid dividends at last. I have someone from the New Brunswick Government wanting to see me – about the school house that’s on my land. As you know, I’m trying to find it a good home because it’s all pretty rare and historically important. He’s called Bill Hicks and so I’m half-ecpecting to find a Yankee comic shrouded in cigarette smoke.

Yes, it’s all starting to come together and I’m looking forward to being back on the North American road again.

-3

Tuesday 16th August 2011 – It’s quite useful …

… being up early in the morning because you can get so much more work done.

And up early I was as well for last night I had an early night. It wasn’t planned, but the internet crashed here quite early on as I told you and so I profited by going to bed early. And that surprised everyone, I bet.

This morning I was up, breakfasted, washed and dressed long before 10:00. And after working on the website again I was finished by 12:30. It was time then to attack the pointing again and I managed to do quite a lot.

I finished one load of mortar by 13:45 and ir wasn’t worth starting another load prior to lunch so I fitted the toilet seat to the composting beichstuhl. It’s cut like that for a special purpose and that’s why I needed a wooden one.

You can see how the beichstuhl works. There’s a huge 20-litre casserole saucepan in there, complete with lid. Inside there is a compostable bin liner. So you lift the white top of the box (you can see the hinges), take off the casserole lid, put in some sawdust (you can see the blue sawdust container behind the beichstuhl) close the white lid, do what you need to do, put in some more sawdust, lift up the white top and refit the casserole lid. When the bin liner is getting full, you dump it in the compost heap and fit another. It’s as simple as that.

Recycling, self-sufficiency and closed-cycle environments is what it’s all about. The water consumption is zero and I shall have tomatoes as big as your head next year.

This evening the temperature in the solar shower was at 39°:C and so I had a gorgeous shower. That was quite enjoyable too. And to round off the day I was down the garden getting a huge courgette, a pile of beans and a pile of new potatoes and made a huge curried stew that will keep me going for the next couple of days as well.

All in all it was quite a good day today.

Thursday 11th August 2011 – It smells lovely in my room just now.

Seriously – and for several reasons. Not the least being that I cut down all of the herbs that were running riot – 5 different types of herb – and they are all hanging up in here starting to dry off.

And not only that, we have a clean me too seeing as we had a scorching day today and the water in the solar shower heated up quite nicely. And as well as a clean me we have clean clothes and clean bedding too because I did a huge load of washing. Well, seeing as the water in the home-made immersion heater reached 48°C it was rather appropiate.

So apart from that I’ve been working on the website this morning. I’m just about to go into the New Glasgow Industrial Museum at Stellarton. That’s where you will find the oldest steam locomotive in North America, built by Timothy Hackworth in 1839. Hackworth’s main claim to fame was that he designed the Sans Pareil, one of the rivals to Stephenson’s Rocket at the Rainhill Trials.

This afternoon in between the washing I carried on with some tidying up and now that I have space to put things since I’ve put the shelving up in that room over the bread oven. Slowly but surely I’m making a little progress. In another 20 years I might get somewhere. But what I did find was the missing data head for the new anemometer that I fixed on the barn ages ago. However did that find its way onto the floor underneath the Whitworth toolbox? I haven’t moved that for ages.

Talking of the Rainhill Trials by the way, I can’t remember how many locomotives took part but I do know that they were all found guilty.

OK – I’ll get my coat.

-1

Saturday 6th August 2011 – I didn’t think much of today.

I was up early yet again – I dunno what’s happened just recently – but seeing as it’s Saturday I had a nice leisurely morning doing not very much.

This afternoon I went shopping – to Commentry as it happens – and just for a change I spent nothing above what would normally spend during a budget-shopping outing. They didn’t even have one of the gutter ends that I wanted.

But I was importuned on the LIDL Car Park and a lengthy chat about wind turbines ensued. I can’t say it often enough – vehicle advertising seems to work for me, and work for me in spades.

It was cold in the pool in Neris les Bains – it’s been a cloudy muggy day (right now we are having torrential rainstorms of quite a violent kind) and yet they had the sides of the pool open. I don’t understand that. And the lock on the closed shower is broken too – that means I have to shower in the full public gaze and so can’t have my customary “plumbing the depths” type of shower.

20 laps of the pool wore me out though and in the middle of watching a film and drinking my coffee I crashed right out again, and it wasn’t until 23:50 that I came round again. I probably won’t sleep now and I’ve been cleaning all of my SD cards ready to take them to Canada at the end of the month. Things are proceeding apace.

-1

Monday 1st August 2011 – Actually I’m quite astonished …

… by the people who read this rubbish, and how helpful they are. Having published yesterday about my missing morning, the farmer who owns the field next door came roaring to the rescue this morning on his tractor – at 07:11 exactly as it happens. And I didn’t even know that he read my blog!

And so after crawling out of my bed at a reasonably-indecent time, I spent a few hours on my website. I’m now finalising the pages on Halifax ready to publish them. I’ll let you know when they are on line and you can read them, and you’ll see why it is my favourite city in North America.

But before that – you might remember me saying that I have made a few alterations to the media corner in the attic where I live. Well, here you can see it in all its glory and I have to say that it does look quite impressive, as does the huge pile of wood and paper ready for winter.

And that’s not going to be all that far away you know. At least the wood is keeping dry in here. It’ll burn a treat when we need it.

After I finished on the website, I went outside and spent the morning working on the guttering. You may remember that I had several issues with the guttering – on the house there was a piece missing and there was another piece that had collapsed under the weight of the snow in the winter. On the barn, a piece melted in the heat from the fire earlier this year, and part of the rest of the guttering had sagged.

Anyway, I’d fixed it all before lunch. There’s a few new brackets and a couple of the old ones have been bent further round – let’s see if that stops the water cascading over the top. I also replaced the melted bit but apart from the fact that I can’t find the left-hand gutter end that was attached to it, I can’t find any other either – which is bizarre because I have three right-hand ones. How did I manage that?

The guttering on the house is fixed now as well and the missing piece added. I’ll post a pic here tomorrow so that you can see it, for I forgot to take one earlier.

After lunch, seeing as it was a glorious day, I did a load of washing. Temperature in the 12-volt immersion heater, heated by the surplus electric energy, reached 62.5°C and so it was a nice hot wash. And while that was doing, I did some tidying up and then I had a nice solar shower, seeing as the water in there was 38.5°C. So clean clothes, clean bedding, and clean me tonight. What luxury!

After the Anglo-French meeting I bumped into Simon. He was trying to fit a 700-litre diesel tank into the back of his van to take to the tip tomorrow and so I went to help him. But to cut a long story short, it’s now in the back of Caliburn ready for me to use as a biodiesel tank for when I set up my refinery. Thanks, Simon. And apart from that, Bill and I had the guided tour of his new abode.

Tomorrow if the weather stays nice, I’ll be doing another load of washing and that should bring it up to date. And now I have some heavy duty sacks, I’ll be doing what I ought to have done a year ago – namely emptying the Sankey trailer.

And while I was up a ladder hanging on grimly with one hand “lucky grimly” – ed, using a cordless drill and balancing a few lengths of guttering, I seem somehow to have pulled a muscle in my right forearm and it hurts like hell.

-2

Sunday 24th July 2011 – THINGS TO DO …

… places to go, people to see. So I had better get a wiggle on as i don’t have much time.

This morning, I started off by emptying the garage downstairs and packing the contents into Caliburn. And it was all swept it out , done and (quite literally) dusted within 10 minutes. I didn’t hang about.

I finished off by having my final shower on the premises – I don’t want to dirty the place up any more than I have to. And then I cleared off and that was that.

I’d been invited for lunch round at Marianne’s, which was very nice of her. She cooks some really nice food and it’s a pleasure to go round there.

And after lunch we went for our usual walk around the lake in the Bois de la Cambre followed by a coffee at one of the cafés here. It wasn’t really a sunny summer bary, despite it being towards the end of July.

And it’s hard to believe that this is probably going to be the last time that I shall spend a pleasant, relaxing Sunday afternoon quite like this one.

Later that evening I cleared off and now I’m parked up on the lorry park behind the RTBF tower at Schaerbeek. The irony of this is that it was here that I spent the night the day before I signed to buy Expo. What a strange thought to remember.

Anyway, let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Friday 8th July 2011 – Well I finished the wiring today

And that’s hardly surprising given the time that I had to do it, as when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and about. How about that for a change of habits?

And so by 12:00 I was fed and watered, done a couple of hours on the computer and been in discussion with an American company about some stock and a dealership, I was outside.

The wires that come from the wind turbine and anemometer, and those which go to the solar panels – they are all sheathed now properly (and I seem to have got the hang of doing that now? and go where they are supposed to – down to where the new battery box will be.

And that wasn’t without difficulty either. I managed to finish off the hole in the floor that I started yesterday but as luck would have it, it’s right over the beam. So another hour or so to drill a couple of new ones and saw out between them to give me enough room to feed the conduit through. The charge controller is in place and the wind turbine is wired up to it. Let’s see what that does.

This afternoon I was working on the length of wire to connect the solar panel array to the batteries in the barn – the part of the wiring that is outside. That’s all nicely sheathed now and going where it’s supposed to. And after that, I was fitting the junction box onto the solar panel mounting rails.

That’s as far as I got, seeing as it was by then 19:00 and so a solar shower and that’s me finished for the weekend. Monday will see me finish off the junction box and cut the lengths of pipe that will stand the lower solar panel mounting rail off the wall at the correct 70°C angle. And then maybe I can start to fit the solar panels.

I’m glad that the anemometer is all mounted and that the wiring is properly installed. All I need to do now is to find the data head and I will be in business. But finding anything in my little attic room is an impossible task. Neitzsche said “Out of chaos comes order” but he had clearly never ever set foot in my attic.

-2

Tuesday 5th July 2011 – I managed to make …

… the time to do the guttering this afternoon. All of that netting stuff that I bought for €1:00 per roll seems to work fine – there’s still some left on the roll after doing this – it didn’t take much.

I was going to hold it on with cable ties but while I was looking for something else I came across (and how often does this happen?)a reel of that green plastic stuff that is used for fastening plants to canes. That did the job exactly how it ought to be done, and this should hopefully prevent all kinds of nonsense falling into the guttering, and keep the internal filter much cleaner.

But the proof of the pudding is the eating and what we need to test it is some rain, but there’s no hope of that for a while. It was another glorious day here. My solar shower reached 44.5°C so I had another scalding shower (at 19:00 it was still 42.5°C) and the water in the immersion heater went off the scale – that is, more that 70°C. In fact the washing up water was scalding as well – at 22:00 when I washed up the water in there was 64°C.

But there’s no doubt that my hot water – at least in summer – seems to be working fine. In the winter of course I’ll be having one of those stoves that heats, cooks, and boils water. But that’s a long time off just now.

This morning I emptied Caliburn of all of the stuff that was still inside (and that was about half a tonne) and took the solar panel off his roof. And then Marc and I went to Montlucon for the plasterboard for Marianne’s house. It’s a good job that Caliburn has a good roof rack as 9 sheets of 13mm plasterboard weighs a tonne – that’s the reason I use 10mm plasterboard – remember I’m on my own and I have to manoeuvre it around myself. 10mm is of course lighter.

But at Marianne’s she showed me today’s local newspaper. There’s one of my photos in all of its glory, suitably cropped of course. But I wish that one day they will put my name up in lights.

And in other news, another event that I have been foretelling has finally come to pass. A Dutch court has ruled in effect that the Dutch Army was responsible to a large degree for the massacre at Srebenica.

If you don’t know about this, Srebenica was advertised constantly as being a “safe haven” for Moslems during the Civil War in ex-Yugoslavia (although why a safe haven was declared and why the UN didn’t insist on all of ex-Yugoslavia being a safe haven and enforcing that is something that I never really could grasp), and it was guarded by part of the Dutch Army. And when the Serbs invaded the area en masse the Moslems flocked en masse to Srebenica and what they were promised was safety.

However, when the Serbs arrived, the Dutch commander drank a toast to them and then kicked all the Muslems – even those working for the Dutch Army – out and stood by watching as they were all slaughtered. The Dutch commander said that he was outnumbered and outgunned and didn’t want to needlessly risk the lives of his soldiers. But “needlessly” – when over 8,000 civilians were being slaughtered before their very eyes – that was always a shameful comment. The Dutch soldiers never even fired a single bullet to protect these civilians.

Everyone (well, everyone except Yours Truly) is said to be surprised by this verdict today. I’m surprised too – but surprised that it took all this time for the correct verdict to be given.

Monday 27th June 2011 – And if you thought …

that yesterday’s temperature was good, then it had nothing on today’s weather.

The temperature in the heat exchanger went off the scale – that means more than 70°C – and the ambient temperature reached 39°C or so. But where that gauge is though – that’s in the shade underneath the water tank. In the full sum the temperature reached an astonishing 42.1°C and I’ve never ever recorded anything approaching that before.

The really astonishing bit though is the solar water. That reached 47.5°C and I scalded myself when I had a shower this afternoon. I’ve never had a temperature like that either and I celebrated by having a solar shave – such is the high life that I live.

And so this morning I was burnt out of bed by the sun (well it was rather late, I suppose) and after breakfast I set about the radio programmes for the next month. But it was impossible to work up here and in the end I had to put a chair in the bedroom that I’m working on – it’s cooler there. But by 15:00, and a long way from being finished, I was burnt out of there too. By that time, the temperature up here had reached 34.1°C and I don’t recall ever having a temperature like that up here either.

With the water heating up in the electric water heater (I increased the insulation yesterday) I did the rest of the washing and now that’s up-to-date and I even have clean bedding for tonight. Whatever next?

Round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse the programmes and they very kindly fed and watered me for which I am grateful – and so back here where, with the sun having gone down (but still 27°C outside and 42°C in the solar water) I watered all of the plants – and they needed it too. I used about 100 litres of water – everywhere is parched after the last few days.

In other news, this is an interesting article. It seems that a woman has been taunting a disabled policeman.

Now whatever you might think about the person and the offence served the Judges are thinking of sentencing her to “time served”. That means that she has been refused bail when she was originally remanded. How come you can’t get bail for an offence like this when only a week ago someone accused of murder was remanded on bail? And the murder victim – involved in a robbery with violence – was on bail for a similar offence? never mind Deep Purple and their “one law for the rich and one for the poor” – it seems that there’s one law for the civilians and another law for the police in the UK – as many people will no doubt tell you.

And being sentenced to “time served” – i.e. a minimum of 12 weeks – for this kind of thing when robbers and muggers and al those kinds of people are give suspended sentences or fined or conditional discharges – the UK is totally off its head, as I keep on saying.

Whether or not you agree with what the defendant said, that’s not the point. The whole point is that in a free country the existence of free speech is championed. But when you start to criticise the forces of law and order you get a prison sentence. The UK is just like Zimbabwe or China these days. Libya was bombed for less.

-5

Monday 13th June 2011 – CALIBURN …

… went for a swim today.

We were out and about this afternoon in Northamptonshire meandering pretty aimlessly here and there in the general direction of Cambridge and we saw a sign for “Ford”.

With a sign like that of course we had to go for a look and Caliburn really fancied a swim. And he quite enjoyed it too

Last night I found a good spec on the A6 near Ambergate in Derbyshire. This was where I bedded down and I had the Sleep of the Dead.

Not for long though. The arrival of the Roach Coach at 07:30 and the noise that it made as it installed tself soon woke me up.

Once I’d summoned up the courage to heave myself out of my stinking pit and grab a coffee from the aforementioned, I moved on to Ilkeston.

Here at Vehicle Wiring Products I bought a pile of 6mm “red” and “black” cable and a pile of other bits and pieces for back home. 6mm because it has to handle high current at 12 volt so I need to avoid voltage drop as much as I can.

And red and black cable?

I’m heavily into colour coding, especially in electrical wiring. It saves all kinds of unpleasantness. I’m trying to keep to blue and brown for 230-volt so I buy as much of that as I can. But for 12 volt, it’s red and black. No mistake with the colours.

The polarity of red and black speaks for itself, but with brown and blue, the bRown goes to the right to where the fuse is in a British plug, so it’s positive. The bLue goes to the left where there’s no fuse, so it’s negative.

And that’s why I use British plugs and sockets, not European ones. British plugs are fused and so that avoids all kinds of embarrassment if I’ve made a mistake with the wiring.

After that, I moved myself on to the M1 where I stopped at Leicester Forest East for a shower, a shave and to wash my clothes. High time that I did all of the aforementioned seeing as I’d been living in a van for a fortnight. Even I was starting to notice.

And I dunno what was going on at Donington Park last weekend but the services were crawling with Goths and the like. Had there been a rock concert down the road?

Next stop was Corby and Radio Spares where I bought a few more bits and pieces. It was a good job that I had forgotten to buy the 7-core trailer wire at Vehicle Wiring Products because it was on special offer at Radio Spares.

25 metres for £25 which is a bargain, and it was a desperate shame that there was only one roll left.

On my way to Northampton I took a detour to visit the town of Geddington (which was where Caliburn went for his swim)

Several claims to fame, has Geddington, including the most magnificent Eleanor’s Cross.

The Eleanor concerned was Eleanor of Castille, wife of King Edward I “LOngshanks”. She died in Lincoln on 28 November 1290, and her body was embalmed and brought to London for burial in Westminster Abbey.

The funeral cortège was an elaborate affair and took 12 days to reach Westminster Abbey.

At each place where the coffin rested, an elaborate cross was subsequently erected.

The Eleanor Cross at Geddington is considered by many to be the best of the three that remain, but even so, it is believed that there was an upper part which is now missing.

But I haven’t finished yet. There’s the church to see.

And the St Mary Magdalene Church is extremely special because it has every grounds to consider itself as one of the oldest churches in the UK (although there are a couple known to be older).

I’m not talking early crusader, or Norman Conquest either, but quite possibly 250 years older than that.

Churches in the immediate post-Roman days were generally built of wood – that was because they art of building in stone had left with the Romans.

And that’s why there aren’t any still in existence today. I certainly can’t think of one, except maybe the church in Greensted, Essex, where bits of a 7th-Century wooden church were discovered in a later wooden church..

It was only gradually that the technique of stone-building was reintroduced to the UK and dates from the late Saxon period.

And sure enough, if you look at the end wall here, you’ll see the primitive stonework over the arch, and the building lines where more-modern stonework starts when the church was enlarged.

Taylor and Taylor, in their Anglo-Saxon Architecture date the primitive stonework to the period 800-950.

While others might disagree with the dating, one thing upon which all of the experts agree is that it is certainly Saxon stonework, and that’s what it looks like to me too.

At Northampton I had to go shopping for Terry, so Ipicked up Terry’s orders from Screwfix, Toolstation and a couple of other places and then took the opportunity of doing some food shopping at the Morrison’s there.

By now it was early evening and so I headed off to Cambridge where I tracked down the University library.

That’s my port of call for tomorrow

And I almost forgot to tell you about the bridge too, didn’t I?

Geddington is situated on the River Ise (the river that rises in the field where the Battle of Naseby was fought in 1645) and is a very good fording place (as you have already seen, thanks to Caliburn).

This is where the cortège of Eleanor of Castille presumably crossed.

But with the improved stone-building techniques of post-Conquest England, stone bridges were constructed and fords fell out of fashion.

The one here was built some time round about 1250 and is what’s known as a “pack-horse bridge” – with refuges for pedestrians as you can see.

It was rebuilt in 1784 – at least, that’s a date that’s carved onto some of the more-modern stonework – and was listed as a Grade II listed building on 25 February 1957.

It’s in excellent condition and it’s quite safe for Caliburn to drive over. But he thought that it would be much more fun to swim the river

-2

Wednesday 1st June 2011 – MMMM! BEANS ON TOAST!

Yes, you can tell that I’m back in the UK, can’t you?

Here’s Caliburn parked up in our little overnight spec about a mile or two from the M1

This was formerly part of the A5 but the road was realigned … ohhh … years ago now. Certainly 40 years ago if not more because we slept here in 1973 as I said last night.

It’s the first decent place to stop north of the M25 and as an added advantage, there’s a transport cafe – the Watling Street Café – just down the road where there are coin-operated showers and good cheap food.

The ideal place to stop when you’ve been spending a couple of nights sleeping in your van.

Having been suitably fed and watered, and cleaned, I took to the M1 to continue northwards. All the way up to where the A50 branches off and where I can head for Stoke on Trent.

I’ve been going this way for years now instead of via the M6, Birmingham and the A500. It looks longer on paper, and indeed it is. But not by much and there’s far less traffic. At busy times, it’s probably quicker.

Apart from the usual bits and pieces that I need to buy here, I went to Benchdollar to order all of the clamps and fittings for the next round of projects.

Regular readers of this Rubbish will recall that on a recent occasion I left it rather too late and the order hadn’t come by the time that I was ready to leave. Don’t want that to happen again so this is the first port of call now.

But I had a surprise – and a pleasant one too.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I rent a storage container here in the UK, but it’s up at St Helens. In the days when these weren’t so common and I used to be round there now and again, it was a good option.

But it’s far off my beaten track now that I don’t go up to Scotland so much – 85 miles in fact – and so seeing this warehouse just round the corner from Benchdollar being converted into storage units made me go for a wander down there.

And yes, they do have small 1-metre cube containers. And yes, they are cheaper than at St Helens, even without the introductory offer. And 200 metres is much better than 85 miles, I’ll tell you. I signed up on the spot.

This afternoon we steamed into Nantwich.

This is of course my old stamping ground as Regular readers of this rubbish will remember.

I was born in the hospital here (nearest hospital with the correct facilities to where we lived); lived in various villages in the neighbourhood and went to Grammar School here. It’s always been my home from home.

It’s also where my bank is, and so I had come along to give them their annual kicking. Worst bank in the world but for a variety of reasons, I’m stuck with them.

So leaving Caliburn parked up on the recreation area I took the pretty way into town along the footpath along the banks of the River Weaver

Just in time to see a Crewe-Shrewsbury train go rattling past. Yes, they stil have trains in the UK, although you and I could never afford to use them.

One place that I have never ever visited despite all of the years that I spent in the vicinity, is the memorial to Arthur Brown.

There are various stories about whether he was a hero, staying in his crashing Thunderbolt to steer it away from houses, or whether he was unconscious due to a lack of oxygen.

And various stories whether he’s buried under here, his body is still in the river it whether it was recovered and buried in a cemetery elsewhere

But whatever happened, this is more-or-less where his aeroplane fell to earth with him still in it, just 20 yards from a row of houses in Shrewbridge Road.

The local Brownies tend the spot and every year on the anniversary of his death the locals still turn out to remember him.

He even has his own street in the town named after him.

One place that I hadn’t visited before was Kingsley Fields

Well, yes I had. It was at the back of our school and it was also farmed by the father of a girlfriend of a mate of mine so I knew the area pretty well.

But it’s all changed since I was last here.

The local football club, Nantwich Town FC were perennial strugglers in the North West Counties football league and never ever going anywhere, the butt of many local jokes.

They had a creaking old ground where they had played for 123 years and it was in a pretty miserable condition.

But it did have one thing going for it. It was right in an area that had become a prime residential zone.

At the time, a new inner ring road was being built around the town (right through my old school playing fields) and there was this corner of the land lying between the new road and the River Weaver that wasn’t fit for much.

For once, acting with considerable speed and foresight, the directors sold the football ground for housing and with the proceeds built a modern state-of-the-art stadium on the land at the back of the ring road

The rest of course is history.

The new ground attracted the fans (gates tripled) and the new facilities and the larger crowds (and hence the better wages) attracted a better class of player

The club rose through the leagues and is now on the fringe of the professional game (and not long after I wrote this they qualified through the preliminary rounds for a place in the FA Cup proper against Football League opposition).

When I called here, a training session was just about to get under way so while the players were warming up in the dressing room, I was permitted to wander around the stadium for a short while

Ironically, just after World War I when Jackson Avenue was unavailable, the club was obliged to play its home matches on a temporary site.

That temporary site is more-or-less where the new Weaver Stadium is situated today.

So having crossed this place of my list of things to do, I’m off to find a parking place for the night. Somewhere towards the north, I reckon.

Tomorrow I’m going up to St Helens to close everything down up there as well as doing a quick trip to Manchester.

-2

Sunday 29th May 2011 – What a beautiful day!

Yes, definitely a leading candidate for the nicest day of the year so far. And I spent the morning sleeping – after all, it is Sunday. And if I hadn’t had to have gone for a ride on the porcelain horse I might still be there now.

But then again I might not, for Percy Penguin rang me for a chat this morning. She says that she’s missing me and so I told her to improve her aim.

And so after breakfast and a little relax it was off to the footy. Marcillat’s 2nd XI are pretty awful and they kept Commentry out until about 60 minutes into the game when they completely folded up and lost 4-0.

That led to a quick thrash down the road to Pionsat just in time for the match against Manzat. Mind you, the start was delayed while the referee checked the names, identities and shirt numbers of the Manzat team, all 14 of whom seemed to be called Mohammed.

I counted 5 players who were obliged by the referee to change shirts, and why they were wearing the incorrect shirts I shall leave it up to you to work out. I’m far too cynical to be objective.

What else was strange about this match was even though it was the last match of the season and despite that fact that no other side was playing, Pionsat could only muster 12 players, none of whom was a goalkeeper and Christophe ended up taking the gloves

Not that he had much to do – he didn’t have one save to make and the only shot that beat him was a shot that would have beaten most other goalkeepers. No-one can be disappointed by that goal

Apart from a slight wobble on the hour mark, Pionsat were never under any pressure and ran out 3-1 winners, with 2 of the nicest goals I have seen for ages. They were slicing through the Manzat defence like a hot knife through butter.

In the end the Manzat goalkeeper, who had been screaming at his defence throughout the match, stormed off in disgust and while I don’t agree with him doing that, I did have some sympathy with him.

This evening I had a shower seeing as the water was at 41 °C and at 21:30 I was outside eating a pizza, so nice was the weather.

Tomorrow of course I’m packing ready to leave. I’m on the road late Monday night to do a few hours before bedtime. I hate trying to drive through the daytime.

-3

Wednesday 25th May 2011 – I’ve finished …

… the latest version of my water collection system. I’m not sure if this is the fifth or sixth go at doing it either, but it seems to be working. I hope that it stays the course as well.

The issue was that with having the sump where it was before, there wasn’t enough head to drain the water through the sand and puzzolane filter (the left-hand container) and so it was backing up into the settling tank (the long grey pipe). And so what I have done is to put a right-angle in where the sump was, and to move the sump round into the horizontal plane. That gives me much more head as you can see and the slope is much more respectable. The sump in its new position is much more twisted and I don’t think that it will work as well as the vertical sump and hotizontal take-off of the previous version, but the height of the head is everything and so it will have to do. It was either that or cut down the legs of the stand for the water butts, but if I were to do that I couldn’t fit a bucket underneath.

I was woken up this morning by the telephone man ringing me to ask where my house was situated so that he could repair my internet connection. Strange, that, seeing as I rang them yesterday to cancel the appointment as the internet was working. Shortly afterwards, someone else rang, despite knowing full well that I don’t want phone calls before 10:00am. This is a job for repeating the message by beating it into the skull of the offender in morse code with a baseball bat.

The rest of the morning was taken up with the web site of course and then trying to sort out a digger. The fun we’ve been having with diggers is, as you know, unbelievable. I’m sure that there’s some kind of major scam going on here.

The back of Caliburn is now empty and tomorrow afternoon I can fit the false floor and recover all of my voyaging stuff ready for the UK. And I finished off the evening with a beautiful warm solar shower. That was lovely.

And if tomorrow is as nice as today I’ll do a load of washing as well.

-3

Monday 23rd May 2011 – I’ve found a new spot …

… from where I can take a good photograph of the Puy-de-Dome, my favourite photo object. It’s from the old road from St Gervais to Chateauneuf les Bains.

I was in Chateauneuf this evening as it was the opening of the Tourist season there and they were talking about all of the events that they will be doing. In my capacity as radio presenter I was invited. We were treated to some Gospel singers too, which made quite a change. Not my cup of tea at all but at least it shows initiative.

On the way back I took the old road and it was from there that I had the view. It’s a beautiful road, that one, but totally impractical if you are in a hurry.

And that was it, really. The internet is back and so after my long lie-in this morning (I had a Day of Rest today to make up for my long working weekend but someone still managed to wake me on the phone at 08:45) I caught up on the outstanding correspondence and the like.

Nice hot water outside and so a solar shower was called for. And quite right too – it’s really nice being clean. I should do it more often.

-2

Monday 9th May 2011 – I WAS CHASED …

… around the bedroom this morning.

And not by Percy Penguin (who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves) either, but by a blasted hornet.

And at 07:3 too. Does it have no respect?

Yes, the blasted thing found its way in all right, but could it heck find its way out. And so it decided to awaken me. And by a few of the things that I said to it, you’ll understand the definition of “a rude awakening”.

So having had an early start, I was able to have a good crack at things in here and be out in the garden as early as 11:15. That’s not something that happens every day either.

I managed a really good day in there too and accomplished quite a lot. I even managed to have a little shower too – and it would have been a big one had the water not run out – Brain of Britain having forgotten to fill it the last time.

So a nice, reasonably-clean me headed off to the Anglo-French group.

Back here though, my blog host is down for maintenance. So you age going to have to wait until tomorrow to read this rubbish, aren’t you?

EPIC HALL

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