Tag Archives: tidying up

Wednesday 27th July 2011 – AND SO, WHAT WITH MY VERY LATE NIGHT …

… I found myself wide awake again at all of 09:30.

But being awake, and even heaving myself out of my stinking pit and wandering around is no guarantee that I’m in the same world as anyone else as you all know. And so it was today. This morning was significant by my being glued to the sofa taking it easy and watching a few films.

This afternoon I did however leap into action – if it can be called that.

Unloading Caliburn? Not on your nelly. I wasn’t leaping into that much action! I did however rearrange my room a little.

A while ago now Liz and Terry gave me a canvas-covered wardrobe and I’ve erected it now and put all my clothes in it. It meant a few changes up here but it’ll be much better when it’s all finished, whenever that might be.

And now, having lived through all of the excitement of today’s activities I’m off to bed in a minute. I’ll be having another leisurely day tomorrow as well.

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Wednesday 20th July 2011 – NOTHING MUCH HAPPENED …

… today. But that still doesn’t stop me being totally exhausted.

Apart from the usual computing in the morning, I spent the afternoon finishing off the unloading of Caliburn.

And it took all afternoon too. I had to move the trailer and then move a few things around in the barn, but everything is in there now and all tidy too, including the tiles that we never used on the bathroom back at Expo. And they were a weight to go slinging around – that I promise you.

What didn’t help was the torrential rain that we had. Marianne – my friend from Brussels – had seen the weather forecast and decided not to come down. And a wise decision that was too.

I finished off the afternoon by tidying the barn a little where I had been working the other day – and I still can’t find my missing data head. Ahh well. It’ll turn up sooner or later, I suppose, just like everything else that I have lost always does.

Usually about 3 days after I’ve bought its replacement.

But now at least Caliburn is ready to do the return trip to Brussels on Saturday evening. Whether or not I am is another matter completely.

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Wednesday 13th July 2011 – I’m having a change of plan …

… for tomorrow – and it’s just as well. I woke up this morning, once more before the alarms went off, but there was no way that I was going to get up. I could hear the rain thrashing down on my roof and it wasn’t a day for working outside. That’s another day lost of course but it can’t be helped. I went back to bed for an hour.

When I finally crawled out of the stinking pit I began to tidy up in here looking for the data head – but even though I even went as far as to move the bed settee, no luck. I wonder where that has gone. Just typical.

After lunch I went to the bank to pay some cash in and then to the funeral parlour to enquire after Damien. His funeral is at 15:00 on Friday and hence the change of plan – I’ll have to miss the Friday in Brussels and go once the funeral is ended. I can’t not go to see Damien off. I’ll just hope that I’ll have time to go to the bank before I pick up Marianne. I can book my flight tickets another time.

Back here I carried on doing a little tidying but at about 17:00 the rain stopped. That was the cue to go outside.

solar panel barn wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe framework on the barn is now finished and I have one of the solar panels in place. It’s not quite fastened up but it’s certainly there. And that took me until 20:30 and I bet you can’t remember when was the last time I’d worked so late. I know I can’t.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to get one of the panels off the roof of the Luton Transit and put it on the end of the barn. That will be two banks of two (one on the barn wall, one on the Transit roof) and while I’m away I can see how well the performances relate.

I’m hoping to have at least half as much again off the ones on the end of the barn.

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Tuesday 21st June 2011 – You might be forgiven …

… for thinking that I haven’t done a tap today.

And in fact, I’ve hardly set my foot outside the door at all. What with one thing and another I’ve been really busy up here today.

I had another … errrr … late-ish morning (I’ve not recovered from the other day yet) and then did some work on my website until the battery went flat. Once I switched the inverter on, I then set about dealing with my mailbox. Dozens of useless mails have gone into the bin, and I’ve created loads of directories into which I’ve filed tons of stuff. Once I work out how to configure a mail server I’ll download a pile of these obsolete directories onto my computer and then delete them from my web site.

With a nice streamlined mailbox I then attacked a load of outstanding correspondence and that’s all en route. But there’s tons of stuff that I haven’t done and I’ll be here tomorrow as well getting all of that up to date.

opening of art gallery pionsat puy de dome franceI was “summoned to attend” the opening of an art gallery in Pionsat at 16:30 as Marianne from the Parish magazine needed a report and some photos and she was otherwise engaged elsewhere.

I bumped into Francois who was wandering around the village with a lady-friend and we went for a coffee and a chat.

And it seems that my little hint to the local newspaper about the closure of Radio Arverne’s Loubeyrat antenna has been picked up and they have decided to run with it, and in spades too.

Back here I carried on with the mail (missing tea, unfortunately) and I’m now on the verge of appointing accountants and creating a limited company for my little wind farm.

There’s also the possibility of some kind of consultancy on the horizon too – it seems that there’s a company in Canada that specialises in this kind of thing and it will save me endless hours and endless amounts of cash tracking down a suitable wind turbine supplier if they already have the contacts.

I’ve also made an astonishing discovery too on the Maplin website. How about this little thing? Never mind the negative reviews, posted by people who don’t seem to understand the principle of wind turbines, this will be a fascinating little gadget to have on the side of the house here, and if I make it detachable, it will be good for use at shows and also for sticking on the side of Caliburn whenever we are parked up at the seaside. That’s an excellent price too, and even as we speak there’s one winging its way to my new mailbox in Stoke on Trent. I’ll have to have a play with that.

And so tomorrow I’ll be up here again carrying on with the correspondence. And quite right too – there’s tons of it to do.

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Monday 20th June 2011 – I didn’t get my early night last night.

I had a diversion from my plans.

You might remember that I am now the proud owner of some Transatlantic real estate – an acre and a half at Mars Hill Road in New Brunswick, Canada, right next door to one of the biggest wind farms in the USA. And you might gather that I have plans for this land – to erect a couple of wind turbines and have my own little windfarm on it.

Startling news came in last night, that the Canadian Government has bought the power output of the American windfarm.

Now there’s only one way that they can run a cable from the Mars Hill wind farm over to Canada, and that’s via my land. And if all of the cabling is in place, it will save me a fortune when I build my own wind farm. I might be sitting on a gold mine here.

And so with all of the excitement I didn’t get to sleep until I dunno what time, and so I missed a lot of the morning. There was still enough time to do some tidying up up here though, and after lunch I set about the garden. I can now get down to the vegetable plots in their raised beds without getting myself stung, pricked or thorned, and I’ve started to saw up the tree that has collapsed all across the garden. What a mess that was.

A solar shower followed by a quick shopping expedition to St Eloy-les-Mines seeing as how I was in no fit state to go on Saturday, and then the Anglo-French group meeting and then that was the end of one of the nicest sunny days of the year.

But it’s not all sun though – I seem to have acquired a wasps’ nest right by the bedroom window. That’s inconvenient.

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Saturday 4th June 2011 – HAVING ORGANISED …

… most things around here, I’m moving on tonight.

Last night I slept in comfort and tranquility on the fishermen’s car part at the back of Moston near Sandbach. If there’s no night-fishing going on, that can be a nice peaceful spot, as indeed it was last night.

There was tons of work to attend to today – all kinds of paperwork that I had been letting go which needed bringing up-to-date.

There was also some stuff that I needed to check up with on the internet and so that involved removing myself down to Sandbach Services, for whose assistance I have long been grateful.

For lunch I nipped into the supermarket in Sandbach – a Waitrose, would you believe – to pick up some stuff and then went and found a quiet corner in which to eat it.

Later that afternoon I went back into Crewe. It was probably 20 years or something like that since I’ve seen Cassie, Joanie and Malcolm. it was only meant to be a brief one-hour visit but we had so much to say that it was gone 20:00 by the time I left.

That took me round to Congleton and Caroline’s to rescue Strawberry Moose after all of his adventures in North America, and we all went out for a pizza, a coffee and a good chat too.

Dropping Caroline off, I hit the road for the North.

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Friday 3rd June 2011 – TODAY WAS SOMETHING …

… like a bad start

A blasted tractor wanted to get into the field across the entrance to which I was parked. First time for 50 years I reckoned, judging by the looks of the gate and the track down there, and it had to be today of course

And so I removed myself to another spec and set about tidying up Caliburn.

However I was interrupted by a phone call, and what a pleasant surprise this was.

Back 100 years ago when I had my taxis there was a girl who used to work for me on Saturdays answering the phone and so on to earn some pocket money. She used to draw the images for me for the humorous remarks that I made.

After I sold up, we kept in touch for a short while but then we lost touch with each other. Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … these Social Networks have a lot to answer for and she has tracked me down.

She’s now working as the Financial Controller for a Renewable Energy Company in Newcastle-under-Lyme and she reckons that it might be a profitable encounter for all of us if we (me, she and her boss) were to meet up sometime for a chat.

Apart from that, it would be so nice to meet her again after all these years, and I am really looking forward to that of course.

I could do with a few profitable encounters, the way things are right now. It’s been a long time since I had any … "last night?" – ed … and so we are all going for coffee next Thursday afternoon

I’ve also been house-hunting for Percy Penguin this afternoon and it’s just like Belgium here
“Didn’t you see anything suitable in our window?”
“Well, if I saw anything interesting in your window there wouldn’t be any point at all in you working here, would there?

And with an attitude like that you may as well p155 off home because you won’t be in business for long”.

It seems that even with a substantial amount of cash at stake, there are still far too many people who cant be asked to stop talking and stop drinking coffee to deal with any customers.

No wonder the UK is going broke.

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Monday 30th May 2011 – I’M NOT HERE.

Well, not all here anyway, as people have been telling me for years.

caliburn river eure pont de l'arche franceI’m on a car park on the banks of the River Eure at a town called Pont de l’Arche.

And you can admire the brilliance of my infra-red night-time lens that enables me to take such a good photograph at 04:00 in the morning, can’t you?

Well, actually, it was Tuesday morning when I took this photo.

My crossing of the Channel isn’t until tomorrow night but I didn’t fancy fighting my way north during daylight hours tomorrow so I set off after tea this evening.

Today was spent loading up Caliburn with the stuff that I need to take with me and then tidying up the place before I leave. I’m going to be away for two weeks so I don’t want to come back to a tip … "never bothers you usually" – ed.

And then, a chill out and a relax. No point in tiring myself out or untidying the place, is there?

So after tea and washing up, which was now about 22:00, I nipped round to Liz and Terry’s to borrow their sat-nav and then I hit the road, Jacques.

The Sat-Nav didn’t half take me on a tortuous route. I came round via Orleans, Chartres (and sightseeing in Chartres at 02:00 is different, to say the least) and Dreux and finally to here where I was pleased to be able to lay my weary head.

Plenty of time tomorrow – I’m not in a rush, so I shall be doing some sightseeing.

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Wednesday 25th May 2011 – I’ve finished …

rainwater filter rainwater harvesting les guis virlet puy de dome france… 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.

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Wednesday 18th May 2011- All I can say …

… is that if the sat-nav is still in Caliburn, then it is doing a pretty good impersonation of another piece of Caliburn’s equipment because all that there is in Caliburn’s cab right now is the passenger seat. Everything else is out.

I suppose that I shall have to write this one off to experience, I reckon. But it’s given me an opportunity to clear out the cab and I’m in the course of cleaning all of the plastic and the fascia and so on – or, at least, I was but I happened to notice the time – 19:24, long after knocking-off time, and so I’ll have to finish tomorrow.

Mind you, there’s a reason why I was still working at 19:24, and that was due in some small measure to the fact that I started at … errr … 11:05 this morning. Yes, I slept through all of the alarms again, but then again it was 03:45 when I went to bed – carried away on the web site again, that’s my excuse. Mind you, the night before it was 04:15 when I went to bed and so maybe that has something to do with it too.

And so tomorrow, assumimg that I wake up, I’ll finish off cleaning and reassembling Caliburn and then I need to check my auxiliary electrical system as that’s not working properly and I want to sort that out before I go to the UK.

I also have to find all the bits for the false floor and I’ve no idea where they might be. A lot has happened in the 2 years since I last went to the UK (apart from the day trip the other week of course).

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Friday 13th May 2011 – It’s been a long time …

breaking dawn sunrise les guis virlet puy de dome france.. since I’ve had one of these. It was one of those rare nights that they call a nuit blanche around here where I didn’t go to sleep at all. And I’m not quite sure why either, because I had a busy day yesterday too.

And so I sat in the window, reading a book to pass the time and at approximately 04:45 the sun started to come up, so I took a photo of the breaking dawn. I then went back to reading until breakfast time.

It’s been absolutely years since I’ve had one of those.

Today I’ve spent most of the afternoon on the phone. Katherine has sent a parcel back from Canada and it’s gone missing. The Canadian Postal Service’s website is useless and the telephone system is one of those digitalised ones where it is not possible to speak to a human, and it tells you nothing that the website doesn’t tell you.

Of course, I’m not one to take that kind of thing lying down and after many struggles I ended up speaking to the Personal Assistant of Rob Merrifield, who is the Canadian Government Minister for Posts and Telecommunications. We had a lengthy chat and this evening I’ve received a mail from her to say that someone from the Canadian Postal Service will be in touch with me.

We shall see, of course, because I have heard all of this before, but the only way to deal with incompetence and obfuscation is to go to the top. Once a few Government ministers have had their ears bent by a few dissatisfied customers, things might change.

Mind you, I’m not holding my breath. It’s not like the time that the lavatory attendants closed the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station, to the inconvenience of everyone. But I didn’t take it lying down – I stood up and went over their heads.

home made balloon frame greenhouse les guis virlet puy de dome franceNow that I’ve been to the sawmill at St Gervais d’Auvergne I can crack on with the balloon frame greenhouse and I spent the rest of the day cutting the wood ready for assembling the framework.

It’s coming on quite nicely now, and the net job will be to give it a couple of coats of the LIDL wood treatment, but that’s not for today.

So after finishing off the framework for the greenhouse I came in and started tidying up. I have a caller tomorrow – someone who wants to sell me some solar panels so that I can sell electricity to the EDF. I hate these canvassers.

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Tuesday 10th May 2011- I’ve moved the Ford Cortina 2000E estate …

ford cortina 2000E estate les guis virlet puy de dome france… and you can see it in its new home. That’s where it will be staying for the foreseeable future.

Mind you, it wasn’t easy to get it in there though. The manual chain winch was one thing – the big trolley jack to pick up the rear end and pivot it round in a tight enclosed space was something else completely.

Not to mention the time I had to spend in sweeping out the barn just there. Two dustbin-loads of rubbish and dust and whatever else might be in there. I’ll have to have an hour or so to sift it through.

melted plastic guttering dustbins les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe old caravan body is gone too now. That disappeared into the flames at some point during the afternoon so that’s another job well-done.

And unfortunately, that’s not the only thing that has gone too, as you can see. A 4-metre length of plastic guttering off the barn and two plastic dustbins went as well. And some of the plastic off the offcuts of barn roof, all of that has gone too.

puy de melted aluminium caravan shell les guis dome franceThe heat off a burning caravan body is ferocious and took me completely by surprise. Aluminium melts at 660°C and judging by the holes in the caravan roof we had more than that in some parts of the conflagration.

The wisdom of having a fire like that in the middle of a drought like this is something for which I should have bargained. I’m glad that nothing actually took hold or I would have been having problems

Anyway I was still working at 19:40 putting the Cortina away. It shows you how much I was enjoying myself, losing track of time like this.

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Sunday 8th May 2011 – And just for a change …

… seeing as it was Sunday, I was up and breakfasted by 08:30. These days I can’t even manage that usually on a weekday when I’m supposed to be working, never mind a Sunday when I didn’t go to bed until 03:45.

Anyway, after watching a film on the DVD I set about attacking the huge pile of paperwork that’s been accumulating here for the past two years or so. Half of it has gone into the bin, most of the other half has been put tidily for now, and (most importantly) all of the bank statements that I can find for now have beeh filed away. One plan that I have is to spend 15 minutes each day on the Central France Paperwork Mountain until it’s all filed away. Mind you, with an average lifespan of just about 18 years left to me, I’m not sure that there will be enough time left.

All of that took me to, would you believe, 14:00 and so I had enough time to grab a butty before going off to St Marcel for the match against Beaune D’Allier. And having seen yesterday the world’s smallest centre-half, today I had the privilege of seeing the world’s narrowest football pitch. St Marcel were comprehensively beaten 4-2, but the standard of play (for a 1st Division match at level 7 of the French pyramid) was absolutely woeful. Pionsat’s 3rd XI, more renowned for their enthusiasm than their skill, could have spanked both these teams with plenty to spare.

And I manage to keep up my record of one moment of skill each year from the touchline. Another high chandelle – or “up-and-under” to the uninitiated, right over where I’m standing, and finding myself right underneath it, I wait until it’s dropped right down and then head it back into play. Three years running now that I’ve done that.

On the way home I have a little hunt around St Fargeol for the old railway station there but I’m not able to find it, and back home, with the solar water at 39°C (the sun now clearing the trees) I have a gorgeous solar shower. I quite enjoyed that.

With a coffee and a film I sit down on my room but the exertions of the day, particularly the late finish and early start, mean that the next thing that I know is that it’s 22:20 – yes, I’ve crashed out again, and I had so much to do this evening. Ahh well.

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Thursday 5th May 2011 – Considering that it’s only …

… the 5th of May today and there’s about 6 or 7 weeks to the apex of the year, I am proud to announce that nevertheless I’ve set a new record today for solar energy. In the house, bank one received 173 amp-hours and bank two received 166 amp-hours. That’s over 4 KwH of solar power and whichever way you look at it, that’s impressive for just 780 watts of generating capacity.

And so you can tell the kind of day that we had. Beautiful blue skies and not a cloud anywhere. The kind of day that you would expect the solar water heater to give me enough heat to have a shower, a shave and a coffee as well. But it isn’t to be because I’ve made some kind of error in my calculations. Looking for a place to install it in a hurry while I demolished the beichstuhl, I fastened upon a nice spot out of the way and in full sun, but shaded by the fence so that I can shower there in peace. But what I didn’t take into my calculations is that while in the spring the sun has no problem heating the water, we are having issues with leaf shading from the trees and the water is struggling to heat up to a respectable temperature.

There is a way round this. The heat eschanger is really hot – 50°C is no big deal at all – and so I could run the water in the solar heater through the heat exchanger so that the water would heat up through there, and I even have a suitable pump to do it. But I can’t get electricity down there to power the pump and Terry can’t find the hole saw that he has for cutting through the stone walls so that I can run a cable through. I’ll have to think of a plan B. Such as tipping some hot water out of the electric immersion heater into the solar tank.

Today was a paperwork day. I worked on the website first and then caught up with some paperwork that needed doing. I had a delivery from FEDEX and the contents of that required my attention too. I ended up having to go into Pionsat to the Post and to the Bank, and I’ve had to spend a shed-load of money today – errrr about €7,000 in fact. But it’s all going to be worth it in the long run.

Back from the town, it wasn’t worth starting in the barn and so I planted the tomato and aubergine plants that I bought 10 days ago, and thoroughly watered the garden. And despite having had 7mm of rain two days ago it was as dry as a bone and I used about 175 litres out of the dirty water butt that takes the rainfall off the barn roof. And if there had been more water there I would have used that too. It’s hard to believe just how dry the soil is.

Anyway tomorrow I’ll move the caravan body from the barn and burn it if I can, and then move the Ford Cortina 2000E estate and the Ford Escort van. I’ll be glad to have them in a secure place.

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Thursday 28th April 2011 – Well, today didn’t get off to a very good start.

No indeed. I heard all of the alarms go off at 08:00, but then the next thing that I remembered was looking at the time on the clock and it was 10:35. Ahh well.

But I didn’t miss anything though. We are back in the hanging clouds again and it’s just like winter with low clouds and damp and so on everywhere. It’s perked up the rainwater but that’s about all. I even had to turn the fridge off.

And due to the miserable wet weather I was back in the barn again after lunch. I’ve almost finished tidying up the parking place in there and I reckon that with about another hour’s work I could drag the caravan body out. But it won’t be moving soon as I need to move the Ford Cortina 2000E estate and to do that I need to move the trailer. But it’s nice to think that I can now see the wood rather than the trees.

It’s also nice to be able to get at my huge toolbox and find all my mechanics’ tools. Just like old friends they are. I’m looking forward to getting the Cortina into the barn so that I can make a start on it.

What was surprising though was the things that I found – loads of things I’d forgotten about, including the drawers with all the important Cortina bits – and I’ve not seen that since I dismantled my workshop in Crewe in April 1989. There was also an electric screwdriver from that era or maybe a little later – and it was still holding a charge, which astonished me.

I’m slowly making progress, slowly being the operative word. But I’ll get there in the end. Tomorrow it’s the Royal Wedding and so in keeping with the general contents of the event I’ve set aside the day to deal with the contents of the composting toilet. I think that it’s quite appropriate.

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