Tag Archives: les guis

Friday 11th December 2015 – EEEUUURRRGGGHHH

I had to go to the hospital today. And so that meant a 07:00 start. And never did I feel less like it either after yet another uncomfortable night.

When the alarm went off I crawled downstairs and made a coffee. Some muesli and fruit juice later, I was properly fed and watered but still not on the same planet as anyone else, I reckon.

As I drove to Montlucon I slowly started to wake up and by the time I arrived at the hospital I was maybe feeling as much as half-human. “Half-man, half-aardvark” I thought to myself. “I’ve clearly been varking too ard”. But at least my luck was in somewhere. I was 20 minutes early and there was a parking place right outside the door of the hospital.

One of the more friendly nurses was on duty at the day-hospital and she even found me a mug of coffee to go a little further in rousing myself from lethargy. But she has three goes at trying to put a drain in me, without much success, and went off to call a colleague to have a go. I thought to myself “hang on a minute – these b******s are playing darts with me!”. They were all having a good moan about not being able to find a vein with any blood in it. “Hardly surprising” I retorted. “You’ve already taken most of it!”

So I was there at 08:40 – I had a drain put in at 09:40, and the blood finally arrived at … errr … 11:40, by which time we were three people in a day ward meant for two. They managed to conjure up something for lunch too – mushrooms in tomato sauce with rice and bread, with a pear for dessert. Hardly the most appetising meal that I’ve eaten – I’ll take butties next time.

My first blood pochette was empty by 13:05 – and it took until 14:00 for them to couple up the second. As a result, I wasn’t able to leave until 15:30 and that annoyed me a little – I should have been long gone from here by then. But feeling like nothing on earth, I went for a coffee in the cafe while, apparently, all the time they were frantically searching for me to tell me that I need to come back on Tuesday at 10:40 for another series of tests.

So having recomposed myself a little I went back home – to Pooh Corner that is. I had a little relax, ate some biscuits and watched something on the laptop. And then I came back to Liz and Terry’s for tea and my evening injection.

None of this did anything to cheer me up and, being totally whacked and thoroughly fed up, by 20:10 I was off to bed. And it wasn’t long before I went to sleep either.

And the result?

Here I am at 04:00 updating my blog. I’ve been awake since about 02:15 and I can’t go back to sleep. I’ll probably be like this now until mid-morning when I’ll crash out yet again and this will mess up my revision plans for today – having had them totally messed up already for today. I’m never going to finish this blasted course.

I just really wish that I could bring a little order into my life right now, but that’s not going to be possible, so it seems.

-1

Wednesday 9th December 2015 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… on my travels today – the first time since I came back from hospital last Friday.

In fact, I was out on my travels during the night too. I was working in an aeroplane hangar and one of the jobs that I had to do was to fit a new wheel and tyre on the undercarriage of ar aeroplane. In fact, the wheel bore a very great resemblance to the wheel and tyre that I fitted the other week on my wheelbarrow. And each time I fitted it, the air pressure went down and the tyre went flat. Eventually I had a good listen and I could hear the air escaping from a puncture in the inner tube. But like a good Civil Servant that I was, I’d been told to put this particular wheel and tyre on the aeroplane, and so I did. Fixing the puncture was obviously too much like hard work.
But from there we moved on a little and I was part of an undercover police force that was investigating the theft of a very dangerous chemical from this hangar. It was one that dissolved almost everything with which it came in contact (so how did they find a container in which to keep it?) and was on the Top Secret list. And as we were searching this hangar for clues, there was a man, badly eaten away by the acid and with bits of his body like his left thigh missing and with yellow skin, trying desperately to hide from our view underneath a 50-gallon oil drum that was lying on its side. But having failed in our search, we did however know that something had been posted to someone, put in a letter box somewhere. We were all crushed inside an old Ford Y van, a red Post Office van, and we were looking at all of the letters that had been collected from various letter boxes. All of a sudden, one particular letter caught my eye so I opened it. It was addressed to a cycle maker, and seemed to be some kind of coding in a five-letter group on an old blue order form. We sent a woman with the order form to give to the cycle maker to see what happened, which she did. And a couple of days later, she was called back and gived a brand new specially-made kids’ cycle painted green and white and she looked totally ridiculous on itn being a rather large woman. But we were no further forward and so we retired to plot our next move.

And this is when the alarm went off and I had to struggle to find the phone which, in the meantime, was waking everyone in the house. And I was thinking what another good sleep I’d just had.

After breakfast and the visit of the nurse to give me my injection, I had a shower and packed my bag and then Terry and I set off for Montlucon, stopping on the way at Pionsat for fuel and my order from the pharmacy.

At Montlucon we went to the hospital for my 11:00 appointment, which turned out to be about midday before I was seen.

The good news is that I don’t have leukaemia. The bad news is that I have a form of lymphoma. There are several types of this illness, some of which are quite aggressive and others not so. It seems that I have one of the lesser kinds. There is a whole range of reasons why this might have occurred, and one of these reasons is due to something to do with an aggressive protein, and my blood count shows that there is a protein that has gone off the scale in the blood count. It’s not the “usual suspect” in this respect, but nevertheless it merits further enquiries and so I’m due for further tests.

But as an aside, two points raise their ugly head. If it is a protein issue, there are not the facilities to treat it at Montlucon and so I will have to go elsewhere. It looks as if I’ll be on my travels again in the New Year. And in the second case, I seem to be full of ganglions. Not that they are dangerous apparently, but their presence has certainly been noted and in all kinds of places too.

On the way back we stopped for a late lunch and then went to Neris-les-Bains in search of chocolates for Liz because it’s her birthday today. After that, I went back home, for the first time for almost three weeks.

We’ve had plenty of sun, plenty of wind and plenty of excess solar energy, 694 amp-hours in just 19 days and that’s impressive for a period approaching the winter solstice. I also had a good rummage around and found a spare door lock, and I fitted that onto the front door so that it can be opened from the outside. This might come in handy if people other than me need access to the house.

I hung around here for a while too because, although it was cold, it was nice to be on my own for a while and relax in the relative comfort and security of my own surroundings. As Barry Hay once famously said on the beach at Scheveningen about 25 years ago “I tell you what man, it’s good to be back home”.

I started up Caliburn, threw some spare clothes, soya milk and vitamin B12 drink into the back and set off for Liz and Terry’s. First time Caliburn has had a run out for a while of course. And I mustn’t forget Strawberry Moose who has been invited to spend Christmas away from home.

As I drove back here, I remembered thinking “wouldn’t it be nice if the next round of tests were to reveal that I don’t need these twice-daily injections and the district nurse didn’t have to come round so often” and then I thought “blimmin’ ‘eck – it’s 19:00 and if I don’t put my foot down I’ll miss the nurse!” I had completely forgotten.

But I was back first and here I am at Liz and Terry’s. All ready for Round 2, and trying to work out a cunning plan about going home. I managed to take a huge load of wood upstairs to my attic without stopping, and that was certainly better than before I went to hospital, so things are looking up. I’ll see what my next couple of blood tests tell me and then I’ll make a decision.

-1

Friday 20th November 2015 – AHH WELL!

So here I am.

It’s 08:00 in the morning and I crawl (and I do mean crawl) out of bed. I can safely say that I’ve never felt as bad as all of this. Getting down to Caliburn was something of a struggle and I’m sure that I couldn’t see straight as I drove down to Pionsat for my blood test. A surprise awaited me at the reception of the medical centre – on duty was one of the girls who runs the pie hut at FCPSH.

So having dealt with the blood test, I staggered back here and had my breakfast (luckily I’d prepared it before I went off) and then crashed out on the sofa.

I managed a coffee at about midday and then crashed out again, to be awoken by the telephone at 14:30. It was the doctor. “You have a very bad case of anaemia and you need to go to the hospital at once. I’ve prepared a file for you and there’s an ambulance voucher here at the office”

An ambulance voucher is one thing, but finding an ambulance is something else. In the end I ring up Terry and Liz, but they are out, but Rosemary is in and so she comes to the rescue. I have just about enough strength to throw a few things into a bag and then we are off.

At the hospital I check in, but I don’t even have enough time to find a seat before I’m whisked off into an emergency room and stuck on a bed. They couple me up to a vitamin tube and give me a good interrogation – and after about an hour, the blood arrived.

I had one “pochette” of blood in the emergency room and then they took me up to a room where they gave me two others.
“We have to check your blood pressure every 15 minutes during the transfusion process” explained the nurse.
“I’m a very light sleeper” I replied
“Well you are going to be in for a very long night” she answered.
And she was right.

-2

Thursday 19th November 2015 – I DIDN’T …

… do anything today.

Well, that’s not quite true. I was up reasonably early (well, reasonably for these days) and after breakfast I cracked on with the rock music programmes for Radio Anglais. By lunchtime, I’d completed the “Miscellaneous” programme and written all of the notes. Tomorrow, I’ll be doing the live programme, although I’ve no idea yet what concert I’m going to choose.

Another thing that I did do was to telephone the local doctor’s to see about a medical appointment, as I can’t go on much longer like this.

And this is the beauty of living in France, and not in the UK.
Our Hero – “I need to make an appointment to see the doctor sometime soon”.
Receptionist – “is it urgent?”
Our Hero – “not really”
Receptionist – “well, if it’s not urgent can it wait until 15:30?”
Our Hero – “today?”
Receptionist – “yes, today”
As one of my friends in the UK commented, “had you been in the UK, you would have been offered an appointment at 2020, and that wouldn’t have been 8/20 in the evening either”.

And so I duly struggled into Pionsat and the doctor’s surgery, and the first thing that the doctor said to me when she saw me was “are you usually this colour?” Apparently I’m totally white – there’s not a patch of pink or anything in my skin or my fingernails and toenails. I had my blood pressure checked – which is within the norms – and she listened to my heart, which also seemed to be normal – and that’s good news – it means that I’m not a Tory, thank heavens.

But she’s worried about something because tomorrow I have to have a blood test at 09:00 – and so I suppose that I’ll have to spend all night studying. It has to be à jeune – namely “in famine”, so no breakfast tomorrow. How can I survive without a coffee – because that’s forbidden too. But she’s taken my ‘phone number and she’ll ring me as soon as she has the results – and I found that rather ominous too.

I also have to go into Montlucon for an ecographie – a heart examination – but I’ll wait and see what the blood test reveals before I ring up for an appointment. Wednesday afternoon would be a good day for me because it would mean that I could have a lift with Liz.

By the time I returned home I wasn’t in much of a state to do anything and crashed out here for an hour or so. Now I’m going for an early night because of my blood test.

-3

Wednesday 18th November 2015 – I DIDN’T …

… start to take the tiles out of Caliburn today, like I said that I would yesterday.

In fact, we had a beautiful blue sky for most of the day and that can only mean one thing … woodcutting!

So there I was after lunch, with the chop-saw and the excess solar energy and I had another good go at the woodpile. In fact, one of the woodpiles is done now as much as I can with the chop-saw, and I’ve started to attack the second woodpile – the pile with the old chevrons from the barn roof.

Some of the chevrons are quite good so I won’t be cutting them up. I’ll be using them in construction projects whenever I’ll feel up to doing something like that, but others are pretty mangy and so they have gone to the great woodshed in the sky. And there will be more to follow them on the next fine day.

Three large wheelbarrow-loads found their way into the woodshed today and that’s now looking quite healthy in there – about 2/3rds full. And when I finish the remainder, and then rescue my chainsaw and cut down the lengths that are too big for the chop-saw it’ll be bursting at the seams.

While I was doing all of this,I had visitors. The farmer who rents the field behind me came along with his wife, son and herd of cows. He’s pleased with the weather because he can keep his cows out in the fields and there was enough growth in the field behind me for at least 10 days of grazing. In fact, we all had quite a chat.

But as expected, I was totally exhausted after all of that woodcutting and I had to have a 10-minute doze before I could tackle the stairs up to here. When I finally made it up here, I put on a film to watch but crashed out through most of it. The St. Trinians – The Belles Of St. Trinians [DVD] it was, and here’s a thing. I thought that I recognised one of the voices when the schoolgirls were talking, and it turns out that a schoolgirl by the name of Jackie is played by none other than Diana Day, who is Susan, Jimmy’s sister in The Clitheroe Kid

This morning I had a good session on my course and found, to my surprise, that I’ve finished this week’s lectures already. We finished with a quiz that was actually a forensic examination of a skeleton discovered under a barracks floor and to my total astonishment I had 100%, which completely surprised me

So now that that’s all done, it gives me an opportunity to do the rock music programmes for Radio Anglais, and that should keep me out of mischief for the next few days.

-3

Tuesday 17th November 2015 – I’M FEELING A LITTLE …

… bit better today.

With having crashed out yesterday afternoon, it was gone 02:00 (more like 03:00, I reckon) when I went to bed. As for the alarm at 07:30, well, the least said about that the better. 09:30 it was when I crawled up here, and then I had to make some muesli as I’d run out yesterday

I had a good day on my course and astounded my tutor with an observation that I made about an Iron Age encampment in the vicinity of Hadrian’s Wall. But with the late start, it was after midday when I finished.

I crashed out again for an hour or so, but then found from somewhere the energy to go outside.

First thing that I did was to fit Caliburn with new windscreen wipers. The ones that were on it were the originals since 2007, so eight-and-a-half years is some going. They weren’t much good, in fact. but when I was at the Auchan the other day, they were having a sale of windscreen wipers and so I took advantage of it, ready for the winter which isn’t surely far away.

Apart from that, I’ve started to empty Caliburn. There was food in there (tins and stuff), some of which dates from before I went to Canada in August, as well as a pile of washing that Liz did for me. It can’t stay in there for ever so I made some space in the downhill lean-to and most of it is stacked in there. Some other stuff, including the washing, I dragged up here (and I do mean “dragged”).

Tomorrow, I’m going to be brave and carry on with the emptying, including the tiles and the tile cement. I may not be up to much at the moment, but tiling doesn’t take too much effort and with the old electric tile-cutter that I have, that doesn’t take too much electrical energy

-2

Monday 16th November 2015 – WHAT A DAY!

I had a really bad day today. I couldn’t haul myself out of bed for ages and when I did finally haul myself out, I didn’t do very much at all. In fact it was all that I could do to concentrate on my course on Hadrian’s Wall.

By early afternoon though I was well out of it and despite the beautiful day, I crashed out and I remember nothing at all after that. It was totally dark when I awoke and I had no idea of where I was or what time it might have. When I noticed that it was 18:30 I was astonished, and I felt thoroughly dreadful.

So that was that, really. I’ve accomplished nothing today and although I feel a little better, I don’t think that I’ll be doing too much tomorrow either. I’ve been having a bad time just recently and I’m going to have to do something about it.

Although I’m not sure quite what.

-2

Sunday 15th November 2015 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… gone out this afternoon.

I had planned to go out to Menat for the football today. Two matches – one of the 2nd XI who play at the same level as Pionsat’s 1st XI, and the Menat 1st XI who play a couple of divisions higher. But then last night’s Pionsat 2nd XI match had been postponed until today and so I was wondering whether to go down there instead.

But then I had something of a late start today (well, it IS a Sunday) and then I had a bad attack of Writer’s Block and couldn’t make a start on what I had to do today. By the time I could tune myself into whatever I was going to do, it was too late to go anywhere and do anything. But at least I’ve finished the radio programme, eventually.

I’ve also emptied the beichstuhl today. The first time since I’ve been back home. And it needed it too. So that’s one job well-done. And with the temperature in the verandah being 19°C and then temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater reaching 49°C, that was the cue for a shower. And gorgeous it was too.

Rosemary rang up for a good chat later, and we were on the phone for an hour or so. It seems from local gossip that our little ex-pat community is going to be thinned out even more, something that is surprising us because, by all accounts, it’s going to be an enormous backward step for the people involved. But then, what’s it all to do with us?

And in other news, we have had a definite candidate for not just “Quote of the Year”, or “Quote of the Decade” or even “Quote of the Century”, but what will probably end up being “Quote of All Time”. One of my “friends” on my Social Network who lives near Guildford posted, in relation to the events in Paris this weekend “… it could happen in Guildford or Bristol …”. it appears that the poster has totally forgotten that it DID happen in Guildford

And this just goes to prove a point that I have been saying for years. Atrocities committed by white-skinned Christian terrorists are totally forgotten, conveniently swept under the counter even by people who were exposed to the acts, whereas the mere threat of an attack by brown-skinned “terrorists” brings them out all in a cold sweat.

And why “terrorists” in inverted commas? That’s because one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. As a good example of this, certain white-skinned Christian terrorist swho had conducted a bombing campaign all through London in 1974 and 1975, convicted of 7 murders as well as a whole string of other serious crimes, were described as ‘our Nelson Mandelas’ by an MP who had served in the British Houses of Parliament for over 20 years and who was indeed a serving MP at the time he made the remark.

However, history conveniently overlooks all of this.

-2

Saturday 14th November 2015 – IT SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE …

… to anyone that after the amount of time that I’ve spent just recently discussing Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England, last night I was on my travels up to the Wall with a huge load of uniforms for the soldiers based there. But strange uniforms they were too, nothing at all like the contemporary styles that they would have worn, and it didn’t escape my attention either that they would all look quite bizarre up there confronting the Picts and Scots in what I had fetched them. From there, I went back home by train (my nocturnal rambles are superb, aren’t they?), the kind of multiple unit with lateral seating. This train took me I’m not quite sure where and I came across a huge digger crawling into a railway depot. I reckoned that the engine in this digger would be ideal for my lorry and so I alighted from the train and chased after the digger but couldn’t catch it. I had a great discussion about the engine with the guy on the gate and we agreed after much discussion that it ight have been a Cummins. He eventually let me into the depot and I had a good hunt around the huge hangar without finding it. Never mind though. Back with my friends, I dropped my bombshell. I was going to stay on in the USA for all of five months while I changed the engine over in my lorry. From here we went back to my old flat in an old building in the city centre (and we’ve been here before recently) and I went downstairs to meet some girl friend outside the ladies hairdressers on the ground floor. We arranged to go off somewhere else in the town but I had to leave my huge moose behind so I asked the hairdressers if I could leave it there instead of taking it up to my apartment. They had a little smile and a little bit of a moan about me always leaving stuff with them.

It’s no wonder that I was exhausted before I had to get up, what with all of this going on.

After breakfast I had to turn the place here upside down to find my cheque book. It’s time to renew my web hosting services and this is about the only time that I need my cheques. And after all of this I found it in the glove box of Caliburn, and so I nipped into Pionsat to post off my renewal.

Back here I spent most of the rest of the day working on the new series of programmes for Radio Anglais. I lost my motivation halfway through but I managed to pick it up and I’m about halfway through the Radio Arverne sessions tonight.

I went off to Enval too in order to watch the footy. Pionsat were well-beaten and I shan’t dwell on the match too much, except to say firstly that Enval scored only one goal that contained any kind of skill. All of the rest were presents from the Pionsat defence with some of the worst defending that I have ever seen. It was embarrassing to watch and I was ashamed. Secondly, Pionsat received three or was it four yellow cards. One was for pushing an opponent, an off-the-ball incident, and all of the others were for arguing with the referee. This kind of thing is embarrassing too. It’s all childish, juvenile stuff and counts for absolutely nothing. Stupid bookings that you might think that the Pionsat players would have grown out of by now, especially when one of the yellow cards is shown to the team captain and another one to the President of the club. What kind of example is this?

All in all, what it boils down to is that 4 or 5 of the players aren’t up to the standard required, and four or five others aren’t “grown-up” enough for this level of football. Pionsat needs an under-11s team for players like these until they learn how to behave like grown-ups.

But at least I had my pizza as promised.

Apart from that, almost all other news has been overshadowed by the night’s events in Paris. What I have to say on the subject will be well-known to many regular readers of this rubbish because I’ve said it all before.

Firstly, what are European forces doing fighting in Asia anyway? What has it all to do with us? Who cares if these people kill each other anyway? It’s nothing to do with us. We should stay on our side of the world, let them stay on their side, greet each other with a polite nod and leave it at that.

Secondly, I can’t believe how naive and innocent all of these people are. When you declare war on someone, you expect them to fight back. Surely everyone knows that? And when your opponents fight back, you should expect casualties. Surely everyone knows that too? And so why the surprise and shock that there are casualties in Paris? I don’t understand.

If the politicians were possessed of courage, they would have warned their citizens that WAR = CASUALTIES and the population should have been prepared. But politicians everywhere have no courage and have behaved like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand, hoping that the problem would never arise. And then we have the mock outrage and the crocodile tears. It really is shameful.

But going back to the question of waging war against guerilla forces, it’s a fact that even with the gloves well and truly off and using the most horrible reprisals, no regular army has ever succeeded in defeating a determined guerilla force. The Nazis couldn’t overcome the French, the Yugoslav and the Greek resistance, the French couldn’t overcome the Algerians, the Septics couldn’t defeat the Viet Cong and the Soviets couldn’t overwhelm the Afghans. Why does anyone think that the situation has changed?

After the American defeat in Vietnam the USA government held an enquiry into the war. Here are a few quotes from the report –

The alternative – no matter what we may wish it to be – is almost certainly a protracted war involving an open-ended commitment of US forces, mounting US casualties, no assurance of a satisfactory solution, and a serious danger of escalation at the end of the road – UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE W BALL, ON VIETNAM 1st JULY 1965

No-one has demonstrated that a white ground force of whatever size can win a guerilla war – GEORGE W BALL ibid

The war could well become an albatros around the Administration’s neck – ASST SEC OF STATE FOR FAR EASTERN AFFAIRS WILLIAM P BUNDY 16 APRIL 1966

We will find ourselves mired down in combat in the jungle in a military effort that we cannot win -JOHN McCONE, DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE TO DEAN RUSK AND McNAMARA – 2 APRIL 1965

The USA found itself at the end of August 1963 without a policy and with most of its bridges burnt – PENTAGON REPORT ON SOUTH VIETNAM

While tendentious reporting is irritating, suppression of news leads to much more serious trouble – WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN 17 SEPT 1963

A feeling is widely and strongly held that the Establishment is out of its mind – JOHN T MCNAUGHTON, US ASST SECRETARY OF DEFENCE 1967

The feeling is that we are trying to impose some US image on distant peoples we cannot understand and that we are carrying the thing to absurd lengths – JOHN T MCNAUGHTON, US ASST SECRETARY OF DEFENCE 1967

White men can’t win this kind of fight – WILLIAM BUNDY, US ASST SECRETARY OF DEFENCE ON INVOLVEMENT OF US FORCES IN VIETNAM 1961

You would have thought that with all of these comments, what on earth would the USA be doing, dragging itself and its “Imperialist running-dog lackeys” into other similar wars? It’s as if the Septics have learnt absolutely nothing from their involvement in Vietnam and they are simply making the same mistakes. And as the events unfold and the opposition fights back, the west is sucked deeper and deeper into the maelstrom. You only have to look at all of the incidents here in the West – under attack, overwhelmed by fleeing refugees, all of the border, airport and train controls – to see just how much the opposition has us on the run.

And our politicians won’t tell us the truth either. Brits will recall that over 400 British soldiers died “freeing” Helmand from the Taliban. What most Brits don’t know, because the Government hasn’t made an official announcement, is that most of Helmand has been retaken by the Taliban. So those deaths were really useful, weren’t they?

Just to repeat, “The war could well become an albatros around the Administration’s neck” and ‘We will find ourselves mired down in combat … in a military effort that we cannot win”.

“A feeling is widely and strongly held that the Establishment is out of its mind” – at least, from this particular point of view.

-2

Friday 13th November 2015 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve not done anything much at all. I really need to snap out of this.

However, the day wasn’t suitable for doing much outside – grey and overcast – although that hasn’t stopped me very often before. And furthermore, the weather has gone colder and I can smell winter in the air.

I spent today revising what I’ve learnt over the last two weeks on my course about Hadrian’s Wall, and it seems to have worked because I took my test this afternoon and ended up with 93%, with which I’m quite satisfied, although I fell down on transcribing the inscription on a Roman monumental stone which is a disappointment because the only Latin that I can remember from my schooldays is due to my keeping it up by reading monumental stones. So Puer amat mensam, say I.

This evening I went off to St Eloy and shopping and due to my bulk purchases last weekend I spent a mere €14:00, mainly on fruit and veg, and also on the rice that I forgot to buy. And the grapes were beautiful, so much so that I bought two bags, one of which I ate on the way home and the second I’ll eat on Sunday. Not tomorrow though because I’m off to Enval tomorrow night for the football and do you know what? I’m going to buy myself a cooked pizza for tea and eat it in Caliburn on the way home.

You might be wondering how it is that I manage to eat pizza when I’m out, being a vegan. That’s because whenever I go to Brussels I buy a load of the vegan cheese slices that are on sale at the health food shop opposite where Marianne used to live. There’s always a pack or two in the coolbox wired into Caliburn’s ignition circuit and so when I order my pizza, I order it without cheese and ask the pizza place if they will stick three slices of my cheese onto the the pizza.

Of course, it’s a waste of time doing that at one of these big pizza chains, but most smaller pizza places and pizza vans do it quite happily, and I know for a fact that the one at Mozac (on the way home) will do it with no problems as I’ve had it done there before.

But depressing news at St Eloy. There was a “dispute” at LIDL between two shoppers that ended up with a punch-up outside the shop. I left the UK to get away from aggressive confrontations like this and it dismayed me to see this kind of thing over here. Mind you, St Eloy is a little … well … down-at-heel and depressed and I suppose that some of the locals relieve their tensions and stresses with alcohol and the like.

But it’s still a sad thing to witness. I’m dismayed.

0

Thursday 12th November 2015 – WE HAD AN UNEXPECTED …

… lie-in this morning. Due entirely to the fact that the battery in the mobile phone went flat during the night so the alarm didn’t go off.

Nothing at all to do with my nocturnal ramblings during the night. I was walking up the hill from the traffic lights at Burland crossroads up towards Hurleston Reservoir and Car Transplants. There wasn’t a road up there – just a dirt track between a couple of fields. And in the fields were a couple of guys working away and, quite interestingly, a couple of Alsatian dogs were conveying messages between the men and whoever it was who was in charge of them. At the top of the hill was a car – the type of early 50s American car with a V8 flathead engine and which was leaking oil out of the sump. I suggested that they went up to Car Transplants to see what they could find there, but they needed to sort themselves out because they were insisting that it was a ’57 model but of course it wasn’t. 1952 at the outside, I reckoned, but they insisted.

After breakfast I carried on with my studies but we had a change of plans round about 12:00. Bright sunshine streaming outside and the batteries fully-charged so I grabbed the chopsaw, the workbench, the extension cable, the plastic sheet and the wheelbarrow, and I attacked the woodpile again.

I can’t remember whether it was 5 or 6 huge barrow-loads that I cut but it was also two boxes full of kindling. You can now see the difference that I’ve made, and the woodshed is now looking like it ought to look. There was half a bin-bag full of sawdust too.

One thing that I did do was to cut up four or five window frames. A few years ago I came across a skip loaded up with old house windows and, with permission, I rescued them (you can’t live around here without a van – I don’t care what anyone says). The wood wasn’t up to much but I salvaged quite a few window panes that I’ll be using to make cloches and repairing windows around the barn.

But the wood – all oak – makes good firewood. A couple of 12-inch lengths on that on the fire will keep the place going through the night. I don’t understand the mentality of people who throw away decent firewood like this.

After that, I came up for my lunch (it was now about 17:30 by the time I’d tidied away everything) and instead, I just crashed out on the sofa for a good hour.

But this chopsaw is proving its worth, especially when I have the surplus electricity to power it. We had 34 amps of surplus solar energy again even with running the chopsaw, which at times brought the voltage down to 11.6 volts. But that’s not important because of the intermittent use of the chopsaw. Generating a (very) theoretical solar maximum of 70 amp-hours, it soon builds the batteries back up. It would of course be a totally different matter if the use of the chopsaw was persistent or continuous.

So I’m off to bed. I have a test tomorrow on my course so I need to be at my best. And then we’ll see what the weather is doing.

-2

Wednesday 11th November 2015 – HAPPY BANK HOLIDAY

But it’s not really a day of celebration. it’s a day of memorial for the millions of civilians who were enticed into the ranks by all kinds of false promises (“it’ll be all over by Christmas”) and who died a desperate death in a waterlogged trench, quite often with no known grave and with no-one having any idea of their fate.

As for me, I had a lie-in until 09:40 and then after breakfast I’ve done precisely nothing.

That is, nothing of any much importance except for me. That 3D animation program that I use celebrated its 25th anniversary today and amongst the special offers available to members was a massive shed-load of clothing, hair and so on for an obsolete character that I still use. About $179:00 worth of articles even with my membership discount, and all on offer for today only at just $2:99. The only downside to that was that with my flaky internet connection it took over 5 hours to download it all and another couple of hours to install it.

I had just under 75 amps of surplus electrical energy today, all of which went into the home-made 12-volt immersion heater. The temperature in the water rose from 14°C to 59.5°C – that’s an increase of 45.5°C, which means that 1°C of heat was produced with about 1.7 amps of current – a far cry from the previous immersion heater that needed 8 amps of current to produce 1°C of heat. And not only that, the cables were stone cold too.

This is however all going to lead to another problem – namely what is going to happen in the summer. 75 amps is nothing compared to what I can have in July and August as we know. And with the water being warm from the previous day, an increase of temperature of this kind of magnitude with the amount of excess current that I can generate will mean that the water will be boiling, and that’s not a good idea with a plastic box. The answer to this is, I suppose, to make a second tank and have it so that I can switch the current on and off as required.

But today I made the most of it. I had a shower in the verandah and then a really good shave. That’s used up about 5 litres of the water and tomorrow I’ll fill up the tank if needed. If the temperature in the tank goes out of control, adding cold water should calm it down a little.

-2

Tuesday 10th November 2015 – WE ALMOST HAD …

… two wheelbarrows up and running today.

I started off with the yellow wheelbarrow. That involved removing the old wheel, cutting down the axle of the wheel that I bought on Saturday so that the axle was the correct width, sleeving it internally with a length of copper tube, pumping a pile of grease up the inside, cutting down some threaded rod to the correct length to make a spindle, putting washers on the inside of the mounting brackets to keep in the grease on the spindle, and then passing the threaded rod through and bolting it onto the wheelbarrow through the holes in the mounting brackets.

All that then remained was to pump up the tyre with the portable compressor, and that was one wheelbarrow finished.

Then I turned my attention to the old B&Q wheelbarrow. The inner tube kept on going flat with that, and having dragged it through the wet concrete when we were concreting the parking, concrete worked its way inside the flat tyre and it’s ruined the tyre and tube.

And so I dismantled the wheel, took the tyre and tube off and filed them under CS, and then went in search of the wheel that I bought about 3 years ago. It took about an hour to find it, and when I measured it up for the wheelbarrow, I found much to my surprise that I’d already cut it down to size before.

So why hadn’t I fitted it?

Anyway, that needed sleeving on the inside and once more an off-cut of copper tubing came to the rescue. The spindle was made of threaded rod (I’d made this some time previously) and having packed the sleeving with grease, I then went to assemble it.

And then I found out why I hadn’t fitted it previously.

The fact is that the profile of the wheel and tyre is too high, so that there’s not enough clearance between the chassis and the bucket of the barrow. And so I’ll have to order a new tyre and tube, and I needn’t have bought the wheel that I did on Saturday.

Still, you live and learn.

I was on my travels during the night. I had enrolled on a computer repairing course with Terry, and we had started to learn a few basics. On one particular section, Terry remarked that he had once actually thrown away a computer that had suffered from the problem that we were resolving, because he thought that it was irrepairable. At the end of the day we all went outside and I went for a wander along the road between the cornfields and ended up at the border with the USA. Here I met up with pf all people, Zero (who accompanies me quite regularly on my nocturnal rambles) and we walked around chatting for a while. We then needed to go back into town but she said that she was tired and asked if we could take the bus. There was a bus – a school bus – waiting and so we climbed aboard but the conductor told us that this bus was going over across to the USA and so we needed to alight and wait for another.

After breakfast I carried on with my studies and I seem to be doing okay according to a test that I took this morning.

But here’s a thing. For about half an hour or so, we had about 21 amps of electricity going into the dump load. And while that’s not particularly exciting, the fact is that the cables were stone-cold as far as I could tell, and the temperature had risen by just over 5°C. Usually, for about 20 litres of water, a rise in temperature of 1°C in the water needs about 8 amps of current, and so it looks as if I’m getting twice as much current going into the water compared to previously. That’s how much must have been dissipated in heat down the cables.

Of course, it’s early days yet and I need much more current than this to prove the point, but at least it’s progress of some sort that there was no energy loss to heat down the cables.

I’ve tidied up a pile more downstairs and the table is looking clearer and clearer. I’m finding tons of stuff that I’d “lost”. But tomorrow is a Bank Holiday and that means a day off. When I start work on Thursday, now that I have a wheelbarrow I can start to move the stuff from out of the way at the front of the house and if the weather is good, I can cut up a pile more wood and move it much more easily.

-2

Monday 9th November 2015 – NOW, HERE’S A THING.

This morning while I was working on the computer, the temperature was such that I ended up opening the roof lights here in the attic. And I don’t recall ever having done that before in November (except when I had the fire burning – and just a reminder – I’ve yet to light the fire up here this autumn).

Yes, this weather is totally crazy and I’ve no idea what is going on with it.

I had a lovely night’s sleep and then came up here for breakfast and carrying on with my work. Studies first, and I’m a module or two behind. So I had to catch up with all of that before I could even start on this week’s sessions. But I am enjoying this course very much.

I had some other computing work to do, and I also made yet another exciting discovery with this 3D program that I mess around with some times.

I didn’t feel like any lunch and so I went straight outside (eventually) to work. I’ve repaired two flat tyres on the power barrow and pumped them all up to pressure – that Black and Decker portable compressor that I bought last summer is certainly doing the business. I started to dismantle the yellow wheelbarrow to fit the new wheel that I bought on Saturday, but the nuts were seized on and they took ages to free off. And I ran out of light while I was doing it, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I stayed working to 19:00 tonight, finishing by tidying up some more on the ground floor. And I can definitely see the table top in there now. It won’t be long before I end up with a place to work.

Up here I watched a film and crashed out, and finished off by having my lunchtime butties. I don’t seem to have the same appetite as before. And now I’ll take the stats, do the washing up and then go to bed. That’s me done for today.

-2

Sunday 8th November 2015 – THAT WAS NICE!

It certainly was. Fast asleep in my nice new and clean bed. And I was so comfortable in there that when I awoke at 09:30 I lay in bed until … errrr …. 12:30 doing some work on the laptop.

I could do that because I had the laptop with me at the side of the bed. I should never have drank those two cups of coffee at the football last night because despite going to bed at 12:00, I was still wide awake at 01:30 so I went and fetched the laptop and did an hour’s work.

I didn’t even have time for “breakfast” this morning because I’d planned an afternoon out with friends from FC Pionsat St Hilaire. Pionsat 2nd XI’s match had been cancelled this afternoon but just down the road from here, Le Quartier were playing two matches. The 2nd XI kicking off at 13:00 against St Maurice and the 1st XI playing Lapeyrouse at 15:00, and we had arranged to go. And such a beautiful afternoon it was too that I didn’t regret it for a moment.

Le Quartier won both matches, and deservedly so. Their 2nd XI wasn’t up to much but St Maurice were pretty dire and didn’t offer very much. As for the 1st XI match, Lapeyrouse were definitely better-organised and more skilful on the ball but were simply too slow. They couldn’t break out of defence quick enough to capitalise on attacks and on many occasions there was just one of them isolated up front on his own. They didn’t move around enough give the ball-player a choice of alternatives, and they were too slow to get back into position once the game had spread out – and that was fatal because Le Quartier had a couple of speedy players up front. They played the ball around nicely on one or two occasions and made the most of it.

And it seems that I’ve upset the military lobby again. My feelings on the Armed Farces are well-known to anyone who has been a regular reader of this rubbish, and I make no apologies whatsoever for my stance. But what was quite surprising (although it isn’t really) was that one of the contributors, a quiet and erstwhile well-mannered and polite woman, replied to my posting in language that would have been considered rather extreme had it been uttered in the fo’c’s’le of a whaler. It seems that the Military Lobby considers itself to be untouchable and above criticism, and if this is the kind of response that you have from “a quiet and erstwhile well-mannered and polite woman” then it’s no surprise that the military members behave as they do, burning down mosques, acquiring arms and murdering innocent civilians. They are all pretty much of a muchness and if I had my way, they would all be stuck on an isolated island and left to fight it out amongst themselves.

As I’ve said before, next time anyone proposes a war, there should be a vote on it. And everyone who votes in favour should be gived a rifle and a tin hat and sent off to fight it. These bumper stickers “We support our troops” are totally laughable. Anyone can be brave and belligerent when they are 5000 miles away from the conflict. If they really did “support our troops”, they should be out there in the front line with them, and we’ll see how brave and belligerent they are then.

-2