Tag Archives: les guis

Saturday 25th June 2011 – It’s been all go here today

Yes, I crawled out of the heaving pit rather late this morning, at about 10:30 to be precise, and it was off to Karl and Lou’s for their chantier. The girls spent the day painting the front of the house while Jean, Francois and I were building a woodshed at the back of the house.

There was the obligatory pause for lunch of course and I took advantage of the moment to take a photograph of all the attendees

I couldn’t stick around for long though because at 14:30 I had to piddle off to Marcillat en Combraille for this meeting. And now I know why they wanted me – apparently they didn’t have a translator and so Yours Truly was stuck with the task.

But it was well-worth going for I met a Dutch guy there who sells and hires out trailers. I’d talked to him a while back about car transporter trailers but he doesn’t do them, and so I made it clear that I had one that I might hire out if he says the magic words.
“Stop messing about Eric. You’ll be well-paid”
“Ahhh. So you know the magic words then!”

One thing led to another and it turns out that he plays music in a folk group of sorts. I mentioned my previous existence when I played bass guitar in a rock group and he’s going to pass my details on to a friend of his who plays in a folk rock group.

Later this evening we were all round at Virlet where we were going to have our annual evening walk, exploring the highways and, more importantly, the byways of the commune. Just for a change the weather was good this year and the walk was enjoyable even though it was done at the pace of a route march.

This here is the old road into the village, long-since replaced by a more modern route and that down there on the right in the photo is an old well for the village

Afterwards we had the traditional village bonfire – the feu de joie at the back of the church. There was a picnic too – the village had done us proud in this respect – and there was dancing to music provided by …. our friend with the trailer.

With the backdrop of the firework display at Montaigut en Combraille, it really was a most enjoyable evening and Jean, Elizabeth, Clotilde and Rosemary all certainly enjoyed it.

What with one thing and another it really was a good, enjoyable day and I’m off to bed quite happy for a change.

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Friday 24th June 2011 – Dunno what’s the matter …

… with me just recently.

I can’t seem to get to sleep at all these days. It’s almost 05:00 and I’m still wide-awake, and it was 05:00 last night when I retired. But this morning I was up at 10:30 and it was just as well because at 11:00 Terry rang me up. He’d had a few issues with the digger and needed a hand.

And so off I toddled and Terry and I spent most of the day sorting it out. It’s quite a learning curve, this machine, that’s for sure.

Afterwards I went off to the opening of this art exhibition in Marcillat en Combraille where I met Marianne Contet again. Danielle from the Anglo-French group was also there and so were plenty of other people whom I knew.

There were dozens of other people too milling around at this exhibition – it seemed to be quite a popular event, especially as there were drinks and a buffet laid on.

There’s a donjon – a medieval tower – in the centre of Marcillat en Combraille and it’s recently undergone a refurbishment programme.

I managed to blag my way in and went up to the top to have a good look around. There are some beautiful views from the top, including this one of the centre of the town. And there’s a good view of Caliburn too, parked over the road in front of the florist’s.

So I went back down to the exhibition and joined in once more with the socialising, but it’s really not my scene at all.

However, it’s just as well that I did because while I was down there, someone asked me “are you OK for tomorrow still?”. It seems that there is a meeting of English-speaking people in the Marcillat en Combraille area and I’m supposed to be speaking at it, but I had completely forgotten all about it.

So that’s another thing to fit into my schedule that it already bursting at the seams.

As well as that, it seems that the commune here (Virlet) has a vacant date in its social calendar and could I give a talk on the Trans-Labrador Highway? The date concerned is February 24th which, as astute readers will know, is my birthday and so how can I turn it down?

Back here I’ve been working on the computer again but now at 05:00 I’m going to be doing my best to sleep. I have a hectic day tomorrow.

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Thursday 23rd June 2011 – It’s been another day …

… that I have spent working up here, and I’ve never been so busy. After the usual couple of hours on my web site it was back to the correspondence and, for a change, sorting out the photos. This last three days I’ve sent 60 e-mails and received just as many. I’ve also had plenty of phone calls too.

Apart from that, I’ve bought a new wind turbine, been in endless discussion about having a 3-metre wind turbine specially made for me, bought a new anemometer and ordered the spare parts to repair an anemometer that is lying around here doing not very much since a chevron fell on it while we were stripping the barn roof.

And so all in all I’ve been rushed off my feet.

Tomorrow is more of the same and I’ve also been invited out to another one of these previews of an exhibition – this time in Marcillat en Combraille. Clean bib and tucker I suppose.

In other news, while the rest of the world is hurriedly dismantling “disPERSONtaling” – ed its nuclear reactors, the crazy Brits are going to build some more. “We need … secure, low carbon, affordable energy”, says Energy Minister Charles Hendry. Where’s he been hiding this last three months?

Surprisingly, with about 30% of England’s population living within 30 miles of London, there’s not a single nuclear power plant proposed for there. Why not? If nuclear power is so safe? Why not site them where they are needed, in the major centres of population? We’ll soon here who is for and who is against when they have one on their own doorstep.

Apart from that, one thing that the British government hasn’t mentioned is that the preferred bidder for the British Nuclear Fuel industry is EDF – Electricite de France. France is running down its own nuclear reactors and has no plans for any more. And so where does anyone think that the UK’s nuclear electrical energy output will go once the French take over?

The Brits just don’t get it, do they? Dustbin of the world.

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Wednesday 22nd June 2011 – I’m not going to be here much longer

I’ve already crashed out twice this evening and so I’ll be going to bed before I do it a third time.

I blame last night myself. With it being the shortest night I stayed awake to welcome in the dawn and so it was 05:30 when I went to bed. Up at 11:00 and then another day working up here. All the correspondence is now up to date except one quote for someone that I need to do tomorrow, and I had to spend a while on the phone sorting that out too. But now I know what I need.

I’ve also been researching and I’ve had loads of help from Canadian politicians again. Seems like they are a nice friendly bunch of people.

But the shortest night already. Where did all of the first half of the year go? It seemed like only yesterday that I was complaining about the short days. we’ll be back amongst them before we know where we are.

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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.

I 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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Sunday 19th June 2011 – I’m going to bed in a sec.

Yes, I had an early night for a change. But then again I needed it for I’ve been busy today at Francois’ event at Le Quartier today.

I met loads of interesting people, picked up loads of interesting ideas, and even sold some product, so it was definitely well worth while my going even though I smell of wood-smoke seeing as I was set up next to a guy selling woodstoves that he makes out of old gas cylinders.

Strawberry Moose was moose-napped again by a young admirer – he certainly has more luck than I do – and came back decorated with flowers. He liked that very much.

I met loads of friends too – too numerous to name – and I was reminded that there’s a chantier at Karl and Lou’s on Saturday.

It was quite a good event and my stall worked well but I didn’t stay for the dance and disco stuff – I feel much better curled uo with a glass of warm wincarnis at my age after my exertions just recently. And if a couple of these apparently-genuine enquiries come off I’ll be able to eat next week too.

In other news, another thing that I foretold has truly come to pass. Yes, the Septics are in talks with the Taliban. And who is surprised by this news, except the UK of course whose public position that “We will never negotiate with terrorists” (although in that case what the Good Friday Agreement is all about is a totaly mystery) is now in tatters and revealed as the farce it was always going to be.

The USA is pulling out of Afghanistan shortly and the whole basis of these negotiations with the Taliban is that the Yanks have no confidence that Khazi’s government will last 5 minutes after they have gone. The fact that Khazi’s writ runs no further than the walls of his palace is something that I have been saying for years – now it seems that the USA agrees with me.

And so what does this mean? It means that the west is fleeing from Afghanistan with its tail firmly between its legs. Not only did the Yanks lose all these people at the World Trade Centre, they have lost 4000 more in Afghanistan and the Brits almost 400 dead and for absolutely nothing at all, and as well as they they have stirred up a hornet’s nest of hatred that won’t die down in a lifetime.

The West’s campaign in Afghanistan has been a failure, and it’s been a failure since day one. Serve the badgers right as well.

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Saturday 18th June 2011 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

… that I had a working day of 32 hours and 30 minutes yesterday bringing my Brian James Trailer and this Takeuchi mini-digger back from the UK, and it was late when I finally made it home. It goes without saying therefor that Saturday morning didn’t exist and it was 13:00 when I finally woke up. And it will be no surprise to anyone that I have done … errr … almost badger all today.

But I did manage to find the time – and the energy – this afternoon emptying Caliburn and then reloading him with everything that I need for this exhibition that I’m doing tomorrow round at Francois’ place at Barrot.

Meanwhile, here at home we seem to have had something of a disaster. I can’t find anything in the garden as plants and weeds have overgrown everything, and a tree has fallen down and flattened half my crops. That’s not good news at all.

And in other sad news, I learnt today that Caroline’s cat Bigsy has crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Bigsy was 17 and yet had been in excellent health up until quite recently. But she had rapidly deteriorated this last few weeks and when I saw her the other day she was really poorly and it was only a matter of time. But at least she went in her own time and her own place, amongst friends.

Friday 17th June 2011 – THAT WAS A LONG …

… day!

I was reading a posting about a teacher friend of mine who had done an 8-hour day on a Saturday and how she was annoyed. My working day starting yesterday was 32 hours and 32 minutes, which is more than a teacher works in a week.

It was about 20:45 when I reached Liz and Terry’s this evening, and my day was far from over.

Caliburn, Strawberry Moose, the Brian James Trailer and the Takeuchi mini-digger crawled off the train at Calais as dawn was breaking, and without hanging about, we hit the road straight away.

copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say. I’m going the shortest, most direct route home and if I’m going to be fleeced on the péage, that’s rather a shame. Towing a trailer, I have to pay the same as an artic.

“Keep away from Paris” was the obvious plan. I’m right on the limit of what I can tow with this outfit and I don’t want any police interaction or any confrontation with crazy urban motorists.

There’s a motorway from Calais via St Quentin and Reims as far as the far side of Troyes, and then over the Burgundy mountains to the motorway at Nevers, with only the centre of Auxerre to worry about.

And that’s the way that I took – a nice leisurely saunter where I sometimes even reached the trailer-towing 90kph speed limit.

The motorway exit at Troyes is … errr … complicated, with a series of roundabouts where the camber is all wrong for the unbalanced rig that I’m driving. We had a couple of interesting moments.

And I almost came a cropper at the Intermarché on the edge of town – I’d forgotten about the height barrier and the jib of the digger. But I could enter the car park via the petrol station. I had a very late lunch and fuelled up Caliburn – he’s been quite thirsty, and no surprise!

The mountains were certainly exciting, as anyone who has driven between Auxerre and Nevers will tell you, and I was relieved to hit the motorway again. With no policemen bothering me, I could drift on slowly through the early evening down to Sauret-Beserve.

And was I glad to be back? I’d worked hard over the 20 or so days that I’d been away and covered a lot of ground.

Now I’m ready for a rest.

-1

Monday 30th May 2011 – I’M NOT HERE.

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

I’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.

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.

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Saturday 28th May 2011 – The first thing …

… that I remembered this morning was the usual cacophony of bells and whistles and the like. Second thing was the boulangère outside. And I hadn’t left her any money and I wanted to see her to cancel the bread while I’m away. Ahhh well.

And so after a leisurely morning of not doing much it was off to Commentry. And no OSB in the DiY place either. That’s a blow. I’ll have to use one piece of anything that I’ve got around here and then get the rest in the UK. But they did have a bundle of coving stuff there – end of series and the like – all for €3:00 and so that ended up in the back of Caliburn.

At the Bonnes Affaires I bought another one of the huge casseroles with lids, and that will be the beichstuhl for outside, when I come back.

And at the swimming baths at Neris something quite unusual happened. I was there before it opened and in the queue in front of me was a young kid. When she got to the ticket office to pay, the attendant asked her how old she was.

She was 11, so she said, and the age limit for an unaccompanied child is 12, so the attendant turfed her out. The kid burst into tears and so, feeling quite sorry for her, I found myself saying to the attendant “that’s ok – I’ll keep an eye on her”

When I was the stepfather to Roxanne we used to go to the swimming baths every week. I taught her to swim and to do lots of other aquatic things too and we used to have a great time there. It was something that I really missed after I split up with her mother – I was such a good dad to her, I reckon – and so with this girl we had the same kind of fun in the swimming baths. I taught her to do somersaults underwater, to swim on her back, and then we did a quick 12 lengths of the pool, and it’s quite a long one too and I was shattered. I have to say that I haven’t had so much fun for ages. It’s what I really miss, doing something useful and productive.

But just imagine that in the UK!

And while I was at Neris-les-Bains I encoutered another old car from the early 1960s parked up outside the swimming baths. The Simca Aronde was one of the most popular cars of its size in France during the 50s and early 60s, selling almost one and a half million examples, and there are still quite a few about here and there.

This is a P60 model, launched in 1959 and manufactured up until 1964. This one here is in surprisingly good condition for its age and looked really nice.

Tomorrow it’s the final matches of the season. We have Pionsat’s 1st XI, having blown their season last week, playing against Manzat who are already relegated. That’s at 15:00. That clashes with Marcillat’s 1st XI playing Commentry, but Marcillat’s 2nd XI are playing at 13:00, also at home, and so I reckon I’ll go there first and make a good day of it.

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Friday 27th May 2011 – Caliburn is getting ready …

… for his voyage to the UK next week. I had a good hunt around the garden and eventually found all of the framework for the suspended flooring. Two years of staying outside hasn’t done it much good though, and it needed a really good cleaning and some repairs too but now it’s in positions.

However there’s no sign of the flooring sheets. I’ve probably used them in some kind of building project somewhere. That means a trip to the DiY shop tomorrow to buy some more.

All of the kitchen utensils have been washed and cleaned and they are all in place. I’ve no gas though for the gas burner that I bought at a brocante. I’ll have to find some of that on my travels. But the electrics in the back work now and so I can run the slow cooker for now.

Apart from that I was on the web site this morning, and later in the evening I cleaned the oven in the verandah for the first time since I can’tr remember when.

Tomorrow it’s shopping and maybe the swimming baths if the weather is pleasant. And then I can start to load up Caliburn ready to go on Monday night.

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Thursday 26th May 2011 – I’ve been gardening today

I need to as well as I have so many plants lying around that need to be planted before I go away.

I started on the herbs and they’ve now all been properly put in place. The troughs that I used at my apartment in Brussels for my hedge on the balcony – they are just the job for this. I’ve had to put the mint into a pot all on its own as it was going berserk and overwhelming everything else in the trough where it was.

There are just a few herbs remaining but they are in small pots in the cloche and aren’t really up to being planted out as yet.

But I did find a plant that I didn’t recognise in the herb troughs. That, together with a couple of others that I can’t recognise, I’ve put on my Facebook page to see if anyone can identify them – you can see the link on the right-hand side.

If anyone has an idea as to what it (and the others) might be, let me know because I would love to find out what they are.

This afternoon I planted everything that I bought from the sale at St Gervais d’Auvergne, and there was tons of that too, and then made a start on the stuff growing in the cloche.

And so what with this morning on the computer again, this evening I went round to Marianne’s for a discussion and a perusal of the railway stuff that I received from Henri at Radio Tartasse about the tacot, the narrow-gauge railway that threaded its way through the Allier as far as Marcillat. And all of that is impressive too.

But basically Marianne and I have to go a-breaking and entering again, and we’ll do that when I come back from the UK.

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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.

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EPIC HALL

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