Tag Archives: Brico Depot

Saturday 10th October 2009 – You would be amazed ….

french fire engine
… at the things you find lurking up side streets. Another one of my passions is old vehicles and so when I saw this beastie lurking up a side street in Montlucon today I just had to go for a nosey.

At first, from a distance, I thought it was a Russian GAZ lorry, a copy of the Studebakers and Chevrolets that the Americans supplied to the Russians under lend-lease during World War II but from close-up I don’t think it is. There’s no maker’s name on it anywhere that I could see so I could only be guessing as to what it might be. Although it looks vaguely 1940s-ish that’s deceptive too as Magirus Deutz were turning out lorries of this style as late as the early 1970s.

old french fire engineAll the visible accessories (headlights – that kind of thing) were “made in France” so I’ve no idea. It’s a 4×4 anyway and solidly built.

So in Montlucon I picked up my furniture and almost everything I needed for the attic. I forgot the air vents though – little plastic grilles about 2″ in diameter to cover up the airholes that I need to make. But I also made an excellent purchase – an “end of series” composter that was going for €10:00. Why I need a new composter is because of a change to the beichstuhl arrangements. I shan’t go into the gory details but in a bid to do away with the chemical contraption I am putting into effect an arrangement that involves a plant pot and some biodegradable bin liners. I’m sure you can work it out for yourself.

Talking of biodegradable bin liners, I discovered a new bio shop in Montlucon – just down the road from Brico Depot. Not as big as Amaranth but I drive past it every week so it’s worth a visit. Their biodegradable bin liners cost €5.51 for 25 – a major improvement on Auchan’s €6:00 for 15.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire equipe 3 Damien voyonAt the footy tonight Pionsat lost 3-2 in a hotly-contested match. But I dunno what Damian put in his tea tonight but he played a blinder in goal tonight and made a series of brilliant saves. We were all well-impressed with his performance. With a bit of luck he would have kept out the goals too – he managed to get a hand to all of them.

And Liz has a problem with her telephone and she asked me to ring France Telecom to report the fault.
“You have to say the magic words, Liz“
“I’m baking tomorrow!”

-6

Saturday 3rd October 2009 – GRRRRRR at Pionsat

I went down to the footy ground tonight as there was a match at 20:00 – FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI v Chatelguyon. But the place was all locked up and in darkness. No idea what was (or was not) going on there. Maybe the match has been rearranged for tomorrow but I’ll be having a run out to Sayat as the 2nd XI is playing there and I haven’t been to Sayat’s ground yet.

beautiful red sunlight puy de dome france But it was a nice drive down to the ground at Pionsat tonight and as I came round the corner to the eastern side of the mountain I was met with this most stunning sunset. Isn’t this impressive?

We had an old saying when we were kids –
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Stoke on Trent’s on fire”
You can argue something like this here, can’t you? That direction is roughly Montlucon.

And talking of Montlucon I reckon I now have everything I need for my room. Even the glass, as Brico Depot had some sheets of perspex on offer at €17 for 80cms square by 4mm thick. I can make some nice windows out of that.

But highlight of today’s trip around the town was in NOZ – the end-of-range bucket shop where they were selling fast battery chargers for €3.90. They are just AA and AAA and take 800 milliamps and such is the rate of charge that they are rated as unsuitable for NiCads – just NiMH. I’ve seen (or felt) how hot NiCads can get in a normal fast charger.

The charger works off a DC adapter which – surprise surprise – is 12-volt.

And talking of 12-volt DC adapters, this next point is all Terry’s fault. We were talking a few days ago about televisions and how low-powered some of the flat-screen TVs are. In the Auchan I had a look at some of them and found a big cheap €275 flat-screen TV that is rated at 40 watts (that means it probably draws half that) and runs off 12-volt DC.

Now how much current does a DVD player draw?

At the Bio shop in Montlucon I bumped into Kate. Haven’t seen her for ages. She tells me that at the end of the month she is going back to the UK. Had enough of the quiet life, she says. It’s 10 years since she was last in the UK and so she will notice quite a difference. It won’t be long before she’ll be back.

But there are a lot of Brits returning to the UK just now. Financial issues play a big part in it. When I first came to the mainland the Pound was getting about 11 French Francs (I can even remember it being as high as 13) but with no raw materials for prime industry and no manufacturing industry to make use of the raw materials the Pound is at the mercy of world markets and it’s been taking a right hammering as the Arabs fight back against the west.

Whenever the West or the Zionists do something nasty to the Arabs the Arabs smile inscrutably and triple the price of oil. All the money then flows to the Middle East where they spend some of it on these new cities like Doha and so on, and the rest is then flooded into the banks of a country of their choice. The banks, awash with cash and needing to generate the interest to pay the Arab depositors, lend it out on increasingly high-risk ventures that return the most interest.

When all the money is actively engaged, the Arabs then ask for it back. The banks need to attract more money from elsewhere to replace the money the Arabs want back so they have to offer higher interest rates, the loan repayments thus go up, people can’t afford to repay, the banks foreclose and find themselves with a load of valueless assets and the economy goes tits-up.

This is 21st Century warfare and you can all see just how effective it has been. The West and the Zionists are still fighting a 19th Century war (and hopelessly losing, but that’s another matter entirely. What odds would you have had on Hamas smashing the Zionist farces a couple of years ago?) and they do it every time and they don’t learn from the previous encounters.

Anyone remember the turmoil of 1992? And the collapse of the western economies and the 3-day week in 1973 just after the Yom Kippur War?

And here the West is, threatening Iran. The economy hasn’t recovered from the most recent crisis yet. What will happen when oil triples in price next time?

So all of these expats are retreating to the UK because their money isn’t going as far as it used to in Europe. But what they haven’t realised is that it’s Europe where things are much more stable and it’s the UK where the economy has collapsed, and they are confronted with what for them has been rampant inflation in the UK over the last few years.

When I left the UK I always fuelled up at Dover as fuel was 2/3rd the price than on the mainland. Now it’s the other way round – everyone fuels up at Calais. And it’s the same for most other products too.

House prices are now starting to return to their previously extortionate levels in the UK and as most of the ex-pats sold their houses to fuel their new lives abroad, where are they going to live if they go back?

-8

Saturday 19th September 2009 – WELL, THAT’S ME SPENT UP!

540 euros in Brico Depot and not an awful lot to show for it.

Running through the list there’s

  • a pile of insulation – 20mm stuff because they had run out of 40mm and so I’ll just double up the thickness
  • some filler for the cracks in the plasterboard
  • some plasterboard tape
  • some fibreglass wallpaper
  • some fibreglass wallpaper glue
  • some blue wall paint (I forgot the gloss for the woodwork)
  • piles of tools for puttying and wallpapering
  • some floor tiles to build a plinth for the woodstove
  • all of the cement and grouting
  • some light switches
  • a telephone socket (and, yes, I forgot the telephone cable)

That was the first load. The second load was

  • 38 metres of tongue-and grooving – not the rubbishy stuff at 3.37 euros that I use for building or the better stuff at 4.95 euros (they had run out of that too – GRRRRR) but some other stuff at 6.17 euros
  • some wood battens for the tongue-and-grooving
  • some varnish
  • some nails
  • some underfelt for the laminate floor

And no woodstove either.

The cheapest on offer is 190 euros but I don’t much like it. As Krys suggests, Machine Mart is the place to be and Terry sent me a link to their site. And Simon is still in the UK. How can I contact him?

It’s a lot of money but realistically all that I now need for the attic is a couple of sheets of bare plasterboard for around the head of the stairs, and a supply of skirting board. And two panes of glass but I’ll explain that in due course (and no, I haven’t broken a window). I have everything else.

Outside in the car park I was doorstepped by a couple of Dutch people who wanted to talk to me about solar energy. It takes Dutch folk completely by surprise when I talk to them in Dutch (well, Flemish but it’s near enough).

But it’s a sign of the times that the Dutch want to become involved in solar energy. There is no word in Dutch for “cheap”. The word that they use is “goedkoep” which literally means “a good buy” – implying that if you do see something cheap you immediately have to purchase it.

The Dutch were the original settlers of New York, which is why I’m absolutely astonished that the USA is known as “The Land of The Free”. The problem with the Dutch is that they have no word for “gratis”.

Having said that, however, I sympathise with Michael Caine, who famously said in Goldmember “There’s only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures – and the Dutch”.

Only one footy match tomorrow – in the Cup and at Briffon, a village in the foothills of the Mont Dore about 100 years away from here. I’ll need a native guide and a pile of native bearers to get there I expect.

By the way, for those of you who have been following the discussion and debate in the “comments” to some of the entries on my blog (and you can always join in), you will be delighted to know that the verb “to sand” in French is “poncer”.

I will be doing a lot of poncing next week.

-2

Saturday 12th September 2009 – GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire equipe 3 neuf eglise puy de dome franceThe footy season commenced this evening and Pionsat’s 3rd XI (who were in action aganst Neuf-Eglise’s 2nd team) started where they left off at the end of last season. Damian in goal with his teflon gloves and a 3-0 defeat.

The 1st XI are in action at Miremont and the 2nd XI are in action at Pontaumur tomorrow afternoon. Both away from home and I haven’t been to either ground before so I’m rather spoilt for choice. I can go to Pontaumur again as their 3rd XI are in the same division as Pionsat’s 3rd XI but seeing as it’s the 2nd XI’s 1st game in Division 2 following their promotion, I reckon I’ll be wandering off there to give them my (im)moral support.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I went into Montlucon today and spent a record low 200 Euros at Brico Depot.

And there is a good reason for that. Most sheets of construction material are of a standard size – 2.40 metres long. And short wheelbase Ford Transits are 2.42 metres long in the load bed to take this into account. So I have absolutely no idea why sheets of insulation-backed plasterboard weigh in at 2.50. It’s totally illogical.

I need about 20 for my attic but of course they won’t go inside Caliburn with the door shut and you can’t drive 30 kms with both the back doors wide open, and you can’t leave them in the back of the van until you need them. So if you stand them sideways upright with just one door half-open you can get 13 in which is enough to be going on with, particularly as you have to unload them and put them somewhere (like standing upright outside the house covered by a tarpaulin).

And they are big and awkward to manoeuvre. There’s no way I’ll be getting these up the ladder into the attic in one piece. I’m going to have to cut them to shape outside and then get them up into the attic. And where I could in theory fit a whole one, it’s still going to have to be cut in at least half so I’ll be able to handle it safely.

Mind you, the spending spree continued as I ordered my bed-settee (340 Euros) and my occasional table (I don’t know yet what it is for the rest of the time) and I had to pay a 25% deposit. It’ll all be ready for early October which is my deadline for doing the attic out. A lot of money for a bed-settee you might think, but I’ll be spending a lot of time on it and so I may as well be comfortable.

They also had a really comfortable office chair (like the old one in Brussels that I have curled up and slept in on numerous occasions) and a really dinky miniature gas cooker which has caught my eye for the future.

And as luck would have it they were having a sale of bed linen at the Auchan and I now have 2 quilt covers, 4 pillow cases and 2 fitted sheets for a grand total of 25 Euros. And all in matching colours too! All I need now is a room to put it all in.

-3

Saturday 5th September 2009 – LAST SATURDAY, FROM MY…

laminate click flooring plastic wall boarding les guis virlet puy de dome france… €400 budget for my attic, I spent €354

Mind you, that didn’t include the shower base that never made it as far as the cash desk so that’s about quits.

Today, out of my €400 budget, I spent …. er …. €578.

I did get the shower base though, so you can knock €38 off that total, but I also made an unexpected expenditure of €170 while I was at Brico Depot.

I’m intending to put down on the floor some of this tongue-and-grooved laminated flooring and I had my eye on some at €5.74 per square metre, of which I shall be wanting about 28. But today, in the clearance lot was some at €3.67 per square metre. And not a miserable 4mm thickness or even a decent 6mm, but a whacking great 7mm.

Now I don’t think much of the style or the colour but there’s absolutely no dispute about the quality of the stuff. And I have to do what I can to get my budget back under some sort of control, so I can live with the colour and style at this kind of price and this kind of quality. I wasn’t going to miss out.

I also have the bathroom to do eventually and I was planning on tiling it, which would cost an arm and a leg. So when I saw some of this plastic tongue-and-grooving on special offer – just enough to do the bathroom and for just €56, then again in the interests of expediency and budget I wasn’t going to miss out.

I don’t like the stuff, especially as it’s pink marble, and the bathroom will probably end up looking like a tart’s boudoir, but it’s not as if I’ll be spending much time in there and it will do the job as well as anything else, especially at that price.

I ended up with 18mm OSB for the attic floor. That was the thickest they had and they seem to think that it will be perfect for the job. The reason why I went for OSB over chipboard is because having done the barn floor in chipboard and remembering how heavy the 2.8 x 1.4 sheets were and how I’m going to have to maul them up a ladder, the smaller and lighter 1.7 x 0.65 sheets will be much easier to handle.

I made three trips around Brico Depot today – a record. On the third trip through the checkout the young girl on duty there asked me if I had a lorry.

They ask you for your postcode when you go through the checkout and while I agree with Dave that it’s an invasion of privacy, it it helps bring a branch of Brico Depot closer to me then I’m all for it. The checkout girl was quite cute and when she asked me for my postcose I told her that she could have my address as long as she came round to help me fit it all. Ahh well, I have to keep trying … “You’re certainly very trying” – ed.

When I finished loading up Caliburn I went back inside the shop to get a coffee. She saw me coming back and hid behind her till. Serve her right.

I also spent a few bob in LIDL. I popped into the one by the bridge over the Cher at Montlucon, and they still had 7 of the 12-volt LEDs. Not any more, they don’t.

And in other more ominous news, the temperature in the heat exchanger dropped to 3 degrees last night. Winter is acumen in.

-5

Friday 4th September 2009 – I’VE FINISHED THE POLYSTYRENE TODAY.

loft insulation space blanket les guis virlet puy de dome franceAll the silver has now turned to white, and there are lots of cables hanging down from the ceiling for the light fittings. I’m afraid that all the cables are buried, albeit in trunking, as I’m not planning any maintenance on them. I’m not sure what maintenance they might need.

Next task – which I should have finished today – is to turn the white into silver by putting up some battens on the wall and covering the wall with this insulation stuff.

loft insulation polystyrene les guis virlet puy de dome franceFrom Brico Depot tomorrow I’ll be buying the under-flooring – 22mm chipboard or OSB. That’s what I’ll be fitting when the wall has been insulated.

But I need the shower base (I’ll try not to drop it tomorrow) as I have to design the shower room and then alter the floor plan of the attic to take into account where the bathroom will be – one or two beams neeed repositioning and we need some pillars. So that’s not going to be straightforward.

Once the floor is in (my task for next week once the insulation is done) I can get the plasterboard for the walls. I’m going for the standard with a backing of 40mm of insulation. All in all, that will be a hell of a lot of insulation.

After that, I need to reposition the stairs and to put up a false wall to keep the stairs enclosed and stop the heat disappearing.

Which reminds me – this insulation is working. For the last two days the highest temperature in the attic has been higher than the highest temperature in my little room, and also, I put my had down the back of the polystyrene as i was fitting the last piece, and there was definitely heat being trapped in there.

I’m not bothered about the quality of the flooring though. I’ll be fitting some laminate over the top which will cover it nicely.

And talking of temperature, the summer has now ended. 2 consecutive days of rain (3 of the last 4 have seen rain) and I have a jacket on in here. Winter is definitely on its way.

In other news, I see that the Septics are up in arms about Iran appointing a suspected terrorist as a Government minister. The hypocrisy is unbelievable and you certainly couldn’t make up a story like this one.

Just WHO do they think that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness of the Northern Irish government are? And the Septics brokered the peace deal that put them in power.

Of course you might be thinking that Adams and McGuinness are white and not brown or black and that makes all the difference as far as Americans are concerned – but that can’t be it. Didn’t the Septics fete Nelson Persondela when he became President of South Africa?

And never mind the “suspected terrorist” – he was actually a convicted terrorist and furthermore, the reason why he did the full 27 years and didn’t get parole was because he refused to renounce violence as a means of furthering his political aims (and one of the best definitions of a terrorist is “someone who resorts to violence to further his political aims”).

It’s just further proof of another famous definition associated with terrorists – namely “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” If the Septics and most of the British can pull their heads out of their nether regions for 5 minutes and take a dispassionate view of what’s happening in the world today, they can see that what the Iraqis are dojng in Iraq against the Americans and what the Afghans are doing in Afghanistan to the NATO farces, it’s no different to what the French and the Yugoslav and the other resistants did to the Nazis who had overrun their countries.

And the response by the American and NATO farces is no different to what the Nazis did to the resistants. Never mind your “illegal foreign combatants” in Iraq and Afghanistan – what about the British and other forces that were parachuted in to occupied Europe in the period 1942-45?

This current western hypocrisy makes me sick

-7

Thursday 3rd September 2009 – IF YOU LOOK VERY CLOSELY AT THIS PIC …..

attic loft space blanket insulation 12 volt domestic wiring circuit les guis virlet puy de dome france… you can see that although I’ve only done half of the polystyrene insulation (so no chance of it being finished by tomorrow) we have some electric cable now in the picture.

Two light fittings for the 12-volt halogens, and 1 light fitting for 230-volt. And all with trunking, Terry.

Took me ages to get the wiring right as it needed quite a bit of thought (and quite a bit of cable, and quite a bit of time looking for the cable and so on) and I really don’t have much of an idea about what I’m doing …“it’s never bothered you before” – ed… but I’ve cracked it now, I think.

I’m having 4×12-volt halogens switched in 2×2, and 2 mains lights on one switch. I wasn’t actually going to bother with mains lighting as I can do everything I want with 12-volt, but it makes sense to have it, especially as the Studer inverter (if I ever get it back) can run all day idling away and drawing no current. And I have a few compact flourescent bulbs.

Threading the wire into the conduit took ages and so it was 14.30 when I stopped for lunch. And a late lunch means that you’re all out of sync and it was 19:20 when I stopped. And I still would have been working there now if the phone hadn’t rung – another client!

Tomorrow I’ll finish off the insulation between the rafters and then pretty myself up. It’s shopping day on Saturday and I have to go to Brico Depot.

-6

Saturday 29th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. Long before the alarm went off, actually. Not like me, this. But at 08:45 I was on my way to Montlucon for part I of my mega-shop.

Nothing of interest in Carrefour or Vima, and only some new vegan burgers in Amaranthe. But Noz came up trumps again. A copy of an old Donovan album at 1:90 was something, but a triple-pack of Nice CDs at 3:90 was even more exciting – especially as the whole lot was reduced by 50%.

At Auchan I bumped into Rob and Julie and their kids. This was a complete surprise – older readers of my organ at its previous location will recall that it’s usually at Brico Depot that I bump into them. And poor Julie has been quite ill for a few months, although she’s recovering slowly now. That’s nice – I like them and their daughter Ashleigh is quite a big fan of His Nibs.

Brico Depot was exciting. I had two constraints – firstly money and secondly (and more importantly) space inside Caliburn. Interior space was important as I had forgotten to take my ladder with me so I can only reach a very short distance onto the roof-rack to tie stuff on. That stymied me a bit.

But we have the two windows (one of which needs some planing down to fit the hole), some more paint, loads of polystyrene and plenty of wood battens, as well as quite a bit of other stuff. That’ll keep me out of mischief for a week or so and I can go and get another load of stuff next weekend. It’s all very well buying it all in one go but firstly you have to transport it and secondly you have to store it.

I did also pick up a 70x70cm shower base. This was crucial as I’m building the bathroom around the shower and the dimensions need to be worked out fairly soon in my plans. It was the last one in the shop as well so I was quite proud. But as you might expect, as I was walking around the shop it slid off my trolley and smashed into a hundred pieces. Ahh well.

I also went to the “Conforama”. It’s a big furniture shop and it regularly sends out its publicity. Even though it’s only just across the road from the Auchan, in all the years that I’ve lived here I’ve never ever been there, but today I had good reason for going.

They are having a sale on these “click clack” sofas that transform themselves into double beds with a space underneath for storing your bedding. Now, I had one of those in Brussels and I was quite impressed with it for what it was. And so I’ve decided that I want another one to put up in my attic to sit and to sleep on.

The raised bed that I built here works fine but after nearly two years it’s fairly uncomfortable and so I’ve decided to push the boat out and get a really good quality one with a decent mattress. There’s 15% off until the 14th September and delivery is within 3 weeks so if I order it in 2 weeks time it should be ready for when my room is finished. It’s going to be expensive but a good bed is worth its weight in gold.

One problem though is that they don’t do a blue cover – one that will go with my room when I’ve painted it. The assistant who minced over to talk to me talked to me with a lithp, so I was on safe ground talking to him about colour co-ordination and soft furnishings. I suppose I should have profited from the situation to discuss curtains with him.

Talking of beds, tomorrow is Sunday, but no lie-in. A prospective customer wants to come round and talk to me about solar panels. Well, I’ll get out of bed early if there’s a possibility of amounts of folding stuff changing hands in my direction.

And it’s Virlet brocante in the afternoon. Always a good one, that.

-5

Saturday 15th August 2009 – I SAW THIS MOST MAGNIFICENT CLOUD …

anvil cloud thunderstorm clermont ferrand puy de dome france… on my way to Liz and Terry’s this evening. A finer example of an “anvil” cumulonimbus cloud you cannot hope to see.

It’s hovering just about over Clermont Ferrand so I reckon that the good citizens of that fair city are having a right pasting this evening, for “anvil” clouds are associated with heavy thunderstorms.

So what was I doing at Liz and Terry’s this evening? You may well ask.

In fact it all starts this morning at about 11.45. There I was casually nailing my fascia boards to the ends of the chevrons when suddenly Terry put in a dramatic appearance.

“There’s a damsel ( or was it a damson?) in distress at the Brico Depot in Montlucon” he announced

Of course, someone’s antlers pricked up at that. All his life he’s been in training for just this moment and despite one or two false starts
“Help help I’ve been tied to this tree and ravaged by the entire crew of the HMS Victory” cried a damsel in distress, tied to a tree in the forest.
“Well, it’s just not your lucky day, is it?” Strawberry Moose
, unbuckling his tunic.
he was well in form.

He leapt into Caliburn, his trusty steed (in the old days when I used to be a superhero all on my own and the job didn’t pay as well as it does now, some of the vehicles I owned were rather less than reputable and were more like rusty steeds, but certainly not Caliburn) and as his driver, I leapt in beside him and we chaud-pieded it to Montlucon.

This digital revolution and mobile communications has brought about some significant benefits and so on – but also a major disadvantage that as far as I know, everyone else has overlooked. In order to be a superhero you need to have your underpants on outside your trousers, and telephone boxes are the traditional places for superheroes to change their clothing.

But try finding a telephone box these days now that everyone has a mobile phone! Strawberry and I had to search for ages until we found a suitable telephone box to change in, and that’s in the Auvergne where mobile phone coverage is patchy at best. How is Superperson managing in the USA where telephone boxes are all but redundant?

Superheroes will have to find new venues in which to change.

Public toilets are likely to receive plenty of support, and I have indeed made use of just such a venue on a previous occasion. But these days you have to fight your way into a public toilet past the drug abusers, the cottagers, the cross-dressers (“Mabel, if you don’t let me wear your tights I’ll smash your ****ing face in!”) and the like.

Mind you, I did have a brother who almost always used to come out of a public toilet with his underpants on outside his trousers, but that was more to do with his status as being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic rather than any superhero status he might (or might not) wish to claim.

So Strawberry Moose
, Caliburn and I duly arrived at Brico Depot and found Terry standing guard over a trolley with a pile of windows too large to go in the back of his car.
“Where’s Liz?” I asked
“Ohh, she’s going to take advantage of you while you’re here” he replied.
Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s a long time since anyone has ever said anything like that to me, and my surprise was quite clearly written all over my face.
“She wants to make use of Caliburn now you are all here by getting some more windows”
“Ahhhh” I replied, this time with disappointment all over my face.

Liz asked me if I could deliver the windows this evening.
“Might that involve some of your vegan chocolate cake?” I enquired.
“I’ll see what I can do” she replied.

And hence my visit to Liz and Terry’s this evening. And not only was there vegan chocolate cake, there was some vegetable curry with rice, and some vegan chocolate cake to bring home.

We have a system round here of chantiers communaux – where if anyone has a work project that needs many hands, we all do a blitz on their premises to get the job done. And whenever there’s a chantiers communaux at Liz and Terrys, you are usually trampled to death in the stampede, so well-known is Liz’s vegan chocolate cake.

And in other news, it was the hottest day of the year so far – almost 42 degrees – and I’ve fixed the fascia boards, tacked on the guttering (I can’t fix it on until the scaffolding is moved) and put on the first row of tiles.

-3

Friday 14th August 2009 – WE HAD A GOOD DAY TODAY.

kwikstage scaffolding damp proof membrane plywood les guis virlet puy de dome france Firstly we dismantled the scaffolding that was in the roof space.
Secondly we fitted the rafters.
Thirdly we took one of the rafters out and replaced it with another new one that we xylophened and painted
Fourthly we cemented the rafters in position
Fifthly we fitted some of the hardboard on the roof
Sixthly we went to Montlucon to get some more hardboard, the guttering (and why have they run out of guttering joints AGAIN? Tons of everything else but no blasted joints for the second time) and a few other bits and pieces
Seventhly we fitted the rest of the hardboard
Eighthly we fitted the damp-proof membrane (white this time as we’ve run out of black)

Terry piddled off after that (who can blame him? He’s worked hard) and I measured up, cut, xlophened and put the first coat of paint on the fascia boards.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the fascia boards, loosely attaching the guttering (in the absence of joints) and then starting the tiling. And in between all that I need to go to St Eloy for shopping.

And talking of Terry, I want you all to know how well I treat my workforce. Hottest day of the year so far (38.6 degrees and almost 84 amp-hours from the solar panels on the roof of the house). And so I treated him to a bottle of ice-cold coke. Yes, none of your 22 cents on a bottle of water – a whole 1 Euro 50 cents I spent today.

My generosity knows no bounds.

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Tuesday 11th August 2009 – I’VE BEEN PAINTING FOR MOST OF THE DAY.

With all of the slates off the roof, it seemed like the right thing to do. All of the beams and rafters that are still up there have had two coats of xylophene and one coat of LIDL wood treatment.

And they needed the xylophene too. One or two of them have some pretty big bug holes and galleries so they have been well-soaked in the stuff. They aren’t too badly damaged so it’s not worth replacing them. The xylophrene should do the job.

But it was pretty awkward painting them as they are too long to paint in one go, too short to do in two goes, there’s a central beam right where I want to put my chest when I’m lying full-length and a scaffolding just above my head. So I’ve been in some awkward positions and I’ve got aches in some places I didn’t even realise I had.

Three rafters are pretty bad though – the two outer ones and one of the inners. But I have about 20 here so I cut three to size and gave them two coats of xylophene and two coats of LIDL wood treatment.

All in all I used about 8 litres of xylophrene (good job Brico Depot had some 35-litre drums the other day) and 5 litres of the LIDL stuff. I always buy a few tins of it when I see it on offer and I’m glad I had a stock. I’m now down to just three so I’m hoping they’ll have some more pretty soon.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the new beams and cementing them in place ready to fit the plywood over the top. Then the damp-proof membrane and then the slates. No insulation and no laths either.

In other news, my potential customer came round. I thought that I could talk, but I’m an amateur by comparison. Still, we have to be nice to our potential customers (something that a certain UK company might wish to take on board) and I’ll go round to inspect his premises once my roof is done.

And in other other news, I see that Aung San Sun Kyi is to continue in detention, much to the chagrin of the entire western world. Now I’m not going to get involved in the rights and wrongs of her case (although followers of my organ from many years back will recall my involvement with the myserious and exotic War War Soe who came dramatically into my life for a while in Belgium and who tried to get me to help her escape Burmese justice) but one thing that I have noticed is that not one single western source has mentioned exactly WHY it is that Aung San Sun Kyi is so detested by the Burmese Authorities.

And so I hasten to put the matter straight for the record, so that in the words of the late, great FE Smith,even if you are none-the-wiser, you will certainly be better-informed.

The fact is that Aung San’s father was a former Burmese general prior to World War II. He mysteriously disappeared and later fetched up in, of all places, Japan, where the Japanese feted him and honoured him, lavished loads of money on him and so on. He then went back to Burma.

In 1941 when the Japanese colonial expansion got into top gear there was a revolution in Burma. And who should be leading this revolution, but Aung San’s father. He invited the Japanese into Burma to help with the “liberation” and of course it is no surprise that they duly obliged.

I’m not going into the horrors of the Japanese “liberation” (see “occupation” or “colonialisation”) of Burma as they are fully-recorded in all kinds of other places, but most people lay them fairly and squarely at the feet of Aung San’s father.

it’s no surprise therefore that the establishment of Burma is deeply suspicious of Aung San’s motives and cannot understand why it should be that she is calling herself as a “true democrat”. To give you some idea, just imagine what westerners would say if a child of Adolf Hitler were to stand for election as a Communist in Germany.

LIke I say, I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of what is happening in Burma right now, but it’s important that both sides have an equal opportunity to have their views aired, something that is sadly lacking in the west these days.

And on the same day that a 90 year old German is convicted of war crimes dating from World War II and jailed for life, the hypocrisy of the western world in criticising Burma for dealing with its own World War II legacy in its own fashion is quite simply staggering.

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Tuesday 21st July 2009 – WE’VE DONE OVER HALF …

… of the back of the roof now.

Yesterday we put on another row of insulation plywood and damp-proof membrane and then went off to Brico Depot to spend another 400 Euros. This roof is becoming expensive 🙁

We did it that way round because the weather forecast predicted a boiling hot day so we did the heavy work in the morning. Mind you it was still pretty uncomfortable in the heat that we had. And to show you just how concerned I am about my workforce I spent a whole 22 centimes on a bottle of water for Terry. copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say

And excitement at the Anglo-French conversation group where Antoine revealed that he had been approached by a Dutch TV company that wants to film one of our meetings. This should drag out of the woodwork a few of the star-struck lurkers of our group. But of course when you have talent like yours truly, dear reader, who needs a makeover?

kwikstage scaffolding plywood space blanket insulation damp proof membrane aspire recycled plastic slates les guis virlet puy de dome franceToday we tiled over the plywood that we fitted yesterday and then started to fit another row. This time we are boarding vertically as we have reached the top row at the back. Tiling was much more easy with the safety harness that Terry persuaded me to buy. I felt like Peter Pan, swinging over the roof like that. But I couldn’t find Peter Pan anywhere so I gave up that idea. When Terry had a go in the safety harness, complete with the wet tea-towel on his head, I told him that he looked like Ena Sharples’ granma.
“Who’s helping you finish the roof?” was his response.

My retort was that I dunno why he was complaining. In Soho and places like that people pay good money to be swung from a safety harness from the roof of a building (not that I have any first-hand experience of that sort of thing of course) and if he wasn’t careful I’ll knock the money’s worth off his bill.

Now we are having torrential rain, thunder and lightning. I hope it clears for tomorrow.

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Monday 13th July 2009 – YOU CAN GUESS …

… what happened today, can’t you?

Indeed. A house with no tiles and no roof, so we have a tropical storm. Dunno how much rain fell in that 15 minutes but in Liz’s plant bucket there was about 5mm of rain after the plants had had their share, and all the streams around here were raging torrents.

Mind you, it’s not as if there is anything likely to be ruined as first of all I don’t possess anything like that anyway and secondly the house is pretty much empty. In fact it will probably do a lot of good, washing away mice nests and all that kind of thing.

This morning though, Terry and I went into Montlucon for the rest of the material. And wise move too. Being financially disadvantaged as I am, I set my mind on just one roof window and the most basic of those – costing 80-odd Euros. “Where are the cheap roof windows?” I asked the salesman. “Over there on that pallet” he replied, pointing at some, complete with all the fittings and looking quite good quality on sale “special offer” at 69 Euros. So I’m now back to two windows, and also two for the barn. And Terry got four for his barn.

Tons of wood (chevrons as well as waterproof plywood) and all kinds of stuff. I reckon I paid in all about 1500 Euros which has punched a big hole in my budget.

But not to worry because all that remains to buy are the chimney lining and the guttering, and that will be that. Everything for the barn roof is here.

So if tomorrow is nice and dry we’ll start changing the chevrons and then fitting the insulation. And if there is a thunderstorm you’ll probably find two carbonised masses stuck to the scaffolding and neither Terry nor yours truly will be blogging tomorrow night.

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