Tag Archives: les guis

Friday 22nd April 2011 – I haven’t done a tap today.

Well, it’s Easter (Good Friday to be precise) and I don’t work on Bank Holidays, as you know. I’m entitled to some time off anyway.

And so a lie-in until 10:00, a leisurely breakfast, watching a couple of films, working on my voyage around Newfoundland (I’ve arrived at Cape Race just now) and that’s my lot. I’ve not even cooked tea tonight and I’m off to bed in a minute.

We’ve not had any rain today either – that shower we were promised never arrived. And so I’m off to Montlucon tomorrow to buy the bits to redo these water butts. I may as well make the most of this good weather.

But there’s no footy this weekend – nowhere in fact. Whatever am I going to do?

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Thursday 21st April 2011 – I’ve dealt with the question of the water butts today.

>But it isn’t how I want it, and I’m going to have to do it again.

I took down the guttering on the verandah, scrubbed it all out because it was filthy, reset the supports and then rehung it all, nice and clean. I then ripped out the old piping to the butts to deal with all of that.

You’ll notice that I’ve put back the sump – just in front of the verandah window. That was my first idea and I replaced it because the first of the grey bulges in the pipework, that is in fact a sump, and the idea was that every few months I’d dismantle the filters, empty and clean them, and put them back. But that never happened and there was all kinds of stuff in there. And so the sump went back in. Just unscrewing the blanking plug at the end will empty that out.

Next task was to clean out the water butts. Using all of the 4 kettles, a saucepan and two 25-litre containers, I managed to save all of the water. There wasn’t much in it. But the water containers are out of the way in the dark to keep them fresh and I’ll be drawing on them for now. The butts needed cleaning as you might expect – it’s been a couple of years since they were last done – but the home-made puzzolane filter (the second grey bulge) is surprisingly effective. You can tell that by looking at the inside of the pipe in (a muddy brown) and the inside of the pipe out (a dusty light grey) and I’m glad that it works fine. But one major surprise is that the IKEA “stainless steel” mesh from an old strainer – it isn’t stainless at all and all the mesh filters that I made from that have rusted. That’s a disappointment.

From here on in it was just a list of problems. I can’t find the bits that I put on one side to make the replacement sump and the replacement filter. I searched as much as I could but no luck – not that it is surprising around here of course. I can’t find anything. And so I’ve had to put the old ones back.

But at least I can get to them. The new tap that I was going to fit in the butt to replace the broken plastic one – that isn’t going to work. And after ages of scratching around I’ve found an old one and some bulkhead fitting that might do the job. The hole needed to be filled after all. I’ll have to organise another tap at the weekend and hope that it isn’t too late.

I say too late because now that everything is clean and proper and ready, all I need is a torrential rainstorm. And I hope that it comes soon.

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Wednesday 20th April 2011 – I’m blogging early tonight …

… because I’m thoroughly whacked and I’m going to bed in a minute.

I’ve been working hard on the site for the greenhouse and now I have all of the breeze blocks in place. But it wasn’t half a maul, digging up tree roots, tree stumps and all that kind of thing. It took me ages.

It’s hard work, all of this manual labouring in the garden. And tomorrow I need to start on building the framework for the greenhouse. That is going be exciting too.

This morning though I carried on with my Newfoundland pages and I’ve now arrived at the Avalon Peninsula. There’s still a long way to go though and it’s going to take me quite a while to finish this lot off.

And this afternoon I took some time off from digging the trenches. Now I know that I said that I don’t have much water left but notwithstanding, I did another load of washing and now all of that is up to date. But there’s a reason for this. I haven’t cleaned out the water butts for well over a year and there’s some sediment at the bottom of the tanks. Added to that, the tap has broken and so it needs to be replaced and for once I actually have handy a tap that would do the job

It makes sense therefore to empty the water butts (I have 2×203-litre tanks) while the water is low, putting the rest of the water into some clean containers, and then giving the tanks a good scrub and clean out and then replacing the tap, before the weather breaks (which is supposed to be Friday, so we are told). I can change the puzzolane filter too and also fit a sand filter if I can find someone who has an old pair of tights. I need to reorganise this water system a little.

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Tuesday 19th April 2011 – I’ve been in the garden again this afternoon.

This time though it’s the heavy engineering stuff.

You may remember that between the greenhouse and the mega-cloche was a patch of land covered by a tarpaulin – where I was going to erect the aluminium greenhouse. But following a donation by Simon of the old windows from his workshop, I changed my plans.

I promised the aluminium greenhouse to Liz and Terry and I was planning to build a balloon-framed structure that I could fit the windows into.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, this afternoon I cleaned up all of the rubbish that had accumulated there, removed the bits of aluminium greenhouse, rolled up the tarp and set to digging out a square trench.

With the land sloping downhill quite steeply there, I’ve had to dig out so that the square trench is more-or-less level, and I’m setting a row of breeze blocks into the soil there – the purpose of those being to make some kind of horizontal level and keep the wooden frame of the greenhouse out of the damp soil.

Once I’ve finished the breeze blocks I can make a start on building the framework for the greenhouse. The back wall will be covered in the cheap tongue and grooving that is on sale at Brico Depot – I’ve tons of that. The roof will be plastic corrugated sheeting like the verandah, although I’ll invent a system of roof openings to allow the air to circulate, and I’ll build a door for the uphill side. Everything else will be Simon’s windows.

This morning though Liz and I were in the recording studio at Radio Tartasse doing our programmes for the month of May. And Henri, the old guy who helps out there, had a chat with me about the Tacot – the old narrow-gauge railway that used to run from the lime kilns at Marcillat to the steelworks at Commentry. He showed me on the map the traces of the old line, and said that next month he would bring me all of the paperwork that he has on it, including a book on the subject.

Won’t that be exciting?

Monday 18th April 2011 – I’ve been gardening today.

Well, after all it is the full moon. Before lunch I planted all of the main crop potatoes – I put 64 into two of the raised beds – the last two that I installed the other week. I’ve had to be careful how I planted them because the baby lettuce that I bought the other week – they are in one of those beds and I’ve had to fit the spuds all around them.

After lunch I planted this week’s seeds – things like cauliflowers, broccoli, carrots, courgettes, beans, peas and so on – they all went outside and into place. In the smaller cloche I planted into small pots some more peppers, chilis, cucumber and gherkins. And there are already some of those sprouting up from a fortnight ago. I’ve also weeded out the strawberry patch in the mega-cloche. That’s doing really well in there and it’s a mass of flowers, looking like there might be a bumper crop, and quite early too. But then again, this magnificent spring has a lot to do with that.

But there is a down-side to this magnificent spring. When I finished weeding and planting, I gave everything a thorough watering. And with no rain for 14 days, all of the casual water, that in buckets and bins and tubs about the place, that’s all gone. All that’s left is my rainwater for household use and there’s just about 150 litres or so of that remaining. I’m drying up and this could make things difficult here. I shall have to start a rain dance if it carries on like this.

But there’s still some water for a shower and at 36.5°C I had one as well. And then off to St Eloy and the Anglo-French Group where I set everyone an exercise – I’d found some old notes that I had made, with useful French phrases that are used in everyday life. And so I set everyone to translate them from French to English, to keep them out of mischief.

And so apart from working on the Newfoundland web pages this morning, that was my lot. Tomorrow we are in the studio at Radio Tartasse again. Don’t the months come round quickly?

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Sunday 17th April 2011 – The full moon tonight …

… was really beautiful. As I was cooking my pizza I had half an eye on it slowly moving around. Later when I was doing the washing up it was just appearing above a rare scattered cloud and it had the little Rutland WG901 wind turbine in a perfect silhouette. I couldn’t resist it.

But rare indeed are the clouds these days. I’m going to be tempting fate by saying that apart from two days where there has been a minimum amount of rain, the odd drop or two, there’s been no rain here at all for 14 days. Now that’s guaranteed to produce a thunderstorm, isn’t it?

And talking of full moons, I reckon I should be spending tomorrow planting, rather like Neil Young’s mates in Thrasher I’ll be hiding behind hay bales and planting in the full moon tomorrow. There are the spuds to put out for a start, as well as a few other things. And there’s definitely more than a few signs of life in the cloche now.

It was Sunday today and so a day of rest. But not really – I was up and about before 10:00 and I did some tidying up in here first as well as doing some research into my Newfoundland pages. But the weather was so gorgeous that I went outside and did some tidying up and general nonsense.

After lunch the water in the home-made immersion heater was at 50-odd degrees, what with the blue cloudless sky and all that, so that was the cue for a load of washing, especially as it was a blowy kind of day. While that was doing itself I went down to Pionsat to watch the 1st XI play St Bonnet. They were a loud-mouthed lippy team when I saw them at home, giving the referee all kinds of grief. Today, the official referee didn’t turn up so Damien ended up refereeing.

That was the cue for all kinds of histrionics.

And just how stupid are some footballers?

It was 1-1 and one of the St Bonnet defenders had already been given a yellow card for dissent. He actually scores a goal a few minutes later to put his team in the lead and to celebrate, goes up to Damien and says “how about that then, you **** **** ****?”

So he’s sent to the dressing room as you might expect, St Bonnet are down to 10 men, the missing player being a defender of course, and Pionsat win 3-2 accordingly

At least, there can’t be any disputes about any of Pionsat’s goals – they are all excellent well-taken efforts especially the second one, which was a peach and worth the price of admission on its own.

But somehow St Bonnet still moan and groan all the way through the final 30 minutes of the match, and carry on long after the final whistle has been blown, but of course it isn’t going to do them any good and I don’t know why they bother.
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So now, with the football being over, it’s back home to finish the washing and while that was doing, I did some more tidying up but this time in the little roon underneath the barn. There’s tons of stuff in there and it all needs to be sorted out.

So tomorrow I have the website to work on for a couple of hours, and then planting my stuff for the second half of April. Tomorrow night is Anglo-Francais night at St Eloy as well – it’s a busy day tomorrow.

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Saturday 16th April 2011 – One thing you have always wondered …

… is “what happens to the shop-soiled and damaged goods that LIDL can’t sell?” I can answer that for here in France – it all goes to “Les Bonnes Affaires” in Commentry. One of my favourite “end of series” shops – it’s had a major makeover and a huge pile of the junk that’s been in there for years has all gone. It’s now packed full of LIDL special offers in damaged, damp or torn packages.

The lady who runs it doesnt have a clue about pricing. Some of the stuff is 3 times as dear as it was when LIDL sold it. But other stuff is for nothing, like the battery-operated LED motion detectors at €2:99 and the 12 Volt LED lights with MR16 fittings (the ones that I use here) at just €2:00 each – I cleaned out the stock of them, I can tell you.

It was a really profitable half hour in there, I can tell you.

So this morning I did some tidying up in here and threw away a load of stuff that I no longer need. And then moved the Sankey trailer and dumped it in the lane (and now watch someone want to come past for the first time in a hundred years) before going off to Commentry for the shopping. Apart from the usual, I bought 6 tomato plants for €2.30 and 3 aubergine plants for €1:90. I hope that I will have better luck with the aubergines and tomatoes than I have had previously. And the LIDL in Commentry has been enlarged – and about time too – it was far too small.

Swimming at Neris was next on the agenda. The water was lovely and a good warm shower finished that off nicely. Back home I gave Lieneke some of my mint cuttings (anyone else want any? I’ve a load) and at 20:00 went to watch Marcillat’s 2nd XI play, seeing as there was no footy at Pionsat this evening.

Franck, the Pionsat team coach, was playing central defence but he couldn’t save them from a right spannering – 6-0 thay went down and they were lucky to get nil as well. They really are awful. Within the opening 30 minutes Marcillat had had to use one of their substitutes and he was booked twice and back in the dressing room. An astonishing performance.

But there’s footy tomorrow afternoon at Pionsat – the 1st XI are playing St Bonnet. Pionsat beat them 4-0 down there and they really do need to run up a cricket score tomorrow to keep their promotion hopes alive. We shall see.

Friday 15th April 2011 – I’m going to bed in a minute.

Yes, I dunno what’s the matter with me just recently – I can’t seem to last the pace any more.

And it isn’t as if I’ve done anything particular either. This morning I spent a couple of hours writing up my notes on Newfoundland, and then spent a while photocopying some documents that I need, and making the odd telephone or two.

Then apart from that I’ve been tidying up. The front of the house has been weeded in some kind of fashion and then I put down some plastic sheeting and put some pallets on top, and there I have my dustbins – all 4 of them. I’ve also cleared a pile of stones from in front of the house too – the big ones to the rockpile and the smaller ones to the paths between the new raised beds, and it’s in place of the stones that I put the pallets and the garden furniture that was up on top on the old potager. I’ve also rearranged the herb beds and the trees that I’ve been keeping in buckets until I can clear the orchard.

This evening I was invited to the annual general meeting of the Virlet Cultural and Historical Society and it seems that I’ve been talked into doing a presentation of my trip to Labrador sometime at the end of the year.

Lieneke is back again too and so I went round for a chat. She’s taken me by surprise as I had put the Sankey trailer across the door of her barn not expecting her to be here until the beginning of May as usual. I’ll have to shift that tomorrow.

And that’s been my day. Hardly tiring, is it? So I don’t know what’s up with me right now.

And in other news, I have gherkins and cucumber rearing their ugly heads in the cloche, and potatoes in the early potato bed.

Things are slowly coming to life here.

I wish that I was.

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Thursday 14th April 2011 – I’ve finished …

… my Viking pages and you can now see them on line – or, at least, you will when my server comes back on line, whenever that might be. I mamaged to get myself rather carried away this morning and when the battery on the laptop ran out, I charged it up and continued.

So thats all done, and now I can carry on with the drive around Newfoundland. This might take a while to come on line, though. It was fun driving around Newfoundland but nowhere near as exciting or as challenging as it was in Labrador, so I dunno if I will have the same enthusiasm. We shall see.

I then had to do sone quick printing and signing of documents for a project or two that I have on the go. And much to my surprise the printer started to work again. I still can’t manage to change the black cartridge but I’ve found an option that allows me to print using a mix of the colours that will create a black. That won’t last long, I suppose, but I dunno what else to do at the moment about it.

Anyway one of the documents needed a witness and so I nipped down to Marianne’s – and I ended up staying there for a couple of hours. She’d been to the Departmental Archives and had found a pile of interesting documents relating to Pionsat, including the plans for the construction of the Pionsat abbatoir, one of the places I had to photograph for her the other day.

She’s also made quite a startling discovery – so startling that it is astonishing, but I can’t say any more about that at the moment.

Back here I’ve been carrying on tidying up outside, although you would never guess. I don’t seem to be making any progress at all. I suppose I shall just have to keep on going.

And in other news, do you remember my exciting news that I hinted at the other day? Well, like most things that are too good to be true, they are in fact too good to be true and this one might be running into the buffers soon. But I’m still going to put a lot of effort and a lot of time into it because I never know my luck and I’m not writing it off just yet as long as I am in the chair. If it does come off, it will be a major coup and so it’s well worth persevering. Nothing any good was ever achieved easily.

Wednesday 13th April 2011 – I’m having a change of plan here.

Well, not a strategic plan, but more of a tactical plan. I’ve finished my Labrador pages and I’ve been making a start on the Newfoundland pages of my mega-voyage to Canada.

However one thing always leads to another and once you make a start you’ll be surprised just how many other things that there are. I now seem to be writing a mega-opus about the Viking exploration of North America. Ahhh well.

So that took me to midday and then I went outside and made more progress planting seeds – more of those that I planted two weeks ago. And to my surprise I now have some baby leeks sprouting – the first of the seeds to come up. I wish the others would get a move on.

Those of you with long memories will recall that ages ago I built a heat exchanger that was basically the radiator out of an air-conditioning unit. I put a 70°C thermostat in it – to switch on a water pump when the temperature reached that figure – but that was far too high. It only ran 4 times that summer. After that I stuck it on one side and forgot about it. I bought some 50°C thermostats a couple of years ago and so this afternoon I rebuilt it, and I’ve sited it next to the solar shower unit. The aim is to run some electricity to there, plug the pump in and wire it to the thermostat so that when the temperature inside the heat exchanger reaches 50°C it will start to pump water through the heat exchanger so that the water will heat up.

Once that was fixed up (but not wired in yet) I took down the old heat exchanger and demolished the old beichstuhl. That was another link with Liz that has now gone, but it was redundant since I’ve had the dry composting toilets and apart from being an eyesore, it was in the way and I’m in a vague tidying-up mode as you know. Still in gardening mode I dug a small patch out at the end of the raised beds, just under where the apple trees are, and then planted the 2 blackcurrant and 1 blueberry shrubs. I’ll be in jam-making mode later this year I hope.

To finish off, I gave everything a thorough watering. About 100 litres of water has gone onto the plants and seeds this evening and they needed it, that’s for sure. There’s been no rain of any substance since a week last Monday.

Now it’s back up here with the Vikings. I’m enjoying writing this.

Tuesday 12th April 2011 – There’s going to be a row …

… in the Post Office at Pionsat very very soon. On the 30th of March I sent four letters, by handing them in over the counter. Two of them Involve money, and the other two had a dependant time limit. And by today, not a single one of them has been received. I need to post another letter quite soon, so when I take that one to the Post Office I shall have a little discussion with the clerk about my missing four letters.

And so after finishing work on the computer this morning, I had to spend an hour or so catching up on this work that was lost, the most important of the four letters, and sending it and all the attachments by e-mail. And at least I know that that has been received as I asked for an acknowledgement. But it isn’t half getting on my wick, all of this.

For a pleasant afternoon I went round to Bill’s and changed a driveshaft on his Rover for him. I’ve never done that on a Rover before and so it was a case of learning as I went along. And it brings back all kinds of happy memories about me being on my back underneath a car with a spanner in my hand. I can’t wait to set up my workshop here.

For tea though I had a really nice and pleasant change. I bought a cauliflower at the weekend – special offer reduced to 99 centimes, and I cooked it, put half in the fridge, and ate the other half with some spuds, peas carrots and some white sauce flavoured with a huge handful of my vegan cheese. And it was delicious. Furthermore, I have the other half to eat tomorrow. I’ll be looking forward to that.

Tomorrow I might even manage a day at home all alone and on my own. I need to catch up with the gardening. Nothing at all of the seeds that I planted the other week is rearing its ugly head at the moment.

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Monday 11th April 2011 – I made it …

… back home from the Maison Ducros-Maymat in the rue de la Poste without being hauled off to the local nick.

In fact it was all something of a disappointment. We didn’t need to break into this empty house because someone knew someone who knew someone else who knew someone else who knew someone who had the keys. That’s how things work here in rural France.

But to start at the very beginning, the story behind the Maison Ducros Maymat is that it’s one of these maisons de bourgeois that was built in the 1930s by one of the rich people whom, during the early 20th Century, infested Pionsat.

There are many of this type of house built in Pionsat during this period, built in the art-deco style with marble and all that kind of thing.

This one is considered to be special and for a very good reason – it has 12,000 square metres of ground that are laid out as parkland, orchards and a drive that connects the property upon which the new Intermarche supermarket was built earlier this year.

It’s been abandoned since the late 1990s and the town of Pionsat has just bought it for simply the price of the ground upon which the property sits.

The intention is, apparently, to demolish it, making a new salle de fetes, a town square, a medical centre, a new road through the back of the town, and a handful of building plots which will be sold to finance the cost of the enterprise.

Marianne’s aim was to visit the property, make a description and an inventory, measure it all up and to photograph all of the important arty bits. I was roped in for the photography bit.

And there’s no doubt that the place is magnificent and it’s a credit to its designer and builder. But it’s huge, sprawling and unwieldy, totally unmodernised and in a really poor state.

And hereby hangs a tale.

If people were to be totally honest, the only people who can really bear the responsibility for the events that have arisen must be, in my opinion, the people who have owned the building. I reckon that it’s had almost nothing spent upon it in the way or repairs, renovation and modernisation for probably 50 years and it’s this factor that has led to the lack of future for the property.

This is why I reckon that it’s been up for sale for so long and how come the town of Pionsat has been able to buy it for a pittance. This wealth of the early 20th Century is all very well, but there is not a soul in the whole of the region these days who has enough money to restore it to the days of its glory.

It makes you realise just how far these rural regions of France have fallen on hard times, and what the place must have been like in the belle epoch.

But I made an exciting discovery there.

There’s a ballroom there and we inspected it closely. And it’s been clearly designed and built by a real and proper architect who knows his job. The acoustics and sonorisation are such that it’s a totally perfect music room. It’s like being in the inside of a drum with everything vibrating in perfect pitch as you move around.

I’ve heard about places like this and so have you if you’ve read books such as those by PG Wodehouse, but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced one. It’s a shame that this is going to be demolished

In other news, I’ve now gone onto summer hours here. That means working on the computer from 10:00 until the battery goes flat, and then working on the house and garden until 19:00 instead of 18:00. Now that my web pages for the Trans-Labrador Highway are on line, I’ve started on the Newfoundland pages.

J’ai une centaine (au moins) d’images que j’ai prise en photo pendant ma visite aujourd’hui. Si vous avez envie d’en regarder, contacterez-moi via Facebook.

Sunday 10th April 2011 – Something rather unusual happened this weekend

All three of the Pionsat teams lost. And I can safely say that that has never happened in all the time I’ve been supporting them.. The 3rd XI lost last night and today the other two teams, playing at Paugnat, both went down.

Pionsat’s 2nd XI was unrecognisable – half of the usual 3rd XI were playing outfield, the veteran Philippe who retired on his 48th birthday 3 years ago turned out in goal, and how they managed to restrict the opposition to just a 1-0 victory was something I didn’t understand.

And had they had a striker up front (in the entire 90 minutes they managed just one shot on target) they might even have sneaked something.

The 1st XI were beaten 3-2 and at one stage with just 15 minutes to go they were down 3-0.

But the defence was unrecognisable – neither of the two usual central defenders were playing and only 1 of the regular full-backs and by the time the match was over both the central defenders had left the field with bad injuries, blood streaming down their faces from elbows into the face that the referee did not notice.

Paugnat’s team was made up of big, physical noisy players, the referee was taking his first or second match, and the Pionsat players are far too naive for this level of football.

I’m not going to comment on the refereeing because having done it myself I know how hard it is, but how the Pionsat captain expressing to the referee his disbelief over a decision, in civil tones, merited a yellow card, yet the Paugnat goalkeeper, bellowing at the top of his voice “YOU’RE A THIEF” to a linesman merited nothing at all is something that will always remain a total mystery to me.

So two football matches consecutively means that I haven’t done very much else today. Never mind – it is Sunday and my day of rest. Tomorrow I’m back at work.

But if you don’t hear from me tomorrow night, it will be cause I’ll be in the nick. I’ve been roped in to go Breaking and Entering tomorrow afternoon.

Saturday 9th April 2011 – The weekend is here at last.

And about time too – I thought it would never ever arrive. And seeing as it was Saturday I wasn’t in any particular hurry to raise myself from the dead either.

Once breakfast was over I made a couple of shelves for in here and I now have all of the DVDs nicely lined up. How long they will stay like that though is anyone’s guess. And once that was done and it was midday, I legged it to St Eloy for the shopping. Nothing much of any excitement, except that LIDL was selling soft fruit trees at €1:69 each. I hate goosegogs, and why buy blackberries when I’m overrun with brambles? But there were two blackcurrant bushes and one blueberry bush left, and they have gone now 🙂

This evening Pionsat’s 3rd XI were playing Teilhet and the Goatslayers won 1-0 due to a disputed penalty (I was in no position to see, it has to be said) but there was quite a bit on moaning and groaning from everyone on the field throughout the match.

Pionsat played quite well for the first hour and were unlucky not to have taken something from this game. They need to win games like these to keep their mid-table slot alive

And this evening I’ve been recording all of the CDs that I bought just recently and copying them onto SD cards to play in Caliburn. The SD cards need to be rearranged and so that means an end to the legendary “Help Yourself to Kate Bush” card, which is sad.

Tomorrow I have a double-header. Pionsat’s 1st and 2nd XI are both away, and they are both playing Charbonnieres – Paugnat at Paugnat. The 2nd XI kick off at 13:00 and the 1st XI at 15:00 so I’m going to be out all afternoon even though I have plenty to be getting on with here.

I hope the weather keeps up.

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Friday 8th April 2011 – This hot weather …

is still going on relentlessly and I’m now a deep shade of red. Working outside is clearly good for me. But it didn’t reach the 42°C that it said it did on the temperature sender outside. And after a few minutes pondering this, I suddenly realised the answer to that.

Yes, I’ve had a great big bonfire (rather too close to the exterior temperature sender) and burned tons of stuff that was lying around doing no good. Including all of the foam-rubber seat cushions out of the old caravan that the rats trashed while I was ill.

And I’ll tell you what – I’ve never seen anything catch fire so quickly and easily and burn so fiercely. It’s put me right off caravans. If someone were to drop a fag-end down the bed there would be no survivors.

As you can guess, the tidying-up has started and I’ve been clearing things up. Not much because I’m no good at tidying up and I don’t know how to do it anyway. But at least there’s a little more space now that a lot of stuff has gone up in smoke. And there will be more to follow it as I slowly work my way round, although this isn’t the solution to my storage issues of course. The aim quite simply is to try to make the place a little more presentable in case I have visitors this year.

As well as that, I’ve been in the garden again and I’ve planted the pea and courgette seeds that I had set to soak a couple of days ago.As well as that, I stuck in half a dozen sweetcorn seeds. They are out of date and did nothing last year, but I’m intrigued to see if anything might happen.

In other news, I had a nice hot shower this evening and I did the washing-up with water from the home-made immersion heater, with a temperature of 68°C. It’s quite impressive, this immersion heater and the insulation.

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EPIC HALL

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