Tag Archives: 12 volt domestic circuit

Wednesday 26th August 2015 – I HAVEN’T MENTIONED …

… the rain as yet. But every morning this week, at about 06:00, we’ve had a rainstorm for about half an hour, and then it’s gone off on its way. This morning though, it loitered around for most of the morning and at times it was quite wet.

After breakfast I went up to the shop for a while but then Strawberry Moose, Strider and I set off out to Woodstock, and by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was pretty crowded inside Strider.

The junk shop came up with nothing at all – no books or CDs – and I had to stop at Zoe’s shop to pick up her waste bin that was rolling around the car park, and then for a coffee at Tim Horton’s.

After lunch I went across the road to the County Planning Department to discuss my plans for Mars Hill Road. My friend Gerrit has moved on but the new guy was just as helpful and doesn’t see a problem. He gave me a great deal of useful tips and hints that should make the project go easier.

And there’s good news on this front too. 4 or 5 years ago, connection to New Brunswick Power for electricity was compulsory for a new-build, but today, it’s not. You have to submit plans and they are considered on their merits. If you have 110-volt electricity, it needs to be certified but if you have a 12-volt DC system with an inverter, you need a certificate for the inverter and an electrician’s certificate for the 110-volt system that you have installed from the inverter onwards. As for a DC circuit, he’s never encountered one, so he suggests just submit it and see what happens. But solar panels and wind turbines developing 12-volt is quite a common thing these days.

They are even encountering people who wish to live with no electricity at all. 5 years ago, that wouldn’t be tolerated (people equated lack of electricity with poor quality of life) but now, it’s not uncommon to receive applications where the details of electricity installations are described as “none”.

As for rainwater harvesting, he doesn’t see any problem at all with that, but a certified sewage disposal system is an essential and there is no way around it.

But to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … I’m giving serious consideration to going towards a 48-volt system with 12-volt lighting and 110 volt power.

At the organic shop across the road, the girl who runs it was very helpful. There are apparently three co-ops in the area where vegetarians and vegans combine every two months to place bulk orders for their supplies and she gave me their addresses.

And if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, Sobey’s has greatly increased its supply of vegetarian and vegan food and we now have several different varieties of vegan cheese, although vegan ice-cream is only available next door at the Atlantic Superstore.

In other worlds, even in fairly-rural Canada, things are looking very much up.

If that wasn’t enough to be going on with, I hit the jackpot at Canadian Tire. There’s a clearance sale going on there, and a big reinforced plastic tool box, a Flexible 3/8 drive ratchet with spark plug sockets and extensions, a big set of wobble extensions, two big sets of 1/2 impact sockets (AF and metric), a converter from 3/8-drive to 1/2-drive and one or two other bits and pieces – all of that came to just over $100 – or £50:00. Add that to the tools that I have already that I need to pick up from my box at Montreal and I now have enough for almost anything. And if I can make it to Marden’s in Presque Ile and see what they have too, I might well end up with a very decent tool kit. You can’t have too much of this.

So it was hardly surprising that I didn’t do all that I had intended to do today. It was 19:00 by the time that I returned and then after supper I helped Darren repair and service the lawn-mowing tractor (which is bigger than my Kubota) and we overhauled a fridge that was in the basement.

But I have made a decision – and that is that on Friday early morning, I’m moving on. I’m becoming far too comfortable here. I’ll be trying to Enter the Dragon and go southwards through the forest to the Hudson valley then back up to Montreal for my stuff.

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Friday 31st July 2015 – I’M LOSING MY GRIP!

I’ve done something really silly today and I’m still bewildered as to how I managed it.

I was busy doing some electrical wiring when I glanced at the clock.

18:15! Blimey! The shops will be shut in 75 minutes!

So I quickly changed my clothes, leapt into Caliburn and head for the hi … errr … St Eloy.

The road down the hill from Montaigut was packed with traffic and I did wonder what it was all doing at that time of evening. But on the other hand, LIDL and Carrefour were comparatively empty. LIDL did have some 12-volt LED bulbs (it doesn’t now, of course) and Carrefour had some soya deluxe desserts reduced on special offer.

I picked up some cash ready for my voyage in 2 weeks time, and then drove home.

While I was organising a few things the stop-work alarm went off. 19:00.

What?

Yes, 19:00. It appears that it wasn’t 18:15 when I shot of to St Eloy but actually … errr … 17:15. D’ohhh!

I blame last night, though. I couldn’t sleep and I was still wide-awake and working on the laptop at 03:30. And with an alarm at 07:30, no wonder I’ve been feeling rather feeble today.

I had the usual sessions on the laptop and then after lunch, stripped off all of the masking from the door, fitted the air vents and wired in the socket at the head of the stairs on the landing so that I can plug the livebox in there. And that was where I was at.

But the air vents looks good in the door. The idea is that warm air heading up the stairs (once I finally have the fire going downstairs, whenever that might be) will go in through the vent at the bottom of the door, rise up through the shower room and out through the air vent that you might remember me drilling out all that time a couple of years ago. And that will stop condensation building up too.

So tomorrow, if the parts for this Hyundai haven’t come, I’m sure I’ll find some other things to do around the house. But do you realise – in 2 weeks time, I won’t be here?

But then again, I’m not all here now judging by my performance this evening, am I?

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Monday 20th July 2015 – I HAVE NEVER FELT …

… so bad as I felt this morning.

There was no alarm call in the room this morning so I was quite surprised to be awake and sitting up on the edge of the bed at 07:40. But never mind getting up – the way that I was feeling, I was ready to crawl straight into the grave and I wouldn’t have cared at all. You would never ever have thought that I had had a really early night either.

Mind you, I had been on my travels during the night. Back in Brussels in fact, and I was back working at the EU which had somehow managed to transport its offices to Boulevard Reyers. I had a ground-floor two-bedroom flat somewhere in a traditional built-up area such as that on the bottom end of the Avenue Molière. Two-bedroom, it was, and a typical 1920s “3 pièces en enfilade”, but tidy as it might have been, the two bedrooms were under renovation so I had my double bed in the kitchen. This was rather inconvenient when I invited a young lady from the office back to my apartment to stay the night, but nevertheless, she came and stayed, and I was quite happy. Next morning, who should I bump into but Nina, a girlfriend from way back in the early 1970s. She grabbed me and said something along the lines of “now that I’ve got you, I’m not ever going to let you go again” – rather inconvenient seeing as how I’d invited the other girl to a rock concert that night. So I asked Nina if she fancied going to the rock concert, to which she replied “no”, which took a weight off my mind so that I could carry on with my plans, but Nina then said “but we can do something else instead” – and that threw me back into an even more confusing situation.

So with all of that, it’s no surprise that I was thoroughly out of sorts this morning.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … after having an agonising couple of hours, I made a pot of coffee and drank it. And then I do have to say that I’ve never felt better after that. In fact I attacked a few things that had been built up for a while and dealt with them with gusto.

After lunch, I attacked the ceiling in the shower room, now that I have bought the tongue and grooving. And I was glad that I had had that coffee, because it was a struggle. I had to –

  • cut a few pieces with some fancy, intricate cuts
  • drill a large 60mm hole in one plank for the recessed light up at that end
  • rewire all of the lights
  • fit a batten to the beams under the suspended ceiling to attach (with some very long screws) the light cord switch
  • reroute a great deal of the wiring
  • wire in the 12-volt extension to the circuit that runs to the back of the wardrobe in the bedroom

And then I could start to fit the rest of the planks of tongue and groove.

Two more to fit and the ceiling will be finished, and even so, it was 19:25 by the time that I knocked off.

I’ll have to have a good pot of coffee tomorrow. I need to tidy up here because Rosemary is coming for an inspection, and she phoned me tonight to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten.

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Thursday 16th July 2015 – NO PRIZES FOR GUESSING …

… what was the first act this morning.

With it being rather hot up here, I went to open the window at the head of the stairs. And there on the windowsill underneath the window – well, I’m sure that you can guess what it was that I found.

The irony of it all is that I can see the windowsill from where I’m sitting. How I failed to see Cailburn’s insurance papers, I really do not know.

This morning I was up early once again and after breakfast I had another marathon session on the laptop and that took me right through until lunchtime. I edited a load of pages from 2009 as well as doing a few album lists from previous Radio Anglais programmes.

But I’ll tell you what – having seen the prices at which some of my CDs are on sale (one is on sale at €199:00) my CD collection must be worth a veritable fortune. And the irony of it all is that I doubt that there’s very much for which I’ve paid more than €10:00.

suspended ceiling shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch I cracked on with the ceiling in the shower room. That involved drilling a few holes, sorting out the wiring a little better and so on, as well as having to find a few tools and things.

But I came to a resounding halt, mainly because I’ve run out of the tongue-and-grooving that I’m using for the ceiling and I’ll have to buy some more. I’m about 10 rows short, which is a shame. I’ll have another scratch around to see if I have any more, but I’m not very hopeful.

Rosemary rang up too – she’s planning on paying me a visit on Tuesday, and then Rob called. The head gasket has gone on his car and could I help him fix it?

Yes, it’s THAT time of the year again.

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Friday 10th July 2015 – THIS FLYING SHELF IDEA …

… isn’t working as well as it ought to. The upper part of it works fine – the tubes that cover the threaded rod need to be cut down a millimetre or two but apart from that I couldn’t want for anything better. Mind you, it would have helped considerably had I not drilled into it by accident when I was doing something else.

The lower part is fine too. All of the plugs and sockets are fitted and wired in and working. The little LED strip light does its job just fine and although it could be brighter, it’s there and working and illuminating the sink and the mirror behind it (whenever they might be installed). I expected to have had much more difficulty with that than I did.

Where it’s all going wrong is routing the wiring where it’s supposed to go. It doesn’t like these channels that I have cut and so goes everywhere. This means that I can’t properly join the upper and lower parts and that’s where it’s all going wrong. I could put an extra piece in between the two – just a strip around the outside, and screw that in position to clamp the wires in place, but that would mean cutting down the threaded rod, cutting down the tubes and having many more difficulties about screwing the threaded rod to the shelves.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, but getting nowhere yet.

This morning though, after another early start, I finished off the web pages that I’d been bringing up to date, and then starting to transcribe the dictaphone notes. Admittedly the days that I have done so far are short days, but 8 out of 45 in a couple of hours is impressive none-the-less.

And I also had the honour of making a coffee this afternoon in the percolator and forgetting to put the jug in position on the stand, so I’ve had a mini-flood in here.

It’s just not my day, is it?

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Monday 15th June 2015 – IN THE 20 HOURS …

… between my going out late last night to take the stats and going out this evening for something to drink, we’ve had a mere 48.5mm of rainfall. and it’s been raining ever since as well.

That makes about 120mm in the last four days and that’s an astonishing amount. We’ll all be washed away if it carries on like this.

This morning after breakfast I carried on with the internet stuff that I hadn’t finished yesterday. I’ve made a list of all of the bands that have impressed me at the Fredericton Jazz and Blues Festivals that I’ve attended, traced as many as I could on the internet, and sent them a mail to ask them if there was a live concert recorded that I could use on the radio. This is something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, and I’ve finally made a start. And already, I’ve had two positive replies.

While I was rooting around with all of that paperwork on Saturday I came across a mirror. I nice bulls-eye mirror with a brass surround rather like a ship’s porthole. Someone gave it to me when I had my first house in Winsford and it’s followed me around Europe ever since. It’s finally found a permanent home on the first floor landing here and good luck to it.

I’ve also extended the light circuit here. On the ground floor where my workshop is, there’s only one light – a 4-watt LED and that’s by the front door. The rear part of the house is quite dark and it’s not so easy to see there when one is working, especially in the gloomy conditions of the last few days.

There was a light with a long lead that I used when I was working in the bedroom before I installed the permanent lights there. So today, I stripped off the plug and wired it into the lighting circuit downstairs. That’s given me much more useful light down there, even if it is just a 1-watt LED.

I’ve found a pine off-cut that’s fine for the upper shelf over the beichstuhl. I cut that to shape and varnished both sides. Tomorrow morning early I’ll put the second coat on the shelf and then that will be ready to fit.

This afternoon I’ve been cutting and fitting plasterboard for the beichstuhl corner. I’ve fitted what I can fit and I’ll do the rest when the shelf is in position. Then, I can take out the worktop where the sink will be, drill it for the sink waste-pipe and the taps and then varnish it. While it’s drying, I’ll fit the mounting rails in the correct place and then install the worktop correctly.

Then, I can start on fitting the door frame.

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Tuesday 17th March 2015 – THIS IS PROGRESS

hanging door bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceHere we have a door, now hanging nicely in the doorframe of the bedroom.

This morning I removed all of the masking tape and then wired up all of the electrical sockets in the bedroom (and that was something that took much longer than I anticipated too).

No bread at lunchtime, so I went into Pionsat to see the boulangère but it seems that they are exceptionally closed for the week. So that was that – I ended up having to go to the Intermarché.

And so after lunch, I attacked the door. I had to cut off about 20mm off one side to make it fit, and then I cut the lets in for the hinges. Much to my surprise, the door fotted perfectly for most of its length and width, but it was catching in places where the frame on the wall seems to be bowed.

And that was where the new belt sander fitted in. It earned its keep here, that’s for sure, sanding off where the door was tight. And in position too – it’s not that easy taking he door off, lying it flat on a surface, marking it off and then cutting off the excess. The belt sander did it in seconds.

fitting lock in bedroom door les guis virlet puy de dome franceI still had enough time to start on fitting the door lock. That’s 10mm wide and 60mm deep and so with the aid of an auger, I drilled into the door jamb as necessary. Tomorrow, I’l chisel it out to fit the lock and then drill through for the handle and key.

I’ll also fit the lock plate on the door frame, and then fit the battens to stop the door pushing through.

When that’s done, I can start to empty the room ready to do the flooring.

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Wednesday 18th February 2015 – IF YOU WERE TO LOOK …

… at the photo of today’s work, you would be forgiven for thinking that I don’t seem to have made much progress.

In actual fact, I reckon that today was the day when I accomplished the most work in the bedroom to date, in that all of the electricity in the dressing table area is now installed.

electricity fittings wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceThere’s a pair of 12-volt sockets (you’ll notice that I use North American plugs and sockets for my 12-volt circuits as they take high-capacity cable), a 230-volt mains socket (I use British plugs and sockets here because the plugs are fused) and a light switch that powers one of these IKEA LED light strips.

All I need now is some extra-long screws to fasten the socket to the pattress, and also a mirror. But they will both come in the fullness of time.

I would have made much more progress too had I not fastened the connectors to the wire of the LED light strip before I’sd threaded it through the hole. I had to cut off the ends and pass the wires through, and then I couldn’t find any more connectors. I spent about half an hour looking too. In the end I had to invent something.

But you’ll notice the difference between today’s photo and yesterday’s. We have the mirror backing in position and also the other side wall of the dressing table area. We really are making progress.

Tomorrow I won’t accomplish too much because I have to go to Cécile’s to show someone round. But I’m hoping that I can fit the top of the wardrobe as well as the intermediate shelf. If I can do that, as well as to start to assemble the front walls, I shall be quite happy. But I have a feeling that I’m going to miss my target of the end of the month, and probably by a week or two as well, to finish the bedroom.

I had another helping of my vegan aubergine and kidney bean whatsit for tea, and I realised that I forgot to add the olives too. What a performance!

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Tuesday 3rd February 2015 – IT’S BEEN ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… when very little seemed to go right. After all of my exertions today until 18:30 this evening, I’ve put one (out of three) sheets of plasterboard on the wall, and that is that.

I started off by some more tidying up in the bedroom so that there was a place to work on the plasterboard, and then I cut the first sheet.

This needed four holes to be cut in for the pattresses, and then a frantic search for the pattresses and sockets. And despite a decent search, I can’t find the telephone socket that I bought the other day.

I then had to lengthen a couple of electric cables and that wasn’t easy either, and when I pulled out a redundant length of wire, I noticed that the insulation was shredded. A further search revealed that I’d put a plasterboard screw from the bathroom through into the conduit for the cables, so I had to remmove that and replace the wires.

But the screw was behind the batten for the suspended ceiling in the bathroom so I had to take the batten down. But the screw head was worn so I had to drill it out. And so the battery went flat in the drill.

And so it went on, and you get the picture.

Eventually, all of the wire was the correct length, in the correct place, properly routed and joined, and so I could offer up the plasterboard to the wall. It needed trimming off and so I had to take it all down again to trim it. And in puttilg it back, I smashed a corner of the plasterboard that I had spent all morning shaping.

But then again, that’s what filler is for and so it’s gone on the wall anyway. You’ve no idea how difficult to manoeuvre a sheet of plasterboard, thread four lots of cable through four lots of holes and then screw it to the wall all on your own.

But it’s done anyway, and if I’m lucky, I can fit the other two pieces tomorrow and – shock horror – maybe even paint the walls on the landing. But I’m not holding my breath.

It was freezing here this morning – 13.3°C. But that’s ot surprising seeing as how it was minus 6°C outside. And freezing where I was trying to work. That didn’t ease my humour any.

So tonight, I’ve banked up the fire and we’ll see what happens.

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Wednesday 28th January 2015 – THIS LANDING DEFINITELY …

… won’t be finished by the weekend now, that’s for sure.

I didn’t realise this at the time, but now I do, that the “drop-in” hinges that are quite common here and that I like to use are “handed”. I need three right-handed ones for the bedroom door and three right-handed ones for the shower room door, but I seem to have acquired six left-handed hinges.

I can’t believe this, because I’ve fitted three doors here, some right-handed and some left-handed, and I’ve always managed to find the xorrect hinges without even knowing about it. Talk about beginners’ luck. But now I’ll have to wait until I can go either to Montlucon or Commentry.

This morning though, I fitted the ceiling in the landing and cut out the hole for the recessed light that I’ll be fitting. All of this took a while but it’s finished now and doesn’t look too bad at all.

We had a flash of sunlight too for half an hour, so I sanded down and vacuumed the shelves over the stairs, and then put the first coat of varnish on them and also on the landing celling. That all took me until 14:20 – a good 20 minutes after my normal lunchtime pause,but I’m less interested in pausing than I am in doing the work on the place.

After lunch I went into the barn to find the doors for the bedroom and the shower room and then cut down one of the planks that I’ll be using for an end-piece for the stud wall. And it was here that I discovered the issue with the hinges.

Never mind though, there’s still plenty to do. I ended up finishing off the routing for the wiring on the first floor (although I’ve since remembered two things that I’ve missed) and then put the second coat of varnish on the shelves and ceiling.

Tomorrow I have to nip to Marcillat and record the Radio Tartasse radio sessions, and when I come back I’ll be putting the third coat of varnish on the shelves and fitting the recessed light on the landing.

And until I can sort out some hinges for the doors, I’ll be fitting as many end pieces as I can and then starting on the bedroom. No reason to stop working just because I’ve messed up these hinges.

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Thursday 22nd January 2015 – FIAT LUX!

12 volt lights bathroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd we aren’t talking about Italian cars and washing … "you’ve said that bedore" – ed …

Anyway, we now not only have a varnished and shiny floor (covered in cardboard while it hardens) in the shower room, but we also have lights. To fit these was so straightforward that I can’t uderstand how it is that I haven’t fitted them before this.

And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too – those push-in spring-loaded wire connectors really are the business and I’m glad that I discovered them.

In fact, all in all, what I’ve learnt since I’ve been doing up this house has made me wish that I could go back and do the attic all over again.

12 volt lights bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceFitting the lights in the bedroom was not quite so easy.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve not installed one of the cables that needs to connect up the main lightswitch to the pull switch that I wanted to install. It’s not possible to install it no and so I had to rewire it into a single way switch.

All the four lights, bulbs and bulb holders were fitted but wiring it all up was something of a struggle, particularly as I’d forgotten which wire went where (I hadn’t counted on a three-year lay-off from finishing it off) but I eventually worked it all out and wired it into the 12-volt wiring circuit, even though all together it took me most of the day.

The beichstuhl is now temporarily installed in the shower room and then to finished, I sanded down, shaped and installed the skirting board at the head of the stairs.

And if the evidence of the last couple of weeks is anything to go on, my regular working hours have now gone out of the window. I think that having the music certainly helps.

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Thursday 8th January 2015 – IT WAS HARD …

… to get out of bed this morning. Being up and about at 04:00 might have something to do with it.

But it was a good job that I did get up though, because Terry came round to borrow a tool. And no-one was more surprised than me that I was able to put my hands straight on them.

And that wasn’t the only thing that was surprising. You may remember that I’ve been looking for the electric sander for the last couple of days? I had a flash of inspiration and went over to where it was supposed to be (although it’s been a long time since any other tool has been there) and, sure enough, there it was. However did that happen?

stairwell plasterboard filling les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo after all of that, I started work. with the aid of Caliburn’s ladder, I reached into the corners of the stairwell, masked off everywhere and attacked the gaps in the plasterboard and the screwheads with the filler. The, I made a very wet mix of filler and went around everywhere putting a second coat on the low spots, of which there were quite a few.

After lunch, I started to attack the filler with the electric sander. It looks like a snowstorm out there at the moment, even though I was only able to give about 30 or 40 minutes’ worth of sanding as the weather changed dramatically and I lost the sun behind a huge black cloud.

home made wiring clamp les guis virlet puy de dome franceLooking for something to do for the last hour or so before knocking off, I started on the wiring again. When I had straightened it out a few days ago, everything was in a real tangle so I didn’t make much progress. But with the hour or so that I had, I untangled everything, routed it properly and tidily, nd then made two wire clapms out of old wood battens and some 4×60 screws and clamped all of the wires to the ceiling beams.

Yes, we are definitely making major progress here and if I can finish the sanding tomorrow, providing that I can have 12amps of current, I’ll be ready for wallpapering next week.

I shan’t know myself then.

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Tuesday 30th December 2014 – WELL, THAT WAS A WASTE OF TIME.

Remember yesterday when I was busy putting that piece of wood in to fill that unexplained gap in the woodwork and ended up falling down the stairs?

This morning I started to fit the plasterboard into position, and after a good hour or so at the cutting, measuring and fitting, and also fitting in some bracing which was unaccountably absent, the light suddenly went on in my head. Yes, where is the insulation in the wall?

Off came all of the plasterboard that I had cut and shaped, and off came the bracing that I had fitted, and on went 40mm of polystyrene insulation. And now I can see why there was that unexplained gap – it was for passing the insulation through and out behind the stairs. Still, it’s too late to do much about that now.

Before I had started on the plasterboard, I had taken the masking off the floor under the stairs on the landing, and put the first coating of varnish on there. I’d put the second coat on and fitted the stairs too. So that’s another job out of the way.

I’ve even had a bit of good luck too. Aeons ago, when I lived in Brussels, I bought a pack of 100mm wide 25mm thick planed wood planks to make some shelves, but I never used it. I discovered two of the planks and tried them as end-stops for the plasterboard stud walls. They seem to be perfect for this job and so tomorrow I’ll have a go at fitting tham.

I’ve also rerouted a pile of wiring so that it will run under the false ceiling on the landing and then down with all of the other wiring between the stud wall that has the shower room on one side and the head of the stairs on the other side, and I can’t think why I didn’t do this ages ago.

As for the water issues, the front tap thawed out slightly today and the leak isn’t anything like serious. It’s losing about half a litre every hour, but more when the tap is open. The rear tap is still frozen up so I can’t isolate the front tank.

Mind you, the frozen tap is doing that so it’s the same thing really, and as for the leak, the front tank needs to be emptied anyway so that I can change the tap so it’s neither here nor there. I’ve emptied 40 litres out of it today into various containers and I’ll keep on doing that for now until the weather warms up and I can isolate the front tank.

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Tuesday 29th July 2014 – SO WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STARRY NIGHT THEN?

When I was outside last night taking the stats before going to bed, there was a beautiful, clear sky with millions of stars shining brightly – the portent to a beautiful morning. When I awoke though, we were having a hanging cloud and light drizzle. And it’s the end of July too. Summer is halfway over before it’s even begun.

And I was on my travel again during the night. I’d come up from the south of the USA heading towards Canada and upon entering New York State I’d been stopped by a flying customs patrol who charged me $108 duty on the fuel in the tank of the car. I had to go to fetch some money, and that involved a bus trip of 20 minutes to the local Burtons clothes retailer. The cash point wasn’t in the shop but outside, but nevertheless I had a good look at the clothes in the sale that they were having and decided to buy a few, although I kept on telling myself that I don’t need any clothes like these.

Back at my car, I couldn’t find the customs officers and so I was tempted to drive away and forget it, but I was worried that all of my details would be in the computer and I’d be stopped by another patrol, or at the customs, or extradited from Canada and I would be in even more serious trouble.

So after breakfast and back on the website. But not for long. With the rain now falling heavier and heavier, I rather lost interest and went on to other things.

After lunch I stuck my head outside and the rain was falling quite heavily and so I decided to do something that I forgot to do on Sunday and Monday – to wit emptying the beichstuhl. And it needed it too.

But after that, the weather was such that I had no intention of working outside (so much for my fine words yesterday) and so worked inside. I took off a piece of badly-fitted plasterboard to find out why it wasn’t seating properly, and in the end I had to pack it out to the correct position.

Once that had been done, I did some work on the wiring. I’ve rerouted a couple of cables, something that involved cutting a few notches out of a few beams, and then threaded some cable through some conduit and then wired up the light in the cupboard at the back of the stairs.

That took me until about 19:10 and that was that.

Tonight, I made a green pepper and chick-pea curry – enough to last for several days. I don’t fancy cooking for the rest of the week.

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Thursday 13th March 2014 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve not been in too much of a hurry to leave my bed.

I put that down to still being awake at 03:45 this morning, and so getting up at … errr … 10:20 is not too unreasonable.

I’ve hardly done any work either – well – not that kind of work anyway. The house remains practically untouched. But noticing when I went downstairs that the batteries were aleady fully-charged, and at 12:30 there was 50.5 amps going into the dump load and the wires were pretty warm, that called for action. I plugged an extension cable into the overcharge circuit and wired the 12-volt fridge in. That calmed everything down a little. The water still got hot (68°C) but the wires stayed cool-ish and the fridge worked.

I’ll leave it like that until I fix up the new batteries that will replace the existing creaky ones and then I’ll wire in the fridge into the permanent circuit for the summer.

I threw out some food and veg peelings that I had forgotten to deal with before I left here (some of them could have walked to the compost bin on their own) and then unloaded part of Caliburn. For lunch I went to fetch the bread – to find that the boulanger had forgotten to come on Tuesday, and that was really the only reason why I had rushed home.

I had to go down the road to the Intermarché at Pionsat to buy a baguette.

GRRRR!

This afternoon I updated the Trois Rivieres pages of my Canada website

. I took a pile more photos of the town when I was there last year and so they needed to be added on and the commentary written. I’ve also reviewed a few subsequent pages of my drive down the Chemin du Roy

and that has spawned a couple of new pages too.

So I’ve not been idle.

But I do realise now why I try not to work on the computer between 19:00 and 21:00. I get so carried away with what I’m doing that I forget to make tea and I end up going hungry.

And it’s 5 years since my dear friend Liz departed. I can’t believe that it’s been so long. I hope that she is sleeping peacefully. My abiding memory is just before she went for her operation, she was making out a list of names.
“Are these the people that I need to contact to let them know your news?” I asked.
“Ohh no” she replied. “If it all goes wrong, this is a list of the people I’m going to come back to haunt”.

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