Tag Archives: brazier

Sunday 17th November 2019 – REMEMBER LAST NIGHT …

… when I said that I had planned to go out and take a photo of the Grote Markt and all of the buildings lit up for Christmas, and how I forgot to take my camera with me when I went out?

Tonight, I didn’t forget. And in fact I made a special journey to go out and look at the town hall in the dark and show you how it was looking.

And unfortunately it’s not as spectacular as it has been in previous years. There’s no creche and the lights that illuminate the windows are not changing colour.

The Fourth Hotel or Restaurant or whatever it is, while always looking spectacular at night, hasn’t been dressed up at all for Christmas.

Still, I suppose that it it early days as yet and there’s plenty of time to organise things ready for Christmas.

And in any case I would only be complaining if it were done too early so I can’t have everything my way. I’ll see what has happened by the time I come back here in four weeks time.

A late night last night but I wasn’t unduly worried. I set the alarm for 0:00 and beat it easily, being up and about by 07:30. Plenty of time to go for a ramble too during the night and when I’ve transcribed the dictaphone notes I’ll tell you all about it – where I went and with whom I was.

Seeing as I had plenty of time I had a quick shower and organised things ready for when jackie came down for brekfast. I’d explained her the Belgian tradition about couques on Sunday morning, so she had been to the boulangerie around the corner and come back armed with a pain au chocolat and a chocolate eclair.

“Well, I am on holiday” she explained.

We breakfasted together and had a good chat, mainly about her job, and then went round the corner to meet Alison. She took us to the mini-Carrefour where the girls stocked up with more chocolate and then into Tervueren.

Our destination was to meet her friend Theresa and go for a walk around the park, but we were somewhat waylaid by the sight of this couple here and their dog.

Sitting around at the bottom of the bicycle ramp with a lit brazier to keep them warm in the winter wind.

It was certainly novel, and quite ironic seeing as we had just been explaining to Jackie not two minutes beforehand about the somewhat strange behaviour of some of the Belgians and their profound sense of the absurd.

Waiting for Theresa, we sat on a park bench and the girls opened one of the bars of chocolate that they had bought.

Of course, that brought the crowds rushing in towards us. Not humans, although of course there were plenty of them about, but also the wildlife, to see what titbits were on offer.

We had nothing for them, as you might expect, but it didn’t stop them coming over to investigate us.

“Crowds of people” I said. And I wasn’t wrong either.

As well as the civilians, of which there were more than enough, there were whole troops and packs of Hitler Yout … errrr … Boy Scouts and Girl Guides out there – presumably rubbing each other together to try to start a fire or something.

It’s the usual thing, Scouts on Sunday morning all over Belgium, tying each other in knots and playing with each other’s woggles.

And who can blame the crowds for being out there today?

Despite being windy and cold, it really was a glorious morning out there in the sunshine.

And the autumn colours were glorious too. Not a patch on the colours that you see in Canada of course – nothing whatever can equal that – but nevertheless for Europe it was pretty spectacular.

The Tervuerense Park is actually the gardens of the Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika – The Royal Museum for Central Africa.

Formerly the symbol of Belgian colonialism and exploitation of the natives of the Congo, it had been closed for a good number of years while it underwent a make-over.

It’s supposed now to “have a different focus” but whatever that might be remains to be seen. One day I might be lucky and find it open when I’m at a loose end.

There is an old mill on the far side of the Vossemvijfer, the lake at the far end of the park.

That’s now been turned into a cafe so now that Theresa had caught us up we headed that way for a coffee.

There was a handy table free in a quiet corner of the upstairs room so we grabbed that and had a chat and drank our coffee while the girls finished off the chocolate.

All very convivial.

But soon enough we had to leave so that Jackie could catch her train back to Cologne.

On the way back to Leuven we drove down the side of the flight path for planes coming in to land at Brussels National Airport at Zaventem, and I was rewarded by the sight of this Qatar Airlines plane disappearing into the trees.

Jackie organised herself a sandwich and boarded her train back, and Alison brought me back here where we had a really good chat for an hour or so about different things.

It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t had lunch so I headed off to find a bakery.

My route took me past the Pope Leo XIII Seminary Chapel, and I noticed the Flemish lion on the roof – something that had escaped my attention befofe.

So equipping myself with a demi-baguette and a tomato I came back here and made myself a tomato and vegan cheese butty.

Shame as it is to admit it, I had a little crash out and then caught up with a few other things.

For tea, even though it’s Sunday and I had some vegan cheese, I eschewed my pizza and finished off the burger and potatoes with some of the frozen vegetables, followed by the last of the fruit salad and raspberry sorbet.

That was my cue for my evening’s perambulation, and I’m being a bit of a wuss today. Having managed 194% of my daily activity and 16.8 kilometres yesterday, today I’ve done a mere 137% – or 11.1 kms. Clerly slipping, aren’t I?

An early night now because I’m up early tomorrow and going home. I wonder what delights are awaiting me there.

house parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

view from house vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

Friday 5th October 2012 – TALK ABOUT EARLY!

Yes, I had knocked off work today by 16:45!

But there was a reason for that.

On my official sky-watching scale, today would be described as “glorious”. So much so that when a small cloud floated by at about 15:30 I stood and watched it.

The batteries were fully-charged by midday and by 16:45 I had hot water at 64°C. All of this can only mean one thing, and so I unleashed the tabletop washing machine.

Loads of washing here as it’s been a few weeks since I last did some, and so that was that. Off we went

Of course, washing means clean sheets, quilt cover and pillowcases.

As for me, I’m still smoking from being too close to the fire that I lit in my brassière the other day. But not to worry – 5 litres of water at 64°C into the solar shower to push that temperature up, and I had a gorgeous and most unexpected shower, followed by clean clothes and the like.

That’ll all go nicely with the clean bedding.

While the washing machine was still going, I went and had another look at these LED strip lights.

The batteries that I had been burning were up to 12.55 volts (of course they didn’t stay like that) and when I switched on the strip light that I had fitted the other day, well, I wasn’t disappointed in the least.

Quite the reverse in fact.

So much so that I disconnected the 12-volt fluorescent strip light over the work bench in the barn and installed a pair of these, together with the appropriate switch. These are impressive, these strip lights, and I’m going to buy more of these wherever I can find them

This morning though I was feeling inspired for the first time for ages and had a good session on the web site. But I was interrupted for half an hour as Terry needed to go to the quarry and wanted a hand.

With being nice and clean, I won’t go to Commentry and the swimming baths tomorrow – i’ll just go for a quick flash around St Eloy-les-Mines. It really was a nice, unexpectedly good day today and I’m glad that I took full advantage.

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Wednesday 3rd October 2012 – I SET FIRE TO MY BRASSIERE …

… today.

As you know, i’ve been scything down the undergrowth next to the lean-to to create a load of space where I can store all kinds of stuff while I carry out stage 2, but I’ve been overwhelmed.

6 trees I’ve cut down, with enough firewood to keep me going for a month I reckon, and I’ve uprooted all kinds of shrubs and undergrowth

But there’s only so much of the shrubs and undergrowth that can be composted, and apart from that, there was nowhere else to put all of the brambles and so on.

And then, of course, I remembered.

Last year I bought a brassière from Brico Depot just for this purpose and so I spent a very enthralling afternoon burning all of the stuff that won’t compost.

And didn’t it burn well too? br clear=”both”>

So this morning after an early start and a couple of hours on the internet I went out to attack the jungle. Like I say, I cut down 6 trees.

But one of these trees was a proper full-sized tree and that took some moving. I must have spent about an hour digging up the tree stump.

But the area to the side and to the rear of the old Mercedes is now clear, and the next job is to move all of the stones and rubble from the wall of the lean-to that you can see to the left.

Once they are all gone, I can rake over everywhere and level it all out and then lay the tarpaulin out.

Once the tarpaulin in properly in position I can then more all of the stuff from off the hard-standing out in front where I park Caliburn. It’s going to take me an age to do it all.

As if it didn’t take an age to do all of that today. In fact I was so carried away that it was 19:20 when I knocked off today.

In other news, my “new” mobile phone arrived. It’s not new, but a factory-reconditioned one with all bells and whistles and on examining it,

I discovered that not only did it have the bells and whistles, it also had the previous owner’s address books, it had her bank account details and bank card PINs stored in the memory.

What a crazy thing for the previous owner to do, especially with the number of phones that are stolen each year. And then not wipe off the data when you part-ex the phone.

And then for the eBay vendor not to do it makes me wonder what kind of “refurbishing” job that this phone has had.

Aren’t some people totally crazy?

-1

Thursday 15th March 2012 – MY HANDS ARE …

… all tingling like heck

Yes, I’ve spent the afternoon pulling up stinging nettles.

I’m actually quite immune to them and having lived with Nerina for many years plunging my hands into a bed of stinging nettles and pulling them up doesn’t cause me much of a problem.

But about 30 minutes later my hands start to tingle and then I notice it, I can tell you.

So being awoken by the alarm – for the first time for ages – I went a-computing for a couple of hours this morning. And then outside in the glorious sunshine, because it really was nice again today.

The farmer was working in the field next to here and so I waited uintil he went, and then dropped a lighted match into the garden refuse that was on the site of where the greenhouse will be. That lot went up like Joan of Arc, with it being so dry, and within an hour it had all effectively burnt itself out.

I’ve never had a garden fire go up as well as that one before.

Where I had the fire yesterday, I raked that out levelled it all off. That involved putting the big leftover peices into the brazier that I bought a while ago and much to my surprise, that all caught alight straight away as well.

I then moved the pieces of the greenhouse (the frame and the windows) down to there so that they are now close to where they are supposed to be, for me to assemble when I’ve dug over the plot where the greenhouse will be going.

After lunch, with the weather being so nice, I did another load of washing. Water at 68°C in the dump load as well – that ought to get it clean and just to be on the safe side I did the wash cycle for 30 minutes.

It’s not made any impression on the leftover dirty clothes from last time – what I washed today were all clothes that had accumulated in this last week.

But that little tabletop washing machine that I bought for €10 from a brocante over three years is worth its weight in gold.

A full cycle of machine, if you can call it that because I have to do the filling and switching by hand, uses just 0.14 of a KwH of electricity and you can’t knock that.

While the machine was going on, that was when I was pulling up stinging nettles.

I had the bits for the greenhouse laid out bewteen the barn and the house and once they had been moved, I could see millions (and I mean millions) of stinging nettles and their tracks forming, ready to burst into life.

Consequently I spend two hours pulling them up and piling them up ready for burning.

I’ve even cleaned down the side of the house there opposite the barn.

All in all, it’s made quite a difference although there is still too much rubbish, as always.

Final thing was to check the solar-heated water in the black plastic tank. 31.5°C at 18:45, with it having reached 36°C at one time during the afternoon. But 5 litres of hot water out of the dump load brought the temperature back up to 36.5°C and I had another solar shower with it.

I’m all clean now and that makes me feel so much better as well. And with clean clothes too, I’m starting to become civilised once more. I hate the winter where having a shower and having clean clothes are something of a luxury, and I look forward to spring when things start to happen, such as solar hot water and washing and so on.

And spring seems to be here with a vengeance right now, doesn’t it?

-1

Tuesday 24th November 2009 – I lit a fire in my brassiere this evening.

I started off by putting samples of all of the construction material that I had been using in the attic. And I’ll tell you – the effect is frightening. The plasterboard took the longest to burn but eventually it did. Everything else was gone in minutes.

No wonder there are so many conflagrations in domestic property. There won’t be much left of my place if it sets alight.

But the tidying up is progressing, and it’s looking quite impressive downstairs. Another day or so and it’ll be done. The pallets that formed the old floor in the attic, they will have to be chucked out of the window but I can’t move the broken slates yet. They are destined to be used for the footpaths between the raised beds in the new vegetable garden once make a start on that later this winter.

And once the tidying up is completed it will immediately become untidy again as I demolish the wall between the bedroom and the stairway. All the rubble will be used for making the steps outside up into the house.

Claude came round today for a chat and bought me some news. Someone has had a really good stroke of luck – an exceptional one in fact. It’s bad news for me as it happens but I suppose that if I stopped being selfish and looked at it from other people’s points of view I should really be pleased at their exceptional fortune.

I can’t say any more about it right now as there needs to be something of a proper announcement at the right time by the right people in the right places.

In other news, the public enquiry into the War to Steal Iraq’s Oil has got under way. Many people wonder why I call it that, but don’t take my word for it – take that of Australia’s Defence Minister Brendan Nelson.

But back to the plot. I was particularly impressed with the phrase “that Saddam had a “continuing intention” to acquire weapons of mass destruction, having used them in the past”. We all know by now that Saddam Hussein had Bacillus Anthracis, Clostridium Botulinum, Clostridium Perfringens, E coli, Histoplasma Capsulatum and Brucella Melitensis, and that he used them on Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war. And how do we know this? Because the USA sold them to him and then gave him the satellite photos of Iranian troop movements so that he knew where to aim the chemical weapons.

The other bit that drew my specific attention was that “the sanctions policy in place against Iraq since 1991 …was steadily breaking down”. Here’s one reason why it was breaking down. And here’s another one. And there are plenty more where those came from. No wonder the wheels fell off the sanctions policy when Western companies put greed before ethics and legality.

Another Western company implicated in the breach of sanctions was Matrix-Churchill. They were one of the companies, by the way, that were named and shamed by Michael Moore as having supplied chemical weapons to Iraq. And would their “breach of sanctions” have anything to do with Saddam’s “continuing intention to acquire weapons of mass destruction”? During the company’s trial in a British court for its alleged breach of sanctions, the directors of the company claimed that their breaches of sanctions had been guided by the British Intelligence (there’s an oxymoron) Services and the British Ministry of Defence.

This startling revelation so clearly shocked the Court that the British Minister for Trade, Alan Clark was summoned to give evidence and under oath he was obliged to admit that he had been “economical with the truth” in an earlier statement denying all knowledge of the affair. Of course, the trial collapsed and the directors were awarded compensation.

This entire Iraq affair stinks to high heaven.

-5

Monday 23rd November 2009 – I made myself a brazier today…

… out of an old 25-litre chemicals drum.

Now a brazier is something that you use for burning stuff, not something that a woman puts her boobs in, Rhys. And I have plenty of stuff for burning.

Long-term readers of my outpourings will recall that I already have a brazier – the legendary galvanised steel dustbin with which I am very impressed. But it’s full of ashes and overflowing with other stuff and all of that is extremely damp with the hurricane that is still blowing outside. And the stuff for burning is piling up so I’ll use this, burn stuff in small amounts and then empty the ashes regularly.

Today I’ve started the megtidyup inside the house on the floor below here, getting ready to resume work. I have a brick wall to demolish so I need to make the space to drop it. Then I have to take the stairs out. I was going to make some stairs completely from scratch but it occurs to me that I can use the sides from the one Im taking out, and just narrow the treads and the risers.

In other news, the commune is organising a discussion evening in a week or so’s time. The subject?
“Cremation and Funeral Customs in the Auvergne“.
In a commune of just 270 people where there is an average age of 103 I bet that will go down a storm. Last time they did it, they went on a guided tour of the local crematorium. The superintendant of the crem. got talking to one of the visitors.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“I’m 104” was the reply.
“Well, it’s hardly worth your while going home again, is it?”

They are also organising a visit to an opera at Vichy – you can see what exciting lives we have here. But I’m afraid I shan’t be going. I’m sure I can find plenty of things much more exciting to do than going to an opera – such as visiting the dentists or emptying the beichstuhl. I’m a big fan of Kenneth Williams, who on one occasion was talkiing about the opera with a friend.
“You must admit that Wagner has some really magical moments” said the friend.
“Indeed” replied Kenneth. “But he has some dreadful half-hours“.

But Sir Edward Appleton summed up operas succinctly as far as I am concerned. “I don’t mind whatever language an opera is sung in – as long as it’s sung in a language I don’t understand“.

And the temperature has plummeted. It struggled to 11 degrees outside today and it’s only 14.2 in here right now. I’ll be putting the heater on tomorrow if it doesn’t warm up again.

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EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: brazier

Sunday 17th November 2019 – REMEMBER LAST NIGHT …

Friday 5th October 2012 – TALK ABOUT EARLY!

Wednesday 3rd October 2012 – I SET FIRE TO MY BRASSIERE …

Thursday 15th March 2012 – MY HANDS ARE …

Tuesday 24th November 2009 – I lit a fire in my brassiere this evening.

Monday 23rd November 2009 – I made myself a brazier today…

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