Tag Archives: Brian James Trailers

Wednesday 12th August 2015 – AT LAST!

This Hyundai has finally gone.

But it’s not gone far – about 400 metres to the wide grass verge.

Terry turned up tonight with his Jeep Cherokee 4×4 and that made short work of moving it. Unfortunately, Terry’s trailer is just too small for the Hyundai so there’s no possibility of putting it on there. And with me closed down for my holidays, I’m going nowhere tonight with my Brian James car transporter.

Consequently the Hyundai sits on the grass verge and there it will stay until the owner has come up with a Plan B. What this will be will be a depanneuse – a breakdown truck. And had a breakdown truck been summoned on Friday, this Hyundai would have been gone long ago with no stress and no bad feeling and no nothing.

And of course, the question of the degreaser for this oil slick. The car’s owner “didn’t have time” to pick any up. Why am I not surprised? But at least, Caliburn is back home where he belongs.

All of this is an object lesson in how doing things “on the cheap” rebounds with a vengeance because I’m never ever going to be doing anything coming from over there ever again. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!”

But last night, I had a bad night. I was still awake at 05:00 and I woke up again at 06:30. Clearly the stress was getting to me and I really didn’t need that with what I had to do today.Nevertheless in between the bouts of sleep this afternoon I’ve managed to do such a lot of what I had to do and I’ll be finishing the rest in a moment when I’ve eaten my pasta.

And I had a stroke of luck too. I’ve been hunting high and low for my Vox Bass amPlug – the one that you plug into the jack socket of the guitar and plug earphones into it so that you can hear what you are playing. It’s never come to light.

And then there I was, I suddenly had a brainwave, remembering what bag I had taken with me to Belgium and Germany a few months ago. And sure enough, there scrunched up in the bottom of the bag, was my amplug. That cheered me up. On the downside, with sorting out this Hyundai, I missed my shower window. I was looking forward to that, with new bedding and new clothes waiting for me. I’ll have to wait now for Lyon tomorrow night. I hope that no-one on the train complains.

So now I have something like a tidy attic, some bags all packed (and I bet that I have forgotten hordes of stuff) and just a few more jobs to do before I go. I’ll try to have an early night – I need it after last night to be sure, and I’ll be fighting-fit for tomorrow.

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Saturday 13th June 2015 – I KNOW THAT I SAID …

… something about all of the things that I was going to do today. Well, none of that happened at all. I was sidetracked quite severely today.

A short while ago, while moving some stuff around downstairs, I came across a box marked “LPs”. And having you told you all a while ago about the little program that I have discovered that enables me to download tracks off the internet, I brought the box up here to go though it, see what LPs are in it, see what I already replaced with a CD and then see what is available on the internet for the LPs that I already own and which I dn’t have on CD.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … I lifted out the first dozen or so LPs, and that was all that there were. Underneath was a huge pile of paperwork. probably about half a tonne, I reckon.

It’s all stuff that I brought back from Brussels when I sold the apartment, and another pile of stuff that I had accumulated while I was living downstairs in the lean-to between 2007 and 2009. All of which I had completely forgotten.

So this morning, with a nice stiff mug of coffee I sat down and attacked version 2 of the European Paper Mountain.

By the time that I had finished, I reckon that about three quarters of it will be on its way to the great paper mill in the sky, and probably a lot more will follow it once I’ve closely examined it all. But I have found tons of stuff that is important, including all of the registration details for the Brian James car transporter that I bought a couple of years ago. As well as that, I’ve found a letter that I’ve been looking for for 3 years, a couple of instruction books that I need, and all of the Canada papers for my visit of 2012 and for my land at Mars Hill Road.

So, bingo!

Now, one thing leads to another as you all know, and once you start off, you’ll be surprised at just how many other things there are. Piling the waste paper into an IKEA bag, I decided to add another pile of waste paper – and then another etc etc.

And moving the box away from the wall left a space which was just the right size for the small set of shelves that Hans gave me last month when I was in Eching.

All of the food and cooking gear has now gone onto those shelves and at one swell foop this place looks a lot better than it did before (although there are still a hundred miles to go).

Now, I have a space next to the desk, so I moved my comfortable chair over there. I can now reach the external drives and the external DVD player simply by reaching out my hand. This led to a session of copying to my laptop the CDs that I bought in Canada and subsequently that have been sitting in a nice orderly pile on the desk. I’ve recorded 15 of them, which leaves just a mere 23 to go, but it’s a start.

This was hard work and so I closed my eyes for a little doze. and just as I was dropping gently into the arms of Morpheus, Rosemary rang for a chat. So there I was, for a good half hour.

I’d checked the clock at one moment and it was 17:57. Next time I looked, it was 20:18. Where did that 2 hours go? I must really have been engrossed in what I was doing.

But honestly, it doesn’t look any better in here. But then, I can’t do this tidying-up lark at all. All of this stuff heaved out or tidied up on shelves and the place just looks worse.

But you can see now why I didn’t do what I had intended to do today, and it wasn’t for lack of effort either.

Remember that yesterday I mentioned the rainstorm?

We had 40.5mm that fell in a three-hour period. And today, despite the good start, we ended up with another downpour in the evening and that gave us another 15mm.

That’s good news for me because my water tanks are full to overflowing. And as there are two tanks together – the rainwater falls into the top of the back tank, sinks to the bottom, passes through the connecting piece (which is at the bottom of the tanks) and into the front tank, with the overflow at the top of the front tank, then there’s a continual circulation of water in there and this is good for aeration. This means that it’s not just a stagnant pool of water.

And as I pull water from the bottom of the front tank, this is where the freshest water will be anyway. So a really heavy downpour like this is really good news for me.

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Thursday 30th June 2011 – This morning …

… I was awake with the alarm clock, just by way of a change, and spent the morning on the computer. I’ve finally reached Halifax, and that has to be anyone’s greatest wish for Halifax is the most beautiful city in North America without any doubt at all. and I had to sort Terry out too – he wanted to know my little secret route around Paris without paying a toll or getting stuck in traffic.

This afternoon I cleaned the trailer and photographed it a few times from various angles. It’ll be going on sale tomorrow to see what good it can do me – I need the money of course. And while I was looking in the barn for something I found the two hinges that I bought for the beichstuhl and then couldn’t find while I was making it. Anyway, they are on now

I’ve also removed some more of the tree that collapsed onto my vegetable beds. What a mess that has made, but I’m not going to be short of wood for quite a while with this lot.

In other news, I see that part of the UK’s nuclear energy creation programme has been brought to a standstill. Terrorists? Protesters? No – not at all. Would you believe Jellyfish?

You really can’t make up a story like that. Whatever is going to happen next to the nuclear industry? It’s a joke.

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Saturday 18th June 2011 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

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

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

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

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

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Friday 17th June 2011 – THAT WAS A LONG …

… day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now I’m ready for a rest.

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Thursday 16th June 2011 – THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG …

… day today.

There I was, sitting in the library reading my book, almost close to lunchtime, and my phone rang. Sure enough, the money has been received and I can no go and rescue the mini-digger.

So just like Janet in Tam Lin, off to Kettering Screwfix went I, as fast as go could me, for my final order or stuff.

Round the corner to Daventry and Brian James Trailers for my new trailer. And here I was in luck. I should have picked it up a week ago but it wasn’t ready. But here I am, with a trailer and a free gift of two heavy duty ratchet straps.

I”ll need those for holding the digger onto the trailer – in fact I’d just bought a couple at Screwfix but the more the merrier and these are certainly good stuff – better than anything I’ve ever had.

Stuck to 90 kph with the trailer now, so I wasn’t as quick to Droitwich as I might have been. Terry had ordered a huge ladder from the ladder company here so I heaved that on the roof rack. There was space.

Of course, it was Birmingham and the M6/M5 interchange in the rush hour, wasn’t it? The last thing that I wanted. But it couldn’t be helped. “Hier stehe ich – ich kann nicht anders” as Martin Luther was once famously heard to say.

It was 20:10 when I arrived at Accrington via Bacup, and by 20:30 I was on the road again.

caliburn ford transit takeuchi mini digger brian james trailerBut it wasn’t easy, to say the least.

The trailer is a lightweight car transporter so it only has two aluminium channels for the car wheels, and the track is far too wide for the digger.

We improvised with a heavy-duty scaffolding plank but the weight was far too offset to the outside.

While driving round right-hand bends was a dream, driving round left-hand bends was interesting to say the least, with the left-hand trailer wheels lifting.

It was a slow drive. But at least Terry’s big ladder was safe.

We then had to find my booking reference to amend the booking to add on the trailer but I couldn’t find that either. After 15 minutes of fruitless searching on Keele Services and a phone call to Liz, I realised that I would never make it if I didn’t get a wiggle on.

I abandoned that idea at that point, best foot forward, and trust in the Lord. We’ll confront the issue when it arises

After an exciting drive down the M6,M1,M25 and M20, being fleeced something rotten at the Dartford Crossing, I made it Folkestone with just 10 minutes to spare.

They noticed the trailer of course (they would have been blind not to) and so that set me back another £78 – not to mention the fuel that Caliburn was consuming and the blasted Dartford Crossing.

I curled up in a corner of Caliburn’s cab. it’s late, I’m tired and I’ve not done half the trip yet.

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Wednesday 15th June 2011 – I HAD A POLICE …

… errr … interaction this evening.

There I was, clambering into the back of Caliburn this evening to find something, and a police car pulled up alongside me.

One of Cambridge’s finest rolled down the window – “is this your vehicle?”
“As a matter of fact it is” I replied.
So he rolled up his window and drove away.

How did he know that I was telling the truth? And what would he have done if I had said that it wasn’t?

But never mind the police interaction – I’ve also had some bad news.

The guy with the digger in Baacup phoned. The money hasn’t appeared in his bank account yet. Obviously I can’t go to pick up the digger so I shall have to hang round here for a while longer.

Not that it worries me – I’m deeply engrossed in The War in the Air and I wouldn’t care if I had to stay here for another 5 years until I finish reading it – as long as it keeps warm.

No use going to the Services on the M10 this evening if they are closed. I went to the big Tesco’s just outside the town and here I got into trouble.

I’ve … errr … misplaced my portable hard drive (that’s possibly where all of the missing photos went to) and the hard drive on the laptop is pretty full. And there’s nothing that I can delete off it quite yet.

Tesco’s has a good electrical and electronic section but it’s upstairs – and that’s all chained off. But no-one was watching so I hopped over the chains.

Nevertheless, I was accosted by the manager on the way down and he had quite a moan at me. But by then it was too late and a new portable hard drive was in my sweaty little mitt. So now I’m fixed up.

And I hope that this blasted money is there tomorrow morning. My trip back is tomorrow night (well, Friday early morning) and I want to be on it. I don’t really want to loiter around here any longer than I have to.

I’ll be stuck here for the weekend if I don’t pick my trailer up.

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Sunday 12th June 2011 – WE’VE DONE IT NOW!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Terry and I have been hunting for the last couple of years for a decent mini-digger. We’ve made all kinds of enquiries but the end result always was that we could never find anything that we wanted.

In the end we decided that we would have to pay more than we wanted and buy something newer, but that never worked either.

That is, until today.

I went to Bacup to see a digger, a 2007 Takeuchi and while it was dearer than we were ever expecting to pay, in the end we’ve bitten the bullet and gone for it, faute de mieux – in the absence of anything better.

The cash will be transferred over on Monday and I’m picking it up on Wednesday night after I collect my new trailer.

Did I tell you about that?

caliburn overnight parking bacup burnley lancashire ukAnd so last night after dropping off Caroline I had a pleasant drive around the back of Manchester, Rawtenstall, Rossendale and all of that.

I found a nice quiet lay-by in the pitch-dark somewhere up on the moors between Burnley and Bacup and settled down for a nice, quiet sleep.

And a nice quiet sleep it was too. I didn’t feel a thing.

caliburn overnight parking bacup burnley lancashire uk wind farmPretty windswept it was too up on this hilltop, as I was to discover when I finally awoke.

And that’s hardly surprising, given the glorious view. That was Burnley down there in the valley on the previous photo and on this photo, there’s a wind farm for you to admire.

So a nice drive on into Bacup where I met this digger guy, who took me to see it in Accrington where it was digging out someone’s footings.

Once I’d recovered from the shock of committing myself to spending all of this money, I went to Preston – or rather, the Tickled Trout in Salmesbury – to see Sandra.

We had a really good chat about one thing and another and It’s nice to learn that in OUSA – the Open University Students Association – things are carrying on just as I left them.

Chaos, panic, disorder – it’s all still going on.

This evening I’m on the M1 at Tibshelf Services. I’m moving off in a minute to find somewhere to bed down for the night as I need to be in Ilkeston early in the morning.

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Thursday 7th April 2011 – I’m burnt!

Firstly by the sun. We had a magnificent day today, easily the best of the year. And I spent it in unloading Caliburn, stacking stuff wherever I could find some room (and that wasn’t easy – I’m beginning to feel the pinch here now) and then I washed out the inside of Caliburn where things had been leaking.

All the time of doing that, the sun was beating down upon me and I’m now a delicate shade of lobster. And cutting my hair (it had gone a bit wild just recently) didn’t help either as I’m now likely to get a suntan on there. I had to clean and overhaul my hair clippers as they were all clogged up, and now they cut as well as they ever did.

And when I knocked off, the water temperature in the solar shower was 40°C and I had a gorgeous shower. That really was nice.

But the best bit of news comes from the second way that I burnt myself – and that was with the washing-up water. And no, I didn’t leave the kettle on too long.

At 22:00 when I came to do the washing up, the water in the home-made immersion heater was an astonishing, incredible 64°C. It had gone off the scale (over 70°C) during the course of the day and that is down completely to the insulation.

This morning, the water was still 34°C after yesterday’s exertions – I could have had a shower ( and we aren’t talking the OUSA Executive Committee here either) in that. It’s proof positive that good insulation is definitely the way forward.

Electrically-heated washing water is a major milestone for me in my search for autonomy and I am glad that I’ve managed it. But this insulation is giving me another headache – with temperature over 70°C with 2 hours of sunlight left and a few more hours to come later in the summer, I’m going to be perilously near boiling up and I don’t need that at all. I’m going to have to rig up a proper immersion heater with thermostat and all of that – and then what will I do with the surplus electricity? But at least it is the right kind of headache.

And in other news, I now have a car transporter trailer. The company who makes them can’t build mine until July but they are building one for a dealer – exactly the one that I want – and he’ll sell it to me at the factory price if I go and collect it. The factory will keep it until the end of May when I’m in the UK and this is really good news

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Tuesday 5th April 2011 – I’m not going to be awake much longer

I’m absolutely whacked, even though I have done nothing today.

As I worked a decent shift on Sunday I decided that I would have a jour de recuperation, as they call it around here, to make up for my Sunday. And so when I woke up at about 08:30 I simply turned over and went back to sleep.

When I did wake up at 10:00 I had breakfast and started to tidy up in here. But my heart isn’t into tidying up – I don’t know how to do it anyway. And so I did a couple of pieces of really important correspondence but then a major snag – my printer wouldn’t print them. I was there for ages and even changing the ink cartridge didn’t work – in fact it comes up with an “I don’t recognise this cartridge” message. And so after badgering around with that for ages, luckily Clare’s husband Keith came to the rescue and printed them out for me.

So they are now sent off and I’ve done some shopping too. I’ve also changed the number plates on the Minerva and put mine on (Belgian numberplates belong to the owner, not the car) and that, dear reader, is that.

Well, not quite everything. I’ve also bought a trailer today, as I said I would yesterday, and I’ve also been taking steps so that my property empire can go west.

As I said, I have cunning plans. But right now, I’m going to bed.

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