Tag Archives: caliburn radio

Friday 21st July 2017 – WELL, I’M NOT …

… going out for an evening walk tonight, that’s for sure.

Not only do we have a howling gale, we have a lashing rainstorm too. And it’s pretty black over Bill’s mother’s too.

I had another bad night last night, that’s for sure. Only 5 hours and something-worth of sleep, with ony four hours of that in a deep and restful sleep. Yes, I’ve charged up the Fitbit and uploaded the data to the laptop.

I was busy working on another mega-blog page after my walk and somehow ended up being carried away. 01:45 when I went to bed. No wonder that I was tired when the alarm went off, and that I crashed out for a couple of hours this afternoon.

But a shower brought me round somewhet after breakfast and having dealt with “a computer issue”, i went shopping.

And I’ve been spending my money too, yet again. Although nowhere near as bad as last week.

The Centrakor was the beneficiary of my largesse today. They had some multi-USB hubs on sale at €3:99 and I need one of those, seeing as how Brain of Britain has somehow contrived to leave all three of his back in Virlet.

But of course one thing leads to another, and once you make a start you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are.

The Bluetooth oyster that I had as a hands-free device before the bluetooth radio – I took that to Canada for use in Strider, but it’s a different kind of lead than a standard USB lead, and I’ve … errr … misplaced that.

And so I’ve been havong a good look around for another one. And they had one in Centrakor – with a Bluetooth oyster device included. All for €7:99, which is the same price as I have been quoted for a cable. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Not only that, they were having a sale of silicon pie dishes and the like for just €3:99 which is cheap at anybody’s price. And now I have a proper round pie dish, a bread/cake mould and a mould for making six tarts. I’ll be having a go at making mince pies in the winter.

Note to self – ask someone to bring me a couple of jars of mincemeat from the UK.

I stayed in at lunchtime too – the winds were wicked out there and I wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting on my wall at all. And I rather lost direction this afternoon with the fatigue. So it’s not been a very good day.

But I did finish the blog entries about the trip to the UK in June 2011. Now to see what else I’ve missed before I start on the Canada 2011 pages.

And I did have a visitor at lunchtime – and I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow. I’m too tired to go into details tonight.

Footnote
I did go out – just for a quick lap around the block. And in the 5 minutes that I was out, I was soaked to the skin. Except where I had my new McKinley raincoat. That did exactly the job that it was supposed to do – and I wish that I had bought it in a bigger size now.

0

Tuesday 28th December 2010 – BACK TO WORK TODAY

Well, sort of.

And with not too much enthusiasm either, particularly as the morning opened with a rainstorm. Not all that much, but enough to start the thaw and with the snow sliding off the barn roof (metal roofs are wonderful) we were on our way.

I spent the morning chopping a huge pile of wood and there’s enough to keep me going for a week with that. A mixture of wood from the lean-to and wood from the old laths on the barn roof and all of that should burn quite nicely.

I’m also collecting wood that’s been lying around the place, and stacking it in the impromptu pile under the left-over bits of plastic roof from the verandah. And that seems to be working – they are drying out a treat under there.

This afternoon, after a long chat with Liz, I fitted the new radio into Caliburn. That’s a useful piece of kit because it contains not just an SD card slot but also a bluetooth telephone receiver and thats what I really wanted.

Trying to talk to anyone on my bluetooth “oyster” is pretty nigh impossible in Caliburn when I’m on the move. This has a mike that hangs down from the ceiling and plays the received calls through the radio speakers. That’s much more like it.

And so I then started to build the box to put Caliburn’s old radio CD player into – that will be my mobile workshop music player and household CD player too. I didn’t finish it as, no surprise, I ran out of light.

I had another weird dream as well last night. I’ve been having a few of these just recently. It concerned an area of a town that I reckoned was Crewe and how this whole area had been abandoned ready for demolition – the only premises still occupied was the derelict and run-down attic in which I was living and which was a total shambles of dereliction and decay – much worse than how I’m living right at the moment. And I recall having had this dream before. The dream then went on to feature a white Mark IV Cortina, and white must be about the only colour of Mark IV Cortina that I’ve never actually owned. And this one was being transported on my towing dolly.

But it wasn’t half a strange dream.

-3

Saturday 27th November 2010 – THIS MORNING, I WAS UP …

… dressed, in St Eloy, done all my shopping and back home before I’ve usually crawled out of bed on a Saturday.

LIDL was having a special offer today – car radio CD players with SD card fittings, similar to the one I bought ages ago and which I fitted to Caliburn, but also with Bluetooth mobile phone connection.

Using a mobile phone in the van is almost impossible so a Bluetooth connection has to be really good. The oyster that I use isn’t up to it, unfortunately, so I’m keen to see how this works. And in any case I’ve been after a 12-volt CD player for the house for ages and I’ve not seen a good one, so ‘ll simply use the one out of Caliburn and fit it in a box.

So that was the reason I was up and out of bed at 07:50. These radios sell out quickly and I wanted to be there at opening time and luckily there were still a couple left. So what with this and the Ryobi stuff I bought in the States that’s my Christmas presents to myself all sorted out.

But the drive down to St Eloy was … errrr … difficult in -4.4 degrees and a heavy snowfall. we are having an impossible November, aren’t we?

And although the day improved a little and we even had a little sun, it’s still flaming cold and not likely to improve. I spent almost all of the day up here with the fire on, watching a couple of films and sorting some papers. And it seems that I spent much less than I thought in North America – what with the Canadian dollar being at about $1:39 to €1. That’s a nice surprise.

And I had the final bill from Avis Car Rentals about the excess mileage – I have to pay them the sum of $0:00 within the next 14 days.

And laugh as you might, I did know someone in Crewe in the UK who received a bill from the Electricity Board for £0:00 in the 1970s. He ignored it, and then 14 days later he had a reminder. He ignored that too, and a couple of weeks later he received one of the famous “red letters” saying that if he didn’t pay the sum of £0:00 within the next 7 days they would disconnect his supply.

He sent them a cheque for £0:00 and heard no more about it.

Perhaps I ought to do the same.

-2