Tag Archives: damien funeral

Friday 15th July 2011 – AND HERE I AM …

… all nice and safe and sound back in Brussels yet again.

The morning was spent organising Caliburn and making a flask of coffee for the road. Caliburn runs on diesel as you know, but my intake of coffee must rival his fuel consumption.

And after lunch, I headed into Pionsat where I needed to arrange a few things before leaving. And then it was Damien’s funeral.

The first thing that stuck in my mind about it was “never mind standing room only, there were people standing outside”.

Packed to the rafters was the church, such was his popularity. And after the service, which took quite a while, the crowd heaved its way up to the cemetery. I’ve never been to a French funeral before and so it was all a new experience to me, but anyway once the crowd had gathered we all filed past the coffin one after another to pay our final respects. The more religious people made a sign of the cross and sprinkled holy water over the coffin while the laity such as Yours Truly simply made their peace with him. Then everyone left the cemetery except for the family and close friends who stayed behind for the interment.

It was at 17:22 when I left Pionsat and at 02:22, exactly to the minute 9 hours of driving, I was in Brussels. And that includes a fuel stop and stopping for some chips and salad. I averaged 83kph for the whole journey which was quite impressive seeing the roads that I use.

And you can tell that after much time and plenty of trial and tribulation, I have found out how to work the statistics function of the SatNav. And aren’t I in my element now?

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Wednesday 13th July 2011 – I’m having a change of plan …

… for tomorrow – and it’s just as well. I woke up this morning, once more before the alarms went off, but there was no way that I was going to get up. I could hear the rain thrashing down on my roof and it wasn’t a day for working outside. That’s another day lost of course but it can’t be helped. I went back to bed for an hour.

When I finally crawled out of the stinking pit I began to tidy up in here looking for the data head – but even though I even went as far as to move the bed settee, no luck. I wonder where that has gone. Just typical.

After lunch I went to the bank to pay some cash in and then to the funeral parlour to enquire after Damien. His funeral is at 15:00 on Friday and hence the change of plan – I’ll have to miss the Friday in Brussels and go once the funeral is ended. I can’t not go to see Damien off. I’ll just hope that I’ll have time to go to the bank before I pick up Marianne. I can book my flight tickets another time.

Back here I carried on doing a little tidying but at about 17:00 the rain stopped. That was the cue to go outside.

solar panel barn wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe framework on the barn is now finished and I have one of the solar panels in place. It’s not quite fastened up but it’s certainly there. And that took me until 20:30 and I bet you can’t remember when was the last time I’d worked so late. I know I can’t.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to get one of the panels off the roof of the Luton Transit and put it on the end of the barn. That will be two banks of two (one on the barn wall, one on the Transit roof) and while I’m away I can see how well the performances relate.

I’m hoping to have at least half as much again off the ones on the end of the barn.

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