Tag Archives: fridge all night

Saturday 7th March 2015 – THE EXPERIMENT …

… of leaving the fridge running through the night worked just fine. The voltage in the batteries dropped to a minimum of 12.47 volts, which is quite acceptable and so it will have another run-out tonight.

As I said yesterday, leaving it running for 24 hours per day is something that I do from about mid-May to mid-October. I’ve never had it running 24 hours so early in the year.

It was nice to have freezing cold orange juice, soya milk and soya yoghurt for breakfast. That was well-worth waiting for. And after breakfast I cracked on with the scripts for Radio Anglais. I’ve ended up doing 5 weeks for our recording session at the end of the month because, believe it or not, my services as a long-term live-in carer for the sick might once more be in demand, if an e-mail that I’ve received recently is anything to go by.

I also found time to tidy up in here and on the ground floor a little, and to empty and clean out the beichstuhl. Such exciting jobs that I have to do these days.

Cecile rang up too. Apparently she’s coming back on Thursday for a couple of days, so on Thursday I’ll be spending the afternoon away from here warming up her house for her.

And the football season has restarted after the winter break. Pionsat’s 2nd XI were playing Charensat and ran out 4-1 winners. And that despite playing with just 10 men. Yann, who has been out injured for about three years and has just made two or three 10-minute cameo appearances during that time, played a full match. Clearly not yet match-fit, still nevertheless it was good to see him play the full 90 minutes.

There was a new player too. Almost as old as I am and … errr … somewhat larger than I am. I was told that he had played for the club years ago but had come out of retirement to have another run-round. And despite his lack of match-fitness, it was quite evident from some of his touches that he had played at a much higher level than the Puy-de-Dome league Division 4. He’ll be an asset to the club when he finds his feet again.

Friday 6th March 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… as much done today as I was hoping for – but then again, isn’t this the story of this blasted wardrobe?

Mind you, I have an excuse for at least part of it. Round about 14:30 I noticed that the temperature in the verandah was 26°C. Not only that, the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the excess solar energy had gone up to more than 70°C but there was no room in the tank to put some cold water to cool it down, so I needed to take some out.

This can only mean one thing. And yes, the shower that I had was gorgeous.

Standing in the verandah pouring water all over me out of a jug might not seem like very much to you, but it’s the first shower of the year here so it’s significant in that respect and, of course, it’s all my own work.

And it’s the earliest shower of the year since I’ve been here (that was 2007 when I came to live here) and it’s a sure sign that the warm weather is here. In the height of summer I can have showers every day, and how I look forward to that.

In fact, today we had 207 amp-hours of surplus solar energy. That gives you some idea of how good the weather has been. What I’ve done therefore is to plug the fridge into the permanent circuit so that it runs through the night. Normally the fridge runs on the overcharge circuit so that it only runs when the batteries are fully charged (except in summer when I run it 24 hours per day) but I need to put a little bit of strain on the batteries. This is the earliest that I’ve had the fridge going through the night.

wardrobe door bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceReturning to our moutons, first job in the bedroom this morning was to trim off all of the doors on the upper row. I’d marked them off yesterday so it didn’t take all that long, but I ended up doing the bottom of one of the doors as well because the rest of it ended up looking so good.

I’ve started on the upper fascia panel too – making it out of the cut-off ends of floorboards mounted vertically, so I had to go a-scavenging around the bedroom for the offcuts. The chop saw is excellent though for the cutting.

However, here’s a design fault or two with the machine. A built-in measure would help enormously, as well as an end-stop which you can set in order to cut constanr lengths. I had to invent something for this.

I’m not very happy with this though. Each piece has to be shaped individually once it’s been cut, and some of these shapes around the exposed beams are quite complicated. For one section, I had to cut three different pieces before I was satisfied.

But that’s half-done now and it might take another half-day to finish. And I’ll be glad when it’s done too. I can then crack on with the rest of the bedroom

I finished off tonight by going down to Pionsat and the Intermarche for the shopping. THis means that I have Saturday free. And I’m pleased that I don’t have to go to Montlucon tomorrow for bits and pieces.

Friday 21st March 2014 – LAST NIGHT WAS THE FIRST NIGHT …

… that I had left the fridge running right through the night.

Consequently today was the first day for fifteen days that we had heavy overcast skies and rain. It’s par for the course, isn’t it?

And normal service resumed with a vengeance too. I can’t remember what it was that I was doing – it was certainly nothing of any importance – but I happened to glance at the clock and it was after 03:00. Sleep issues are back again.

I can’t think why, though. I should have been exhausted after what I was up to during the night.

I’d been away from home for a while and when I returned my partner told me that she had bought a house down in the South-West of France to let as a holiday home. Even though it was late Saturday afternoon we got into the car and drove off to see it. The house next door to it was really two units but they shared a very big kitchen. There was work going on in there and I asked the owner about it – whether he was going to divide up the kitchen and make two bathrooms so that these two units would be self-contained but he didn’t give a coherent answer

My partner asked me what I thought of her house and I told her that she had done exactly the right thing. Investing money in property was never wasted if one took the long-term view.

We went out for a walk around the town in the evening and there was the wreck of an LDV minibus at the side of the road so we had a good look at it. But back at our hotel I had a memory stick and this kept on flashing to say that it was receiving mesages – and an icon of a man was flashing on it. So I plugged the memory stick into the computer and it showed me a couple of Youtube films sent to me unsolicited, one of which was looking down the slope from the town centre of where we wee to the cross on the edge of the town and the other showing the accident that had involved this LDV minibus- It had overtaken someone on the inside by going over the verge and on the grass.

We went outside to check on all of this but it was clear from the light and the position of the shadows that the action in the film had taken place a few hours earlier than the current time.

On the way back to our hotel we were stopped by the passengers of yet another LDV minibus – a couple of adults and a load of children all dressed in a bizarre but uniform way – jackets with red white and blue tassels that kind of thing – and they were looking for a camp of some kind. I had an idea where it might be – an old abandoned hotel where things went on in the grounds – but wasn’t sure so I told them to go to out hotel, because I knew that it was still open – and ask. The hotel was called the Lion d’Or of course. “Round to the left on the Rocade, rejoin the main road and it’s there on the left”. They repeated the directions a few times, with plenty of hand movements, to make sure.

Some way further on we passed a huge hotel on the right. Someone with a Landrover crew cab and dog cage on the back was leaving and they were lowering thos huge dog – a St Bernard – from their hotel window on the 7th floor by means of a rope and harness. They had cats on leads, several other dogs and I remember saying that I was glad I wasn’t going to have that hotel room after them.

This was another one of those occasions where the dream was so absorbing that although I had to get up in the middle of all this to go for a gypsy’s, I got back into bed and stepped right back into the dream more-or-less where I had left off.

After breakfast and the traditional couple of hours on the website I started work. And such exciting jobs that I had around here – I emptied the composting toilet. Lovely, isn’t it?

having cleared a bed for the onions yesterday, I planted out the onion bulbs into the bed. 75 went in – probably about 3 will come out if I’m lucky. And after that, I planted some courgette seeds into pots. For some reason that no-one knows, courgettes grow like stink here and everyone always has far too many. That means of course that I shan’t get a one this year now, having said that.

After lunch, I went off to Cécile’s to let this other estate agent view her house. This one didn’t stay long and didn’t seem to be half as professional as the one from the other day.

Back here I tidied out some (but not much) of the veranda so that I can create a space on the shelving to put my courgette pots, and finished off the day by attacking another raised bed – one that will take the shallots, garlic and leeks. That’s not finished yet – it needs abother hour or two so I’m sorely tempted to have a go at it tomorrow.

Always provided that it soesn’t snow, of course.

Saturday 24th March 2012 – JUST FOR ONCE …

FCPSH FC PIONSAT ST HILAIRE football club de foot lapeyrouse puy de dome france… The 2nd XI of FC Pionsat St Hilaire had a little bit or two of luck in a football match.

On several occasions Loubeyrat’s forwards broke clean through the centre of the Pionsat defence with only François to beat – a rather regular occurrence unfortunately – and twice they hit the woodwork and on a couple of other occasions they either put it wide or over the top.

They did actually score two goals, but so did FC Pionsat St Hilaire, and the match ended 2-2. It’s the first point that they have won in an age, and considering that Loubeyrat are second in the table this is a good result for Pionsat.

This morning though I was working up here – preparing for a radio programme or four. Doing the gardening bit and also the French expressions.

Tomorrow I have to do the main part of the programme – the information.

We’re running out of stuff to present but I collared Max at the football tonight. He’s the part-time secretary at a couple of mairies and he did promise me to let me have copies of the arretes prefectorials – the local by-laws.

But he keeps forgetting.

And so I have to keep on reminding him.

And seeing as it was so nice today not only did I have a solar shower (35.5°C and with a saucepan of hot water from the dump load thrown in to warm it up even more) I did a load of washing.

“Up-to-date” I hear you say, and it’s true that everything that was hanging around, as well as what needed washing from this last week has now been attended to, but of course I found some more stuff lying around that I had overlooked and so the pile hasn’t diminished any.

What was nice about the wash was that the temperature of the water was well over 70°C. What I did was to run part of the clothes through the wash at 70°C and then left them to soak while I went off to do a quick bit of shopping at St Eloy les Mines.

When I came back the water had of course cooled down and so I put the woolly jumpers in from winter and gave them a run round in the machine. That will have sorted them out.

But what with one thing or another there seems to be plenty of surplus energy around. I think that I’m going to have to switch the fridge on for 24 hours every day so that the batteries can run down a little overnight.

If it’s a miserable grey day I can always unplug it in the morning.