Tag Archives: furniture

Wednesday 18th July 2018 – I’M WHACKED!

And it’s no surprise either. The last three pieces of furniture came up from Caliburn today, they are assembled, partly filled and now in place.

And what was funny was that when I was at IKEA and loading Caliburn with the two large cabinets, I couldn’t manage it and needed some help. But yet this morning I could pick one of them up with one hand and run up the stairs with it.

The big chest of drawers, well that was a different matter. That needed two trips as I expected. And at about 19:00 at the end of the day when I had to bring up the other large cabinet, it was something of a stagger.

Anyway, now they are all assembled and in position. The bedroom now actually looks like a bedroom-cum-office as it’s supposed to do. And not only that, I’ve even started to tidy up Caliburn.

Caliburn needs a good tidying out too because there needs to be room for the European Cardboard Box Mountain which is now totally out of control. All of that needs taking down and loading into Caliburn so that I can take it to the dechetterie when I’m out and about on my travels on Saturday.

And then I need to start to tidy up in here.

The problem with this illness is that I’m like a lithium battery in that I can work and work, and then just suddenly I hit the wall and all of my energy completely disappears and I’m fit for nothing. So there are paperwork, tools and everything around here and I’m too tired to put them away.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I did go to bed and some kind of early-ish night. But I lay awake for hours tossing and turning anf trying to make myself comfortable.

And when I finally did go off to sleep I was awoken at 05:45 by the lorry emptying the bins.

So all in all I didn’t have much sleep.

To treat myself I made a nice fresh load of muesli and had a nice breakfast, and then there were a few things to be done.

Once I’d organised that, I started to attack the furniture. That took a while, especially as I was interrupted on a couple of occasions.

Remember me saying yesterday that I needed to telephone Belgium? Well, they telephoned me. And what I reckoned might have been a really complicated procedure was resolved in three minutes flat, entirely to my satisfaction, for which I’m extremely grateful.

I first dealt with this company back in – I think – 2001 and despite all of the issues that have arisen, they have never yet let me down or disappointed me. So Chapeau to them.

Lunch was very late, and one of the lizards came for a chat which was nice. He seems to be quite tame right now.

But yet again I’ve gone without tea. It must be doing me some good – I’m not forcing myself to eat as I have a few kilos to lose, but I’ll be intrigued to see what my weight will be right now.

ferry ile de chausey marker light port de granville harbour manche normandy franceInstead, I went for my evening walk around the headland.

The tide was quite far out and so we could see the marker light for entry to the harbour. We saw it the other day when the tide was right in, with just the red bands out of the water.

The Ile de Chausey ferries here will give you some idea of how high the red bands are, and this how high the tide is when it comes right in.

port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd even more interestingly, there was some kind of activity going on at the foot of the new harbour gates.

I’m not quite sure exactly what they are doing in those red boats but they seemed to be quite interested in something that was happening there.

And you can also see here too just how high the tide will rise here on the harbour wall.

But I can’t wait for that. I’ve not crashed out yet, much to my surprise but I’m going to have an early night. It’s LIDL tomorrow and then I have to start the tidying up.

My favourite occupation, I don’t think.

trawler ferry ile de chausey granville manche normandy france
trawler ferry ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

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Tuesday 21st April 2015 – AT LAST …

furniture in bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome france… we finally have some furniture in the bedroom.

The chest of drawers is a couple of years old, the chair and cushion is from last year, but everything else, including the fluffy carpet that you can’t see, is from yesterday.

No mattress yet, but that will be up there tomorrow one way or another and that will mean that tomorrow night will be my first night sleeping down there. I have new bedding as you know, and I’ll have a good shower too so that I’m nice and clean for my nice new and clean bedroom.

I spent all morning installing the bed, and that was much longer than it ought to have taken. However, one of the sets of laths was 80cms, not 70cms – misfiled by someone at IKEA I reckon, and as I had no intention of driving back to Clermont Ferrand, out came the chop saw and that dealt with that.

After lunch, I emptied out the two chests of drawers, cleaned them, dismantled them, took them downstairs and reassembled them. So they are in place now. And that took me nicely up to 18:20 when I called it a day.

During my lunch break I did another load of washing seeing as how we had a nice day, and I emptied out the beichstuhl – such delightful jobs that I have to do around here. And I also fitted into the lights under the eaves of the house two of the new LED lightbulbs that I bought yesterday. 1.7 watts each, so that’s an equivalent of about 20 watts of incandescent light, they are much smaller and weigh less than half of the weight of the usual LED light bulbs. So with these, there’s not that much risk of them falling out of the bulb holders.

After having crashed out for an hour this evening, I made another mega kidney-bean and aubergine whatsit, and I remembered to put the olives and peanuts in it too, which is certainly progress. That will do me for the next 3 days too.

But I forgot to tell you yesterday – something that I saw that goes to prove just how far ahead of the times that I am. In IKEA yesterday there were a couple of proud notices – “all the water in the toilets comes from the rainwater that falls on the building” and “all the hot water in the toilets is heated by solar energy”.

Well, regular readers of this rubbish will know that I have been doing this for almost 20 years. As I have said on many previous occasions … "and you’ll say it again and again" – ed … the world is slowly catching me up.

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Monday 17th September 2012 – IT ISNT HALF …

… going dark early these days.

collapsed lean to pointing stone wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceI was still out pointing the wall this evening when the first of the solar night-lights came on.

19:40 that was, and long after my knocking off time of 19:00 when I’m on Summer Hours working.

Mind you, it wasn’t as if I was unaware of the time either – I knew almost exactly how late it was, but I’m falling behind again with this wall and I need to press on.

And I’m not going to be here tomorrow either.

This morning I had to go to help Rosemary unload this van with all of this new furniture.

Quite modern it is, but made of oak and in a period style that perfectly matches the type of house that you find round here. I’m not much of a one for aesthetics as you know, but it really is beautiful stuff.

The guy who delivers it was quite a useful person to know. He runs a business having articles delivered to him which he then brings down to France for the purchaser. We had a lengthy chat and I’ll be having a few more chats with him in the future too.

Then I had to go with Terry to the quarry for a trailer-load sand.

All in all it was 16:20 when I started on the wall, so you see why I’m getting all behind.

I had a couple more stones drop out on me when I was raking out the old cement – that part of wall really was badly damaged. Anyway, a few oversized stones hammered deep into the gap and that should hold it up, I hope.

So why aren’t I going up the wall tomorrow then?

Simply that Terry and I own a mini digger that we hire out and it was out at the weekend. The guy offered us cash, or a huge load of wood instead. Wood being more valuable than the cash, Terry ended up with a huge trailer load.

So tomorrow I have to go to help Terry cut it into 30cm lengths and then I can load up Caliburn with my share. Wood is a vital part of life round here, especially when it’s -20°C here in February.

I’ve still not found my dictaphone and neither have I found the mobile phone, but 1O minutes searching threw up a few other things that I’ve been looking for.

And I almost forgot to mention that I did go to LIDL this morning and they had 3 packets of those lights left. Or, rather, they did. So now I have enough for the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, as well as for over the workbenches in the barn and the lean-to.

But I still need plenty more so I might go a little farther afield this weekend.

In other news, we were having a little chat about this affair in Annecy with this Iraqi family that was massacred. You know, the more I look at this and the more I think about it, the more it looks to me like something that MOSSAD might well have organised.

I smell a very large rat with all of this.

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Tuesday 26th June 2012 – THIS PHOTO …

TIDY GARDEN LES GUIS VIRLET puy de dome france… probably won’t be all that significant to most of you but it certainly will be to Liz and Rosemary because they have seen the front of the house since I came back.

You have seen it too, in a general sort of way, and you would have seen how you couldn’t move out there, the weeds having grown so tall and so thick.

But anyway, there you are. I finished the weeding in front of the house this evening and I can actually see the pathway that I laid out all those years ago.

You can see the table and chair too, on the terrace thingy made of old pallets with an old tarpaulin underneath it. And wasn’t it lovely sitting on there to eat my butty at lunchtime, and even to eat my potato and lentil curry tonight?

All of the weeds, by the way, were pulled up by hand. Huge handfuls of the stuff. That was the hard bit

And can you see the herbs in their pots in front of the verandah? They really are going berserk and if I can have three or four days of dry weather I’ll cut them back and bring them up here to dry like I did last time.

That’s not all I’ve done either. I weeded the path that led down to the greenhouse and I’ve also weeded in front of the barn by the entrance to where the Ebro is stored.

I can now open and close the garage door.

As well as that, I’ve filled a few more bags of rubbish ready to go to the dechetterie at Pionsat tomorrow and while doing that I found the vertical-axis wind turbine that I bought a year ago and promptly forgot all about.

It’s currently stuck on the roof of Caliburn, held on by its magnetic mounting, but I will have to think of a more permanent way to attach it.

But it’s lovely being able to walk around in the garage part of the barn now, and I’ve not finished in there yet either. I’ve not found a roll of wire netting though, and I know that there’s one in there somewhere that I bought on my travels.

This morning I was up and about before the alarm and I spent 4 hours on the computer. I’m cracking on with these web pages but I’m only a couple of days from Québec and that’s something that will slow me down a little.

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Monday 25th June 2012 – ROSEMARY CAME ROUND …

… this afternoon.

She owed me a couple of hours work from the other day and so she turned up at 14:30 armed with a few gardening tools and set to work.

By the time that we stopped for a coffee at 17:00 she had weeded 6 of the raised beds and done a far better job than I could ever do in that time. I was ever so impressed.

In the meantime I planted the aubergines that I had bought on Saturday and the pepper and chili plants that Liz gave me on Saturday night, and weeded a few more of the pathways.

All in all, it’s looking pretty impressive right now in the garden and I’ll tell you what – when there’s two of you working, somehow the work seems to be completed much more quickly than if there is just one person working twice as long, if you know what I mean.

And in some kind of indication of how much I was motivated, after Rosemary left, I weeded the path outside the front of the house, lifted up the two pallets that I was using as a kind-of terrace, put an old tarpaulin down to kill off the weeds, and then put the pallets back and set out the garden furniture.

And it was all of 19:45 when I finished – a long time after knocking-off time but at least I have my outside table and chairs in position for whenever the summer finally arrives – it was another miserable day today.

This morning though, I went off to the Post Office in Pionsat to post the … errr … 9 letters that I had written yesterday. I’m glad that they are all done and dealt with now.

Returning home, I finished off the web pages that I had recently written, to find that the one that I’ve just been doing, instead of being at my grand maximum size of 34kb and hopefully less than that, is all of 57kb.

That’s going to need dividing into two, but I’m not sure where the join would be.

Once I’d done something with that I moved a few more things downstairs and then went outside and started slinging stuff into the back of Caliburn. It was then that Rosemarie arrived.

So all in all, another pile of progress today. If I’m not very careful I might be starting to organise myself, and that would never do. 

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