Tag Archives: hexham

Tuesday 11th February 2014 – I DIDN’T FIND …

… my tile cutter today, but I found something else instead.

tiling window sill head of stairs les guis virlet puy de dome franceQuite a few years ago I was at a car boot sale at Hexham with Dave Boustead (whatever happened to him?) and amongst the objects that I picked up was an ancient Rawlplug electric tile-cutter, for a couple of quid if I remember correctly.

And this morning, we had bright blue skies and not a cloud in sight and fully-charged batteries by 11:00 and so after I’d put the second coat of varnish on the wood that I’ve been fitting, I wheeled out the tile cutter.

It needed cleaning and a little oiling and so on but to my surprise once I’d loaded it up with water we were off. I did a few test cuts and then set about the tiles.

There are loads of design faults with this machine – I can think of a hundred ways to improve it – but it did the job as I asked it to do and, to be honest, it cut them better than I could have done. So no complaints from me.

By lunchtime, they were all cut and cemented to the window sill. All they need now is to be grouted and I really do wish that I had done the window in here like this now.

This afternoon, I started on the definitive version of the stairs to the attic. When I built them in 2009 I was constrained by time and also by the width (60cms) of the wood that I had at hand. None of this now though. High time I did them properly using real wood and with real rails.

This means, in effect, removing the rails, cutting them down so that they fit behind the plasterboard that I’ll be fitting, and then cutting up floorboarding to 67cms which, apart fom giving me three strips to a length of 2m, fits perfectly upon the new rails.

It’s taking me ages to do this as you might expect, but it looks much better than scrap chipboard and the like, and takes my weight so much better..It’s looking much better already and there’s only one tread fitted so far.

With a brief interruption for rain (i had to fecth in the washing) I was well away when knocking off time came round.

I’m clearly enjoying myself.

And while I’m on the subject, the Xantrex charge controller in the barn, the one that packed up last autumn, has now miraculously sprung into life.

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Saturday 14th April 2012 – I’ve been busy today as well.

I managed to wake up with the alarm today, for a change. And an early breakfast too, for once. After that, I spent a lot of time working on a project that I’m doing for Dave at Hexham. Only problem with this though is that I’m struggling for creative inspiration at the moment. Margaret Thatcher once famously said “anyone can do a good day’s work when they feel like it. The key to success is to be able to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it” and I don’t disagree with those comments at all. I really need to summon up the inspiration from somewhere.

I’ve also started to make a list of things that I need to do before I go away. It’s going to be a flaming long list, that’s for sure. And it will certainly stop me feeling listless.

In St Eloy I bumped into Clare and Keith doing their shopping, even though I wasn’t there long and had a rather minimalist €23 shopping bill. Nothing special was on offer. Never mind.

Tonight, I was at the football watching Pionsat play the Chimps. And I’m not going to be talking about the match on here because I have a feeling that I shall be talking about it elsewhere.

maison ducros maymat rue de la poste pionsat puy de dome franceBut I did go to see the Maison Ducros in Pionsat, the building that I photographed the other day and about which there has been so much controversy just recently.

As you can see, there won’t be any more controversy about it now, is there? It’s a tragedy and it was all so unnecessary.

For an hour or so, I did manage to see some of the classic film Ben-Hur starring the famous Charlton Athletic, he of the cold dead hand. But never mind any of that, guess who was the stunt co-ordinator and second unit director? Yes, none other than our old friend who has featured in these pages on several occasions, the legendary Yakima Canutt. He gets about a bit, doesn’t he?

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Thursday 2nd February 2012 – I HAVE TO BE …

… up at 06:00 in the morning GRRRRRRR!

Yes, having left Caliburn in the Ford garage at Montlucon and having arranged to pick it up today, the snow fell really heavily in the night.

And snowed to such an extent that Liz was snowed in at her home and couldn’t get out to go to work, and so couldn’t take me to Montlucon to rescue Caliburn and Strawberry Moose.

She doesn’t go back into work until Tuesday and that’s a long time to be without transport – not that there’s anywhere you can actually get to right now with all of this.

Anyway so ringing up the garage to tell them about the change in plans I ended up talking to a guy who I know who works there, and it turns out that he actually lives in Virlet.

To cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … he’s offered to take me there in the morning which is wonderful. The downside of this being that he opens up the garage in the morning and so leaves home at 06:30.

Still, beggars can’t be choosers.< So what did I do today then if I didn't go to Montlucon? Not much because when I went down to breakfast at 08:45 (early for once) the temperature in the verandah was -6.3°C and outside, a healthy -8.5°C. Yes, winter is here and you don't feel much like working. Back up here I lit a fire and did some more work on my presentation of the Trans Labrador Highway until the laptop battery went flat, and seeing that it was 13:00 I went to keep warm by cutting up some wood.

And I have piles now, but enough about my personal life.

After lunch, which was exciting as the water in the water jug that I was using to fetch water from the container in the barn was freezing over in just the time it took to walk 10 metres,

Another thing that I did was to into the bedroom and made a good bit of progress on the ceiling.

I had a few phone calls, not the least of which was from Dave in Hexham and that’s always a pleasant surprise.

Cooking tea was exciting. -7.0°C in the verandah and the food was freezzing rather than cooking, and washing up with snow is exciting too. But I’m not going far – in fact I’m off to bed. I need my beauty sleep.

06:00 in the morning. Hah! 

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Monday 6th June 2011 – THIS WAS A HECTIC …

… day, and there have been quite a few of those just recently, haven’t there?

caliburn overight parking seaburn ukI think that I left you at Washington Services the last night, and from there I went on to Whitburn to spend the night by the seaside.

Unfortunately my little hidey-hole there was otherwise occupied so I had to search elsewhere.

There’s a nice cul-de-sac just across the road from the promenade that is a useful place to park up.

whitburn seaburn ukAnd that’s where I should have been last night – somewhere out by that headland over there near Whitburn.

But I’m not complaining at all about where I ended up. It was nice and quiet – much better than I anticipated.

This an area that I know very well from when I used to spend a lot of time up there in a different life, and so I took the opportunity to go for a wander round.

river wear mouth sunderland whitburn seaburn ukIt’s what early mornings are for, isn’t it? Especially when those early mornings are as nice as this one.

A little dull at first but the sun soon came out and I had a lovely walk along the promenade.

And I was swamped with telephone calls too – it seems that word has spread about that I’m over here right now and I seem to be in great demand.

roker pier river wear mouth sunderland whitburn seaburn ukI walked down almost as far as Sunderland – only about a mile or so, it has to be said.

Sunderland is a port at the mouth of the River Wear and the entrance – the Roker Pier – is protected by a beautiful Victorian construction that despite everything that the modern world can chuck at it, still retains most of its contemporary charm.

No ships though. It’s been … ohhh … a whole week since I’ve seen a ship! That’s no good!

bede's cross rokerr wearmouth sunderland whitburn seaburn ukThis statue here is known as Bede’s Cross. It commemorates the life of the aforementioned and was designed by Charles Clement Hodges and erected in 1904.

He was born sometime around 672 just down the road in the town of Wearmouth and died in 732.

He was a monk at the Abbeys of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow and his claim to fame is that he wrote a book An Ecclesiastical History of the English People of which several copies survive today.

This is the book which provides most of the History of England from the departure of the Romans until his death.

katherine ayers natasha asda boldon colliery sunderland ukThis afternoon I drove down to the big ASDA on the old Boldon Colliery site.

Here, Strawberry Moose met up with his sister and her friend Natasha and they had quite a chat about their adventures and what had happened to them since they last met.

While we were there I took the opportunity to return to her her coat and another one or two things that be had brought back with him

Another opportunity that I took was to have a little wander around the shop. Amongst the exciting things that I found were some 75-watt inverters for just £7:99. They had three in the shop.

After I left, there were none. Handy little things, those.

It’s not finished yet – not by a long chalk.

Later in the evening saw me in Hexham, round at at Dave’s. He needed his Detective Agency website bringing up-to-date and so that was another task that had been on my list of things to do.

We had a really good chat about this and that for quite a while.

And despite the lateness of the hour, I still had things to do. I have to be on my way to Edinburgh.

Well, Rosslyn actually. Something about my trip to Canada in 2010 had come up.

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Friday 20th August 2010 – I’ve had a TV …

… on in here this evening.

Even though I keep on telling people that I don’t have one, there actually is one here in the corner. And even though I keep on telling people that I don’t watch it, I did today.

But it’s not an ordinary TV. Dave who follows this blog (are you over there or over here, mate?) will remember it because I was with him at Hexham market when I bought it.

It’s a little portable TV that works off 12-volts and what is so important about it is that it has a built-in VHS player. It cost me all of, would you believe, £15.

Now I have tons of VHS videos stretching back for almost 30 years and for the last heaven-knows how long I’ve been looking for a 12-volt player to watch them on, so this TV thingy was the answer. And when I was in Brussels back in April I brought some of my cassettes back here. Tonight I sat back and watched The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

roofing lean to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceMind you, the reason why I spent the evening doing just that was because once again I’m completely worn out. We have now formally finished the roof and it doesn’t half look impressive as you can see in this photo.

The part from the right of the roof light on the main roof, where the moss has been cleared off, has been stripped, extended and refitted – and the chimney has been re-pointed and sealed at the base.

pent roofing lean to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd then the lean-to, which formerly had a flat roof, now has a pent roof – we raised that up at the back and fitted new tiles. It’s been finished off today with the edging tiles that protect the woodwork from the elements.

All in all we can be well-pleased with all of the work that we have done. I have to say that I think that our stonework is magnificent, especially when you consider that we’ve never done anything like this before!

pent roofing lean to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceThere is some pointing that needs doing on the side wall of the house. Some of the stones are quite loose and it might be that one might fall out and drop on the roof that we have done and we don’t want that to happen. There’s some pointing that needs doing round about where the flashing is too – just above the top row of roofing tiles.

I’m not sure how we are going to do the pointing though – I’m not standing on a ladder that’s canting right over the lean’to onto the side wall of the house, so there!

rebuilding stone wall collapsed lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs usual there was some mix left and so I added wome water and a huge bucket-full of gravel and then tipped it into my wall. You can see how much the wall has grown by just looking at this pic and comparing it with the earlier ones.

There’s still quite a bit to do yet and it’s going to need pointing when the levels have been built back up, but it’s still impressive.

And after a shower (summer is back again) I came up here and watched a video. And why not? It’s the weekend. Shopping tomorrow, relaxing on Sunday and then what may well be the final week at Lieneke’s as we get cracking on the bathroom. That shouldn’t take long and then I will be back working properly on here again.

And about time too. I have tons of work that needs doing.

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