Tag Archives: katrine

Monday 1st February 2010 – You might be excused for thinking …

… that Sunday’s lowest temperature – minus 8.2 degrees – was blasted cold. But that wasn’t a patch on last night’s minus 9.8. It was the coldest night of the winter so far and almost reaching the depths of minus 10.4 – the figure recorded in January last year which was the lowest that I have ever seen.

Even more impressive was the figure recorded in the verandah which was minus 8 degrees. And that is definitely the lowest figure that has happened in there. In fact it was still so cold this morning that the water in my glass froze while I was cleaning my teeth.

It was also bright and clear with a beautiful sunshine – so much so in fact that everything was fully charged by 11:00. That prompted me to run the heater again in the attic but this time the weather was ready for me and it immediately clouded over and started to snow. Serves me right. But at least it warmed up. Mind you it felt warmer in the bright sunshine at minus 5 than it did in the damp and cloudy plus 1.

Round at Claude’s, he’s definitely out of it. So he made enquiries about the cost of hiring a van for 5 days and he’s going to engage Terry and his van for equal terms. Terry and I will move Claude and Francoise – I reckon we can do it in less time than they will.

This idea I had about hotwiring this wattmeter into my system – I’ve abandoned that. Taking the thing apart revealed just how badly it was assembled inside and at the first sign of any serious manipulation (“personipulation please” – ed) the solder for one of the wires on the PCB broke and the wire fell off. I reckon that if I’m going to go down this hardwiring route I’m going to need something much more solid than anything made in China and sold by LIDL.

This afternoon I started to put the insulation down the walls of the cupboard that is the gap behind the stairs. I want to get that finished pretty quickly so I can put some shelves in it.

At the Conversation Group tonight Liz and I spent most of the time chatting about this radio programme we’ll be doing and also about these CREFAD courses such as we went to on Friday evening. There’s one or two that interest us and they are presented simultaneously at Pontaumur and St Gervais.
“Which one are we going to?” asked Liz
“Whichever one Katrine is taking“
“Ohhh yes?” exclaimed Liz. “Chasing after her, are you?“
“Indeed I am” I replied. “And I’m just hoping that I can remember what to do when I catch her“.

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Friday 29th January 2010 – Today was another day …

…when I didn’t do a lot. Sleeping through the alarms and waking up at 10:15 didn’t help for a start!

But then it was bright outside (well, whatever light was passing through the clouds) and nothing registering on the charge meters so first job was to shin up on the roof and clean off the solar panels. I can’t wait to get some trace heating wire up there so I can melt the snow rather than brushing it off.

And while I was up there Claude passed by. He wanted a good chat and he was here for ages so it was gone 12:00 before I could even begin to think about breakfast. But never mind – I started off again by doing some more weeding down the garden where my new vegetable plot will be. I couldn’t keep it up for long though because it was freezing outside – one of those damp biting colds that go right through you no matter what you are wearing.

After lunch I started on tidying out where I’m going to put this cupboard but Claude came back again to borrow the phone and for another chat, so I ended up doing not very much.

This evening I went round to Liz and Terry’s to take Liz to this meeting in St Priest. It was organised by the SMADC and the CREFAD, and there was someone from the BIRC (pronounced “BERK”) there, but no-one from the SPANC or the SMUT. It was to talk about tourist ideas and to discuss them with several practicioners and a few experts but like most of these meetings, everyone is there to promote his or her own venue. And of course, I’m no different than most of them. Networking is a vital part of community interaction.

But I’ll tell you something – if you were to program into a computer a list of all of the physical characteristics of my ideal woman and the girl (Katrine) who organised the meeting were to drop out of the slot at the bottom, I would not be disappointed in the least. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been struck in such a way. I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight now! I’m now wondering when CREFAD’s next meeting is!

On the way home there was a blinding blizzard of a snowstorm and I inched my way back at 25mph (40kph) – that is, until I crossed the Font Nanaud, the pass through the mountains about 5km south of Pionsat. Once I was over there the snow dramatically stopped and there wasn’t a drop to be seen. It was astonishing.

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