Tag Archives: no heat

Monday 25th February 2019 – HAVING MADE A …

… special effort to turn of all of the alarms this morning, I managed to sleep though all the way to … errr … 06:00.

But I still ended up going back to sleep and a gorgeous leisurely 09:10 before I finally saw the light of day.

Plenty of time to go on a wander during the night. Last night was rather confusing. I remember Cecile being around and I was somewhere on some housing estate that might have been old military property (going back to a discussion that I’d had a few weeks ago). I knew where a girl lived and the neighbours that she described in some disparaging terms. To where I lived, you had to go past – well past too and into the countryside, turn right and then right again, and I found that I wasn’t living too far away from her and that was a surprise. The garage door of my property had been forced in as if someone had driven into it and I was sure that I would be blamed for this, especially as my brand-new office car was parked in the drive, left there by a colleague. But I knew that I hadn’t driven it, I hadn’t had the keys and hadn’t signed for it, but that wouldn’t ever change anything about the apportionment of blame as I knew only too well. But we had to move on for there was work to do, and another colleague came and took my car away, leaving the garage door unprotected which annoyed me but I had things to do, so I wandered down to where Cecile and her friends were standing, and she indicated “over there” where the rest of the huissiers were assembled (I’m starting to see a few parallels here by the way) so I wandered over. They were all lounging around so I asked what was going on. They replied that they were all “just chilling”. So with nothing better to do, I “just chilled”.
A little later I was working away under a car doing something mechanical, and on finishing, I hauled myself out from underneath. The car was a big Jag V12 XJS and a former friend of mine and his friend were touching up the paintwork – and doing a nice job too, gloss white with black pin stripes all done by hand. They’d paid £200 for this car and were expecting to receive about £500 for it. I asked if there was anything that I could be doing, so they told me to help with the paintwork. Car painting is not my forte at all and I’d probably make it look worse than better, but I was told to help. After a minute or so, my ex-friend told me “you don’t do it like this … ” which I knew, but I said that it takes a while to work up a rhythm, so he gave me one of his customary long lectures which ended with “.. and of course you need to work up a rhythm” which was all more-or-less what I had just been saying. Yes, one of these long and pointless lectures. And the point is that people spend more time supervising someone doing a job poorly than they would spend doing the job perfectly themselves.

After breakfast (a big bowl of porridge), I attacked the blog. That’s up-to-date now as far back as Friday. That took a while.

And then I had run out of photos so I downloaded them off the cameras and started working on them to edit them. And now I’ve noticed another problem with the camera. The light sensor is fading out and over-reading. All of the photos from the weekend is under-exposed.

Seven years, I’ve had this camera. And seven years I had the Nikon D5000 before that started to play up too. Looks to me as if seven years is the life expectancy of a Nikon DSLR.

Just for a change, I was overwhelmed by hunger and ended up having a plate of cheese on toast for lunch. And that made me feel better.

And then to war.

The Bank statements that I had received from the Royal Bank of Scotland had shown that my letter of 2nd January 2019 had not been actioned. So I rang them up.

No point in asking a guy at a help-desk why, so we went through half of it and did it on-line. And then for the rest, having clearly told him that I intended to speak further to someone else higher up the chain, and told him what I thought about his employers in no uncertain terms, especially after he had held me on hold for 15 minutes because the “technology wasn’t working” he … errr … passed me on to another colleague to deal with the rest.

She didn’t have a clue either (although she was nice about it) and put me through to a third person who had even less to do with the matter. But she noticed something outstanding from 1990 which is good news to me, so passed me on to yet a fourth colleague to deal with that.

Well over an hour I was on the phone to them, and I’m still not much further on. But then that’s what happens when you are obliged to bank with the Worst Bank In The World.

After that marathon I went out for a walk around the walls testing the light – and there’s about three or four shots’ difference of light as what you might expect.

This is one taken with the exposure set by the exposure-metre gauges in the camera.

And this is one of the same view taken seconds later with the exposure set by eye with all of the other settings remained the same.

I’ll go out tomorrow with another lens and see what that can come up with, just to check.

There were a couple of minutes of fatigue – although not too much to worry about, and I carried on working. But with a stop for tea. lentil and mushroom curry from January last year. First time since Monday I’ve had three meals per day.

And then more football. A delayed match in the Welsh Premier League between Caernarfon and TNS. Caernarfon have gone off the boil this last few weeks and TNS always looked as if they could change up a couple of gears. 0-3 was by no means a false result.

And the mystery as to why TNS only play their star forward in brief cameos just recently looks resolved to me. He looks really ill to me.

So I’m off to bed. Another lie-in tomorrow to gather up my strength and do some work. If I feel as well as this tomorrow evening I’ll go back to the alarm on Wednesday.

And as an aside – I turned off the heating today.

peche à pied beach granville manche normandy france

new house building rue du nord granville manche normandy france

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 – I HAD A GOOD DAY …

… at work today, for a change. Although, as usual, you wouldn’t really notice.

I was up early enough and after breakfast had a good crack on at the laptop. As well as the Radio Anglais programmes, I’ve restarted work on my website again. I’ve done almost nothing on it during the winter but now Spring is here and it’s time to come out of hibernation and get a wiggle on

In the bedroom I spent some of the morning finishing off the second door on the upper part of the wardrobe, cutting out the lets for the hinges and fitting them, and then fitting the door handle and the magnetic catch. Once I’d done all of that, I could hang the door.

And then take the door off, file down part of the edges so that it would fit better and then rehang it.

Off to Caliburn next, to fetch another pack of floorboarding and bring that upstairs. Then I could make up a board out of seven planks, ready to cut down to make doors 3,4,5 and 6.

After lunch, I cut two strips 770mm wide out of the board that I had made. 770mm is the height of the upper doors (give or take a millimetre or two) and these two strips will form the four doors that I mentioned just now.

One of the strips I cut down to make two doors of exactly the right width for doors 3 and 4, and then fitted the reinforcing battens. I had to cut down some wood for the battens, and the table saw that I bought in Commentry a couple of months ago did the job expertly. In fact, I was running the electricity and power tools today (the circular saw, the belt sander and the table saw) until 18:40 today without significantly draining the batteries and I’m well pleased with that.

So now the two doors are ready to be hung tomorrow morning, and then I can crack on with cutting down doors 5 and 6. When they are done, there will be just door 7 to fit, and then the upper fascia panels and then I can varnish the wardrobe.

Tonight, I didn’t light a fire. 17.8°C in the attic it was, which was impressive for this time of year. I cooked tea on the single burner camping stove that I use for making coffee and as well as working perfectly (a good plan making these huge curries and packing them into individual portions – they don’t take much heating) it warmed up the place by 1°C.

On the subject of electricity, I noticed that at one stage we were having 42 amp-hours of surplus electricity. It didn’t last long but it pumped uop the heat in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load.

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Sunday 22nd February 2015 – HOW LONG IS IT…

… since I’ve posted a pic of the Puy de Dome?

Yes, I’ve been down to Liz and Terry’s this afternoon. On Monday we’re recording our radio programmes on Monday so we need to rehearse. Consequently Liz cooked a lovely tea and we ate it after doing whatever we needed to do.

It gave me a chance to see the Puy de Dome anyway, all bathed in snow and looking like a lovely Christmas cake with its coat of icing.

Liz and Terry had other guests too. Simon and Tina, friends of Liz and Terry, were there and as it happens, Simon is a drummer. That’s worth knowing and we shall have to work on that.

You may remember that I moved Caliburn up the hill last night. I didn’t really need to because although we did have snow, it wasn’t enough to worry about. And by the time I’d finished my leisurely morning, almost all of it had gone.

Back here tonight I lit a fire. But it didn’t catch and spluttered out. And seeing that I’m going to bed in a minute I’m not going to persevere so I’m classing this as a no-heat day.

Sunday 11th January 2015 – I HAVE DONE …

… absolutely nothing today. I haven’t even made any food since breakfast.

And breakfast was rather late too. having had a more reasonable night last night, I was awake before dawn broke. But badger that for a game of cowboys. The nice clean me turned over in the nice clean bedding and went back to sleep until 10:20. I deserve it after my efforts of the last week.

I did manage to go outside once too – to bring in a few bits and pieces from Caliburn, but that was about that.

Something worthy of note, though. Another day in january when I’ve had no heating on at all. It’s going a little chilly now but I’m off to bed in a minute. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … stuffing this place full of insulation was the best thing that I ever did. Money spent on insulation is never wasted.

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Saturday 3rd January 2015 – NOW HERE’S ANOTHER THING.

Make a note of today – the 3rd January. And today I have had no heating on at all in my attic.

This means of course that i’ve not had a hot meal today but it’s more important to try to run this place on an energy-efficient basis and with the temperature late at night being 15°C inside my attic then heating would really be superfluous.

What has contributed to this state of affairs is that at about 15:00 I had the gas ring up here going for about 15 minutes boiling a kettle so that I could have a really good wash, and that bumped the temperature up to 16.5°C at one stage. This just goes to show that all of the insulation that I have stuffed into the attic when I fitted it out has not been wasted at all. We have insulation in the ceiling, in the walls and under the floor as you know. Money spent on insulation is never ever wasted.

During the night I was working in an office somewhere and it was so hot in there that I removed my shirt and jumper. When it was time to go home and I put my shirt and jumper back on I nearly boiled away in the heat. I went off back home on the old Honda Melody that is around here – my urban transport mode when I lived in Brussels all those years ago and which is still here. The Melody hadn’t been used for so long that when I went to fill up with petrol the upper part of the filler cap came off in my hand leaving the lower part firmly wedged in and blocking the filler hole.

After breakfast I carried on with my relaxation and after lunch I had a good wash (see the above) and then went to Intermarché …
1) to do the shopping
é) to do the laundry which has been backing up here for I don’t know how long. Yes, it’s a godsend, this launderette here in Pionsat.

Back here, I’ve done nothing at all this evening except to sit in the comparative warmth of my attic. But I’m under no illusions – I’ll probably have to have a fire on here when I wake up tomorrow.

Sunday 23rd February 2014 – PHEW!

No wonder I’m so flaming tired all the time, if last night is anything to go by.

There I was in South-West London, renting a room in a house and to reach the area of London where the house was, there was a zig-zag climb up to a plateau rather like the way in to Marcillat from the Montlucon road only, of course, all built-up and urbanised.

I was talking to a girl who was something to do with a business, down at the business premises at the foot of the climb, talking about the house in which I was living, and she was expressing her astonishment that here in the inner suburbs of London there was a house that had three wind turbines powering all of the electricity (I do actually have three wind turbines here).

The conversation was interrupted as I needed to go to Brussels in Belgium. There, I met Anne-Marie in a café half-way up the Boulevard Léopold II near to the Simonis transport hub. She was wanting to see more of the parts of Brussels that she didn’t know, and the area of Molenbeek and Koekelberg (served by the Simonis hub) is an area that I know quite well.

But Anne-Marie. She joined the EU at about the same time that I did and was part of this little group of us that went around together. I had quite a soft spot for her and we went on a couple of skiing trips together. She would have been a good partner for me, I always reckoned, as she had a knack of bringing my feet back firmly to the floor whenever I went off on one of my regular flights of fancy. But as is usual, though, I would have been far too much hard work for someone “normal” and so nothing ever happened. Another “one that got away”, the lucky girl.

But let’s return to the issue at hand. Despite all of the contemporary stuff that was going on in the Boulevard Leopold II, it was in fact early 1914 and the eve of World War I. Some German notable, von Something zu Somewhat, was there trying to negotiate something with some Belgian politicians and my task, if I chose to accept it, was to find out who he was and what he was doing and who he was negotiating with and why. On the eve of World War I, everyone in Europe was nervous.

So once I had ascertained his name, I contacted MI6 to see if he was “known” to the British authorities. I didn’t receive a reply but it turned out that the principal reason why he was there was that he (only a young guy) had made a young girl pregnant because he needed a child in order to inherit something. But this girl was not ready to have herself “announced” to all the world. Therefore there was some machination about producing the baby, with a spurious mother, and producing the real mother at a later date.

I suggested that he should have produced a spurious baby as well and saved all of this pantomime, but this didn’t go down too well at all.

After all of that running around Northern Europe for 100 years when I should have been sleeping, I didn’t feel too bad about staying in bed until 10:10 this morning. And after breakfast I just mooched around for a while.

There should have been some footy this afternoon – I had a choice of the 1st XI at Lempdes – about a 90-minute drive away – or the 2nd XI at home against the Goatslayers, both kick-offs at 13:00. Of course, I chose the Goatslayers at home, and so of course the match was postponed, as I found out when I arrived at the ground.

But with the glorious summer weather today (180.1 amp-hours of surplus solar energy, 66°C in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load), firstly I aired all of the bedding that I use in Caliburn – it’s been in its suitcase in the barn since early November, and secondly, I had a look at Caliburn’s auxilliary electrical circuits.

The solar panel on Caliburn’s roof rack hasn’t been charging up the second battery for a while and neither has the split-charging relay that works off the main battery. It turns out that the cheap charge controller that I bought years ago in the UK has burnt itself out. Luckily, in one of these solar briefcase kits that I bought years ago and which broke when it fell off the LDV’s roof, there was a charge controller that was now sitting around doing nothing. Consequently, that’s now wired in the circuit and seems to be working.

As for the split charger, after much furkling arouns and bad temper and cursing, I found that there was a poor earth connection. Once that was all cleaned up and greased and sanded, that now works as it should.

But with having almost dismantled the auxilliary electric circuit, I decided to tidy it all up. It really was such a mess. Now it’s all shipshape and Bristol-fashion, bolted to the bulkhead as it should be, and out of the way of where I’m likely to trip over it. But I’m still not all that happy – I can do much better than this and I will do too.

But me? Working on a Sunday? Things are getting to me, aren’t they?

And this evening, no pizza. Not that I can’t make one, but that the temperature up here is 18.4°C, and that’s with no heating on either. If I light the fire I’d be melted out long before the pizza would be cooked.

This winter is thoroughly crazy.

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Tuesday 7th January 2014 – I CAME IN …

… this evening when it was too dark to see what I was doing outside. And a quick glance at the clock showed me that it was 17:58 – almost knocking-off time. The days are certainly lengthening.

And not only that, we had 16.1°C outside this afternoon and I was half-inclined to take my jumper off. This weather certainly is crazy.

I had a bad night last night. I couldn’t get to sleep until long after 02.00 and when the alarm went off at 07:30 I felt like nothing on earth.

I lost count of how many buckets full of stones and rubble I moved from the living room, and it’s taking longer than it should . I’m having to fill them by hand rather than with a shovel because, if you remember, a couple of years ago I dropping my box of tamper-proof fitting dismantling tools all the way down from the attic, and I only ever recovered half of them. The rest are on the floor somewhere all nicely mixed in with the rubble and stones, and I need to recover as many as I can.

In any event, the mound of rubble down the garden is looking quite impressive, and as for the heap of stones, that is even more so. I can’t believe that I thought that I was going to run out of those when I was fixing the lean-to.

I called a halt in there at about 17:15 because without a light (which I may fix tomorrow if I think on) I couldn’t see what I was doing inside. I spent the last part of the day in the garden raking out the loose weeds in a couple of the raised beds. I have to start on the garden some time soon.

No fire up here again this evening. 16.3°C. This weather is totally bizarre.

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Monday 6th January 2014 – GOD IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed. Even though I had had an early night and was wide awake when the alarm went off, it was still a struggle.

And the first thing that I noticed was that in my haste I had forgotten to do the washing up last night, and there is very little that I hate more than waking up to a pile of dirty washing-up.

First job this morning was to empty the composting toilet. Such lovely jobs that I have to do here of course. And after that I had to sort out some wood. I’m running low on kindling but there’s a big bin of it that was thoroughly soaked in a downpour. I had to drain that out and, seeing as it was (for a change) a fine day, I laid it all out to dry.

To get there though I had to attack my pile of old windows – some that I had picked up from the dechetterie for the glass, the fittings and, of course, the wood to burn. So while I was there, I dismantled a few of those.

This then led to the woodshed. I hadn’t quite finished it off as there was a curtain, made from a tarpaulin, to hang across the front. While I was busy adding wood to the woodshed I took 20 minutes to sort that out, and now that’s finished.

Next job was to start moving the stones. And some of them were flaming heavy too – I’ve no idea how I got them into there in the first place. Most of them I could lift out but a few I had to roll.

This afternoon when the big stones were out of the way I started to tidy up some of the rubbish. And there was a pile of that too, but once that was out of the way I could look at the rest of the rubble.

To move that, I needed to clear the space where I had been tipping the rubble before. A year or two’s worth of weeds, nettles and brambles needed cutting down and removing so that took a while, and before I knew it, we were in the dark.

Still, with all of the donkey work having been done, the rest should be straightforward tomorrow.

No fire up here tonight and it’s 16.8°C up here. This weather is astonishing. I even ended up cooking downstairs tonight – far too warm here for a fire.

But guess who put a tin of lentils instead of a tin of kidney beans into his aubergine and kidney bean casserole?

-5

Sunday 15th December 2013 – YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE THIS …

… but outside here right now I have a washing line strung up outside and a pile of washing hanging from it.

Today has been another delightful day for weather and a strong wind has been blowing for most of the day. We were radio rehearsing today at Liz’s and I had to go round to Cécile’s on the way to pick up a box of stuff. And as there was a bag full of dirty washing in Caliburn, I took advantage of Cécile’s washing maching (I hope that you don’t mind, Cécile) and bunged it all in.

On the way back I picked it up and back here, with the temperature at about 8°C and this strong warm wind blowing, I hung it up outside to dry. It will be interesting to see what it’s like tomorrow morning.

With it being Sunday, it’s a day of rest of course, and so I had a lie-in until all of 09:30. After breakfast I did some tidying up in here, watched a film, did some more radio programmes and organised the computer a little better. But it’s in here that the most improvement was made. Little by little, if I can keep it up, I’ll have this place looking ship-shape and Bristol-fashion one day.

Round at Liz’s we had a very lovely meal of vegan lasagne and garlic bread followed by mince pies, and then did the radio programmes. But only for Radio Arverne though as Radio Tartasse hasn’t sent us any info for this month. We’ll have to work that out as we go along.

Liz also very kindly let me use the shower and so now I’m nice and clean, my clothes are nice and clean, and as I washed my bedding today I can put the other set on and I’ll be in clean bedding for tonight. Ahhh the luxury! It’s amazing just how much pleasure there is in the simple things of life.

And there’s no heat on up here tonight. It’s 16°C without any help from anyone.

-6

Friday 7th January 2011 – Ooooh – look at that!

Now, doesn’t this look impressive?

Yes, the wall with its plasterboarding firmly in place.

You can see where I’ve had to fit the plasterboard horizontally – I didn’t trust myself to cut a piece (with 40mm of insulation glued to it) just 3cms wide – discretion was the better part of valour here – and it doesn’t look too bad at all. Just imagine what it will look like with a new window there.

To be honest, I’m quite impressed with how it has all turned out.

But there are a few things that have made a big difference, even if we don’t include some proper studding.

cutting the plasterboard. Simon taught me how to do simple sheets but I’ve been struggling with these sheets with insulation backing. But not any more – my tenon saw went through it all like a knife through butter and did an excellent job
forget hammering nails and other messing around. I bought a bag of 4.2x80mm screws specially designed for plasterboard and while they were expensive they did a perfect job and I wish I had used them in the attic.
when I was in the USA at a Home Depot, I found a pack of 4 screw bits specially designed for plasterboard screws. These bits have a kind-of capped head that stops the screw at the required depth and puts a little countersink in the board so that you can fill over the head. A pack of 4 cost me $4:98 and it is easily the best investment I have ever made from this point of view.

Yes, having the correct tools and equipment has made a world of a difference to all of this.

Neither the plasterboarding on this wall nor the one on the left is finished though, and there’s a good reason for this right now.

The plasterboard is only 2m50 tall and the wall is 2m80 high. It’s in the 30cmsat the top where I have run the trunking for all of the electric cable, and now I need to cut sheets of insulation to fill over and around it. Once that is finished off, I’ll fit some plain plasterboarding over the top, with the section for the front wall being castellated to fit around the beams.

Of course being Friday it’s POETS Day – i.e. Pi… errr … Push Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday and so I finished at 17:30, had a good wash and shave, and prettied myself up all ready for the shops tomorrow. And I have a list of things that I need for the room (starting with the windows of course).

But I’m as impressed with my plasterboard wall as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin.

Ohhhh – and I almost forgot. I told you that everywhere warmed up this last couple of days. Well, I’m having another night – in early January too – with no heating. In my little room the temperature is 13.6°C. Hardly the Cote D’Azur I know, but it’s still warm enough to sit here. In fact I’m not sure whether it’s to do with the temperature outside or whether it’s anything to do with the fact that the insulation on the wall in the bedroom is starting to do its stuff.

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Wednesday 8th December 2010 – AND IN A MOST AMAZING PIECE OF NEWS …

… It’s just after 01:00, I’m about to go to bed, and I haven’t had the heating on all day.

When I came upstairs after knocking off work at 18:00 it was 13.8°C up here. What with me being in the room and the laptop on, it quickly rose to 14.4°C, reached a high of 15.5°C and now is down to 13.7°C.

I could have put the heating on, I suppose, but I was determined to stick a day in December without it because there probably won’t be another one. The weather has broken again – the south-westerly gales that have been keeping us warm these last few days collided with a north-easterly weather front this afternoon, we had a thunderstorm and it’s been a torrential downpour ever since.

It’s snowing in Paris and the temperature has dropped considerably outside and I reckon that winter might be coming back. That’s my forecast anyway.

So as it was so nice today, at least earlier on, I hung out my washing to dry it (and had to take it in at about 15:00) and dug up my potatoes. Not as many today as there were the other day. These beds that I have been digging up are the lowest in the run, they are fairly waterlogged and many of the potatoes have rotted with the damp.

I’m going to have to get some compost from St Eloy to raise up the level of the bed and I’ll also need to mix some sand in. That’ll help the drainage.

I’ve also made a start (well, sort-of) on pulling up the brambles and weeds and ground alder with the idea of letting more light into the bottom of the vegetable patch in the hope that any sun that we might have will dry things out a little.

I stopped the beds where they were because that was where the fruit trees began, but they gave me nothing at all this year and haven’t done for a while so I reckon I’ll pull them up too and put another row of raised beds in. Not that I want particularly to grow more crops – I just think that they can be spaced out a little more.

Tomorrow I’m going to have a go at getting my chicory to blanch. I’ll dig up a couple and crop the leaves, and then bury them in a large flower pot to see if they will push up some shoots. That’s something else I have never done before.

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Saturday 6th November 2010 – IT’S A GOOD JOB …

… that I wasn’t able to blog last night as much of what I would have written would have been unprintable. I was already in a bad mood due to a lack of sleep – some guy and his ladyfriend returned from somewhere at about 03:50, making a lot of noise as they returned, but that noise was nothing what was to follow.

I made a suggestion about what he could do about that but he was clearly far too preoccupied to take any notice of me, and I couldn’t even applaud the finale because that just isn’t something that you can do with just one hand.

So eventually it was dawn and after breakfast I set off to Exporail, the railway museum about 20 miles from Montreal on the site of the old ALCO locomotive works.

17 dollars to get in to see the largest collection of railway locomotives in North America (I only wanted to see them not buy them!) and after spending about 3 hours in building 1 I went over to building 5.

This is where the more interesting locomotives are to be found – the ones that have been salvaged from scrapyards, industrial plants and so on and have yet to be brought up to exhibition standard

But all the doors were locked

“That room is closed for the season”
“What?”
“Well, there’s no heating in it …..”
Heating? This is Canada. what does heating have to do with anything?

So no advance warning, no reduction of the admission price, no nothing. And no interesting locomotives either.

And so they got a piece of my mind. I won’t have any left at this rate if we carry on like this. But no heating. How about sending all of the “workers” to do a spell at a museum in Labrador City? And then they’ll find out what it’s like to be without heating.

And talking of heating, they aren’t kidding about Ottawa being the second-coldest capital city in the world behind Ulan Bator in Mongolia.

Driving up off the Plain of St Lawrence onto the Canadian Shelf the temperature suddenly dropped 5 degrees and from a fairly sunny 5 degrees in Montreal we had a cloudy zero and flurries of snow.

It’s a good job that Exporail isn’t situated there. It would all be closed, and permanently too.

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality