Tag Archives: oven

Saturday 25th June 2022 – I’M GOING INTO …

Auberge Du Grand Git La Chaux Neuve doubs France Eric Hall photo June 2022… the innkeeping business.

This afternoon while I was driving through the Jura mountains in eastern France I came across a tavern called L’Auberge du Grand Git. With a name like that I just HAVE to buy it, don’t I? It’s quite appropriate.

But anyway, be that as it may, this morning I was up early yet again and had a nice shower.

And I can’t believe how much stuff there was on the dictaphone either. And shame as it is to say it, it didn’t get off to a good start. In the time that it took to find my dictaphone I forgot most of the first adventure but it was to do with writing out notes about something and something to do with a guy but I can’t really recall what was happening about this so I’ll have to forget it and think about it again.

Later on, someone had written out a list of subjects like “can you ride a bike” or “do you know someone who speaks a foreign language” etc and had published it in one of the newspapers that I read. I decided that I’d have a go at this little game and try to work out who was living there and what they were doing and what they’d heard as well. I made a start on it but it was much more difficult than I thought trying to think of different people who had done this and that in the past. It was very complicated.

This was something else about lists that you’d have to write out about things that you’ve done, people that you have seen. It was rather more complicated. I went all the way down to the very last question before I ran out of time and inclination to finish it off. I went back to the Jeep in which i’d been sitting and sleeping etc.

There was one of these great big Winnebago mobile home things that hadn’t been moved for years. We had to go to take a present round to someone, their kid so we decided that we’d get this thing going and go round in that. eventually we managed to make it fire up but it must have bene stuck in gear or something because it lurched backwards and went rhrough a kind-of ad-hoc fence and a few plant pots and things like that

I was back working at Shearings or somewhere. Some man asked this actress or someone who was speaking if she’d thought about plastic surgery. She said that she was all in favour in certain circumstances so he asked why she didn’t go to have something done instead of coming round visiting him and scaring the children looking how she did right now

Finally I was in a hotel wanting to get into the lift to go up to my room. The lift wasn’t working and I can’t go up the stairs so I had to wait in the foyer. It was occasionally going up and they said that they had workmen in to fix it but I didn’t see any workmen. In the end there were more and more people waiting downstairs and this went on. The clerk wasn’t paying very much attention. We were waiting there 3 hours. In the end after waiting 3 hours I went over to the clerk and told him that having waited 3 hours I’d shown that I’d been patient enough and insisted that they take me upstairs in the lift immediately. The receptionist went into the lift and rode it manually up to my floor with a few other people. We could hear some kind of knocking going on from somewhere but we didn’t see any workmen. I asked “where are these workmen who are supposed to be fixing the lift?”. He replied “they are definitely here” but I don’t think that anyone at all believed him.

After we’d had a leisurely breakfast Jacqueline went for a walk into the village as she had things to do.

Jean-Marc and I went to see his mother and on the way we stopped off so that I could buy some flowers for her.

She’s 91 but still quite active and energetic and I enjoy talking to her. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours reliving the time back in 1970 when I stayed with her and her husband, Jean-Marc and his sister for several weeks.

Back at Jean-Marc’s we had lunch of the vegan pie that Jacqueline had made, and then while I made some space in Caliburn, Jacqueline cleaned the oven and we loaded it into the van.

So now I have a proper oven at last. I just need a unit in which to install it but as I mentioned the other day, if things go according to plan I’ll end up just half a mile from the biggest IKEA in Germany.

In temperature of 33°C I hit the road and melted on my way eastwards through the Jura mountains. The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav picked a new route for me today, one that I haven’t used before, past my favourite inn.

le fort de joux la cluse et mijoux doubs France Eric Hall photo June 2022Where I am right now is a little further on down the road in the Cluse de Pontarlier.

It is an ancient route between what is now Switzerland and what is now French and in antiquity was a very important trading route. There are all kinds of traces of ancient watchtowers and the like but in 1227 there is the first mention of a Chateau de Joux.

This gradually involved, following a series of renovations and additions into the Fort de Joux that we see up there today.

In the later years of the 18th Century and up to 1815 it was a prison and many notable people were detained here and since 1996 it’s been a Monument Historique

Just down the road I cross the border into Switzerland near Neufchatel.

le lac de neufchatel switzerland Eric Hall photo June 2022A few miles further on we began to drop down the hill towards the Lac de Neufchatel. It took me a few minutes to get my bearings as I usually come in by Lac Leman, or “Lake Geneva”

There were some kind of roadworks here with a working area where I could pull up, because the view of the lake from here was really spectacular. It gave me a good opportunity to stop and take a few photographs.

After I’d passed Neuchatel I began to look for a hotel and found one in the small village of Dombresson.

And it took some finding too because the road on which it’s situated is quite a long one that passes through several villages all of which share the same postcode.

Although it’s expensive, it’s the cheapest that I could find. I keep forgetting how expensive Switzerland is. And breakfast is included in the price so it’s not quite so bad. I’ll have my money’s worth there.

But right now I’m off to bed. I had a bad night and I’m surprised that I kept going all day without crashing out.

Tomorrow I’ll be carrying on into Germany if all goes well..

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Sunday 16th July 2017 – ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!

The best yet!

Now that I have finally worked out how to do it, I shall be doing it again and again.

Quite simplt, take out the bottom tray, move the cooking shelf down one notch, and there I had the most beautiful pizza yet, done to a turn just a couple of minutes longer than recommended.

I’m well-impressed with that!

I had a good night’s sleep too, and was off on a considerable number of travels too during the night. And I’ll tell you all about them once I download them off the dictaphone, because I forgot to do that this morning.

D’ohhhh!

So watch this space.

But 07:30 when my feet touched the floor. Best lie-in for a while that was. And a slow and steady start to the day.

But not for long. I had to dash outside for my baguette quite early today.

brocante granville manche normandy franceIt was brocante day today in the old town and I expected it to be heaving.

And I wasn’t wrong either. Crowds in the magasin de presse as well, to such an extent that there was a young boy serving there too.
“Are you the proprietor’s son?” I asked
“Yes I am” he replied
“Tough luck!” I said.

The place was heaving, as I said, and there were dozens, if not hundreds, of stalls there. And the one thing that they had was that their stuff was shockingly overpriced.

Some people had totally taken leave of their senses. A portable radio-CD player that would have done a little job in here – they wanted €30:00.
They can forget that!

l'ile aux fous brocante granville manche normandy franceBut if ever you wanted proof that the Brexit had been long-anticipated by the French, this book will prove it.

It’s all about an island nation that abandons its free ride in its biggest market for exported goods in order to save £350 million per week, and then finds that it has to pay four times as much in customs duties because it hadn’t thought about that.

It’s called l’Ile aux Fous – the Island of the Insane.

Up on my wall at lunchtime it was cloudy, and although I was alone there, the lawn was littered with piles of cars that had been abandoned – I refuse to say “parked” – there.

Apart from that, I’ve been on the blog again and I’ve reached early August 2013. Still 70 unclassified pages to go, but about 70 pages somewhere (and I’m not sure where) that need amending. And then I can start on the conjoined ones.

And I’ve had another plan too.

I’m going to rework the Canada pages so that the travelog is included in here and the web pages shall be for the merged voyages.

What I mean by that is that if you take, for example, my drive up the North Shore of the St Lawrence, that’s a merged page of about six (shortly to become seven) trips.

Keep those as a travel guide and keep the non-travel info on the blog.

But that’s a long way off yet.

And I’ve spent a lot of money today Much more than I’ve spent just recently too. But it’s an expense that needed to be made.

I’ll tell you all about it in a week or so’s time..

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Sunday 2nd July 2017 – I MIGHT HAVE SOLVED …

… one of the issues with this oven.

And it’s so simple that I could kick myself.

You may remember now that for the last two weeks I’ve been cooking other things in the oven – a pie two weeks ago and a rice pudding last week. But the tray at the bottom hasn’t been strong enough to support the casserole dish that I’ve been using and we’ve nearly had a couple of accidents.

So if it’s not there to use as another baking shelf, then what’s it for? If in doubt, take it out!

And so I did – and in 20 minutes (instead of the usual half an hour) my pizza wasn’t just cooked but overcooked.

So you learn something new every day. The trouble that I have though is that each time that I learn something new, it pushes something old out.

So how was my night last night? I’m sure that you want to know because, for the first time that I’ve been here, I have a curtain in the bedroom and it was nice and dark.

I was asleep early enough and with no alarm I was hoping for a decent lie in too. But after a while tossing and turning in the new dark, I hauled myself out of bed to find that it was a mere 06:50. Even earlier than the alarm.

Mind you, I’d been on my travels though. I was out shopping – shopping for shoes as it happens (and this is something that I need to do before I go to Canada) and ended up at a cheap market type of place (not where I’m likely to find what I want). However I did find a pair of shoes that I liked and as I went to pay for them I noticed something else that I liked too (and I can’t remember now what it was) so I picked that up too. On my way to the cash desk I noticed a third thing – and I immediatle recognised this as the power pack for my laptop (which it isn’t, but never mind) and which was just €4:99. So I asked the girl about it to make sure and she confirmed it so I added that to the pile too. She made some kind of remark – something like “you’re certainly finding some good stuff here!” and I thought that I was too, a power pack at just €4:99.

After breakfast and a little repose for half an hour I cracked on with the blog. I’ve had a really good day and reached early June 2012 (I’ve left off May though because this needs a good clear out seeing as it’s the period when I was in Canada.

Just another 202 entrie to do now and it will be up-to-date – a far cry from the well-over 350 that there were when I restarted this. When i’s done I can continue with the updating of the earlier stuff – which is likewise proceeding apace.

I had the baguette for lunch but ate in here because it was grey and miserable outside.

This afternoon I had a … errr … little repose – the strain of being awake so early is telling on me, and then I did the last of the washing. Now it’s all up-to-date for the next fortnight and that’s fine by me. I pushed on with a little more of the blog too.

So with the pizza out of the way, it’s another early night in the dark again tonight. Tomorrow I have a lot to do. Like booking some more stuff for my trip to Canada and deaing with an item of correspondence that has reared its ugly head.

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Sunday 28th May 2017 – IT’S GOING TO BE A LONG …

… hard winter with this new oven.

As the cynic in me expected, the timing and the temperature is all wrong. You can basically add 50% on to the cooking time and 30° onto the cooking temperature and eventually you’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of where you want to be. I’ve had better-cooked pizzas than this, but at least it was my own so I can’t complain.

It was 02:00 when I went to bed last night what with one thing and another, and my delightfully long lie-in took me up until all of 08:05. After breakfast I headed off in search of a baguette but I didn’t get very far, and for two reasons too.

  1. the newsagents was open and he had some bread in today
  2. for some reason that I don’t understand, all the joints in my legs are aching as if I’ve been on a marathon hike and that’s certainly not the case

It’s Sunday today and that’s a Day of Rest. And that’s precisely what I have done today. I’ve not even been outside apart from the baguette because the weather has changed and we’ve had a rainstorm.

That’s not quite true – because I’ve taken the box that the oven came in down to Caliburn along with another pile of paper and cardboard rubbish. Next time that I’m passing the dechetterie I’ll heave it out. And I came back in with a couple of pairs of pliers to … errr … adjust the pizza tray so that it would fit in the oven. But that exhausted me so much that I crashed out for an hour or so.

Monday is when I’m intending to start work. There’s quite a bit of stuff that I’ve let lapse and it’s high time that I exerted myself.

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Saturday 27th May 2017 – IT’S THE FIRST …

… day of the holiday season today. And I have learnt a couple of things

  1. it’s a waste of time going to the shops on a Saturday morning. There’s the market which louses up the centre of the town so you have to sneak through the byways, and there you are stuck behind Grockles driving around slowly and aimlessly looking for a parking space.
  2. On the way back into town, it’s nose-to-tail all the way – a slow crawl. And even if you take the route through the back streets and the housing estates you still end up in a bottleneck and have the delectable spectacles of Grockles fighting over car-parking spaces.
  3. Prices of articles in the local shops near the beaches have suddenly gone up

And so with all of the traffic I spent longer in the traffic queues coming home than I did going around the LeClerc.

But at least I did remember the oven chips, the bread-making stuff and the pizza stuff. However I have had a disappointment. The 30cm pizza plate to fit into the 30.5cm oven is in fact 31.3 cms as it has a rather wide lip. Consequently the door won’t close. However, by the time tomorrow that I will have finished attacking it with a couple of pairs of pliers, it’ll fit just fine. NO doubt about it.

This morning I was awake quite early and we had an early breakfast too. And then I hit the streets and the traffic.

At lunchtime I was out on my wall overlooking the harbour in the nice weather. It was a little cooler today – just a mere 24.5°C so I stayed out there for quite a while with my book. It was really quite pleasant, even though there’s no ship there (the Victress is in the Channel off the town of Littlehampton).

Apart from that, I’ve not done an awful lot. After all, it’s a weekend and there’s no footy. I’ve had my tea and I might even have an early night if I’m not careful.

But I won’t be going shopping on a weekend again, that’s for sure.

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Friday 26th May 2017 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we featured a proper “Ship of the Day” on these pages?

When I was in Montreal or somewhere down the St Lawrence we could take our pick of dozens each day, but it’s usually pretty thin pickings whenever we are elsewhere.

victress port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut not today though, because today our ship really has come in.

It’s another really high tide this week and it’s brought in the Victress, who has sailed in from Southampton to pick up a load of gravel. Built in 1992, she flies the flag of Barbados and displaces about 1500 tonnes.

Not the biggest ship we’ve seen, but the biggest that we’ve seen in recent times and the biggest that we are likely to see here in Granville. She’s not there now, though – the ground’s all flat. And she’s somewhere out in the Channel so it seems. And I’ve not been able to find out where she’s heading.

She was formerly known as Uranus but this was changed due to ribald remarks from captains of other ships – something along the line of “with my binoculars I can see Uranus from here”

After breakfast this morning I had a quick shower and shave and change of clothes and hit the streets in search of the bus stop. Of course I have a choice of two, and of course it was “the other one” but just €1:00 and pretty painlessly (and I’ll do this again) I was decanted at the top of town to rescue Caliburn. He’s had his service, and the strange noise seems to have gone, and he’s had his controle technique. That gives me two years motoring without any major worries, which is always a bonus.

And on the way back, I picked up my oven. That’s now installed and working – and I had to change round my kitchen a little to fit it on the shelves and things don’t fit as well as they did before, which is a shame. But tomorrow I’ll be tracking down a pizza tray, some bread-making stuff and some oven chips. THis is going to start to become interesting.

For lunch I headed off to my usual spot – the clifftop overlooking the port – and this was where I made the acquaintance of Victress. But not for too long because once more I was burnt out of my position and head to retreat to here where I promptly crashed out for an hour.

granville manche normandy franceAnd while we’re on the subject of photographs … "well, one of you is" – ed … it occurs to me that you have yet to see the view out of my living room windows.

It’s not very inspiring unfortunately (although I’ve seen much worse) but if I look over to the right-hand side I can in fact see the sea.

It’s not exactly the sea view that I was hoping to have, and I don’t have a terrace which would have been perfect, but here in Granville I can’t do much better than this. Especially as if I just step outside the front door of the building the view is stupendous as you know

Later on, I went out to Roncey. Liz’s grandchildren (whom you have seen many times on these pages) are coming to stay tomorrow and it’s important that Strawberry Moose is there to greet them. So now he’s playing hide-and-seek down the bed.

Back here, I had another dollop of the kidney bean stuff that I made yesterday and it was just as delicious too.

So tomorrow it’s a mega-shop again. So just you watch me forget something important.

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Thursday 25th May 2017 – PHEW!

Or, rather … phwoarrr, what a scorcher!

There I was, outside sitting on the wall overlooking the harbour eating my butties and I was driven in … by the heat! I’d planned to spend most of the afternoon out there too and I’d taken a good book with me – but it was clearly impossible and after a while I fled to the comfort and safety of my apartment. 1-metre thick stone walls don’t let in much heat, so hear I am hoping that they don’t let in much cold in the winter either.

According to the thermometer that I have here, it only reached 26.5°C outside, but it felt 10°C higher than that. And it reached 24°C in here too, and that’s with all of the windows open too.

I had another dismal night last night and I’ve no idea why that should be. But yet again I was awake long before the alarm went off.

After a relax, I headed off to track down a baguette and didn’t have to go farther than the depot de pain at the newsagents. He was in quite a garrulous mood as usual and we had a lengthy chat, and I managed to avoid bumping into any neighbours on the way.

It’s a Bank Holiday and so in accordance with usual procedures I had a day off work. Well, not quite, as I did a little (only a little) tidying up here and there with bits and pieces. And as you know, I took my butties outside for lunch.

My intention was to go back out later in the afternoon and take advantage of the good weather, but just as I was gathering up my book, Rosemary rang me. It’s always nice to talk to friends of course, and we had a really good chat for about an hour and a half, by which time it was tea-time.

Tea was kidney beans and peanuts and olives in a tomato, vegetable and onion sauce (courtesy of Yours Truly) with plenty of garlic. And there’s enough left over for another three days. But there will be an interruption on Sunday when I shall be experimenting with the new oven (if I remember to pick it up tomorrow). And that reminds me – an oven means “oven chips” of course, and so that means at some time I’ll have to buy some more vegan sausages.

Mustn’t forget.

And speaking of the phone, I’ve had the phone – the land line, that is – just two weeks now, and already I’ve received the mammoth total of three phone calls. One was a wrong number and the other two were these “you have won a major prize – please telephone (some massive overpriced premium line) for further details”.

It’s nice to know that I’m wanted. Although I shudder to think what for.

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Tuesday 23rd May 2017 – AS I PREDICTED …

… last night, I am completely and thoroughly exhausted. To such an extent that I had one of these very deep and total crash-outs this afternoon for about an hour or so where a bomb could have gone off in here and it wouldn’t have awakened me.

It was a late night last night after all, and something of a struggle to rise up and leave my stinking pit. But nevertheless, there I was eventually, having breakfast.

After the usual relax, Caliburn and I hit the streets and headed off for the garage. It’s right out on the edge of town, near the by-pass about 1km further on from LeClerc and round the back of the industrial estate. And that’s where Caliburn might be found right now (hopefully) – having his annual health check ready for the controle technique on Friday.

I’ve no idea how far away it might be from here, but as you know from yesterday I resolved to walk back if I could. And so I set out.

And that was something of a mistake because I ended up going past the BUT – a household furnishing shop something like a small downmarket IKEA. They have a good electrical section however and that’s where I went for a mooch around. And there they had one of these table-top ovens – one that works on a 13-amp plug. It’s quite big, and has all of the controls such as a thermostat, timer, and (more importantly) a diffusion fan for spreading the heat around. It’s an ex-display model and reduced for a quick sale to just … errr … €59.

Of course, I couldn’t resist it at that price, especially as it means that I can get back to baking and making pizzas properly, and so there we are. I don’t have it yet because I was on foot. But it’s all paid for now and I can pick it up when I go to recover Caliburn.

You’re probably wondering why I’m buying all of this really cheap electrical rubbish instead of some decent stuff. There are in fact a couple of good reasons for this

  1. Most importantly, I need a lot of stuff (more than I anticipated in fact) so the idea is to buy it as quickly as possible. If it doesn’t last long and breaks down, it’s no big deal and I can replace it with decent stuff. But bit by bit of course, which will spread the expense out better. It won’t all break down at once (remember that I said that).
  2. You’re probably thinking that this cheap stuff won’t last all that long. But the truth is, neither will I. You know my medical prognosis, so there’s no point in me buying expensive stuff that will last 20 years, because the probability is that I won’t

So having spent yet more money, I set off slowly home. And despite my comments yesterday about there being plenty of cafés along the route, I only stopped twice – once to check the train times and the railway station and the second time to buy a baguette. And it was a very weary me that finally crawled up the stairs to crash down on the sofa.

It took me just under 2 hours to make it back (including my time in the BUT) and I knew that I had done it too. IT was a good half-hour before I could summon up the effort to make a coffee.

At lunchtime I went out with my butties to sit on the wall overlooking the harbour in the beautiful sunshine. I had a book and the idea was that I would sit out there for a couple of hours. But it wasn’t to be because I could feel myself dropping off (to sleep, not the wall, although that would naturally have followed). And so I came back here to crash out.

Tonight’s tea was excellent. Not baked of course, but microwaved spuds, microwaved peas and carrots (out of a tin) and a microwaved vegan millet-and-bulghour burger smothered in vegan margarine. That was fit for a King.

Now it’s an early night and I’mm go and watch an episode or two of the Saint in memory of Roger Moore who died today.

And tomorrow? It’s going to be a difficult day. I’ll seize up overnight and that’ll set me back for a couple of days. But at least I now have an over, which is a big sign of progress.

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Sunday 30th June 2013 – IT IS SUNDAY …

… today and for the first time since I can’t remember when, I had a day off today and did … absolutely nothing.

That’s not quite true.

Putting some stuff into the fridge on Saturday night the table on which it sits had a kind of collapse and so the fridge was tilting forwards.

And so was the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load to absorb the surplus charge off my solar panels. As that was fairly empty, I dismantled it and removed the fridge.

With them out of the way I could reinforce the table and then put everything back.

And the pizza was a washout tonight. I couldn’t find the usual pizza base yesterday and so had to use pâte feuilleté instead.

And a terrible discovery that I made was that the new pizza tray that I bought is too big for my little caravan oven downstairs. Hence the pizza being cooked around the edges where I kept turning it around, but the middle was totally uncooked.

That was a catastrophe and no mistake.

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Monday 24th January 2011 – It’s a shame about the forest.

And I should know. I served on 5 Open University Students Association committees (OUSA Belgium, NERF, the SRG, the Region 9 Regional Committee and the OUSA EC) for about 3 years and I have just thrown all my papers away. And it took three huge Royal Mail sacks to take it all down to the skip here. Heaven knows how many trees that represents but if you calculate the number of people who actually serve on these committees it must be at least something the equivalent of the New Forest.

Yes, the European Paper Mountain indeed.

But at least I can get into my office now which is just as well, for that’s where I’ve been sleeping and so I’ll have room to spread out tonight.

We also have an electric oven and grill. Terry helped me fight my way into the garage that I rent downstairs and we pulled out the fitted oven that I bought a few years ago in a sale. A slightly shopsoiled display unit it was and so reduced from £769 to £307 and so in keeping with my idea of going for quality at a reduced price rather than full-price rubbish, I bought it and stored it in the garage until I was ready for it.

It seems too that the rewiring that I did in the kitchen was rather … errr ….unorthodox and with Terry being a fully-qualified time-served electrician he put that right in no time at all – well, geologically speaking that is.

The cleaning and throwing away of stuff is also continuing and at this rate we’ll have a place to sit down by the weekend.

I’m hoping that we can have the place finished off in a couple of weeks so that I can sell it and have another weight off my shoulders but in a certain respect I shall be sorry to leave here permanently even though it’s been almost four years since I paid it any more than a flying visit.

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