Tag Archives: pallet patio

Tuesday 25th September 2012 – WELL …

… I did hear the alarm clock go off this morning.

But I also heard the rain teeming down on the roof and on the windows and so I thought “badger that for a game of cowboys” and stuck my head back down under the quilt.

I did eventually rise up out of my stinking pit – and what a beautiful night’s sleep that was – and after breakfast attacked the footy website until 12:30.

By then the rain had subsided and so the first job was to repair the wheelbarrow that had been out of commission since 2008. A new inner tube that I had bought in Cheze the other weeek and, much to my surprise, I could lay my hands on my tyre levers straight away without even having to look for them.

The Ryobi One-plus air compressor that I bought in Detroit in 2010 did the business and with a length of stud-iron I rigged up an impromptu axle and that was that all fixed up.

While I was having lunch the heavens opened and so, for the first time in probably 6 months or something, I worked inside, in the little cupboard that I’m making at the back of the stairs.

I gave the plastering over the joints of the plasterboard a good sanding down and they are ready to paint now.

wood store les guis virlet puy de dome france>But then the rain stopped again and so back outside,

I ripped up the terracing that I had laid out a couple of months ago using a couple of old pallets, and I used those pallets as a base for the extension to the woodshed.

And from then (about 16:00 until all of 19:30) I unloaded Caliburn of all of the wood.

There’s about 4m² of wood altogether in the pile, and I bet that Aunt Ada Doom could find something narsty in that lot.

But the woodshed isn’t half impressive and there’s room for plenty more under there if I put my mind to it.

At least, under normal circumstances, there’s enough wood here keep me warm for a couple of winters. And if this rain keeps up, because it’s pelting down again, I’ll be needing it sooner than I might think. 

Yes, it’s amazing what you can make out of old pallets and a few sheets of corrugated iron

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.

Friday 15th April 2011 – I’m going to bed in a minute.

Yes, I dunno what’s the matter with me just recently – I can’t seem to last the pace any more.

And it isn’t as if I’ve done anything particular either. This morning I spent a couple of hours writing up my notes on Newfoundland, and then spent a while photocopying some documents that I need, and making the odd telephone or two.

Then apart from that I’ve been tidying up. The front of the house has been weeded in some kind of fashion and then I put down some plastic sheeting and put some pallets on top, and there I have my dustbins – all 4 of them. I’ve also cleared a pile of stones from in front of the house too – the big ones to the rockpile and the smaller ones to the paths between the new raised beds, and it’s in place of the stones that I put the pallets and the garden furniture that was up on top on the old potager. I’ve also rearranged the herb beds and the trees that I’ve been keeping in buckets until I can clear the orchard.

This evening I was invited to the annual general meeting of the Virlet Cultural and Historical Society and it seems that I’ve been talked into doing a presentation of my trip to Labrador sometime at the end of the year.

Lieneke is back again too and so I went round for a chat. She’s taken me by surprise as I had put the Sankey trailer across the door of her barn not expecting her to be here until the beginning of May as usual. I’ll have to shift that tomorrow.

And that’s been my day. Hardly tiring, is it? So I don’t know what’s up with me right now.

And in other news, I have gherkins and cucumber rearing their ugly heads in the cloche, and potatoes in the early potato bed.

Things are slowly coming to life here.

I wish that I was.