Tag Archives: roofing slates

Wednesday 12th July 2017 – I WAS DRIVEN …

… off my wall at lunchtime today.

Not by grockles (with or without thermos flasks) and not by the heat either, but by the rain.

The weather has been miserable for a while and it brightened up a little at about 11:00 but round about 14:00 it started again and I came home to finish off my butties and fruit in the dry.

victress port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut I went for another quick walk before doing so because the storms of last night seem to have washed up yet another Ship of the Day into our little port.

It’s our old friend Victress come back to see us.

She was here at the end of May as you might remember, and here she is again today, washed in on the storm all the way from Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

circus granville manche normandy franceYou may have noticed all of the gaily coloured flamboyant marquees in the background of the above photo.

Yes, the circus is in town, and I’m not talking about the British Brexit Negotiating Committee either, but the real thing.

They did a couple of laps around the town today with the loud-hailer giving us all of the information. But I shan’t be going. I used to live in a country where there are about 17.4 million of them.

Last night, I took a while to drop off, but when I did I was away until the alarm went off. And I had a struggle to rise, I’ll tell you. Leaving my bed was even worse.

I’d been on my travels too, with a group of quasi-intellectulas who were planning to attack the Old City of Granville – with nautical torpedoes. I’m REALLY sure that that would work, aren’t you?

Lunch has been discussed already, so what else?

Well, apart from fighting off the urge to close my eyes (and how difficult was that?) I’ve been on the blog again. And astonishingly, I’m in late December.

That might make you think that I’ve done piles, but my personal life is no business of yours.

I finished off all of October, even doing the 1st of November too, last night before bed so this morning it was a case of carrying on. But after three and a half weeks of November I headed off to the UK for two weeks (my last ever voyage to the UK as it happens except for a quick aller-retour for Terry’s slates from near Folkestone).

those pages aren’t just conjoined – they are well-and-truly intertwined so like the others that are in a similar condition, I’m leaving them until later.

I’ve already done the next few weeks from when I came back, but not to the current standards so I’m working through them as I go.

The period from January 2013 until June 2013 was a very difficult period, as some of you might remember. What I do about those pages, such as they are (because there aren’t all that many), I haven’t decided yet.

I could have done a lot more too, but one page that wasn’t even as much as a placeholder involved a rewrite that ran well into four figures. And I could have added much more too.

But it took me well over an hour to write it up and there’s only so much that I can do at a sitting like this.

But I did something tonight that I haven’t done in quite a while.

With the windows wide-open I heard a deep hooter coming from the docks and a quick glance out of the window, I could see that it was high tide.

Thinking that this might be Victress on her way out of port, I grabbed the camera and made tracks. It’s pretty tight in and out of the harbour gates and I was intrigued to see how she managed it.

beautiful sunset granville manche normandy franceI was too late unfortunately. Whether or not it was the Victress who had sounded her siren, her berth was empty and by the looks of things she had long-gone too.

But it wasn’t a wasted trip out by any means as we were having this most delightful sunset.

Sunsets around here are certainly superb and here’s another one to add to my collection

If the weather clears up tomorrow, which it may well do judging by the sunset, I might go for a walk into town. If not, I’ll sit around here and mooch all day.

There are still some things that I want for my trip – in just exactly a month’s time.

I ought to get weaving.

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Sunday 23rd June 2013 – I WAS IN CHESTER …

… during the night in the street where I first went to live when I moved there in September 1972, only last night it was where I was working. Parking in this street was usually problematic but last night it was snowing lightly and there was hardly a car about. It had me worried – was it a working day or not?
But anyway I went in to my building which was a modern building of brick, concrete, aluminium and glass, well spread-out but not too tall, and with a couple of friends we went to the restaurant. But with having spent so much time talking, we arrived just in time to see the aluminium shutters lowered down, for it was 10:00, the time that the restaurant closed.
Just after this, there was a fierce banging from the other side of the shutters- it seemed that someone had been locked in behind them. I went off to the reception area where there were three women, one of whom by her behaviour clearly had the air of being in charge, and so I told her about this person behind the shutters. “That’s too bad” she replied. “She’ll just have to wait there until 11:00”
“Can’t you unlock a service door?” I asked with surprise. “There must be a way out of there”
“No – I don’t have access so she’ll just have to wait”. Our conversation after this became rather heated, but she still wouldn’t budge.
At this point the front door opened and a group of kids, dressed up as an American marching band, complete with instruments, came marching in, and behind them came three men, clearly officers of some import and wearing képis and cloaks of the style of the Royal Dutch Army. The senior of these was an enormously tall métisse, probably close to 7 feet tall, so I went up to him and told him the story of this woman locked in the restaurant behind the shutters. He went over to the woman at reception and said a few words to her that I did not hear, but she went bright red and took a set of keys out of the drawer in front of her and went down the corridor, opened a door, and let out the woman who was locked in the restaurant.This woman, for reasons that I did not undertand, was wearing an orange rotating light on her head.

That was another one of these dreams that it seems a pity to leave, but leave I did because Cécile bought me a cup of coffee in bed, which was extremely nice.

Yes, it’s Sunday, which means a day off, or, at least, it’s supposed to. But Cécile has so much to do at her house (well, I’m not convinced, but she is) and only a short time in which to do it, so we ended up repairing cupboards and moving shelves around and so on.

Sunday is also pizza day and Cécile cooked a lovely example for lunch (thanks, Rosemary, for fetching the vegan cheese), but as we were about to restart work, one of Cécile’s friends came round for a chat. Consequently we were late for Liz and Terry’s.

Terry is now a very happy bunny, seeing as he has all of the slates (and a darned sight more as well) to do the roof on his new extension, and I am aslo an extremely happy bunny, having been repaid in Liz’s home-made chocolate cake.

And after running through the radio programmes for tomorrow, back here and that was that. Tomorrow is another day;

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Saturday 8th June 2013 – IT’S NOT EVERY DAY …

steam locomotive romney hythe dymchurch railway dungeness kent uk;.. that you are woken up by a steam locomotive these days.

But it does happen every now and again if you play your cards right. and so here I am down on the beach at Dungeness and, true to form, rattling past Caliburn in his nice little spec underneath the old lighthouse went one of the locomotives of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

“Romney Marsh” I hear you say. That’s right. He played on the wing for Queens Park Rangers and later for Manchester City.

But anyway that was where I spent the night of Friday and Saturday although it was really Saturday morning when I arrived.

And I also told you a little fib about being awoken by a steam locomotive, because about 10 minutes earlier I had been burnt out of the van by the heat and that’s the first time that that has happened this year.

So Dymchurch and Romney Marsh – I was here for a variety of reasons.

dymchurch abandoned railway station kent uk

  1. it’s by the sea
  2. it’s the furthest south-east point of the UK, closest point to the Real World
    3. it’s something like “home from home” because keen readers of this rubbish will know that I’ve stayed here before
  3. I wanted to look for the remains of the old standard-gauge railway that ran down to here (and indeed I found plenty, including the remains of the platform and the base of the station buildings)
  4. Most importantly, though, it was only a short drive from where these famous roofing tiles were awaiting collection.


    5. On the way to the tiles I made a detour to the old Lydd-Ferryfield airport, the home of the service that used to fly you and your car across the Channel in a fleet of weird converted Bombay bombers to Le Touquet and now the home of a flying school and a few private planes.

    supermarine spitfire lydd ferryfield airport kent ukand once again, if your luck is in it’s really in becuse what should arrive at the same time that I did but a Mark XIX Spitfire, ex photo-reconnaissance, making an emergency landing with an overheating engine, according to one of the mechanics who had been called out.

    Having blagged my way out onto the tarmac for a closer look, even I was able to diagnose the fault – clogged radiators.

    Maybe a bird strike or maybe simple lack of basic maintenance, but there you are. No-one these days seems to be able to understand the principles of basic maintenance unless they have a computer handy.

    The pilot was quite garrulous though, and we spent most of the time chatting about the Lancaster bomber that I’m trying to save from disaster, with me trying to enlist his support.

    Afer picking up the tiles I went to do the rounds of the supermarkets and tool shops, being entertained by a Red Arrows just off the coast of Folkestone on the way. Pretty disappointing, because no-one crashed or landed in the sea, and we didn’t have a mid-air collision either. Not much point in having the Red Arrows if you ask me if they can’t entertain the crowds properly.

    In one of the supermarkets though, passing through the checkouts, I was asked if I had a bag. I replied that I did, but that she was outside in the car. And seeing as how it was Saturday night, while waiting on the ferry terminal I guzzled down the take-away curry that I had bought from an Indian in Folkestone.

    “Pushing the boat out” in many senses of the word.

    -6

Monday 30th August 2010 – No photo tonight people.

That’s because I forgot to take one, and probably there wasn’t anything worth photographing anyway. But what a day it was!

This morning started with the website. I’m trying to bring August 2010 right up to date and then that will be all the arrears sorted out and I can move on to doing some new stuff. I’ve not had the opportunity to do anything to it properly for over a year.

So when the battery went flat I went outside to try to sort myself out a wheelbarrow. The Caliburn-coloured one won’t be going anywhere for a bit. It was okay until a huge pile of slates from the house roof landed in it from a great height last year and that blew the tubeless tyre off the beading and try as I might I can’t get it to go back. So into the barn to look for the B&Q wheelbarrow that is in pieces and I eventually tracked all of the pieces down, despite doing a good deal of tidying up … “Aren’t you feeling well?” – ed … and discovering more things I never even knew that I had.

That inner tube is perished and the two tubes that Claude gave me – so are they and so that was that. I’ll have to bite the bullet and get some wheels or tubes the next time the lorry comes round, or see what there is on ebay.

This afternoon I played a round of the French national sport of “here we go round the mulberry bush” trying to get a Social Security number. Seven different numbers I was given, and seven different people I spoke to until I finally found someone who could help me with this. Apparently I need to produce a birth certificate giving not only the details about myself but also the details about my parents.

Now many people reading this blog, especially Turdi de Hatred and everyone else from OUSA, will be wondering how I will be able to find out the details of my father, and they would be surprised at how close they might be to the truth.

But having said all of this I can understand why it is that so many people in France work on the Black Economy. It’s not that they have any lack of goodwill, it’s just that they get totally fed up of this absurd and relentless paper chase and I can’t say I blame them as I was pretty fed up by this time too and ready to renounce my registration and do it all stumeling, as they say in Flanders.

And the best is yet to come. I need to change my driving licence over to a French one so I rang the sous-prefecture. They told me that I can’t do it there but at the prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. They gave me the number but told me not to ring as apparently the guy doesn’t answer his phone in the afternoon. And do you know what? They were dead right too.

It’s not surprising that no-one ever does any business around here.

I mentioned Turdi de Hatred just now, and that reminded me. When I was at the brocante yesterday I came across a video entitled Return Of The Living Dead. You know, I had no idea that anyone had filmed her reading out the Open University Students Association election results.

So after my marathon session on the phone I went into the garden and sorted out the veg for tea – a veggie burger with onions and garlic, and with spuds, carrots, beans, spinach, sage, rosemary and mint from my garden. Beautiful it was too.

But the meal is in the future. While the veg was soaking itself I mixed a bucket of mortar and started on the pointing of the house wall in the lean-to. High time I did that so I can put the lean-to roof on again. But it’s going to take me forever I reckon. It doesn’t go as quick as you like it and you might remember what happens if you take the cheating way out and just crepi it to hide the gaps. There’s a pic of the results of that on this blog from a few weeks ago.

When the bucket was empty and it was 17:40 – not worth mixing another – I went to chop some wood. An after a little while I rediscovered the branch cutter that had seized up and stopped working. Now that I have a workbench and a place to work I stripped it down to look at it and sure enough there was a bolt that was badly worn that was distorting the cutting angle. So I swapped it round with a less-important bolt from another part of the machine, cleaned and greased it, and now that’s that fixed.

My day isn’t finished yet either! Bernard from the footy club rang up. Apparently my name is now on the referees’ list for the forthcoming season and so he gave me the telephone number of the sports outfitters who supply the club, and told me to order what I need in the way of referee’s clobber.

No wonder I’m knackered after all of this!

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