Tag Archives: ryobi plus one

Monday 19th September 2016 – YEEUUUCCCHHH!

That was how I felt when I awoke this morning. One look through the window to the heavy grey sky outside was quite enough for me.

But my night wasn’t as bad as I expected. I was out pretty quickly but soon awoke. But not for all that long. And once I’d gone, I’d gone and that was how I stayed until 05:10. And having been for a walk on the parapet I was out once more until the alarm went off at 06:00

I’d been on my travels too – back to my days in Brussels. I was living with someone, but I can’t remember who the girl was and we were sharing a room with one of my former colleagues from those days as well as someone who used to hang around Pionsat football club. And who should turn up to see us but Anne-Marie, one of the girls with whom I worked and with whom I was quite friendly. This was followed by being back in Crewe and I had bumped into a couple whom I know who live on the Wirral but the husband comes originally from Crewe. They were living down at the end of a very tight cul-de-sac in Crewe that was crowded with cars. We were talking about house repairs and they were having to dig a trench six feet deep at the side of their house to shore up the foundations. I mentioned that I had a digger that they could borrow and although they said that they had already borrowed one, I could see the woman’s eyes light up when I mentioned it. They asked where it was because when they had been around to my house it wasn’t there. It suddenly flashed into my mind that Terry had borrowed it to take to Normandy, but that was not what I was worrying about. What was concerning me was how I was going to pull the trailer and digger through the maze of cars that were parked so tightly in the cul-de-sac.

There was no point in being in too much of a rush to be out of bed, and so I wasn’t. It was another bit of a lie-in. But when I did finally leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit and had breakfast, I just sat on the comfy sofa and that was that.

About 10:00 the weather showed no sign of improvement and so I decided to go for a drive. Moncton and its shops were beckoning me and I may as well go this morning instead of on the way home. Who knows? The weather might be different by the time I come back.

It was an uneventful drive down there. The Salvation Army c&me up with a couple of books, for which I received a 10% pensioners’ discount. I must be looking my age. Value Village came up with a few more (but it’s not Pensioners’ Day there until tomorrow), and Princess Autos supplied a few more toys to take back home with me.

But at Home Depot, Ryobi came up trumps. They have a new design of portable Ryobi Plus One portable air compressor and I can find some use for that back home. That will suit me.

On the way back home, I called at Sobeys for some more shopping. It costs a fortune to do your shopping here.

But I did have some good luck there – they had some vegan burgers (complete with bread) that tasted like chicken. Not that the taste meant anything to me, but it was a change from my usual diet and it just goes to show the range of vegan food now on offer here in Canada.

I was right about the weather too. It had changed, just as I predicted, but changed for the worse. It was now absolutely streaming down. I had my butties right here in my room.

It might have looked better a little later and so after I’d had a bit of a crash-out, I went to the beach and sat under my shelter there, where I ended up chatting to a fellow traveller from the Motel. But I wasn’t out long. The weather opened up again and even under my shelter I started to become even more wet than I usually am.And so back to the hotel I headed.

I tried these new burgers with my beans and chips, and they weren’t too bad at all. I’ve had much worse than this.

So now let’s see what tomorrow brings me. That’s my last day because on Wednesday morning I have to leave. I have a choice of places to go, a choice of directions to take.

I just hope that I have another decent night tonight.

Friday 9th September 2016 – THAT WAS A MUCH BETTER …

… night last night. Even though I had to make a few trips down the corridor I did manage to have something of a decent sleep – right through to when the alarm went off. And I was on my travels last night, although if you are probably eating your lunch right now you don’t want to hear about them.

I had breakfast with Rachel and once I had organised myself, I had a task to perform.

Did I mention that a mouse seems to have found its way into the back of Strider? It hibernated in there over the winter and you can imagine that the mess that it has made is quite considerable. And so I resolved to empty everything out of the back and give it a good clean.

Of course, these days, everything takes me ten times longer to do than it did before, and emptying Strider was no exception.

One of the storage boxes was broken and it was in there that the mouse had lodged, so the box and most of its contents were filed under CS. A pile of other stuff followed it too, and once Strider was empty I gave him a good brush out and all the mess was removed.

I’ve redesigned the bed slightly too so that works better (that aggressive rough-cut saw that I bought last year is an impressive tool) but I can’t finish it off as the batteries for the Ryobi plus One drill are flat (on charge even as we speak).

Once I’d had lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so (can’t stand the pace these days, can I?) and then I went downstairs to start to reassemble everything.

And here’s the finished product, such as I had been able to reach at that particular point. It’s comparatively tidy in there as you can see and we have the Canadian Tire fold-up chair in the background and the little Walmart folding table in the foreground. You’d be surprised at just how comfortable it can be in there.

But the condensation on the aluminium roof is the big issue as you know once the temperature cools down. If I do manage to make it back here another year I’ll have to attend to that issue.

While I was out there organising myself, Darren came back from work. He was stopping off on his way to Woodstock to do one or two things, and so I hitched a ride. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was pretty crowded in the truck, but there was enough room for a new tote box from Walmart – a nice colour-coded purple one to go with the light green one, the black one and the blue one.

Back here after tea I loaded up the new tote box with what was left from the damaged one and added a few bits and pieces that were lying around all over the place, and now the tidying is completed.

We have had a minor inconvenience though. I’d been charging up my Canadian mobile phone with the 12-volt car charger, but when I removed it from the socket I left half of it behind. I need to disconnect the battery and pull out the missing bits with a pair of long-nosed pliers, and hope that it will all reassemble. It’s the “good” lighter socket too.

All of this has worn me out considerably today but at least it’s a job well done. I didn’t feel at all guilty about having an early night. And so checking my mails, I found that I had finally received the proposal form for Strider’s insurance. I need to print it out, fill it in and fax it off (and pay for it of course) and as soon as I can do that, I’ll have the insurance card in the next post.

Strider needs his safety check (the equivalent of an MoT or a controle technique) and then his licence tags, and we will then be ready for the off.

I fancy a week or ten days by the seaside.

Monday 12th October 2015 – IT’S THANKSGIVING.

And with Thanksgiving being a public holiday in Canada, everyone had a lie-in this morning and we ended up later having one of the legendary Taylor Breakfast Brunches, with plenty of toast and hot coffee.

I’ve spent all of the afternoon stripping Strider right out and I’ve disposed of enough rubbish that will surely make Strider go 5 mph faster. I’ve certainly filled both of the 40-gallon incinerator drums.

I’ve found a few things that I’d forgotten about, including the tin opener that I had bought at a charity shop in Moncton. No wonder my bed had an uncomfortable spot in it. And I’ve also pulled out everything that needs to go back with me, such as the Ryobi circular saw, the batteries, the CDs and a couple of books.

There’s a load more room in there now, which should be no surprise. All of the tins are now on the shelf above the bed and all of the loose clothes and papers, as well as the food that’s in packets, has gone into the green tote box that is under the bed. You can actually see the floor now.

Rachel did some washing for me too so that everything is now clean, and when it’s dry I’ll put it all away and that will be the lot.

Saturday 29th August 2015 – I’M NOT DOING VERY WELL …

… trying to find a slide-in camper back for Strider, but I’m doing my best and having some dreadful luck.

Having had one of the best night’s sleeps for quite a long while I was up and about ready and eager to go at all of … errr … 05:30 this morning. It just goes to show you the benefit of an early night and a good bed.

Mind you, I might have been ready to go, but I doubt if anyone else would have been, and so I spent a good couple of hours catching up on stuff on the computer and on the internet and also made a list, in distance order, of places that I need to go to in order to find out about campers.

By 09:00 I was ready for the off and first stop was Oakfield for some fuel and breakfast. Strider’s fuel consumption has improved a little too, which is good news.

Breakfast, including coffee, came to $3:07 but seeing as I had no loose change, I offered $4:00. “I just love your accent!” said the woman on the checkouts, passing me back $1:00. “No need to load up your pockets with change”. It’s the first place that I’ve ever been to where the staff have tipped the customers.

The RV place at Medway told me more about this camper that they have on offer. It’s 1997, been sitting on a park site for God knows how long and they want $3,000 for it. And there are no accessories with it. We arranged an appointment for “after 16:00” to go to see it, but I shudder to think what it must be like.

I drove on down to Bangor as there were three places to visit there. One of them had nothing, and seemed quite uninterested about the situation (so much for US business techniques). The second one, Harveys RVs, still had listed in the inventory the one that I was originally offered, but which had been sold from underneath me. I reminded the salesman that it was still up there on the list, “but it’s sold” said the salesman. “But we have a couple of new ones you can look at”. Now I understand the sales technique. Quite simply, it seems to be to “get people onto the lot at any price”.

The third one, which I visited on spec, had something extremely interesting and we spent an hour or so going over it. And I would have driven away with it too but when we came to measure up, it was 3 inches too wide and about a foot too long. That was definitely a major disappointment to me. Mind you, they did have a brand-new one that would have fitted on a pick-up smaller than mine and which weighed about half of what any other would weigh, but it wasn’t a fold-down top and in any case $20,000 is much more than what I want to pay.

Still, we had a really good chat for ages, helped no doubt that I was the first person in North America to recognise the photos of his Pride And Joy and correctly identify it as a Mercedes 190 Ponton. This kind of thing helps to break the ice at parties.

Home Depot came up trumps yet again. I need a new Ryobi plus one circular saw (which would have cost me $69:00) but they had a starter kit of saw, basic drill, charger and lithium battery at just $79:00. And a pack of two lithium batteries came to just $49:00. Things are definitely looking up in North America from that point of view.

All the way back to Millinocket afterwards to find this camp site and I must have driven around every dirt track and mountain trail in the whole of Upper Maine but with no success as far as this camper went. This was something of a wasted journey and I was quite annoyed about that. The road was exciting though and didn’t ‘arf rattle my teeth, but I can see the benefit of decent all-weather tyres on a 4×4, instead of high-speed road tyres on a town car, when driving on dirt tracks.

So I headed south on Highway 11 back to Bangor, on one of the nicest roads that I have ever driven. A new, refurbished black-top with scenic views, lakes, and lovely bends and you’ve no idea how much Strider loved the trip.

I had the speed limiter set to 55mph all the way down here and it really was an enjoyable drive, but Strider has a tendency to wander a little around the road, I’ve noticed. I’ll have to have a look at the dampers – maybe one or two need changing perhaps which is hardly surprising giving the battering he’s just had.

Brownville in Maine came up trumps, and for several reasons too – not the least of which being this gorgeous steel girder bridge across the river. It could do with a coat of paint of course, as well as all of the power lines that surround it pulled down so that I can have a decent shot of it, but I still think that it’s quite good nevertheless.

And where I had stopped to take the photo was on the corner of “Railroad Street” with an old sign directing me to the “railroad station”. What more can any man desire?

There’s quite an important railway junction here, with three lines merging in a triangular junction. I did notice a building that might have been a railway station but it was festooned with US flags and “Private Property” signs – clearly the home of Republicans, and so I wasn’t going to risk a bullet in the back of my neck by photographing it, such is the paranoia and the fear gripping most Americans these days.

But from the other side of the tracks, braving the “private property” and “no trespassing signs”, I could take a photo of the busy goods yard and tell you that the station is on the other side behind the railway wagons.

Upper Maine is noted for its lumber industry and there is ample evidence of that all over the place, especially here at Pleasant River where there is the biggest pile of timber that I have ever seen. It looks much more impressive in real life than it does on film.

In the foreground is the finished product – wood for the building industry all cut and planed, and shrink-wrapped to keep out the damp and for ease of shipping. All of this of course might explain the busy railway goods yard at Brownville Junction just up the road.

There were lots more things to see too but the light had gone by now and it was going dark. I’ll have to come back here another time.

But I had noticed that I hadn’t seen a single motel all along this road and so I headed for Bangor. And by the time that I arrived at Bangor in the pitch black, I still hadn’t either.

As for a motel, a cheap cat-house wanted $99:00 for a room so we can forget that, and so I headed to Dysart’s truck stop for tea. And much to my astonishment, Dysarts now has vegetarian and vegan options on the menu.

They also had nice, thick artisan-type blankets at $9:99 and if I’m going to end up sleeping some nights in Strider, there’s no time like the present to make a start. It beats $99:00 in a cheap motel.

Thursday 25th June 2015 – I’VE NOT HAD A VERY GOOD DAY TODAY

My little circular saw has packed up today, which is something of a minor disaster. The bearings on the rotor have gone and so the blade won’t turn even though the motor is going round. And the big old one that I have from years ago, that’s not doing anything at all.

All of this is rather unfortunate as I was in the middle of trimming down the door for the shower room. The Ryobi Plus-One circular saw cut some more but then the lithium batteries went flat (no hope of the old ni-cads powering the saw) so in the end I had to fit a guide and then finish cutting it down with a rough-cut handsaw and tidying up with the belt sander.

That was all rather a shame as I was well on my way to finishing the fitting of the door. I could have had it hanging tonight if everything had gone as planned. As it is, it’s going to take a while to finish off now.

I’m disappointed about the saw. It’s a little 650-watt machine that runs perfectly off my solar power system – most of the other ones are far too powerful and consume too much energy. I’ve had this little one for quite a few years and it’s done me proud. I’m not sure where I’ll be able to find another one like it.

This morning I was up yet again before the alarm and managed a good morning on the internet. I’ve restarted the web site again seeing as how I’ve finished (for now) the radio stuff and I want to catch up, seeing as how I’ve done next-to-nothing on it for ages and there’s a lot to do.

Once I’d organised that, I went off and cut the lets for the hinges into the door frame. That took ages and I had to sharpen the chisels a couple of times. This floorboarding that I’m using to make the door frames is pretty tough stuff.

And then we had the saw issues.

I’ll have to see what I can find on Saturday when I head off to Montlucon for the tiles. If there is one about anywhere, it will be in Montlucon.

UPDATE
Having a look on Amazon, there’s a 600-watt circular saw on special offer at €62:95 – and it’s a Bosch. If I’m going to have low-powered lightweight tools for what I’m doing, I’ll probably be better-off with something high-quality like a Bosch rather than a cheap generic model at half-price, and so I’ve placed my order.

It’ll be here on Tuesday. I hope that I will be too.

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 – THOSE OAK WORKTOPS …

… that I bought in Eching the other week and which I doubted were oak due to their astonishingly good price, they are indeed certainly oak, or something very much like it. You just ask my Ryobi circular saw. The poor thing has gone to lie down in a darkened room to recover, and I had to fetch out the 650-wattmains-powered circular saw.

Even that struggled, but eventually it cut the worktop as required and we could all breathe a sigh of relief.

As for trimming off the corners, I didn’t even think about the Ryobi – I just grabbed the 400-watt mains jigsaw and after much binding in the marsh, it managed to do the job.

Yes, I’ve discovered a little bit of motivation today and I’ve been out working. Cutting the worktop for the bathroom and, as an aside, using the off-cut as the top of the beichstuhl to replace the pine plank that’s there. I may as well go for co-ordination while I’m at it.

This is how the bathroom will look when it’s finished, whenever that might be.

I’m not going for an inset sink, following my catastrophe a while back. This type of sink, a mounted sink, will be just as good and will keep the strength and rigidity of the worktop, something that was sadly lacking with the previous one.

I will however need to lower the mounting rails by 15 cms so that the top of the sink is at a consistent height.

In other news, I’ve found (at long last) a decent ripper for downloading streams from popular video and music channels on the internet. It’s offered as an add-on for my web browser and came on line on 15th April.

My plan with this is simple. I have about a thousand LPs from the good old days and it has been my intention to copy them to *.mp3. I’ve even bought a USB turntable for just that purpose. However, it takes far too long to do that and all of the setting up that you need to do and the editing afterwards, it’s a never-ending task.

What I’m planning to do is to download the albums corresponding to those that I already own and have paid for. That way, there won’t be a royalty or copyright issue and that way I can bring myself up to date. I’m currently listening to one album that I’ve downloaded – Neil Young’s Ragged Glory – probably the best rock album that Neil Young has ever made – a real powerhouse album and one that I haven’t played for … ooohhh … it’s 15 years since I last had my real hi-fi set up.

As well as that, I had a lovely solar shower today. And a sign of the times is that it wasn’t a heated shower either. Just the sun – that’s all it took to bring the water up to 37°C and it was glorious. We had that much sun that the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater went off the temperature scale (over 70°C) in mid afternoon and it’s still there even now.

Now I’m all clean and ready for bed. But not before I tell you about my travels last night. I was back playing in groups again (we had this the other night, remember?) and the guy with whom I mostly played and I were trying to get a band together. We were however woefully short of equipment and people kept telling us to ‘go and see so-and-so – he has piles of stuff that he will lend you that he has spare”. And everyone that people mentioned were people with whom we had played all those years ago but we had “moved them on” for various reasons. The irony was that we were the ones struggling and they had all gone on to make it big.

And we had a few young groupies too. They all lived in a big heap under a continental quilt and there was a pile of loose underwear floating around. I kept asking them wbout each piece – to whom it belonged, all that kind of thing. But no-one owned up to anything so I threatened to have them all out of bed and do an identity parade.

I know that I’ve said it before … "and you will say it again" – ed … but I wish that my real life was even half as exciting as what goes on when I am deep in the arms of Morpheus.

-1

Tuesday 27th January 2015 – I’M POSSIBLY BEING A LITTLE OPTIMISTIC …

… about finishing the landing by the weekend. It’s been slow going today.

Mind you, it hasn’t helped in that I had a lot of housekeeping to do here this morning. I ran out of both kindling and logs, and the compost bucket needed emptying too. Doing that latter task, I found that the tie that’s holding up the collapsed apple tree had come apart and so that needed sorting out.

Eventually, I managed to start to attack the landing and Shock! Horror! all of the plasterboard is on the wall now. And not only that, the wiring is all tidied up and the light switches are in place.

I’m not going to post a photo of it though, because it’s a mess. What didn’t help the artistic impression was that I had spent an hour carefully carving a piece of plasterboard to fit perfectly and to take the pattress for the light switches, and then I dropped it from a height right onto the edge of the steps upon which I was standing, and knocked a huge lump out. Never mind, I can fill it but it isn’t pretty.

I had to put loads of battens in place too for the plasterboard, and some of the wood took a while to find. My aim to have it all done by lunchtime was thus totally missed. It was 17:00 by the time I had done all of the plasterboarding.

I’ve fitted the rails for the suspended ceiling – and that wasn’t easy either. And even though it was after 18:00 and knocking-off time, I fitted the symbolic first piece of ceiling. It was 18:35 when I finally made it up here. What helps about working late is having really good music to listen to. I’ve made it round to Hawkwind’s Astounding Sounds; Amazing Music, which features, inter alia, two of the most magnificent rock music tracks ever recorded – “Reefer Madness” and “Steppenwolf”.

As well as that, as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … that Ryobi Plus One percussion screwdriver is immense – it pushes 6×100 screws in like nobody’s business.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the rest of the ceiling and putting the first coat of varnish on. And if I have some sun (which isn’t likely, I have to say) I’ll be cutting the end pieces for the plasterboard runs and seeing if I’ll have the time to fit them.

It does however occur to me that in order to fit the end pieces on the stud wall between the landing and the bedroom I’ll need to have the bedroom door in position and the hinge lets cut out. That’s going to take a while and will be the big reason why I’ll miss my target of this weekend for the landing to be completed.

-1

Friday 23rd January 2015 – WE NOW HAVE …

… some nice and pretty beading around the window and the doorways on the stairs up to the attic. Yes, I’m going all suburban and pretentious, aren’t I? Whatever next?

The Ryobi mastic gun did the business here, along with a tube of contact adhesive. Cut the beading to length (remember to cut the bevels the correct way round – GRRRR!), stick some glue in the angle, press into place and then tack down with a couple of 25mm lost-head nails, and there we are.

And doesn’t it look pretty too? It’s not like me, is it?

In other startling news, we have also turned the corner. at least, as far as the plasterboard goes. I’ve put the first pieces on the stud wall for the stairs that go down to the ground floor.

This is quite symbolic progress. All that’s now needed is one more piece of plasterboard on the reverse side of the stud wall to the bedroom, three end-pieces, some filling and sanding down, and then I can wallpaper the walls on the landing and that will be finished too and I can start on the bedroom. I shan’t know myself.

I know that I said that I would be sanding down the stairs and vacuuming them ready to varnish them this weekend, but several things have conspired together to put an end to that idea.

Firstly, I’m not going out tomorrow. Cécile is having a visitor to her house in the morning tomorrow so I have to go round there early. That means that I won’t have time to varnish it before I go out.

Secondly, Mondays radio recording sessions have been cancelled due to illness at Radio Tartasse, so the third consecutive day that I need for varnishing isn’t going to happen either.

Thirdly, we’ve had a hanging cloud over the mountain all day today and I’ve received precisely nothing in the way of solar energy. There’s plenty of power in the batteries of course, but not enough to run a power sander for a couple of hours and a vacuum cleaner afterwards.

Fourthly, the temperature didn’t rise above freezing all day today and the next few days are likely to be the same. The temperature downstairs is just 4°C and the varnish won’t ever stick in that kind of temperature. It’ll just sit on top of the wood and freeze, and then break off when it’s knocked.

Accordingly, I left the varnishing for another time. Never mind. There’s plenty of other things to be going on with.

I was invited out this evening. It’s the annual dinner for FCPSH – the Football Club Pionsat St Hilaire, and I was invited to go along. I didn’t stay to eat because you can’t expect them to cater for my diet, but I was there chatting for a couple of hours.

And it really was freezing when I returned. I had a hard job to keep my feet on the concrete. And in my room the temperature had fallen to 9.8°C – the coldest for quite a while, but a roaring wood fire soon had that back up to normal again.

I’m glad that I bought this woodstove.

-1

Thursday 15th January 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the painting of the walls in the stairwell today. And I’m glad that I put a second coat of paint on the walls as they certainly needed it – when it was dry, the first coat didn’t look as well as it had looked when I was doing it.

As the colour dried out, it went darker. Consequently I tipped another litre of white paint into the 3 litres of blue paint that was left over and the paint mixer attachment that I fit into the Ryobi Plus One drill mixed it all up quite a treat. I shall be doing a little more of this paint mixing now that I know that it works.

This afternoon I started to strip off the superfluous masking and I must admit that it looks quite nice, especially the contrast between the blue paint and the wooden ceiling and window surrounds. Mind you, the removal of the masking took longer tha I expected.

Once I’d done that, I had to remask around the roof beams that are visible, and I put the first coat of dark brown wood treatment on there. The second coat will go on tomorrow morning first thing.

Finally, I cut down to size the piece of wood that I’ll be using as the end stop of the shower room floor that fits under the door. That is now fitted into place now, ready for me to start tomorrow on fitting the floor on the landing (unless we have plenty of sun in which wase I’ll be sanding down the shower room floor ready for varnishing.

Monday 5th January 2015 – I CRACKED ON …

… with the work today, but not necessarily in the direction in which I was intending to go.

I started off by cutting down some floorboarding planks to the correct size to make the end pieces for the plasterboard runs and the doorway into the cupboard at the back of the stairs and at the end of the wall by the stairs. The latter one involved some quite intricate shaping but it was soon done and doesn’t look to bad.

And I do have to say, if I haven’t already … "yes you have" – ed … that this Ryobi Plus One percussion screw driver is a tremendous piece of kit and I’m thoroughly impressed with this – almost as much as with my galvanised steel dustbin.

Next job was to clean off the stairs and mask off everything ready to start the filling of the plasterboard joins and screw holes, but then I had another idea.

If I sand down the filler (and for the moment, I can’t find the sander) the dust will go everywhere, including into the cupboard at the back of the stairs, so the cupboard will need to be masked off. And that gave me an idea. If I have to mask off the cupboard, why don’t I simply make the door for the cupboard instead? Killing two birds with one stone as it were.

As it happened, I had a pack of the cheap floorboarding left over, and that was exactly what I needed for the job.

I assembled the four lengths, battened them and reinforced the battens, cut the door to size (four cuts with the circular saw – just as well we had another Alpine day today) and then cut the lets for the hinges. The first coat of varnish went on too before knocking-off time and that was that for today.

This evening, the temperature in here reached almost 30°C as I cranked up the fire to cook some tea. I brought up some fresh wood and that burned fine, and then I put in some of that old damp stuff and it seemed to dry out as the fire became hotter. It was all quite impressive.

Tomorrow I’ll be putting the other two coats of varnish on the door and tidying up ready to start on finishing off the stairway.

-1

Monday 22nd December 2014 – NO WONDER …

… that the fire wasn’t working properly last night. Just have a look at this little lot!

Yes, the chimney was totally blocked and the smoke had no possible way of reaching the outside, except via the door and the air vents of the stove.

I consequently dismantled all of the tubing and spent over an hour cleaning everything out. And it certainly needed it too. In places it was solidly blocked.

The upshot of this all is that the small fire that I had this evening was burnt up in half an hour and the temperature had risen from 14.2°C to … errr … 34°C, and all in half an hour too. The food tonight was cooked in seconds instead of the usual couple of hours.

All in all, it was a very worthwhile exercise, cleaning the chimney. And I’m glad that I did too, because during the night we had a severe frost, the first of the year and the temperature had dropped to minus 2°C outside (lucky that I had plenty of residual heat in here). That also meant that we had one of these Alpine winter days today – not a single cloud in the sky all day. The first day like this for ages and the batteries are now fully charged at last.

I spent the rest of the working day on the floor. Not horizontally of course, although I did have my moments. I recut some of the horizontals for the stairs on the lower part of the staircase so that they are flush with the uprights of the stud walls. And I am well-impressed with the Ryobi plus one percussion screwdriver. That drove the big long screws home in no time – much better that with the normal screwdriver.

For lunch, I made some hummus again. This time with olives and tomatoes, and a bit more water and oil so that it was a little more damp than before. And it did taste good too.

After that, I fitted the riser for the lowest stair on the staircase, and then fitted the second layer of flooring behind it. Finally, I fitted the two pieces of plasterboard that go there.

Tomorrow, I’ll fill the screwheads in the plasterboards that I fitted today, sand them off and then fit the treads for the stairs. Once they are done, I can varnish the flooring in there and then I’ll have a couple of shelves for storage.

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Tuesday 16th December 2014 – WHAT A DAY!

It’s deen yet another wet, miserable day today – rained non-stop from morning to night. It’s been 12 days since I’ve had any decent solar energy and aren’t I glad that I changed the batteries over at the end of October and put the new ones in otherwise I would be struggling.

I knew exactly how it was going to be. Even though I had another early night, I woke up to hear the rain pounding down on the roof so I turned over and went back to sleep for another hour.

After breakfast I was back outside – or, rather, in the barn. I’ve sorted out all of the tools that I’ve been using and also done some tidying up there. There’s a dustbin completely full of rubbish that I’ve sorted out. I have, as you might have expected, found a few things that I had mislaid in the past and that’s always useful.

Another thing that I’ve done is to change a few plugs over. You remember that I bought a job lot of North American plugs a while back, only to find that they aren’t handed, which is a nuisance. However, there were several lights of various descriptions that I’ve found and of course the polarity of lights isn’t important. Consequently I changed four of the plugs over and that enabled me to recover four handed plugs and use four of the unhanded plugs instead.

I’ve moved the Ryobi Plus One 12-volt charger into the barn and that’s wired into the circuit, and I found a USB socket on a cigarette lighter plug – one that I had thrown away a while ago. But I managed to make it work this evening and so that’s now wired into the circuit too and the little *.mp3 player is currently being charged up on it.

There is also a row of hooks screwed into one of the roof beams and I’ve been hanging stuff there out of the way where it will still be to hand.

That’s all that I’ve done today. And it”s not surprising. With the miserable day that we had today, anything at all was better than that.

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Monday 15th December 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the control panel in the barn. At least – it’s never ever going to be finished, as I know from bitter experience, but I’m happy with what I’ve done to date. Just one or two things missing – a timer and a charge controller for the wind turbine (although that’s not something that I’m planning on in the near future) and an electricity meter for the mains electricity, but I’ll have to wait until I go to the UK in order to find one of those as they are big, heavy things and cost a fortune to post.

Mind you, even the simplest thinhgs today were complicated. The hook and eye that I bought from Brico depot were the usual Brico Depot rubbish and I had to put the hook into the vice and compress it in order to stop it flying out of the eye. That was the top panel. The bottom panel is held up by a hasp and staple and the front panel is held up by a length of threaded rod through to the rear, and fastened by a wing nut.

Now I need to make the clock work, and to find the instruction book to find out how to configure the new data recorder.

I also made a start on tidying up, and found the Ryobi Plus One flourescent light that I had mislaid, and I’ve finally after much binding in the marsh managed to undo the giant hole cutter from the long spindle – that which jammed up when I was drilling that hole yhrough the wall 18 months ago.

I had a late night last night – about 03:45 and it was difficult to crawl out of bed at 08:00. I went to Marcillat and Radio Tartasse to record another series of rock programmes and then Liz and I did another month of the usual programmes.

And herein lies a problem. We had time to go for a coffee afterwards, but if you remember last time we were there when we heard that the hotel was closing down – well, it’s now closed. And there’s not another cafe open in the town. It seems that that which I had foretold last year, when Pionsat’s mayor announced his grand plans for that town, has truly come to pass and Marcillat is starting to wither on the vine.

This is sad.

Back here, I passed the rest of the morning working on another rock programme – trying to get myself well in advance, and being inerrupted by the postie who brought me the lights that I had ordered for the trailer. And then, after my butty, I went out and attacked the control panel.

Tonight I made myself another giant aubergine and kidney bean casserole thingy, with enough to keep me going for four days. I enjoy doing this as cooking for the next three days is simply a matter of warming things up. Much as I like cooking, I don’t want to spend too much time over it.

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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 – REMEMBER THE OTHER DAY …

… when i said that I reckoned that winter was just around the corner?

Well, I wasn’t wrong. At about midday today it started to snow – the 1st snow of winter 2014/15.

It might not look like much, but it snowed steadily throughout the afternoon and when I knocked off at 18:00 there was a think layer that was doing its best to stick. And had it been light, I would have taken a better photo of it.

I wonder what it’s going to be like tomorrow morning.

I finished off the portable power board this morning. Well, it’s almost finished because it needs a backing on it to keep the cables and the backs of the sockets covered up.

There’s the inverter on there of course, a 600 watt one, together with an electric meter and a timer. Then we have three types of socket – a pair of 12-volt sockets, a single European 230 volt socket, and a pair of UK 230 volt sockets.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I use British plugs and sockets on my 230 volt system because the plugs are fused, and that’s a useful thing to have.

This afternoon, I started on the new power board in the barn down at the southern end.

The bad news is that I dropped my Ryobi Plus One handlamp and broke it. That’s a tragedy because it’s the best light that I’ve ever had and I shall miss it very much.

The good news is that the power board is up and in position. The Xantrex charge controller that works the bank of solar panels is installed, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been. I forgot how rigid the ware was and it took me ages to bend it into position and thread it through the series of holes through which it needs to pass.

Threading the wires through for the wind turbine was easier, and that’s in place together with the meter that reads the voltage and the amount of charge.

There was an hour left and so I settled down to connect up the new batteries to the system.

And here’s a thing.

Which company sells batteries that take a certain size of bolt that is supplied, so you can look at it and know which size of battery cable to order – and then sells you a meter that works off a shunt connected to the negative lead between the battery and the grounding circuit – and which takes a larger bolt?

Of course, you can’t buy battery leads with different-sized terminals on each end, so tomorrow I’m going to have to cut one lead in half and solder larger terminals onto the cut end. And my soldering is rubbish too.

I have to say that I’m not at all impressed with this company

With the snow, I lit the fire again tonight and made a mega-aubergine-and-kidney-bean whatsit. There’s enough in there for four days as usual and tonight’s helping tasted really nice. Somehow, cooking in the oven tastes so much better.

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Friday 25th July 2014 – WELL TODAY DIDN’T GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

With the late finish last night it was something of a later-than-usual start.And this was interrupted by the boulangère with today’s bread. She’s going to be spending the weekend making jam and so seeing as how she seems to know what she is talking about, I took her to show her a tree and some fruit growing thereupon. She considers that it’s small plums and there’s no reason why I can’t make jam with them – but not for a while yet until they are ripe.

Back here I was sidetracked again with some research and so it was quite late by the time I made it outside. First job was to pick up all of the scaffolding that I’d dismantled yesterday and stick it over the fence into my garden.

Once I’d done that, I went up on the scaffolding and attacked the woodwork, putting the second coat of preservative on where I’d done the first coat yesterday.

I also attacked the bolts on the Sankey trailer with the angle grinder but this was where things went wrong and I ended up spending the rest of the day dismantling the angle grinder to find out why it keeps on stopping. It’s not been right for a while.

The brushes were worn and there’s a wire with a bad connection, as I discovered after I dismantled it. And I hadn’t finished it (and not by a long way either) at knocking-off time.

Up here later, I fell asleep watching The Naked Gun. I’ll see it again tomorrow and fall asleep in a different bit.

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EPIC HALL

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