Tag Archives: weeding

Friday 15th April 2022 – WHAT I SAW …

beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022… this afternoon on my wander around the headland.

As usual, the first port of call is the wall at the end of the car park where I can look down onto the beach to see what’s happening there.

But I needn’t have bothered today. There could have been Godzilla and the Loch Ness Monster down there for all I knew, and I wouldn’t have seen them in this rolling sea mist that’s coming off the water.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have had sea mists before, but nothing quite like this one. It reminds me of the STRAIT OF BELLE ISLE between Labrador and Newfoundland.

hang glider pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022Something else that I saw on my travels as I peered through the fog was one of the Birdmen of Alcatraz whose Nazgul seems to have come to grief here on the headland.

So while you admire a few photos of the pair of them wrestling with each other and the elements, I’ll tell you something about my day.

And with no alarm, I was expecting either an 06:00 start or another 12:30 rude awakening but to my surprise, and probably yours too, it was a much more sedate and realistic 09:40 when I finally crawled out of bed.

First stop after the medication this morning was to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

hang glider pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022Again I think that I missed out a lot but I was in Brussels last night – although it wasn’t Brussels – living in an apartment building. Underneath where I was living was a casino. There was a group of us talking about the EU and one or two of the rackets that went on there in the 80s and 90s that were exposed. Someone was running a Social media page called “EU rackets” but it was titled in German where it listed everything that was happening. One of the girls there was a German girl whom I knew. She was saying that she took part in this page to help the guy to run it but he was just as much a racketeer as the rackets that he was exposing. He lived in the building and was into large-scale gambling. Although they weren’t allowed to do it in the building where he lived, he found another way. That was when I mentioned the subject of this casino at the foot of the hill where my apartment building was. We spent a lot of time chatting about gambling and that kind of thing.

And then it was Welsh Cup quarter-final day. I was talking to someone about the games. There were 4 of them of course and were being played two at the same time with one before and one after these two. I couldn’t remember who was playing where and kept on being confused. I was talking to someone but I couldn’t come out with the correct venues and correct teams. We ended up outside a stadium for a match Aberystwyth against Cardiff Metro. We looked in and saw that the game had already started so I said to the people with me that I was going to stay and watch the game. Then I could go to the second and then to the third instead of watching it on the TV. So I went in and said goodbye to the people as I’d be staying here. Someone inside the ground asked “what did you say?”. I replied “I’ll be staying here”. They asked if I had a ticket. I replied that I could walk round and pay for one. There was a cat walking around on the stands so I picked it up for a stroke and went over to talk to someone but they had a lion. The lion expressed a great deal of interest in this cat so I pulled the cat away thinking that the lion might eat it but someone said “no, put it back” so I put the cat back and the lion started to wash the cat.

hang glider pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022This was a continuation of a dream that I’ve had before a long time ago so I said to myself in my dream. Someone was running an office somewhere and a young guy turns up for an interview. Although there’s no vacancy they feel sorry for him and fit him in for a couple of hours because it fits in with his life as a single father and offer him some work. I don’t know where it went from there but tonight it turned out that this guy had been an actor and had played Jesus in some kind of film or play. There was some kind of stigma over him and a couple of other people knew about this and they were doing all they could to keep out of his way. he was pushing his trolley with his possessions on it heading right for these 2 people. They were wondering how on earth they were going to get out of meeting him when suddenly a girl exclaimed “oh, it’s Jesus” and ran over and started talking to him. He started to tell his hard luck story. Someone else who was around interrupted them saying “aren’t you going to deliver those objects that you have?”. He said to this girl that he had better push on and do his job. These 2 objects were destined for the room in which the other 2 people were hiding. They were now panicking about where they could go to keep out of the way of this guy while he stuck these 2 parcels in this room

The rest of the morning was spent working on the photos from my trip around the Canadian High Arctic of 2019. Despite having dealt with a few dozen, I’m still on my zodiac in Dundas Harbour on Devon Island where I look as if I may be until doomsday at this rate.

After a lunch of porridge and hot cross buns I had a few things to do, a session on the guitar and a chat on the internet with someone or other who shall be nameless but you all know who it is, and then, much earlier than usual, I went out for my afternoon walk.

hang glider pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022You’ve seen the weather conditions today so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of photographs.

And the Birdman of Alcatraz and his Nazgul weren’t expecting much of anything either because after having wrestled with each other for a while, he imitated one of Longfellow’s characters and “shall fold their tents, like the Arabs and as silently steal away”.

Frankly, I don’t know what he must have been thinking, having come out in this kind of weather. I would imagine that, being uniquely wind-powered, you would need a good few hundred yards of room to manoeuvre your Nazgul if you are to avoid catastrophe and the visibility wasn’t anything like that good.

Being out in a rolling sea mist is a recipe for disaster if ever I saw one.

cabanon vauban people bench pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022It’s not a Bank Holiday here in France but nevertheless there are plenty of people on holiday, wandering around here and there.

And even a few down on the bench at the end of the headland by the cabanon vauban too. Although what they might be expecting to see down there is anyone’s guess because I couldn’t see anything.

Actually, I think they realised after a while that it was pretty pointless being down there because, as I watched, they slowly packed up their things and began to move away. Not that things are much better anywhere else, that is.

peche a pied pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022In the newspaper this morning it said that one of the highest tidal coefficients of the year would be this weekend.

That can only mean one thing – the pèche à pied. With the high coefficient, it means that the public area of the foreshore will be uncovered at low tide so it will be a free-for-all as everyone swarms down there to see what they can find.

There are already a few people down there making their way to the water’s edge. And if this blasted fog would lift we would probably find that there are a few more people further out as well. When we did a radio programme from down there a couple of years ago there were hundreds of people.

ch721430 le styx ch922344 le roc a la mauve 3 chantier naval port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022So leaving them to it, I headed off down the path towards the harbour to see what was happening there.

And there’s a change of occupant – or, rather, an additional occupant at the chantier naval this afternoon too. We’ve seen the trawler Le Styx on a few occasions just recently unloading at the fish processing plant but here she is today up on blocks undergoing servicing.

Le Roc A La Mauve III is still there too. At least, I think that it’s her. I can read her registration number from here now but strangely, it isn’t in the trawler database that I found. Perhaps she’s been brought in from elsewhere and is being reregistered.

ch642969 galapagos port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022Another trawler that we’ve seen once or twice on our way around in the past is Galapagos.

She’s over there by the fish processing plant, settling down in the silt and waiting for the tide to come in. By the looks of things she must have missed the opening of the harbour gates because she’s not one that usually loiters around over there.

As for me, I’m not loitering around either. There’s a good reason why I’ve gone for an early walk this afternoon and I’d better get a move on and head for home otherwise I’ll be late.

trawlers port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022But the way things are, I’m not going home quite yet.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we saw Chausiaise tied up at the pontoon where the trawlers usually tie up. That would be bound to lead to complications.

Anyway, she’s cleared off somewhere else now and the trawlers are tied up where they belong.

But still missing from our photo are the two Channel Island ferries Granville and Victor Hugo. The last I heard of them, they had been hauled out of the water at Cherbourg.

But that was a while ago. If the service to the Channel Islands is to restart, they ought to have started it now while the crowds are here for the Easter break.

weeding porte st jean Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo April 2022One final thing before I go back inside.

It’s the time of year when they send the gardening crew out. Today, they are pulling the weeds out of the rocks in the medieval walls by the Porte St Jean. If the roots penetrate between the rocks they’ll loosen the stonework and bring it down.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had to repoint the whole back wall of my house in Virlet when I puled the ivy off.

Interestingly, you’ll notice that the van has the old-style number plates. That means that it last had a change of owner prior to 2009. So the local council has owned it for at least 13 years.

It’s not like the UK here where people change cars every couple of years. That’s why second-hand vehicles are comparatively more expensive.

Back at home I settled down in front of the computer to watch Y Bala v Y Drenewydd in the battle for second place. And just as the whistle went for the kick-off Rosemary rang. So that was the first half effectively out of the window.

That was a shame because the first half was the better of the two with both teams going for it. The match finished 1-0 for Bala which was about the right result. Apart from my favourite player Mwandwe, Y Drenewydd didn’t offer much up front today. Bala’s defence was quite effective.

But SPARE A THOUGHT FOR THE WOODWORK at the town end of the Oval Stadium at Caernarfon. I bet that it has a headache this evening after this afternoon’s match against Penybont.

For tea tonight I had the curry that I’ve been trying to have for a day or two. And of course it was delicious. It couldn’t be anything else.

So shopping tomorrow. I don’t need all that much, I suppose, but it’s been a while since I’ve been and I need a few supplies, as well as to see what’s on offer in Noz. I need to vary my diet again, I reckon.

Friday 8th August 2014 – WOW!

What a storm!

It was totally stonishing. About 8mm of rain fell in about 30 minutes round about 22:30. It’s a long time since I’ve seen anything quite like it. I even had to close the roof windows as it was pouring in on me where I was sitting, and that’s not supposed to happen.

Mind you, it had been brewing all day. When the boulangère came by this morning, she mentioned that there might be a storm a little later. And it wasn’t long after that that we had the fist lightning flashes. They kept it up from about 12:00 until about 15:30 so I was pretty reluctant to go up on the scaffolding during that period, otherwise it would have been me frying tonight. That’s the one disadvantage of having metal planks.

When i considered it safe to do so, I went up there. Well, not quite – I had to round up all of the tools and fittings that I needed for the job. And that took several attempts to make sure that i had everything up there that I wanted. I drilled the hole, a 16mm hole, with the Hitachi battery-powered SDS drill and that went into the stone like a knife through butter. It’s a shame that the batteries are becoming tired in it now, because it really is one of the most useful tools that I have around here. I must sort out some new batteries for it.

Fitting my home-made eye wall anchor was straightforward – with a little persuasion from a hammer it went into the hole that I had drilled, but tightening it up was something else. With a little too much force, I reckon, I sheared off the wedge that splits the interior of the anchor. Then of course I couldn’t extract the broken one, and so I had to drill another hole and start again. This time I didn’t use quite so much force when tightening it, so I managed not to break it.

Fitting the turnbuckle was straightforward, but then actually fastening the guy wire was almost impossible as the length of the turnbuckle put it too far away from the scaffolding for me to reach it properly. I was lucky that the wire was quite long, as I was able to put a loop in the far end, pass the wire around the hook on the turnbuckle and then around a pivot (the framework upon which the wind turbine is mounted) and with a rope in the loop that I made, pull it back towards me again.

With it securely tied around the scaffolding, I could perform a major feat of gymnastics, balanced right on the edge of the scaffolding on the toes of one foot, and reach right out to the wire to fasten the wire rope ties (three of them) to hold the wire together.

Then dismantling the temporary fittings that I had made, I could tighten up the turnbuckle. And to my surprise, it pulled the wind turbine perfectly vertical instead of leaning over about 5° to the north.

All of this took me until about 18:20 and so for the remaining 40 minutes I did some (but not much) weeding in the vegetable plots. And as I knocked off, it started to rain. “Perfect timing!” I said to myself. And then we got the lot a few hours later.

i’m glad that I’ve fastened the wind turbine with a second guy wire. With just one, it was pulling it out of the vertical and of course, one isn’t very secure. Ideally it needs four and while I can think of a way to do the third one (and i might even do it some day) the fourth will be difficult. Nevertheless, progress has been made.

On Monday, I’ll start to attack all of the rest of the jobs that need to be done while I’m up there. Let’s see how long it takes me to finish them.

Monday 18th November 2013 – IT’S MONDAY AGAIN …

… and so it was “back to work”. But not straight away as I had a few important things to do first.

It seems that my bank is at it again. The credit card expired at the end of September as you know, and I finally received the replacement. That meant that I had to contact everyone to update the card details. But I’ve now received another one, with a new number, a new expiry date and a new security cide. I’ve now had to ring everyone again to update everything that I updated just a week or 10 days ago.

I finally did manage to go outside today to work, braving the rain that has restarted. I’ve spent all of the time outside clearing the nettles and weeds that have sprung up in front of the barn where I had my very first potager. It’s astonishing how quickly and how thickly it’s overgrown. It wasn’t looking too bad at all in the early Spring and I never expected it to become as bad as it did over a period of just 8 months.

You can see how good the soil is, though. I suppose that that is some consolation.

Anyway, I’ve made some progress, but not enough. There’s tons to do and I need it to be gone so that I can build my woodshed there. Once I’ve done that, I can crack on with other things that are holding me back.

After it went dark, I spent half an hour in the barn carrying on with my project of tidying up, not that I’m making much progess. But I’ve been thinking, which is of course a very dangerous occupation. It’s about high time that I sorted out the electrical system in the barn. I’m moving the batteries and the control panel down to where “bank two” is – at the southern end of the barn next to the walls to which the solar panels are fastened.

And so I ought to make a start on building the control panel and fitting the wiring. Maybe I’ll sit down tomorrow and draw up a few plans.

And pizza tonight followed by left-over apple crumble and custard from yesterday. What a way to end the day.

Wednesday 13th November 2013 – IT WAS EVEN HARDER THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed. Probably going to bed at03:45 might have something to do with that though. Crawling out of bed at 08:00 was definitely an issue.

After breakfast, I went as promised and attacked the barn – the bit where I keep the Ebro. I had almost everything out of the front of the barn and I’ve thrown away two huge sacks of rubbbish. Furthermore, I can actually move around in there now without stepping on things, and isn’t that progress?

It wasn’t without its rewards either. I found an Euro on the floor in there, so spend!Spend! Spend!

The boulandgère came round today too, having forgotten me yesterday. It was Sophie, the woman who lived for a while in the USSR and we always have a little chat whenever she comes round.

After lunch (and a little siesta) I went and attacked the pathways, and now I’ve made it all the way down to the compost bin, which was my ultimate destination. Now, you can walk all the way down there without losing yourself in the vegetation and it’s a great improvement. It didn’t take as long as I was thinking that it might either, and so I’ve started on weeding the first raised bed. I want to have all of those done before the end of the year.

I’ve had a fire in here tonight too and so I cooked tea up here in the oven. It’s nice to recover some of my old familiar habits. I’ve missed being away from here.

Tuesday 12th November 2013 – GOD, IT WAS HARD …

… getting out of bed this morning. It took me a good half-hour to finally show a leg; And although the sky had clouded over during the night, it was still pretty cold.

Anyway after breakfast, it was time to restart work for the first time for ages, and it was the turn of the lean-to outside to receive my attention – but not before I’d hooked up the crocodile-clip wire across the terminals of the charge controller in the barn so that the battery there will receive some charge.

By lunchtime I’d finished cleaning out the front part of the lean-to and making it look something-like in there, and I’d also collected some wood that was lying around, ready for the fire if I light one tonight.

However, a major issue at lunchtime was that the boulangère didn’t call with the bread, and wasn’t answering her ‘phone either. That meant a quick nip into Pionsat for a load of bread before I could have a butty, and then much to my surprise I crashd out for an hour afterwards.

Once I’d gathered up my wits (doesn’t take long – I don’t have many) I went outside and started to attack the garden. I’ve fought my way down to where the old cars are, and then I made a start on weeding the pathway down to the bottom of the garden and I was well on my way with that when the light disappeared. 18:00 hours or so, and so I did a few little jobs and then came up here to watch a film.

Of course, I can’t sleep now so I dunno what will happen next, but tomorrow’s plan is to clear some space in the barn by the battery box, and then to continue the weeding of the pathways.

We shall see.

Thursday 7th November 2013 – I’VE BEEN A BUSY BOY TODAY

Yes, high time I started work again around here. And even though I had something of a late-ish morning I still managed to do a good session before lunch.

First off, I repaired the woodshed. The corrugated iron sheets blew off while I wasn’t here and all of the wood is soaking wet. But I’ve rescued the sheets, nailed them down this time and used some bracing struts, and then covered it all over with an old tarp that was lying around not doing very much. That might hold it for a while until I can build the new one across the yard.

While I was outside I did some tidying up too and also a pile of weeding outside the house. It now looks as if someone is actually living here.

But that’s not all. The kitchen in the verandah was in a desperate condition and so I’ve tidied up in there and given it something of a superficial clean. At least the sink is empty now and unblocked which is a great improvement. Next task was the chest of drawers up here. There’s a screw retainer missing from one of the sides and so the drawers were dropping out of the runners. I emptied that, turned it upside-down to see what was needed and then fixed that.

After lunch, I emptied a couple of boxes out of Caliburn and dealt with those and seeing as I was in a good mood and having done a good day’s work I treated myself to a film. The Cannonball Run is 90 minutes of mindless mayhem but it’s a film that I can sit and watch time and time again, simply for the fact that it’s clear to see that the actors involved, and good actors too, are thoroughly enjoying themselves making it. As well as that, though, I keep a little database of film quotes and this film has contributed more one-liners to my database than any other film that I’ve ever seen. Who can forget immortal phrases such as “You wouldn’t last five minutes in a New York subway” or “It takes brilliance and years of hard work, and you wouldn’t understand any of that”.

Anyway, it’s beddie byes time now. See you all tomorrow

Wednesday 31st October 2012 – I WAS IN BED …

… at some kind of ridiculous time last night – long before midnight in fact.

And I went out like a light and didn’t wake up until about 06:30. I wish that I could do that more often.

What with one thing and another (and once you start, you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are), I was detained up here until lunchtime and so it wasn’t until about 14:30 that I went out to play.

Another pile of wood was cut and then I made a start on … the garden, would you believe?

In the potato bed pulling out the weeds and about three potatoes. It’s been a miserable year for spuds.

I also pulled the courgette and about 10 chili peppers off the relevant plants. The frost has well-and-truly done for the plants but the fruits are still there? just about.

The courgette will be in next week’s curry and the chili peppers are currently drying out.

No fire tonight either although it’s rather close to the limit. There wasn’t anything to cook particularly.

And tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here. I usually have bank holidays off but I’ve yet to have one this year, so busy have I been, and so tomorrow my feet will be up all day.

And quite right too. I deserve it

Wednesday 3rd October 2012 – I SET FIRE TO MY BRASSIERE …

… today.

As you know, i’ve been scything down the undergrowth next to the lean-to to create a load of space where I can store all kinds of stuff while I carry out stage 2, but I’ve been overwhelmed.

6 trees I’ve cut down, with enough firewood to keep me going for a month I reckon, and I’ve uprooted all kinds of shrubs and undergrowth

burning brassiere les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut there’s only so much of the shrubs and undergrowth that can be composted, and apart from that, there was nowhere else to put all of the brambles and so on.

And then, of course, I remembered.

Last year I bought a brassière from Brico Depot just for this purpose and so I spent a very enthralling afternoon burning all of the stuff that won’t compost.

And didn’t it burn well too? br clear=”both”>

So this morning after an early start and a couple of hours on the internet I went out to attack the jungle. Like I say, I cut down 6 trees.

But one of these trees was a proper full-sized tree and that took some moving. I must have spent about an hour digging up the tree stump.

mercedes 240D les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut the area to the side and to the rear of the old Mercedes is now clear, and the next job is to move all of the stones and rubble from the wall of the lean-to that you can see to the left.

Once they are all gone, I can rake over everywhere and level it all out and then lay the tarpaulin out.

Once the tarpaulin in properly in position I can then more all of the stuff from off the hard-standing out in front where I park Caliburn. It’s going to take me an age to do it all.

As if it didn’t take an age to do all of that today. In fact I was so carried away that it was 19:20 when I knocked off today.

In other news, my “new” mobile phone arrived. It’s not new, but a factory-reconditioned one with all bells and whistles and on examining it,

I discovered that not only did it have the bells and whistles, it also had the previous owner’s address books, it had her bank account details and bank card PINs stored in the memory.

What a crazy thing for the previous owner to do, especially with the number of phones that are stolen each year. And then not wipe off the data when you part-ex the phone.

And then for the eBay vendor not to do it makes me wonder what kind of “refurbishing” job that this phone has had.

Aren’t some people totally crazy?

Monday 1st October 2012 – BY THE TIME …

… that you read this I shall be well tucked up in the Land of Nod. I’m thoroughly exhausted.

This morning nothing much happened but with a good run at the website I managed to do all of the photos and write the text for FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s famous victory yesterday against Briffons-Perpezat.

You can read the text here if you like.

mercedes 240D les guis virlet puy de dome franceRosemary came round at lunchtime.

So while I moved the scaffolding and cleared out the weeds, brambles and small trees from around the Mercedes, she dug up the onions and garlic and pulled some dried beans off the plants.

Tons of all of that stuff she harvested too – a good fruitful exercise

But doing this garden is driving me nuts. The brambles have torn lumps out of me, the nettles have stung me to death and so on and some of the tree roots took ages to dig up

But it’s looking all quite good there now. Just that one big tree to cut down and rip up.

Tomorrow I’m off to Montlucon with Rosemary to Lapeyre to buy her window and a few other bits and pieces that I need, and then I’ll be carrying on in this patch of land, sorting out the stones and levelling everywhere off.

Then I can bring everything round there from off the hardstanding.

At the Anglo-French Group this evening we had the biggest crowd for ages with two new attendees. Nice to see some new faces.

Anyway, that’s it. Off to bed before I fall asleep.

Wednesday 26th September 2012 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… day today where I heard the alarm go off properly but the accompanying cloudburst made me turn back over and … errr … wait for a while before arising.

So after the usual while on the computer I went outside and started work.

And in another major change to my usual lifestyle, I was still out there at 20:00.

First plan was to fit the new handles that I had bought the other day to the gardening tools that were lying around. The rake and the binette worked fine but this sledgehammer handle won’t work at all.

But anyway, using the newly-repaired tools, I hacked my way through a huge pile of undergrowth, ripped up piles of nettle and bramble roots, and laid a big tarpaulin on the floor.

Onto this tarpaulin I collected up all of the scaffolding that I’ve been using and laid it out on there. That was followed by all of the leftover plastic slates, and then I cleaned out all of the wood and the breeze blocks from where I had been working.

That gave me some more room to move around there and I could then hack out another pile of brambles.

There’s probably only about 30m² of land to clear back there and I reckoned that it wouldn’t take long, but I’m being rather optimistic about that. It’s going to take a while.

But it needs to be done because the next phase is to clear all of the stuff from where I park Caliburn and it’s there that I want to put it.

That took me up to about 19:00 and there was still a little job that I needed to do. The charge controller for one of the banks in the barn packed up ages ago and so I’ve been wiring the panels directly to the solar bank – not that there’s enough energy produced over there to worry the batteries too much.

But I need to measure the energy that’s going in, and so I disconnected the remote ammeter off the other bank and wired that to it.

Not so easy as it’s pretty cramped in there so I hope that it’ll work okay.

Still, we’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?

Sunday 16th September 2012 – HAVING LOST …

… my mobile phone about a month ago, it’s the turn of the dictaphone to go walkabout now.

I picked it up off the floor here and I’m convinced that I put it in my pocket, but when I arrived at Servant, it wasn’t there. No idea where that’s gone.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football as servant puy de dome franceYes, that’s where we are this Sunday – down at Servant.

It’s a cup match this weekend, so FC Pionsat St Hilaire have fielded something like a makeshift hybrid team featuring half of the 2nd XI

And while I was scrabbling around in Caliburn looking for my dictaphone, I missed FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s opening goal.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football as servant puy de dome franceBut not to worry, there were plenty of other goals that I didn’t miss.

Their opponents are a Third Division side and Pionsat cantered to a leisurely 4-1 win.

They didn’t at any time look under any kind of pressure, and could have had a bag-full more, missing two or three sitters on the way.

But, uncomfortably, they didn’t look all that convincing either. Last season, they would have demolished a team like this without any trouble at all.

Apart from that, all I seem to have done today is to back up my photographs onto DVD. I keep an external drive with the photos on, and also a portable drive as a fall-back.

I’ve also been copying them to DVD every time I have a fill SD card as an additional safeguard, but I’ve not done that since the second half of 2009 so there are thousands – and I mean thousands – to do.

It’s not helped either by the fact that the DVD writer is a little old and creaky and needs a long rest after each session, and that also some of the DVDs I have here are corrupted. Flood damage by the looks of things.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m off in the morning helping Rosemary with a furniture delivery.

I’ve swapped that for half a day’s work in my garden. It’s the only way that any weeding is going to be done in the near future. 

Tuesday 17th July 2012 – NOW THIS IS ASTONISHING!

You are probably wondering what the photo below is all about – but read on.

Now to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … Rosemary came round today to offer me some more help in the garden and as I had no tinned potatoes for the salad I asked her to pick up a tin or two on the way round.

Instead of tins, she appeared with a bag of new potatoes – and these needed cooking of course.

potato 400 watt vegetable steamer les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt was a glorious day – probably one of the best I have ever had as far as solar energy goes (and doesn’t that make a change just recently?) and it came to my mind that ages ago I had bought a 400-watt electric steamer – cooker.

I’d never used it although I remembered a few weeks ago saying that I would like to give it a run out some time or other in the near future. With all of this solar energy right now it seemed that the appropriate moment had arisen.

Result – 15 minutes later one perfectly-steamed pile of spuds. I’m well-impressed with this. This really is Progress with a capital P.

I remember one of my best friends (an ex-best friend now as it happens) taking the p155 out of me behind my back with all of his friends on the Land Rover forum about my plans to try a microwave oven here.

They spent a considerable amount of time calling me a few choice names and so on.

And while an electric steam-cooker is hardly a microwave, it’s still up there with the coffee machine and the electric fire that we have had running during the winter as signs that home comforts are perfectly achievable with my set-up.

As you also know, I’m running a 12-volt TV-cum-video player up here as well.

Yes, I absolutely hate being surrounded by negativity – it drags me right downhill. One of the (many) reasons why I left the UK.

Rosemary and I spent a few hours weeding and I’ve never seen the garden looking as good as this, that’s for sure. We even started to pull up the new spuds but that was a waste of effort – seems like my crop has disappeared.

rebuilding stone wall collapsed lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter Rosemary left, I carried on with the wall of the lean-to. You can tell how much I did by looking at where the mortar is still grey and not white.

I’ve accomplished quite a lot there but there’s still plenty to go and I’m wondering if I’ll have enough stones. If not, I’ll have to go on the scavenge and see what I can find.

But the wall underneath is in a bad way – there are three large cracks running down it. Seeing this made me glad that when I made a brief start in repairing it all back 10 years ago I had made that strip of reinforced concrete underneath where the breeze blocks are.

That strip of concrete is embedding the horizontal beams of the floor and thus ties all of the thing together. But once the new bit is finished I can repoint all of the cracks.

I’ve also been attacking the hole that I’m trying to drill out, what with all of this electricity we had today, and I’ve grounded out with the circular drill bit.

Of course, I lent out my other extension to Rob, didn’t I

We finished the day with the hottest solar shower I have had for a long time, and it was gorgeous.

But as for starting the day – how about 06:35 for breakfast? When has that ever happened before?

Thursday 12th July 2012 – I’M OFF …

… to bed in a minute – at a ridiculously-early (well, for me, anyway) time too.

And for two good reasons too.

  1. I have to be up early as you know. Terry and I are off to Montlucon to see what we can find in Brico Depot
  2. I’m thoroughly exhausted and I’ve already crashed out once this evening.

Just for a change I was up and about before the alarms went off and while I was having a leisurely breakfast Rosemary rang up. “It looks as if it might be a comfortable morning so I’ll come round now if you like”.

Well, I need all the help I can get in the garden and one volunteer is better than 10 pressed men so I had to steam-clean the kitchen, tidy up in here, empty the composting toilet, all that kind of thing, at a rapid rate of knots.

And then a car pulled up. It was not Rosemary but Bill who had come for a chat. His van has just failed its Controle Technique, but not with anything serious and so we needed to devise a cunning plan to fix it.

Just then Rosemary appeared and so Bill wandered off while Rosemary and I attacked the garden.

Stopping for lunch for an hour or so was the only break that we had, but by the end of the day several of the beds are all weeded out, some (but by no means all) of the leeks are replanted, and then we attacked some of the jungle that was in the way.

After Rosemary went home, I carried on for an hour or so and that was my lot I’m afraid. I was finished off. Nevertheless, substantial progress was made today in the garden.

I’ve also made a smart discovery too.

I’m using a Xantrex C60 charge controller wired in backwards to act as a dump load controller. Normally, a charge controller senses the voltage levels in the batteries. When the solar panels and wind turbines have fully charged the batteries, the charge controller then cuts off the charge.

With certain charge controllers, you can fiddle about with them so that instead of switching off, they switch on. And then instead of having them wired as
INPUT ENERGY —> CHARGE CONTROLLERS —> BATTERIES
you can wire them
INPUT ENERGY —> BATTERIES —> CHARGE CONTROLLER —> DUMP LOAD (although I still keep my input charge controllers as a safety measure.

My dump load is a home-made 12-volt immersion heater – a huge 500-watt heater element suspended in 25 litres of water, and this is how I heat my water in summer.

The Xantrex controllers have a facility to have a data panel wired in so that you can see the amount of current passing through and I just happen to have a spare data panel that I dismantled from the charge controller that stopped working the other week.

I wasn’t sure if it would work on the one that I’m using as a dump load controller, what with it being wired in backwards and so on, but I gave it a go and in fact it does, which is really exciting news.

I’ve had 22.2 amp-hour worth of excess charge heating my water today. That’s quite impressive considering that the weather has been cloudy for all of the day. I wonder what it will show in a bright sunny glorious day.

But we aren’t ever going to have one of those ever again.  

Tuesday 10th July 2012 – YOU KNOW WHO …

… your real friends are when you ring them up and as if they fancy a trip to Montlucon on Friday morning – arriving there (45 mins from here) at … errr … 07:00.

“What’s the score?” asked Terry
“Brico Depot has some interesting stuff in the arrivages that has caught my eye but it’s big and bulky, and we need to be there early”
“I’ll bring the trailer then”.

I hate to tempt fate by making announcements about things that are outside my control but if this comes off it won’t ‘arf be a stunning development for round here.

So where was I? Ahh yes.

rendering concrete lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter the usual couple of hours on the web pages I went outside and spent a good deal of the afternoon putting the second coat of paint on the rendering of the lean-to.

You can see what the rendering was like prior to the painting if you look at the bottom left-hand corner where I couldn’t reach. I know which one I like better.

That took me until 17:00 when I went off and attacked the garden.

Clotilde gave me some of her lettuce thinnings yesterday and so I weeded and hoed a few spaces in a couple of the raised beds and planted them in … note to self – when I thin out the leeks, send some round to Clotilde in exchange … and then gave them a really good watering – not that they need it of course in this weather.

After that I checked on the carrots and beetroot that I planted a couple of weeks ago. They seem to be doing fine and so I planted another row of each. Certainly covering the sowings over with old caravan windows seems to be the way to go here

That took me until 19:00 when I knocked off. Thoroughly exhausted – you’ve no idea how much like hard work all of this is.

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.