Philou

I agree as one who is in the middle of getting his railway room ready - it has crossed my mind that apart from my modelling two prototype stations, my third station could be a 'what if' Rule 1 with a short section of 009. I had to have a reason for my branch lines to exist in the context of the planned layout - could this be it? Besides which, they are rather cute! Cheers, Philip

Very, very frightening eh? That is one thing that does bother me about the push to go all-electric (though I do wish the UK would hurry up and finish all the railway electrification schemes - GWML extension, MML etc.,) is if there's no electrickery, there's no train! Regarding the @ +name, I don't know either as it has never come up before. Cheers

Hello chums - in from the cold again! @Re6/6 Thank you for that! I happen to have the boxed CD set - all 89 episodes. About three years ago, I said to Mrs Philou 'Let's watch 'Allo, 'Allo', you might enjoy it - typical British humour.' We settled down and "clicketty-click-whirr" off went the CD and into Episode 1. Five minutes later up piped Mrs Philou 'Why are they speaking in French accents?'. I didn't have the heart to watch the other 88 :((( nor have I since. @simonmcp Was it Marschmusik or oompah music? I happen to like German military music. Did you know that the Germans have adopted the music to the Battle of Britain (1969) film as a Luftwaffe Marsch? Apparently, the Luftwaffe is the only army branch that never had its own march. @JeffP Unfortunately, it was a bit like that with the accordionist. He only stopped during the meal-breaks! We couldn't talk very easily as the music was quite loud and I suspect that we're all getting a tad hard of hearing. Onto matters 'lectric - another four light units were fixed in place, two needed the use of the very, very cold ladder. The last unwired ones I brought in to do the cabling and I didn't go back to the barn as it was too cold. I did barrow another load of wood and another will be done tomorrow morning. I shall cut it all after I fix and connect the last three lights. Wednesday the temperature is going up to +8° so I shall trim my last two pieces for the cellar doors. Once fixed, I can close them and get a paraffin heater in the railway room and carry on in there. I shall need to use it with care as I recall paraffin heaters give off a lot of water vapour! Cheers everyone, Philip

Hello everyone, As it turned out both Friday and Saturday became non-days work-wise unfortunately. I managed to cable most of my new LED 'neon' tubes on Friday morning before going to lunch. It was awful (and not awe-ful). Couldn't fault the food nor the company but we were accompanied the whole time from about 1.00pm 'til 6.00pm by an accordionist - he played well in fairness to him, I just can't abide the 'noise'. It was Old Time Dancing (without Vic Sylvester) for the whole of the lunch! 'Tunes' that for the most time I didn't know 'cos they were 'old' French ones, and the only ones I recognised were British/American hits massacred by the accordion!! Lunch was fairly epic and good - the portions were just the right size and spaced out over the 5 hours so plenty of time to digest. Oh, the cheese board was absolutely divine with about 40 to choose from and no limit to how many you could taste. At each course, there were seconds offered too and they didn't limit the wine at table either - not that there were any heavy drinkers that I could see. Saturday came around and I had forgotten that I was supposed to be having a haircut in the afternoon. In the morning, I had to go get some wood to get as I had only about 1 days supply in stock and as it was announced that temperatures were dropping to between -7 and -9°C in the nights for the next few days, I couldn't be without wood. The rest of the morning was then spent cutting the logs into lengths for the wood-burners. Nice and toasty today. Today, I spent only a short time fixing in place and wiring up four of the tubes and all worked. I just had to go indoors at 3pm as my hands were too cold to do more than that. Did I mention that aluminium ladders get very cold in negative temperatures? No? Well they do! Not much done, but it's less to do tomorrow. Cheers everyone and stay warm wherever you are, Philip

Hello Andy, If it's any consolation, I think there are some major cyber-attacks going on as I was plagued with adds by Yahoo! within my Hotmail mail yesterday - seems to have gone away today. Good luck in getting RMWeb pages back to 'normal'. Cheers, Philip

I'm back and I got more electrical supplies - and that was it for today! What I did have a look at, at the discount supplier (a brick-shifter, I suppose ;) ), was the price of 10mm ply. External grade 10mm x 1.2m x 2.5m was being marketed at €47.50 a sheet (approx £46). Is that good compared to the UK? I have no idea what it's made of yet as I didn't ask. I need about (grabs calculator) ... clickety click .......... 25m² for the surface plus enough for sides, ends and strengtheners (say ... tappity tap ..... 10m²) making it 35m², roughly 12 sheets all told. I ought to have some wastage allowance as my cutting - even with a circular ain't the most brilliant! Reg Prescott arises again! Tomorrow I shall attach some new lights in the barn that I bought today as I don't fancy working out of doors trimming planks as it didn't rise above -1°C due to freezing fog. I hope my external pipework won't suffer as I hadn't yet drained it down as I was using it every other day - but today little was flowing - oh dear. :( . In any case, as mentioned, another lunch beckons so not much will happen in terms of 'dirty' work. Take care dear readers, and stay warm. Cheers, Philip

No hangover! So the trimmer was trimmed and whilst I had to undo an existing floorboard or two around the cellar doors, I took that apart and reworked the frame as it was binding due to the wood having shrunk, then expanded and warped - so the two leaves now open and close smoothly. I just need to recut two floorboards to finish and that'll be that! Shopping tomorrow to get some more supplies and a handful of Christmas presents (especially for Mrs Philou), so I doubt if much will get done. Friday will be another long lunch and as it's a drive away, I doubt if much will be done either - not looking good :( . Ah well, there's always the weekend :) . Cheers everyone, Philip

Boo!! Surprised? Well so am I! Lunch was delayed until this evening (a long-awaited appointment spot was available for them) which meant that I had my day back. I decided I ought to cut and trim my floorboards - so I did. The flooring is now complete - there's just a trimmer to redo around the cellar doors and I should get that done tomorrow (hangover notwithstanding :) ). Over the following days I shall revisit the walls and ceilings, scrim and sand where necessary and paint. I'd rather do the sanding and painting before I start messing with the electrics. I'm not sure if I shall be able to start the boards before Christmas - but wouldn't it be a grand start for the New Year if I waited 'til January 1st? I can order some ply for delivery in between December 26th and 31st. (No bank holiday on the 26th here). Cheers everyone, Philip

Hello chaps, Circuit three has been completed but the lighting sub-circuits have as yet not been tested as I haven't any suitable lights - on my shopping list of things to buy in a couple of days time. I'm also out of 3-way Wago connectors and I shall need at least 30 more. Means that I will have used about 120 of the things - not cheap, but so much easier than the choccy block type. Tomorrow I have been 'volunteered' to help out our opposite neighbour put up his Christmas decorations around his house in the morning. His Mrs doesn't want him up the ladder this year as he's 87 tomorrow and was teetering quite a bit last year. I think they must have seen me up my ladder :(( . Only kidding regarding the :(( as he's a good stick and we've been invited to his birthday lunch (yes - yet another long lunch) so any thoughts of going up the ladder in the afternoon or getting any work done tomorrow will come to nought. Cheers everyone and take care, Philip

Hello chums and chumesses, The temperature has dropped again and we did have a bit of sleet, but nothing sticking to the ground. I have spent a while trying to fathom out this 'pulse' with the lights. I have changed the LED switch, with and without the LED, I have swapped the neon switch for a LED one, I've wired the circuit into other mcbs but nothing stops the pulsing except by taking out the LED telltale. The only thing I haven't done is to swap the neon switch for the other one that appears to be working properly. I do wonder if the LED spots are picking up some low power from somewhere. The other similar circuit powers a neon tube and that has a ballast and a starter and of course needs some oomph to fire up so if it's doing the same, it's not being picked up. I am at a loss for the moment. I did manage some cable threading this morning, so half of circuit three is done and should be completed tomorrow - there's no two-way circuit, just simple on-off switches - so no way of re-creating this pulse thing. More update tomorrow - it's getting exciting now as the next circuit to be commenced will be *drum roll* the railway room! Cheers everyone, Philip

Hello chum and chumesses, I need thinking caps on, please. Your collective knowledge regarding electrics would be appreciated. But more in a moment. Today, despite temperatures dropping to -6°C overnight, I had a good few hours in the barn and the wiring was completed and jury-rigged into the consumer unit and surprisingly everything worked - well, nearly everything - just one thing wasn't as I expected: The power main works as expected and is wired into a 20A mcb - no problem, it's working fine. The lighting circuit comprises two switches about 10m apart wire-wise and are wired for two-way working. One switch has a neon indicator and the other has a more modern LED tell-tale. The circuit is no different than the one I did a few days ago - 6m apart, two-way switching one neon and one LED. The only real difference is that the latter circuit switches a 4ft neon tube whereas the latest one powers two 8w LED spot lights. When switching on and off the earlier circuit, the neon and LED telltales switch off when the lights are on and switch off on when the lights are off - makes sense as you don't need them to find the lights are on and vice-versa. Now, in today's circuit, the two LED spots came on but when switched off, the LED spots started pulsing dimly at about a pulse a second and so did the neon and LED tell-tales. I did once before in another house, have a problem with a two-circuit, but that involved a third inverter type on-off switch in-line and that was solved by reversing two connections in the two-way wiring itself. I decided that I would invert the two wires at the switches themselves one at a time - all to no avail. The next and final step was to remove the LED telltale from the one switch (the neon one is more or less permanent). This I did and checked that it could not be reversed - which it could not. Left it out and the lights now went on/off as expected using both switches. The telltale was put back in and the pulsing started again. Bizarre. I left it out for tonight but I have noticed the neon telltale does pulse at the same rate of 1 per second, but ever so slightly. Any ideas? There is nothing plugged into that particular power circuit and only the two LED spots in the other - I don't have a pacemaker so it couldn't have been induced from that or similar. Have I created an induced circuit? If so, why doesn't the other circuit 'pulse' too? The only other difference between the two circuits is the that the earlier is wired eventually back to breaker RCD A and the latest one into breaker RCD AC. I will invert the circuits tomorrow to check that it's not the RCDs making a difference and I will also try a different LED telltale in case. Any ideas? I am somewhat bemused! Cheers everyone, Philip

Chaps, Despite saying no updates today (there aren't any!) as I got back about an hour ago - there's just enough time for a message. First, thanks for all the support from those following the saga - I know it's more of a blog than 'Layout Topics', but it is all part and parcel of getting 'Dymented' under way. If anyone else is considering starting from scratch - really from scratch - it can be done! To make sure we were at the appointed time and place for the coach, I was up at 4am, which meant I could have my usual breakfast albeit a few hours earlier. Got there in time with the other 45 OAPs and we set off. We hadn't gone more than 50yds/m when the driver missed the junction. Had he continued we would have ended up in the opposite direction - hey ho, off to a good start I thought. Reversed and took the right route. Then he wouldn't get out of third gear (brand new MAN coach), so it was sat screaming along for about a mile before he found the gear selector! After that it was OK-ish, still dark and light rain when about an hour or so later, lots of twinkling blue lights on the motorway. Fortunately, all on the other side and I couldn't see anything except for a white van at right angles to the carriageway without any damage evident. I have a feeling the emergency services were bored and they all came out to have a look! We were given breakfast (hoorah) at our destination at about 8am in a reasonably nice hotel. I was thinking to myself 'what are we going to do ALL day until going home time at about 5pm?' I was about to find out: What I didn't know, the trip, the breakfast and lunch AND the turkey were being subsided by a company dealing in 'medical' items and I was subjected from 8.30 to 12.30 to a 'soft' sell of a massage armchair, an electric fully adjustable bed frame with a 'memory' mattress, a plant-based 'Red Heat'-type oinkment and a 'magnetic' wand to help with your aches and pains - and all I could think of was 'why am I here instead of doing my electrics?!' :((. He must have found some with rather more sense than money as he managed to sell 2 beds at €3500 each and one armchair at €1200 (today's price only - blah, blah). I'm sure you've all been there. Now the magic magnetic wands were - wait for it, wait, €1400 each and they were only the size of a Roco Z21! You can tell that I was bored!! And it wasn't the first time that some had had the spiel as they were heard saying 'ooh, yes, it really is comfy' or ' the chair really works' etc. (They weren't plants and they were genuine - but ......) After lunch, we were bussed into town and set down near the market - which was nonetheless a 15min walk in the drizzle - that turned out to be just about OK-ish. Of our sub-group (us village fogeys) only one person actually bought something and the only thing on which we spent any money was a hot wine toddy each - then we went back to the bus! There we waited and waited well past the appointed leaving time as one of the group got himself lost!! (Shouldn't have been allowed out without his minder - I say). Anyway, got back late after having been slowed by a Swiss registered car that wouldn't go faster than 40 and would slow down to 30 when faced with an oncoming vehicle - the bus just didn't have anywhere where he could overtake safely - especially in the dark (we by then off the motorway and back onto single carriageways). I seem though, to have ended up with three turkeys in the boot of my car - so there was a bonus at the end! Hopefully a decent real update tomorrow and thanks again for your support, Cheers, Philip

Hello chums, Today was a far better day as I was able to keep my mind on matters at hand. I am pleased to say that all the conduit has been threaded and I started putting various connections in - starting at the consumer unit. The circuits are now attached to their respective mcbs. I didn't put any photos up today as all you would see would some grey conduit! A nasty north-easterly wind was blowing this afternoon and the cold stopped play for today at around 4pm. I am, however, very pleased with today's work. Tomorrow, there won't be any update as I'm off out with Mrs Philou to a Christmas Fayre (overpriced Xmas goods mainly - moi, un cynique?) in Colmar (the town is very Olde Worlde and very nice) with lots of old fogeys from hereabouts. Oh! Just realised, I'm one of 'them' too :(( . It's a bus outing LEAVING the next village at 6am!! I just hope it's not a charabanc and that there are toilets aboard and they're not locked! We get to have lunch (yes - again) and we have a turkey each for the return journey. Two things though 1) I couldn't manage a whole one - at least not in one go, and, 2) if they're not ready to eat I hope they're dead otherwise it'll be chaos on the journey home!! @Nick C You are right of course, but round here in the far depths of the countryside the reaction nearly always is 'Pfff ..... eet eez only un chat'. It was difficult as he was weakening bit by bit and as I said yesterday, I could eat, but he couldn't. @lmsforever The Tour de France passed nearby here last year and the year before Covid set in (in effect 2 years on the trot) as they started/terminated at the Planche des Belles Filles (Plateau of the Pretty Girls). We went the first time as The Welshman was in it again after his win the year before. Got all the freebies which we gave to the grandchildren (except the saucisson - we ate that!). No unreasonable request refused, so here are two photos of the house (front and back). Don't be put off - it's like the Tardis inside, the ground floor alone is about 130m² divided over four rooms: The barn is within which the room is being created - all the stonework was my work hacking off the render and repointing in lime mortar - took two Springs and Summers! I'm chuffed of the rear - the sundeck on two levels, is what set me off considering doing a complete new floor in the barn, and the stonework and electrics was again all my work. I do have photos of the house before works were started 15 years ago, and like a model railway layout - it's still not finished! Cheers everyone, More on Saturday, Philip

@lmsforever Thank you. Yes, it's why I went and did some electrickery this afternoon to keep my mind busy and off the task that had to be done this evening. Most of the neighbours round here are self-sufficient, but there is one who did me a favour a while back and asked if I could sort out his 3-phase electrical system. I did have a look, but that's as far as it went! I see you're not far away from HS2 - I keep an eye on that thread too. I hope that the big earthworks round your way are now finished. I used to go to Ledbury from Chelmsford via Aylesbury and Bicester (far less stressful than M25/M4/A419/A417), so I expect it's all changed there around Waddesdon. Regarding HS2, I'm not sure what to think - I'd give a yay! for big engineering works but a booh! for the disruption during the works. If it's any consolation, we're not very far away from the Besançon-Mulhouse TGV and yes there was major disruption during the works but it's now been completed for at least 4 years and it just blends in with the countryside. Can't say regarding sound as we're far, too far away to be affected, but there's been nothing adverse in the local press. Cheers, Philip

The deed has been done and I am somewhat relieved as I felt very guilty that I was able to eat and he couldn't. Naturally Mrs Philou and I are both upset as he was a rather large cat and very furry (7.3kg) which meant that we hadn't seen his loss of weight - the fur hid it. He wouldn't have lasted long and the vet was surprised he had last as long as this - poor lamb. I was very surprised by the attitude of the other three cats, his natural sister and two other strays that wandered in at 6 weeks of age and decided to stay. Cats must like it chez nous. Normally, the cats tended to group together or at least give each other a face-wash passing by. This time, especially the last couple of days - total cold-shoulder even from the youngest who usually was very affectionate towards him. Onto matters electric - the Lord made light and saw it was good. My three light circuits (two simple and one two-way) worked correctly first time. Yay! I was concerned that the switches I bought with LED/neon telltales weren't displaying properly and did think there was an error somewhere. However, once the circuits were completed with a light installed, they worked. I won't pretend to understand why, but maybe the lights completed the circuit. I was also expecting the LEDs to be on permanently but they turn off when the lights are on - I don't know if it's the same with UK light switches. I was also able to plug our 'fridge and separate freezer into the barn circuit, meaning that the existing outdoor extension lead could be removed. Even though it was via a waterproof extension and plug I expected it to 'pop' every time it rained. This afternoon I started cabling the second circuit - the main barn. I just couldn't get all the cables to get past a certain point in the conduit despite having taken it down and laid it flat. I was starting to consider a constriction in the conduit. One last try from the opposite end and it glided through no problem - go figure. Light stopped play and my first job tomorrow will be to put the conduit back in place and then continue threading all the other cables. I should be well advanced by the end of play tomorrow. I did take some photos, so here we go: As I made mention the other day, 8 into one will not go: I had in mind - this: And the three light circuits up and running: Thank you everyone for your 'hearts'. I know it's only a pet and it's not as if it was a child or a relation, but when you've had him around for 14 years, it's hard. Anyway, it's over and I do feel relieved. @JeffP Tell me about train tickets! Mrs Philou and I, with the three grandchildren missed a train because of a Mrs I-should-like-some-information-but-I'm-not-buying-a-ticket-today as we were unable to use the automatic ticket machine for the journey we wanted. Didn't have to wait over long for the next one but it wasn't just 15 minutes either! Cheers everyone and stay safe as over here, I think they're trying to prepare for Covid-19 Phase 9 restrictions over Christmas, Philip

No magic smoke escaped when I connected the lighting and power circuit to the consumer unit - yay! I was able to test all the sockets and they worked even though they gave me a bit of grief in cramming the cabling behind - they're deeper than UK sockets yet the back boxes are only 40mm deep. As I was asked to take an old freezer to the tip, my time available was cut short before natural light stopped play and I was only able to reinstate one light that was on a simple circuit - I haven't been able to test the two-way one yet. That'll be done first thing tomorrow. Mrs Philou dropped by to see how I was getting on and her comment to me once I had explained the three lighting circuits was 'Oh, I wanted the automatic light back (a cheapie Aldi/Lidl one with an infra-red detector) as it was so useful when my hands were full .......'. :( . I wanted to avoid that as it means having a light permanently plugged and switched on - oh well, had I known, I could have made provision for it. I'll think of something tomorrow. No pictures as I ran out of time. I may not be minded to post tomorrow as it'll be a one-way journey for the cat. He's moving around a bit but in only short distances. He's not eaten anything in days and just has a little lap of water from time to time - won't even be tempted by milk or sardines, poor buqqer. I'll see how it goes. Cheers everyone and take care, Philip

Hello chums, Still advancing in the right direction. I managed to do all the cabling for the the small barn. It was doing my head yesterday as I had to make sure that I had the right number of cables in place to create one power circuit and two lighting circuits (one with a two-way circuit) all in one conduit. I got there in the end :) . Today I have found out that small circular junction boxes cannot hold 8 x 5-way Wagos! I could cut some of the cabling back but I like to have a bit extra just in case. I shall need some larger square ones - oops. It wasn't originally intended to cram that many Wagos in such small boxes, but I rationalised the conduit and unfortunately junctions have coalesced too. Half the outlets, lighting and power, have received their fascias this afternoon, and, if I can have a good session in the barn tomorrow, I might just have time before the light fades to jury rig the existing power from the house consumer unit into the two circuits and see what happens - hopefully no magic smoke will escape. After that, threading cable into the conduit for the mezzanine part of the barn, then the main barn (lots of being up a ladder - that'll be fun). Afterwards, and only then, the railway room! Fingers crossed that it will be finished by Christmas - now where have I heard a similar expression before? I might post up a photo tomorrow. Cheers everyone, Philip

Thanks for the support everyone - I know it's not easy when you have pets. He's back home with me, and Mrs Philou will cuddle and love him when she gets back tomorrow. The vet didn't give any hope for him unfortunately, helpfully mentioning en passant, that he'd left the IV needle in as we might be wanting it very soon, especially as he no longer eats or drinks :((. Onto better news, cabling is underway, having done 3/4s of the smaller barn circuit. It means the incoming power and lighting is in place from the consumer unit (not powered yet) and so is a sub-circuit. Tomorrow, I tackle the two-way circuit and the left-over lighting/power cables. Who knows - Monday I might have put some of the fascias on meaning that Mrs Philou can have lighting and power in the smaller barn on Tuesday. Could be some Brownie points for the asking ;)). I'll keep you posted, Cheers, Philip

A little update to say that I managed to secure all but two of the backboxes this afternoon, helped by the fact that I'd mounted some plywood bases when I did the conduit. They will be completed by tomorrow mid-morning and it means I can get started on passing the cabling through the conduit. It won't be easy in places as I shall need to be perched on the ladder - but it's all going the right way. Cheers, Philip PS: Bad news regarding the cat, seems he has liver and gut cancer and won't be with us for very long. He came from a litter of three that we adopted as a group 14 years ago - Mrs Philou favourite. My favourite, his brother, got run over 5 years ago whilst minding his own business sat on a verge by a car that swerved to avoid his arch-enemy that was crossing the road at that moment - not fair, that.

Well! These last three days have been anything but frabjious. On Monday evening after my last post, Mrs Philou received word that her DiL had come down with a dose of 'flu and she decided that she would go to gay Paree to help look after the granddaughter. As she was going on a very early afternoon train on Tuesday, it put paid to any work in the morning and it all went downhill from there! As I had to go to town to drop Mrs Philou off at the station, I decided I'd better call in to the discount shop and buy my missing pipe clips and some other bitsa so that I could continue the electrics. I got the two items in my sweaty little hands and went to the only cash desk open with a couple having gone through and Mr Handyman with a trolley-load of stuff. Mr and Mrs Having Gone Through then queried an item whether it was in stock ready mixed in a tub in a certain size and ... and ... and ... and so it went on. Then Mr Handyman went through with his trolley load, items didn't scan correctly first time, then he wanted an itemised facture (detailed invoice) of the items bought - in triplicate! My turn! Ah, no. Mr I-bought-this-but-want-to-change-it-for-a-different-one arrived the other side of the cashdesk, so Mrs Cashdesk had to stop a moment and deal with him - then it was really my turn. In the meantime, a second cashdesk had opened behind me (out of sight) and at least three people went through before I was done and dusted. Harrumph! Went into a large retail shop (Tesco-type) to get the cats some crunchies and having found a space some distance away, the wind started blowing and the rain came so got wet crossing the car park, and into the shop I went - to find that not only were all crunchies sold out but so were the tins! Don't know what happened there as there's been no particular shortage of things recently. As I was passing, I called into B&M (yes - we do have B&M locally, the second one to open in France) as they usually have bits and pieces - especially huge bags of licorice. I'm addicted to it - though it is not good heart-wise- so I have a small piece now and again. Well, no licorice but I did find some Christmas tree baubles and packs of Panasonic AA and AAA batteries at €1.99 a pack of 24. Went through the cashdesk where they wanted €5.99 a pack! Troubled was, it hadn't clicked in my head and I'd wafted the card over the no-contact machine. So a palaver ensued of no, it isn't - yes, it is before I could have my card recredited - double Harrumph!! Nearer home, I went into our local post office to post a parcel to the UK for my brother (a spare distributor cap for his BX) that Mrs Philou had tried to post the previous Friday - only to be told AFTER the stamps had been affixed to the packet (€16 for 250g and it wasn't even worth €25!) that a custom declaration had to be attached that could now only be done on-line. On her return with the packet, I did the paperwork on the weekend and now armed with the packet AND paperwork, went to send it off. 'Oh!' came the reply when I presented the parcel, 'the stamps shouldn't have been given to you as not only the paperwork should have been done on-line, but the payment as well.' Aaaaarghhhh! You couldn't have made it up. In fairness to the lady behind the counter, she looked up some documentation on her computer, found an old customs form and did it by hand. Did you notice the charge for the parcel? At the same time, I posted two A4 envelopes, again to my brother containing some Citröen car-porn, under printed paper rate. These two weighed in at 750g (all together) and I paid €4.50 in total to send them to the UK. They will arrive in three days whereas the parcel will take over a week! Where is the sense in that? I finally got home two hours later than I had originally planned, to find Mr Mayor on the doorstep asking if I was free for the next couple days to help put up the new numbers on the woodland plots - 'Oh, yes' I replied as cheerfully as possible with that ever-so sinking feeling inside. It was too late to do anything in the barn, so I took the bits there anyway and found that I'd bought the wrong size clips!!!! AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Harumph, Philou PS: The rain came back Wednesday afternoon and so I was able to finish the conduit - I just used a size that was slightly larger than I had originally anticipated, that fitted the clips - so it has ended well. Today, we did half the woodland numbers of the 140-odd that need doing, the rest being held over for about 10 days or so. It means that I should start on the backboxes AFTER I take one of the cats to the vets' tomorrow - not at all well, poor buqqer.

Progress continues albeit slowly today. I'm about 6m of conduit away from being finished - and I ran out of clips! Tomorrow, I'll play Peter and Paul and replace non-critical ones later when I have more stock. I have two wooden backplates to screw to the walls (I use them as a base upon which to screw the backplates proper, due to the uneveness of the stone walls). If i'm done by lunchtime, I can get on with the proper backplates in the afternoon. P'raps finished by Friday and then the fun of threading the cable through the conduits commences! It has unfortunately turned decided colder and no sunshine. Remember about three weeks ago I said we were having mid-20s temperature - it's dropped suddenly to 9° today! It doesn't really encourage working out of doors. Ooh, did I mention that my planks finally turned up? If it remains dry, I can get them cut to width and get them in place - it'll stop cold air blowing into the railway room. Still no pictures as there isn't anything really visual to show. More tomorrow, Cheers, Philip

And a further quickie .... by lunchtime today, Mr Mayor, the second in command and I, had finished marking out the cut trees for the affouagists*. I thought we were renumbering the woodland plots today - but that's for later. It meant that I was able to get a little more clipping and conduiting done in the small barn - not much - but some nonetheless. No pictures today, and I'm certainly NOT taking any photos of the hovel in which I'm working at the moment ;). I'm off tomorrow afternoon to help a fellow ex-pat who wants some help with his model railway - I'm not sure what sort of help as he wouldn't say but it seems like some ideas are needed. If I think he needs more assistance than I can give, I'll point him in the direction of the RMWeb collective! Cheers everyone, Philip *Affouagists: Over here, there is private woodland and there is woodland in the public domain, 'owned' by towns and parishes (communes). The public can have access but you can't just help yourself to trees or wood and the like. In managed woodland, such as in our village, the wood/forest is divided up into plots. We have 38, and these are managed cyclically by the ONF (Office National des Forêts = Forestry Commission) on behalf of the commune. Some plots are thinned out to allow the better specimens to grow, others have some of the larger trees sold and cut down, keeping the best 'til last. Other plots are replanted after being cleared. It may take 120years+ before an oak has matured enough to be cut and thus 120years before a plot is replanted. The ONF sells the wood on behalf of the communes and gets a cut of the net profit, plus management fees (natch) - it works well. As part of the thinning out and cutting down of trees for sale, the leftovers fall to the affouagists in each commune. Affouagists are those that live within the commune but you cannot trade (sell/give away) your portion. The leftovers could be anything from the crown, an unwanted trunk or a diseased/damaged tree still standing. What I did today, was to number these leftovers with Mr Mayor and No. 2 and estimate the volume, the affouage, of the wood available. The volume is then divided between the affouagists. In our village there are just 2 this year (I'm not having any as I've still some left over to be fetched from the woods that'll keep me going for more than a year - I'll need some next year tho') and they will have their full portion of 30 steres - the maximum allowed by law. A stere is a cubic metre of split/cut wood - about 1/2T. In some villages there may be 20, 40 or 100+ wanting wood and never enough to go around. As the guesstimates are on the generous side, you'd be really unlucky if you didn't manage to cut and collect 40 or 45 steres - all for a paltry €40 the lot. Mind you, it is time and labour intensive and dangerous - chain saws and widow makers (loose branches) notwithstanding. Funny how in some communes, due to the sudden hike in energy prices, there has been a massive demand for affouage - whereas in years of bounty it was a case of 'Pfff, why should I get my hands dirty for a bit of wood?'. Any unclaimed affouage is sold off by the commune by way of trade as heating wood (cut, chipped or making pellets). So now you know ................... :)

Just a quickie today. I have continued in the 'small' barn in amongst the c2ap and general mess in there. The main trunk conduit is in place including several junction boxes and spurs. Not much will happen tomorrow, unless the weather is bad, as I'm due to be marking out woodland plots - held over from a month or more ago. Cheers, Philip

Hello everyone, An update as promised - but before that in reply to @JeffP and @5BarVT , yes, I'm threading along newly laid conduit that has easy bends and is easily demountable should anywhere be 'tight'. Though I prefer long, uninterrupted lengths of cable, this time I have junction boxes every so often where the daisy chain branches off either to a light or socket. If I have any issues in threading, I will have convenient places where I can cut and splice (Wago is your friend). I am rather glad that I did this way - why? - read on .......... Having arrived at a convenient spot in completing the new conduit for circuit 3, and having mentioned yesterday that I may run out of conduit, I decided to take down all of the old conduit and cable. 'Old' was what I had to lay urgently when we moved in permanently 9 years ago as there was no lighting or power in the barn. I have recovered around 15m or so of conduit that is perfectly serviceable and should be enough to finish the last part of the barn. I made mention upthread that we had a power outage in the barn earlier this year and I couldn't locate the problem. Today, I found the issue - two issues. The first was that in a junction box a phase wire had come out of a connector (surprisingly a Wago) and could that have been touching another wire in the box? Perhaps, but there was no charring or other clue in box. The other issue which may have been the main cause, if not THE cause, was in unthreading the 'old' lighting conduit, a very long uninterrupted length, one of the two-way lighting feeds had been partially sectioned within the conduit, had charred, eventually broken completely and had melted into the other feed, the earth, phase and neutral - no wonder the MCB and RCD kept blowing! I did have an 'eh?' moment, but I remembered that when my SiL took down the old joists in the barn, the one dropped giving an almighty clout on the conduit just at the point where there was the cable damage. My conduits are now placed higher and are clipped into pipe clips and can pop out readily should anything untoward happen again. They can be divided into short sections too. I was about to discard the old cabling and I suddenly remembered that I have railway that will need one or two power buses plus droppers and the like so the 1.5mm² and 2.5mm² will be recycled where it can. As mentioned above, the 3rd circuit has now been completed regarding the conduit. Tomorrow, I start on the last part, circuit 4, in what we call the 'small' barn. It used to be the milking parlour and pig-sty and is full of diesel - diesel do - and my tools and a load of c2ap. Oh, and it's partly covered in fibrocement sheet. I shall NOT be touching that!! Next year, Mrs Philou and I will seriously need to consider taking everything out of the two parts of the barn and having a concrete floor laid - all 100-odd m²! It won't be cheap! Here we go - picture time: All conduits being fed into the consumer unit Circuits 2,3 and 4 in place within the main barn More tomorrow, Cheers everyone, Philip PS: My 40mm deep back boxes arrived today, so once the conduit is complete, I can start screwing them into place.

Hello chaps and chapesses, Gosh, the weekend seems so far away already! Not a lot to show yet as it's been mainly fixing clips to timberwork and drilling walls for the wall plugs where necessary. What I can tell you though, is that the consumer unit has all the incoming conduits attached and that all the conduits starting from there are complete within the main barn (circuits 3 and 4). The railway room and main barn conduits were completed earlier. I did also take down the old circuit whilst I was up the ladder. Tomorrow will be a full day clipping and conduiting and despite rationalising the circuits, I may need some more conduit by Friday - hey ho. Pictures definitely for tomorrow. Toodle pip, Philip