Back at work today

And you have no idea how difficult it is, crawling out of bed at something like 08:30 in the morning when you haven't had to do it for a while.. What made it worse was the weather - really a case of groping my way outside because we had a typical Auvergnat hanging cloud again and you couldn't see a thing.

First thing that I did was to pull up my beetroot. That didn't take too long and some of the roots are enormous. Liz is going to show me how to pickle them later this week and I'll be looking forward to that.

Next was the turn of the potatoes and I seem to have rather a lot of them. I've had a cursory skim over about a quarter of the potato patch and I've pulled up a huge bucket full. But a few of them were damaged by the lifting so I reckon I'm going to have to make a huge potato curry.

I didn't stay down there long because the heavens opened after about half an hour and it wasn't very pleasant at all. And having to run up the field to answer the phone at about 11:30 or so, only for it to stop ringing as I put my hand on it - that didn't help matters either. But after that I fought my way into the barn, tidying up a load of wood as I passed, and sorted out a scaffolding pole to mount the wind turbine. That'll be fixed to the fence for a while until I finish pointing the house wall, whenever that might be. And mounting it to the fence won't be any time soon either as the weather is just impossible right now.

After lunch I tidied up a little in the bedroom downstairs to get ready to start work in there again, and I've used some of the old planks from the stairs to make a temporary floor in what will be the bathroom. Now I have an inside toilet - a dry toilet of course, that's made from a stainless steel waste bin (I bought two of those from IKEA) lined with a biodegradable bin liner and part-filled with sawdust. It's only merely placed in the bathroom - it's a long way from being fitted - but it's a major advance as I don't fancy trekking to the outside in the snow that we are likely to be having any time soon.

I've also had a phone call from a potential customer interested in a wind turbine - that old guy who I met on an ALDI car park in Commentry a while back. He wants to power his house heating with it, which is rather optimistic, so we had a chat and if he wants to go any further he'll call me back.