I finished my CD player thingy today

It's made out of the old CD/SD card stereo out of Caliburn, a pair of speakers I bought ages ago for the LDV, and then a pile of scrap wood I had lying around, the leftovers of various projects.

It's really heavy and solid, which is just as it is supposed to be. No tinny rattles and reverberation, just good heavy and solid bass - exactly as I want, and it works perfectly once I worked out that it isn't the red that's the live cable but the yellow. It does exactly what it is supposed to do and I'm impressed with it.

But before that I spent ages cutting up a huge pile of wood. It's quite damp and airless but simply pulling it out of the lean-to is doing it a little good. And it won't be long before I can start to use that room for what it is intended to be - a kind-of washroom and gas bottle store, the outside composting WC, some stairs up to the first floor and a general storage area. It's nice to see it emptying, and quite quickly too. In fact, if I knew where my huge sledgehammer was, I could demolish the concrete feeding troughs in there and get started on that tomorrow.

After lunch I started on some more studding on the front wall and I now have another length of this space-blanket insulation on there. It won't be long now before all of that is done, and then I can start on the plasterboarding. This will be done with the huge sheets that have the insulation built-in and that's going to be hell to cut and manoeuvre. But once it's on, then that will be that indeed.

Finally, I hunted around for more wood from the pile that I cut up 18 months ago and which was scattered to the four winds when we put the scaffolding up. A few more loads was recovered and piled up in the heap at the side of the lean-to and now that's overflowing with wood with plenty more to come. This woodpile is getting out of hand now - it's amazing just how much wood you can have from just doing a bit of hedge-trimming.

And I'm in demand too. I'm wanted on Friday afternoon to help move a bed and then deliver it to Espinasse and then I've been invited to the Reseau Rural's New Years Day party on Saturday. Yes, after all of the disputes that went on over the "Temoin de Whatsit" and the Teilhet goatslayers (for which I am still awaiting an apology by the way) a few years ago, you might think that my sudden surge to popularity is a sign of my own good character and likeable qualities that have been sorely missed by the members.

But the cynic in me tells me nothing of the sort.

In fact, following the spectacular collapse of the Reseau a short while ago and the general level of (dis)interest shown by anyone else, there's only me doing anything (namely organising the Anglo-French Conversation Group) and hence there's only me that has an active e-mail list of all the members. And so if you want to hold a New Year party and invite everyone you need to come to me for the list of addresses. And you can hardly ask me to send out an invitation to everyone and NOT include me on the list of invitees, could you?

But then again, the definition of a cynic is someone who sees things as they are and not as they are supposed to be. And that's me to a Tee.