Month: February 2026

I thought that the container ship bringing my mini excavator from China would probably not arrive in Valencia on time, but I was wrong. Its ETA was 6.30 pm today but by 5.30 pm it was standing off Valencia waiting for a pilot to take it in and by 6.19 pm it was docked and ready to start unloading the containers destined for this, its first port of call in Spain.

So I need to press on getting the garage I’m building for the excavator finished ready for when it arrives. Here’s a shot of the corner where it will be sited taken last summer. It needs to be cleared and ready for the build to commence now I’ve completed the frames for its side panels.

The first thing to go had to be the old damaged ‘tonnelle’ tubular metal frame and here it is cut up, dismantled and in my small trailer ready to go to the dump.

It’s going to be fine again tomorrow so with a bit of luck I should have erected the complete wooden frame for the garage by the end of the day.

Unlike yesterday, which started out cool, damp and misty, only brightening up after lunch, today started sunny and bright and stayed that way, hitting nearly 20 degrees C in the afternoon. So it was an excellent day to get back working on my mini-excavator garage and I made the most of it. I didn’t do anything on it yesterday – I just bought the plywood I needed for the joint stiffeners (which is what I’ve decided to call them) and some more screws, small and large.

I marked out the plywood yesterday and started today by cutting all the separate shaped pieces that I’d require and then got back to working on the garage side frames themselves. I’d left the one I’d already screwed together lying on the ground and my first job was to disassemble each joint, glue them, reassemble them and tighten their securing screws as tightly as possible. Then I had to make sure that the frame was square and glue and screw a joint stiffener over each joint.

Having completed one frame I was then able to leave it lying on the ground and use it as a template for the second. This saved having to take measurements all over again and helped to speed the process up, but even so, having started just before lunch time (I did another job beforehand, removing a broken handle from the shaft of my spade and fitting a new one) I didn’t finish up until past 6.00 pm this evening.

Shown below are some shots of the finished frames showing the completed second frame on top of the first one and images of each type of joint stiffener which had been glued and screwed over the frame joints. I was very pleased to find that even though I’d only used 3mm plywood the frames turned out to be very rigid and stiff. The final shot showing the frames leaning against the front of my house give a good idea of how large they are and when the garage is completed it should nicely accommodate the excavator and protect it from the weather.

In other news, the excavator itself is now getting much closer and at the time of writing this post the CMA CGM Cedrus, the container ship bringing it to Marseille, is approaching Casablanca. However, I think that it will be touch-and-go as to whether it will make Valencia by 06.00 pm on 26 February, its scheduled ETA, but we’ll have to wait and see.

My new mini excavator is due to arrive at Marseille Fos on either 3 or 4 March and will be available to be picked up from around 6 March. Now we have a few days of fine weather I therefore need to get cracking on building a garage for it so when it’s delivered to my house it doesn’t have to stand out in the open. As I mentioned previously, I intend to build a wooden framed structure covered in either plastic tarpaulin or wood of approximate dimensions shown below.

I purchased eleven 4m lengths of ‘demi-chevron’ wood (roughly 60mm x 40mm) from Leroy Merlin the other day from which to build the framework. Unfortunately it was stored in the open in their yard and it’s very wet which doesn’t make it any easier to work – quite the opposite. I’ve actually increased the height of the garage to just over 2.2 metres and it’s length to 2.7 metres which will give a bit more height clearance and a bit more length to cover the excavator’s boom when it has been lowered and this morning I measured and cut all of the components of the framework.

One left-over length of 1300mm and a few pieces of waste are on the left of the image.

The 1300mm length will be usable when I come to build my proposed new garden shed/workshop after the excavator has arrived and as shown below, the amount of real waste, the small pieces, is negligible.

I’ve put together one side frame but I’ve stopped work on it until tomorrow and left it on the ground in front of my house because with the wood being so wet the joints aren’t strong enough.

I’ve only screwed it together whereas I’d usually glue and screw framework like this. I intend to glue and screw it tomorrow and will also stiffen the structure even more by gluing and screwing thin plywood cover plates over the joints. I thought I still had some suitable plywood (about 3mm thick) but I don’t so will have to buy some tomorrow.

As expected, the CMA CGM CEDRUS, the container ship bringing my mini excavator from China, is now fully committed to routing to Valencia, its next port of call, via the Cape of Good Hope.

This means that it will not arrive in Marseille until at least 03 March which gives me two or three weeks to find out how I get it through French customs and delivered to my house and also to make preparations for when it arrives. The logistics and transport are the most difficult bits but while I’m resolving those I also want to make a ‘garage’ for it so when its unpacked it won’t need to stand out in the open.

I’ve scoured the internet for a ready-made solution but I can’t find anything that’s quite high enough. The closest I can find is a ‘tente garage voiture’, as shown below, which is larger all round than I ideally want, fairly expensive at 425€ and also has a cross-bar at what appears to be just below the height required to clear the excavator’s boom.

As shown below, the excavator’s dimensions with its boom folded are height 2250 cm, length 1893 cm and width 960 cm.

I want to be able to get it into a waterproof temporary structure at the bottom of my garden which will not be too obtrusive, will stand directly on the grass and will be easily removable when I’ve finished with it. I’ve decided to go with a wooden framed structure which I will build myself that will be anchored into the ground with angle-iron at its four corners and have a roof and sides covered with green plastic tarpaulin sheet.

I should be able to build it for not much more than 100€. I’ll acquire the wood in the next day or so and all I’ll then need is for it to stop raining long enough so I can go ahead, clear the space for it that I have earmarked and go ahead and build it. So at the time of writing that’s what I’m committed to but I have no idea when exactly I’ll be able to start building with the weather forecast as it is 🙁

I’ve been following the progress of the CMA CGM CEDRUS, the ship bringing my mini excavator from China, for the past few days and it has been maintaining a steady course of 249/250 degrees at a speed of about 20 knots for the whole of the time. This has taken it further and further away from the direct course from Singapore to the Suez Canal and I’ve become more convinced as time has passed that although it hasn’t been on the direct course to the Cape of Good Hope on the tip of South Africa it will end up taking that route to Valencia.

And so it has been confirmed this evening as the latest route forecast for the vessel now shows.

I think there may be two reasons for this. The first is that this route will avoid any complications that might arise in the Middle East due to the unstable situation in Iran. However, as previous images have shown, although I have no experience to judge whether this is so or not, the volume of traffic heading up to the Suez Canal looks to me to be pretty heavy and if so, this could lead to possible congestion and delay.

On balance, therefore, the owners of the CMA CGM CEDRUS may have decided that as the costs of taking ‘the long way round’ were factored in when the voyage was commenced it would be prudent to stick to the original route plan. What this might mean for the arrival date of my machine in Marseille remains to be seen as to date there has been one day of slippage in the schedule.

The container ship CMA CGM CEDRUS that is bringing my mini-excavator to Marseille was scheduled to arrive in Singapore on 30 January but as it did not leave Cai Mep in Vietnam until 29 January at 13.28 hrs local time that was impossible. Instead it arrived in Singapore one day late on 31 January at 0844 hrs.

It was originally scheduled to depart Singapore on 30 January (revised from 29 January) but actually left on 01 February at 06.41 hrs local. When I checked to see what was happening it had just cast off and was being tugged away from the port area.

So there has been one day’s slippage compared to the ship’s original schedule although at the time of typing this its ETA in Valencia, Spain remains unchanged as 26 February 15.00 hrs local. This is where it looks as though things are becoming a bit more complicated though.

As I understood it, the CMA CGM CEDRUS’s route from Singapore to Valencia was originally planned to be via the Cape of Good Hope. However, since the vessel left China, on 26 January the shipping companies began to again route traffic bound for southern Europe via the Suez Canal and it now looks as though this is the route that the CMA CGM CEDRUS will take.

However, it looks as though things are not as simple as that. The wild card is the political situation in Iran and whether that will lead to an invasion by the United States and an upsurge in armed conflict in the Middle East. I’m wondering whether the management at CMA CGM (the French owners of the CMA CGM CEDRUS) are still considering their options because for the past several hours the vessel seems to be on a bearing that’s between the direct routes to the Suez Canal and the Cape of Good Hope.

This could give the possibility of switching to either one within the next few hours so I’ll be checking again in the morning. On the other hand, the ship might just be heading for another unscheduled stop at Nacala, a city on the northern coast of Mozambique, the deepest natural port on the east coast of Africa, before continuing on around the Cape of Good Hope and thus avoiding the uncertainties arising from the Iranian situation.

I’ve now been in France for 14 years and I’ve just found that I’ve got a mouse in my car. How could it possibly have got in? It’s already nibbled a bit on the back seat. I’ve never come across such a thing… 🙁

I’ve come back to add a comment. As soon as I saw the mouse poop in the boot of the car I dashed up and bought 2 mouse traps before posting the above. I’ve just checked and BOTH have caught a mouse, so there were at least 2 mice in there. It’s late and raining now but I’ve cleared and reset them and I’ll check them again tomorrow but if they’ve bred… I daren’t think about it 🙁