A handy surprise

More rain today and the forecast is for rain every day for the next week or so, so the prospects for flying look pretty gloomy. Am I glad that I got 56NE’s covers done so at least it’s pretty well protected even though it’s having to stand out in it. I’ve just had a quick look back at what I was posting exactly a year ago and I was complaining about the self-same thing, saying that I’d had 56NE for four weeks and it had been rained on every day in that time while standing out in my garden. So it doesn’t look as though this kind of weather is unusual at this time of year. Mind you, although we were getting much colder days then than we are now, I was at least mentioning the odd crisp but bright, sunny day that kept turning up, that we seem to be missing out on this year.

So today was yet another one to avoid going out in if at all possible, and I spent the first part of it again putting together all the papers that are required by the company to which I’ve applied for insurance for my car. I did it all a month ago, but as the company concerned then wanted me to go to an agent to complete the process, which I didn’t want to do as I thought it rather negated the whole purpose of doing it on line, their cover stopped on 31st October, at the end of the initial month that you get when you complete the on line sign-up process. After putting the package together again for the new company and dropping it in the post this afternoon, I’ll now have to wait and see what happens.

After lunch, I went down to the SFR shop at Sarlat. The reason for my visit was to exchange my SFR Neufbox that provides me with internet and telephone. The one that I had up to today I’d received in exchange for my original one that was damaged when my house was subjected to the 400 volts power surge back in April, but whereas that one worked great, the replacement has always been subject to unexpectedly and without warning dropping its WiFi signal. This got so bad that in the end I just had to get rid of it, so SFR customer service arranged for me after a phone call this morning, to pick up another one this afternoon at their Sarlat branch.

It was after I returned home from doing that that I had my pleasant surprise that I referred to in the heading. I mentioned in a previous post that the previous occupier of my house had left a pile of old tree wood in my garden that, when I started to delve into it, I found had some much better quality timber underneath it that should make for quite good burning. As I’ve been gradually using up the wood that I placed under my shelter to keep dry, I’ve been shifting wet wood from outside into the space vacated, for it to dry out and become suitable for burning. It was while I was pulling wood off the aforementioned pile that I uncovered what was hidden at the back, which turned out to be a reasonable quantity of cut and split logs that the previous resident must have bought in to burn and left stored outside until they got round to using it. They must never have, and although the plastic cover that it was covered with has deteriorated over the time since then, the wood itself still looks to be in very good condition.

I won’t know for sure until I’ve removed more of the less good stuff that I’m gradually pulling off the heap and working my way through, but with this new, albeit quite small supply, what I have already and the quite large dead tree in my garden that I can cut down and chop up, I might well end up with enough wood to see me through the whole winter. In any case, my heating bill is bound to be considerably less this year then the EDF bill for in excess of 700€, that I received after last winter for heating my house using the electric convection heaters that I bought as a desperate measure to keep warm! I was stunned when I got it, so at least there won’t be a repeat of that this year, now that I’ve got the wood burner going. Thank goodness!