La Darnoire

I went to the gîte next door in the morning to use their wi-fi to check emails, and to start the process of ordering a satellite dish for internet access. Now the gîte originally had satellite internet through a French company called Nordnet, but it was apparently very unreliable, and too expensive for the service received. So a couple of months ago they switched to…. wait for it….. Orange.

Well, I was able to send and receive emails all right, although the connection was a bit slow, and dropped out once or twice.

It was a scorching hot day today, and they’re predicting thunderstorms tomorrow. Which means yet more rain, oh joy. We weren’t really able to enjoy the sunshine though, as it was incredibly humid. I spent the rest of the morning constructing a frame for the photovoltaic solar panels and sweating profusely. I should be able to connect them up tomorrow. LSS managed to cut some grass with the lawnmower, and then nearly buried herself in the garden trying to turn the soil over with the tiller in order to get it to dry a bit. The soil is still very wet. Well, the garden may not produce much this year, but at the moment the crop of mosquitoes and horseflies has been impressive.

In the late afternoon I went back to the gîte to check if I had any replies to my SOS messages about getting a satellite internet connection (not through Nordnet, I hasten to add). Guess what?

Correct.
Their internet connection had gone down. Using some command-line tools I was able to trace the problem to the Orange name server (the computer which tells your browser where to go to get to a website). As a test, I asked it to look up www.google.com. If I translate its response into English, it was basically “Google? Never heard of it. No idea where to look. Sorry, can’t help.”
There are normally two name servers (one for backup purposes). Unfortunately it appears the main name server also didn’t know where the other one was, so couldn’t ask it for help.

As for OUR Orange progress report, LSS has now received text messages from the manager of the Orange shop, saying that Orange are desperately trying to talk to LSS but, for some reason, the phone doesn’t work.

No, really?

LSS has asked for a message to be passed back saying that she’ll be in town giving an English lesson between 17:00 and 18:00 today, and they can try her mobile then.* Although she’s not really interested in speaking to them, she just wants them to fix the problem.
*They didn’t.

Actually, dealing with Orange bears all the hallmarks of that somewhat old joke about onions. You must have heard it.

A man goes into a Portuguese greengrocer’s shop and asks for a pound of onions.
“Sorry,” says the greengrocer. “We don’ta hava no onions.” (You’ll have to imagine the accent.)
“Oh dear,” says the customer. “Well, in that case, I’ll have a pound of onions please.”
“But I justa tella you!” says the greengrocer. “We don’ta hava no onions.” (Actually he sounds more Italian, but never mind.)
“Ah, I understand,” says the customer. “Yes. Hmm. Well, instead I’ll just have a pound of onions.”
“Right!” exclaims the greengrocer. “How do you spella the ‘Tom’ in ‘Tomatch’?”
“Tee Oh Em,” says the customer.
“That’sa right! Now, how do you spella the ‘Pot’ in ‘Potatch'”?
“Pee Oh Tee,” says the customer, puzzled.
“That’sa right!” exclaims the greengrocer. “Now, how do you spella the ‘F***’ in onions?”
“There is no ‘F***’ in onions!” says the customer.
“That’sa what I’va been trying to tell you!”

I’ll get my coat.

I expect you’re on tenterhooks wanting to know what Orange said.

Well, LSS went to the Aged FIL shortly after 08:00, and called 3900 as instructed. A computer system took the details, and then a recorded voice said, “There is a problem in your area. We are experiencing a high volume of calls at the moment. An engineer will investigate. Thank you for calling Orange. Goodbye.”
So much for the detailed information.

The good news is that two of the eggs under one of the broody hens have now hatched. We have one little yellow chick, and one black. I hope we get some more over the next few days; hatching two out of twenty eggs is not really that brilliant.

So, I mentioned a “Domino” in the last post. LSS had sent a text back, asking what this was, because nobody from Orange had mentioned it before. Well, she received the reply. A “Domino” is what Orange call a little device which you plug into your computer, and it then provides an Internet connection!

Via 3G.
Which doesn’t work here.
Sigh.

After LSS returned from giving English lessons, we had supper as usual. The plan was to take the car into the village at 20:45, ready for the telephone call from the Orange manager at 21:00. Of course, it was pouring with rain.

Well, just before 20:30, LSS’s mobile beeped. It didn’t ring, it beeped. “You have one missed call,” read the screen, “Timed at 20:20. The caller did not leave a message.”.
Swearing profusely in French, LSS grabbed the car keys, and we left for the village. On the way there, the mobile beeped again.
When we stopped in the village (where we managed to find the strongest signal yet – two bars), two text messages arrived from the manager of the Orange shop. The first said that she was at that moment on the phone to the Orange Service department, and LSS should have her mobile ready at hand, because they would be calling her at 20:30.
The next text said simply: “Make that 20:00.”
Yes, even SMS texts from Orange don’t come through on time.

Then…

“You have one missed call”, read the screen, “Timed at 20:35. The caller did not leave a message.”
We waited, in the car, in the rain.
The village church clock chimed nine times. No promised telephone call from the Orange manager was received. We waited until 21:07, then headed home.
LSS has now changed her mind about Bouygues Telecom, and will be contacting them tomorrow, with the first order of business being the changing of her mobile provider to Bouygues.
She did send a text to the manager of the Orange shop to tell her what happened, and received a reply with the following advice:
“Call this number – 3900 – tomorrow morning after 08:00 and you’ll be able to speak to someone to get more detailed information about your problem.”

We can’t wait…

The other remaining female bunny died, in protest of her treatment by Mr. Bunny. So we’re now left with the original Mrs Bunny, Mr. Bunny, and two month-old kits.

Still no phone or internet. Two days ago LSS contacted the mother of one of her pupils, who happens to be the manager of an Orange shop in Orleans. The mother, that is, not the pupil. She said that she would find out what the problem was. Well, last night LSS received a text message from her. The problem was apparently caused by the flooding which happened at the beginning of the month. Although, if I think about it, our connection went down before the flooding occurred. Anyway, she hopes to get further details tomorrow. In the interim she has offered to connect us to a “Domino” for a month. LSS sent a text back asking what a “Domino” was.

Now if Orange had come straight out with this in the first place:
“Sorry, due to the flooding a lot of our electronic equipment has gone pop. We realise now that it was probably not a good idea to put all the switches and routers in the basement. So we need to replace everything. And, due to budget cuts, we don’t have spare equipment in stock. We’ve ordered new stuff, but the manufacturer is in China so it will be four weeks before it arrives.” – it would at least have been understandable. Not exactly acceptable, but understandable. And I would probably have made a single blog post stating that we were without Internet access and would be back in a month. But what annoys us most is that we’ve been fobbed off with a lot of excuses and false promises of re-connection within 48 hours. This is not good Customer Service. Mind you, we are in France, so we now expect this sort of thing. Doesn’t make it any easier, though.

Two more little bunnies went to the great big clover field in the sky. Which leaves only two. Yesterday Mrs. Bunny appeared to be on heat, so visited the male’s cage. As added insurance, we put the other remaining female with Mr. Bunny as well. She did not appear to be too happy about it.

Yesterday the high water table had lifted the greywater reedbed sump (which is a 120-litre plastic barrel) out of the ground; despite the sump having about 12 bricks in it, and a large concrete block on top. This meant that the inlet pipe was pointing upwards, so the greywater pipes were full. Which meant the bath wasn’t draining. And the little 12V bilge pump had also stopped working, because the impeller had become clogged, just like the washing machine earlier in the week. However, this time it wasn’t one of LSS’s socks which was the problem, but black gunk. I cleaned everything out and added a few more bricks to the barrel so that the entrance pipe is at least level, if not pointing slightly downwards as it should. I think once the water table drops back to normal levels (if ever) I will have to construct a new sump out of concrete. And perhaps I’ll replace the submersible pump with a surface self-priming type triggered by float switches. I’ll need to do some research on this, if the Internet ever comes back on.

This morning I bottled this year’s batch of elderflower champagne. All our country wines are being stored upstairs, which is not ideal because it’s a bit warm, and the temperature fluctuates a bit. But we’ve nowhere else to put it at the moment. Once the “ballon” room (one of the outbuildings containing the pressure vessel for the well) has been sorted out we can probably store it all in there; but I think it’s unlikely to be done this year. We need to finish sorting out the barn first.

Oh, and LSS has started painting the bathroom.

One of the females from the previous litter of bunnies wasn’t looking too well this morning, so we simply accelerated her impending demise. She has now joined her brother in the freezer. And yet another little bunny died. We’re now down to four; of which three are looking decidedly sickly.

We spent the morning at BricoDepot and came back with a trailer-full of building supplies. Of course, it’s still raining, so it’s not exactly conducive to outside work like constructing a frame for the solar panels. Solar panels! Hah! Don’t they need a little something called sunshine?

We’ve reverted to lighting the boiler stove to heat our water; the poor old solar thermal panel on the roof is unable to reach a temperature greater than 48 degrees (a mid-tank temperature of 53 degrees is required for a comfortable bath or shower). And the water table is back to its previous high levels; the floor inside the barn has splishy-splashy areas again. As does the dirt floor of my workshop. And the dirt floor of the garage, where the poor old ST1100 is stored.

We’re also having to use the garage for storing timbers and doors which will be used for the rest of the barn construction. And although everything is off the floor, supported on old pallets, it’s started going mouldy.

Wildlife diary: Mrs. Duck has made a nest in the greywater reedbed. We saw her marching purposefully towards it from the pond, and she disappeared into the reeds. The reeds are so thick in there it’s difficult to see the nest. I later took advantage of her absence (she was having a bath in the pond) to have a closer look. There is indeed a nest, with ten eggs. She’s chosen a good place. Due to the carefully-constructed overflow system, there’s no risk of the water level increasing and getting her eggs damp.

And another one gone, and another one gone, another one bites the dust…

Yet another little bunny turned its toes up this morning. That leaves five. And, to keep it company, the male from the previous litter died as well. This weather is wreaking havoc on our bunny population.

Oh, and telephone and internet access? (insert maniacal laughter here). No.

Tomorrow we’re off to BricoDepot again for some further supplies; for example some rolls of insulation for the rest of the barn roof.
LSS did a load of washing today, then informed me that the washing machine wasn’t finishing its cycle, but remained full of water. She had to leave for an English class, so I donned my washing-machine-repairman hat and had a look. It transpired that one of LSS’s socks had found its way inside the machine, and had become wrapped around the pump’s impeller, jamming up the works. Once removed, the machine worked fine again.

As we still have no Internet access, I have taken advantage of the down-time to replace the hard disk in my computer. I had noticed it was getting a bit “laggy” so a few weeks ago I purchased a solid-state drive. The replacement was fairly straightforward; I used a program called Acronis to clone the old hard disk onto the new one. I’m very impressed with the improvement in speed.

And on the husbandry front, we’ve lost yet another little bunny. Mind you, it’s poured with rain since yesterday, so maybe they just can’t take the weather. I know how they feel. We had a week’s worth of sunshine at the end of May. I do hope that THAT week was not the season called Summer, because it’s decidedly autumnal at the moment. The leaves of many plants are turning yellow. Like the potatoes, for instance. I’m really starting to miss the sunshine of Africa…

We lost another two little bunnies yesterday. I have decided to relinquish bunny-feeding duties; if LSS is away giving English lessons at feeding time they’ll just have to go hungry until she returns. Mind you, they are somewhat fragile animals; and as we are not feeding them any antibiotics or other medicines, nature tends to take its course. It makes you realise that it’s not surprising there are so many chemicals employed in commercial farming – every animal which gets sick or dies impacts the profit of the enterprise.

I have been preparing the installation for the photovoltaic solar panels. This has necessitated some tidying up in my workshop. There is a stout table against one wall upon which the batteries reside. The solar controller and AC inverter are also in this area. Unfortunately the entire area was surrounded with lumber, so I was unable to actually reach the table. I therefore constructed a lumber rack using an old pallet, and tidied up a bit. I can now access the table! I also went to the Aged FIL’s farm where I remembered seeing two steel frames; these can be modified to support the solar panels themselves. I brought them back using the Renault 5. And whilst I was there, I also brought back some of the half-burnt timbers from the old garage roof. There are still a few left; but the majority have now been converted into firewood.

Unfortunately one of the little bunnies died. Apparently I gave them all too much grass to eat yesterday.

The new solar controller arrived in the post yesterday, so it was fitted today. It’s basically a digital temperature gauge which can measure two temperatures at once. When the difference in temperature between the two probes reaches a set value, a relay switches on. So I no longer need to switch the solar panel pump on manually.

Mind you, I haven’t needed to do this for a week anyway!