Friday afternoon, we left Zurich at a very respectable 3 o'clock, motered on down to France over the pas de Morgins, over the col du Corbier, arrive in Morzine at 7:30 (ish) fantastic, 4 hour driving with a half hour break along the way. Right, we need some food, go to the supermarket. The supermarket is open. Result. Siew Ling goes in and gets busy buying food. I see this big notice on the door and translate it to mean "This shop will be CLOSED Saturday 14th July" That's tomorrow, why is the shop closed? OK "Siew Ling we need to get more food, this shop is closed tomorrow" Fine no problem.
As we are leaving my brain has reached a conclusion that it now provides: 14th July why does that ring a bell? what does that remind me of? Bastille Day! France's National Holiday! Everything will be closed on Saturday. All the supermarkets, all the shops, all the DIY shops! Arse!
We arrived at the chalet to find a bit of a transformation, the chalet no longer has a big hole all round it. It has been back filled and landscaped.
I now have a driveway! with a drain out side my garage! More surprises, I have a earth cable, in a weird place but I have an earth, not connected to the consumer unit, but its an earth! I have a temporary supply box, all connected to the overhead wires, with a meter and everything, just what he EDF billed me for!
But no connection to my Chalet. OK I can do that, I just need 20 metres of 16mm four ply cable and an earth cable to connect the consumer unit up and all this was planned, I can go to the DIY shop on Saturday and buy all of what I need and get my power on.
But no, tomorrow is Bastille day and everything is closed!
So Saturday came round and sure enough everything was closed, except, embarrassingly enough the supermarket, I had misread the sign which said "This shop will be OPEN 14th July" Oh well everything I need to be open was closed.
Any way It probably saved me money as I had to improvise. I scrapped my original idea of how to block up the garage and went with a new off the cuff design (as usual) The door turned into a removable section of wall rather than the elegant doorway I had planned but it will function. No hinges mean the door doesn't really open rather it falls!
Oh it was so hot. The sun was burning hot all weekend, absolutely fantastic weather, maybe not for working out side but great sunshine.
With the garage blocked up I could move some (nearly all) of Robs tools into my garage so as not to disturb his guests next time I am there (4th August I hope).
As the garage doors/wall went up I was thinking about the electricity, how best to connect it. In the end I removed the cable I put in last time from the entrance to the consumer unit. This cable is the one the builders donated. Its not bad and I am sure its fine, its just I don't trust it as part of the permanent fixtures so I will use this cable to go from the pylon to the garage and then some spare 10mm from the garage to the consumer unit. The builders cable is the only bit of cable I had available that would reach without cannibalising the already installed 10mm in the kitchen.
So I tried all Sunday morning to thread this big ugly cable down the ducts from the pylon to the garage. Funny thing is the duct changes colour, the duct at the pylon is orange and has a smooth interior, the duct at the garage is red and has a horrible ribbed interior just right for catching cables on. This is a bad sign, I was not convinced they were actually the same duct but some listening and shouting and wobbling cable around indicated they were possible connected. Anyway I tried all morning, I carefully prepared the end, I pushed and pulled, I pulled it all out and laid it all out and twisted the kinks out of it I let it warm up in the sun, I pushed and pulled from both ends, I couldn't get the thing through! It would go about as far as the chalet then no further! bad sign! but the other way it would go a lot further and then stop.
For some reason I am relatively convinced that the ducts do actually join up, why I am not sure when everything points to the fact that the are not joined. Maybe it the hard work involved in digging them up to prove it that I am avoiding!
So no electricity for me this weekend, but I have block the garage up.
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