{"id":2841,"date":"2019-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kergudon.com\/https-www-kergudon-com-sunday-05-may-chain-stopped-play\/"},"modified":"2020-05-12T15:55:41","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T15:55:41","slug":"sunday-05-may-chain-stopped-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/sunday-05-may-chain-stopped-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 05 May – Chain stopped play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having said goodbye to Dave\u2019s parents on Wednesday another week has flown past.\u00a0 This week has been at least a little more productive than last as I haven\u2019t been hampered with a cold, and I have done lots of smaller, but worthwhile, tasks including continuing to clear the garage bays \u2013 slow progress!<\/p>\n

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In last week\u2019s blog<\/a> I mentioned that we had started felling some of the trees that we wanted to clear on the boundary but that I hadn\u2019t managed to log them as yet.\u00a0 I did manage to make a start on this at the start of the week only to be hampered then by a chainsaw that didn\u2019t want to play.<\/p>\n

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To be honest the saw didn\u2019t really work when we felled the trees and I was kindly lent another by a neighbour so we didn\u2019t leave a tree in a perilous half-cut state.\u00a0 Having looked online for all of the obvious problems that may affect it and tried a number of things to get it going, I asked another neighbour if they could take a look.\u00a0 Their conclusion was that the carburettor needed adjusting but, unlike a number of other brands where you can make an adjustment with a screwdriver, my saw needs a special key which isn\u2019t included when you buy it.<\/p>\n

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Having visited 3 repair shops it is evident that this time of year is when everyone takes garden equipment in to get repaired!\u00a0 The first store, and most convenient as it is near David\u2019s work, took some time to show and explain what the problem was likely to be with the carburettor and said it should be a relatively quick and simple job.\u00a0 However, they then said it would be at least 2 weeks before they could even look at it!<\/p>\n

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The second, more of an \u2018old-school\u2019 repair shop, made an adjustment in their workshop there and then. It took 5 minutes, they made no charge and looked to be working fine when in their shop but, having bought it home after 5 minutes the same problem occurred!\u00a0 The third shop looked at it and said that it wasn\u2019t a make they dealt with and that they were likely to struggle getting parts.<\/p>\n

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The saw is admittedly a cheap brand that we brought from a DIY-shop of the same company as B&Q and ScrewFix so one that you could get in the UK.\u00a0 However, it has last a couple of years so was a reasonable buy but now we need to consider what\u2019s best.\u00a0 As we have lots of wood to cut over the years we need to decide if we spend more on a better make of saw.\u00a0 Current thinking is that we try another of the same brand, as it is cheaper to keep replacing then if \/ when they break, and we have the added advantage of having spares assuming different parts break!<\/p>\n

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I have managed to cut as much of the trees as I can with my trusty bow saw (pretty effective with a decent blade) but now need something powered.\u00a0 On the upside we will need another bonfire soon!<\/p>\n

\"Slow<\/a><\/p>\n

The rest of the week has also been spent outside as the weather has been pretty decent.\u00a0 One thing that I have been able to do for the first time is to cut the buxus plants we put in the champignon beds behind Priory.\u00a0 We created the beds at the end of 2015 (our first year here) and early 2016 to give some definition to the private area for Priory.\u00a0 To further do that we thought we would plant some formal low hedging and make it look formal!<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately I don\u2019t seem to have got a picture when they were first planted but I do have one when they were laid out in their pots<\/a>.\u00a0 Here you can see that they have some growing to do before they become a proper hedge (not to mention the changes to the old fence panels) but this year they were in a position to start trimming.<\/p>\n

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We hope by cutting the sides it will encourage them to grow taller and, where the still need to join sideways, they can put their energy in this.\u00a0 Hopefully you can get an impression of what it will look like in years to come when they have gained a little height.<\/p>\n

\"Champignon<\/a><\/p>\n

The old photo also shows that there used to be a couple of choisya plants in the beds (the small very yellow ones) but these are not in the current state photos.\u00a0 For some reason these plants were never very happy here so we have dug them up, have put them in pots and when they are stronger will find a new home for them.\u00a0 We also need to think of some other plants to put in their place \u2013 any suggestions will be gratefully received.<\/p>\n

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The choisyas weren\u2019t the only plants I moved this week.\u00a0 You may recall that we got a lot of our plants in a sort of lottery at a Morlaix school fete held each June.\u00a0 As such, we don\u2019t always know what we get \u2013 or how large the plants may become.\u00a0 One such was a heather that we planted next to the Hayloft terrace and it evidently likes its spot as it grew and grew and started to smother the azaleas that were already there.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

We have moved this to another area behind Hayloft which has forced me to start to clear this area of the bed which, other than chopping down some overgrown hawthorn a couple of years ago, we have never touched.\u00a0 Hopefully, having had a trim, it will recover and enjoy it here, more so when we cut back lots of the other plants next to it after the rhododendron has flowered.<\/p>\n

\"Heather<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the other smaller but worthwhile tasks has been to attach a couple of the nameplates to our new buildings.\u00a0 Having had the garage (Grange) and my man shed built we thought it would be good to give them the same name plates as the g\u00eetes.\u00a0 Despite living in a slate area here, these plaques come from a slate mine in the Lake District.\u00a0 We ordered the Grange plaque when we were walking in 2018 and the man shed plate this spring.\u00a0 While we have given the g\u00eetes English names these new buildings have French plates which we think is more appropriate (Grange being the choice of blog readers last year).<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a><\/p>\n

\"My<\/a><\/p>\n

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We have put the man shed plate below where we want to attach an exterior light.\u00a0 When we were renovating the g\u00eetes for the first time in 2015 we bought 5 lights \u2013 1 for each g\u00eete and one for our own home.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t attach the light to Stable immediately so we were able to use it on Grange but now we need 2 more and, of course, 4 years later we can\u2019t find the same style!\u00a0 If anyone has seen a light as the picture below for sale anywhere please do let us know \u2013 it would be good if they could all be the same.<\/p>\n

\"Kergudon<\/a><\/p>\n

Next week will depend on the weather \u2013 we are due a few wet days \u2013 and if I get a new chainsaw \u2013 but there is always something to do \u2026.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Salut.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having said goodbye to Dave\u2019s parents on Wednesday another week has flown past.\u00a0 This week has been at least a little more productive than last as I haven\u2019t been hampered with a cold, and I have done lots of smaller, but worthwhile, tasks including continuing to clear the garage bays \u2013 slow progress! \u00a0 In…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ben-and-daves-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}