Fried chips

We had a power glitch the other day.   Not one of the more common sub-second extinguishing of the lights combined with the beep of the UPSs cutting in.    This time, UPSs went beep, but Anita's PC, mains powered, (no battery) but connected to the UPS) went down, but the lights stayed on,  the clocks kept the time, and everything else seemed normal.   Strange, a power spike maybe.

Until that is, I turned on the stereo.  Most of the time it was working fine, but a couple of times at first, and then all the time, it was emitting a nasty chug-chugging sound in all of the speakers.   Sounded like a power supply problem.  The process of elimination traced it to my hitherto faithful Behringer cross-over.

I use this device as a low-pass filter to drive the bass bins, and although it can be used as a three-way cross-over, the sound quality is not good enough for the mid-range or treble, but it is fine for the bass.  It has died.   Fortunately I have a less versatile but fully adequate substitute, and my stereo is back in fine fettle. I am unlikely to be able to fix the Behringer, so it's probably for the dump.

Sign of the times

The Hotel Beauséjour at Ste Suzanne is closing down.   They have been looking for a buyer for a while, without success, and they are now selling off their equipment.   The Hotel du Commerce in Vaiges has been closed for a few years now since the owners retired.   There were talks about turning it into an old people's home, but they come to nought, as far as I am aware.   That's two large hotels, both within 20 minutes of us, gone.

Booking dot com and Air B&B are reporting downturns in activity, and we are also seeing this.   Our laundry service who deal with smaller accommodation business in the area have complained to us that they have less business than usual, since there are fewer tourists.

My own opinion is that no-one has any spare money, what with the swingeing increase in energy prices and the increase in mortgage rates here from 1%-ish to 4%-ish.  Competition from the olympics probably doesn't help, either.

Discount shopping

I am grateful to a friend and neighbour who told me about this discount warehouse for building materials in Evron, not far from my place.   They sell building timber in various sizes, I think it comes from leftovers from various projects.   Since I will soon be buying some wood for a garden project, I went there to see what they had.  I made the mistake of taking Anita to show her.

Well, look at that!  A set of pots and pans that work on induction hobs just like ours, at the exact same moment that our current pots and pans need replacing.   Just imagine that!

Happily, our old ones have found a good new home.

Formal French garden

Or should that be French formal garden?   I'm not sure.   Anyway, there is one, a big one, the Chateau Vaux le Vicompte, at Melun, a suburb of Paris, and we took a quick away day (and night) to go and see it.

Yep, it's big, with fountains, statues, formal plantings and (surprisingly) a very nice informal planting.   Fireworks and candle illuminatins in the evening too, if you go on a Saturday.   The mansion is grand too, and looks out over the garden.

You can rent handy little electric carts to travel around the grounds, they're neat, and they're worth using, as well as being fun, and not too expensive.

The weather wasn't kind to us - I experienced a genuine cold front - it was warm, and there there was a cold gust of wind, and the temperature was down 5 degrees C.   Oh and rain came.   But it was well worth the visit in any case.

Eggsplosion

When I was last in England, I wandered into a kitchen shop.  I had started regularly to eat a poached egg for breakfast, and wondered if there was any gadget that would make cooking it easier.   This little pot is designed for poaching eggs in the microwave.   You grease the pot, put the egg in, prick a hole in the yolk to stop it exploding, clip the cover on, then cook it.

It's important to prick the yolk, since an explosion is guaranteed if you don't, and pricking it is supposed to prevent this.  Well it didn't this morning.   Blew the little plastic top off (it still clips on though - a miracle!) and splattered the egg.   I had cleaned up much of the mess before I thought to take a photo, but it did make a mess.    I really need to experiment to get the right combination of power and duration of cook.