19.03.2025 Brambles and physio.

 ~o~

Wednesday 19th 35F/2C. Bright sunshine. White frost on the car and grass. The little pond is iced over. A pleasant spring day is promised. Perhaps reaching 8.5C/47C after lunch. 

 I might ride to physio. I'll see how I feel. It might be better to go for a ride this morning. Then drive there. Otherwise there is too much messing about with clothing. The changing rooms too far from the gym to be useful.

 Up at 7.30 after dozing for ages. Nosebleed. Ten minutes of pinching finally stopped the flood.

 10.00 Morning coffee. Another half hour working on the brambles. Almost gone now. The view is from the balcony window. 25m from the western boundary. My nose is still trying to bleed. I am doing much more raking than earlier. It is easier now that the ground is relatively clear. The rake can tease out the long runners. Preparing them for the chop with the loppers. 

 The cheap, unused pair I found in the shed are already rounding off on the blades. They no longer cut cleanly. Just a few hours cutting soft, blackberry stems. Garbage quality steel. Tarted up with a flash coating of something bright and cosmetic. I know I could sharpen them but to what effect? A few more hours and they will be blunt again.

 11.45 Back to the brambles. Almost finished. I had to come in. My nose won't stop bleeding!

  Using a combination of plugging and pinching I stopped the blood flow. Now I have had early dinner. To avoid exercising on a full stomach at physio class.

  The greenhouse is warming the house again. The thermometer is showing 100F/38C out there.

 

 ~o~

18.03.2025 Brambles and raking the pond.

 ~o~

 Tuesday 18th 32F/0C. A sunny morning, reaching almost 7C after lunch. Rather breezy from the west. A white frost on the car.

 Up at 7am after lying awake from 2-4am. The air felt cold in the night though I was comfortable under my down duvet. Currently 61F/16C in the room. Stove lit. 68F/20C at bedtime. Though the stove had gone out.

 I shall be driving to visit my English friend after an extended lull due to flu. He caught it before I did. Which doubled the period for our recovery. 

 I could ride there but am put off by the relatively low temperatures. It is almost 30km each way. Depending on the route I take. A longer duration in the saddle with no chance to warm up on the way. All routes are delightful. As they pass through undulating, rural countryside. 

 8.15 Time for a walk.

 8.45 Just another tour around the spray tracks on the fields. The wind was cold on my hands. Flocks of Fieldfares and Redwings were moving about on the fields. Skylarks overhead. The traffic was very busy and noisy.

 I have just paid for the Nyon anti-theft service. I had no idea if I was still registered. The Connect app is just circling endlessly after I agreed to all permissions and paid online.

 13.00 Returned from visiting my friend. The wind has increased and it feels cold. I shopped on the way home. 

I spent half an hour raking the fibreglass dish pond clear of leaves. The bottom was solid with fallen leaves. Fortunately the rake cannot damage the fibreglass. As it might with a rubber membrane, pond liner. It is important to allow anything removed from the pond to lie nearby. So that any wildlife can safely return to the sanctuary of their home. 

 The down pipe from the front gutter on the house has now been extended over to the pond. Not very pretty but it will soon raise the water level if it rains. The area of the roof being so much larger than that of the pond. Burying the pipe would not take more than about half an hour. After that I went back to attacking the brambles. I am making steady progress.

 Dinner was a fry-up. Of chicken, brown mushrooms and tweggs.

 

  ~o~

17.03.2025 33km, brambles and Nyon startup problem.

 ~o~

  Monday 17th 29F/-32C. Rather cool, but full sun, all day. Reaching almost 6C after lunch. Wind light and variable from different directions.

 Up at 7am after a quiet night. I got up at 6am but went straight back to bed. It is 63F/17C in the room [8.00] I ought to go for a walk.

  No real plans for today. Chopping brambles or a chilly ride? 

 9.00 I walked around the field by the spray tracks again. It was much drier than yesterday. After which I was met by a small guard dog. One of my neighbours approached but I offered only a wave. I should probably have stopped to chat. 

 There has been almost no contact with these neighbours since they rebuilt the old farm and added a drive on a vast, new embankment to their business. To avoid using the same drive as scrap man and his hideous eyesore of junk spread right right across two fields. To which end they have now added berms, bushes and trees to shield their view. A work in progress given the time to achieve any real growth.

 10.30 Another half an hour spent on the brambles. I still haven't adequately captured the scale of the operation with my phone camera. I just measured from the head of the rake in the foreground. To the boundary fence in the background. It is just over 10 meters. [32'] 

The image at left left was taken from upstairs. I should have removed the large logs from the horse chestnut I felled. They provided cover for the brambles to explode in area.

 15.00 42F/5.6C. Returned from a ride to Assens. The Bosch NYON head repeatedly refused to turn on before I left. It took probably ten minutes to wake up. The bike battery was at 100%. Imagine if that happened miles from home! Riding that way home without ANY assistance whatsoever.

 Was it a problem with the anti-theft app? No idea. It is supposed make it impossible for a thief to match any other NYON head than that which has been paired to the e-bike by the owner. Bosch charges a modest fee per year for this service. I have no idea how to tell if it is active. It advertises the service without checking if the legal owner is actually registered. The local bike shop activated it when they did their first service. I don't know if they remembered to do it this last time.

 It felt freezing cold regardless of my direction of travel. Thirty three kilometers via several detours. 70F/21C in the room. 107F/42C in the greenhouse. I have opened the internal doors again. I closed them when I went out. For the sake of security.

 Dinner was beans on toast.

 

 ~o~