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Saturday 2nd 67F/19C [9.30] Another sunny day. Expected to peak at 22C/71F. It is already close to that! A bit breezier than yesterday. Mostly S-SW. 67F/19C in the room without any heating. 71F/22C in the greenhouse.
Up at 7.30 after several failed attempts. My back is still hurting. No ill effects from yesterday's 95km foolishness.
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Up at 6am after a typical night. My back feels slightly improved for the moment.
Happy Birthday to my sister Sue! 🎉🥳
I have been wandering up and down the drive. Taking pictures of the next door's overgrown hedge. The white building in the foreground is a shed. The house is lost behind the hedge.
Then I sent a secure email to the county council asking for advice. With attached images to show the problem. It is a bank holiday today. So it will be a few days before I hear anything.
A walk should be possible this morning. Followed by a ride. It would be a shame to waste such a pleasant day.
8.30 Back from a loop around the neighbours' drives on the back field. Warm sunshine and no wind. I even sprinted down the drive!
9.00 Bike battery still on charge. The hedges are beginning to rock in the wind. It's only supposed to gust to 6m/s. I haven't decided where to go yet. I might ride to Ringe. Along the old railway cycle path. Gorgeous countryside and very unspoilt. About 36km each way. I had better wear my padded bibs! [Cycle shorts with braces] I will take two batteries. It's a shame the best garden center on Fyn has closed.
16.15 72F/22C! Returning from a 95km/60 mile ride to Ringe and back via Korinth. I am hot and knackered. Swapped batteries at 70km. Ate three Corny sub-micro chocolate bars and drank three small boxes of organic apple juice.
17.30 I just had a half hour nap to recover. My neighbour is shredding the branches I cut down last year. He had a lot of material from cutting the face of the hedge which adjoins his field. Which was just left where it dropped until now. Goody! That will save me worrying about disposal of my contribution to deforestation.
Dinner was a salmon pasty and chips. I washed up while it cooked.
I siphoned half of the water out of the indoor aquarium. Hoovering the gravel will have helped. The algae build up suggested too much in the way of nutrients. I also added an internal filter to stir things up and remove the disturbed particulates. I had been running a full under-gravel filter but it obviously wasn't enough.
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Thursday 30th 8.30 Last night my PC started playing up. I couldn't get any mouse or keyboard to work. The Desktop Icons had also disappeared. When the keyboard and mouse did occasionally worked. The apps I opened from the taskbar didn't expand onto the screen. Just tiny windows along the bottom. With no way to make them function normally.
This morning I wasted two more hours without success. So I have connected up my mini-PC. Which I normally only use for video astronomy. Finally I have Internet access, a mouse and a keyboard. The LG monitor continues to misbehave. So I have connected up an old 28" monitor.
I am expecting the new house doors to be delivered today. Which added to the stress. In case I needed my email service. Which I have avoided using on the mini-PC. In case it distracted from my capturing astronomical videos.
I closed the mini-PC and connected my 32" LG 4K monitor via HDMI. On restarting it woke up with normal behaviour. Except for re-scaling. The security cameras have stopped working on the mini-PC after a software update. The old PC is still working fine with the cameras.
10.00 59F/15C. Up at 6.45. Back still hurting. Bright sunshine. Another sunny day is promised. 66F/18C in the room. 72F/22C in the greenhouse.
11.00 I walked slowly to the end of the drive and back. The old PC is still working with the old 28" monitor. The almost new HP keyboard is now misbehaving on the mini-PC! Now replaced by an old Logitech keyboard with the letters worn away.
11.45 The doors have arrived. The lorry was struggling for width as it fought the overhanging larch hedge of the absent neighbour. The driver suggested I get in touch with the kommune [council] planning department. To get permission to cut the towering hedge much lower. There is still no sign of a return to work by the builders. Who stripped the thatch off last year. Then left the drive in front covered in old toilets, sinks and bags of demolition debris! Obviously avoiding paying for recycling as a commercial business!
Having backed the lorry down the drive to the boundary. We managed to drag the doors around to the rear of the house. Where they will be fitted. This was on his ordinary, factory style, pallet truck. With me pushing from behind it rolled quite well. Even on the gravel parking space. The driver was really very cheerful and helpful.
Both doors are mounted upright on a single pallet and well wrapped. Looking rather like a modern Tardis. The question now is whether I am willing to pay hundreds of pounds equivalent for the doors to be fitted to the hovel. With my back in its present state. I am rather unfit to be doing the job myself.
12.00 I have opened the internal doors and windows to get some free heat from the greenhouse. Already 100F/38C out there!
14.00 I am going to drive into the city. I am one mouse, one keyboard and a printer short of a set.
17.00 65F/18C in warm sunshine. Back again. The first shop which claimed to have five Logitech mice in stock had none. Which was fine if you had driven 30km and just wanted to talk to a spaced out, hippy nerd. So I didn't buy the new printer and keyboard there either. I drove into the heavy traffic in the center and beyond. Welcome to Odense. Denmark's largest red light district!
Guinness has had a 1000 sleeper spies observing and still cannot confirm a single, green traffic light. I watched and waited for five changes of light and didn't move two meters. Odense cannot build roundabouts. Because throughout history, no native Odenseonion inhabitant has ever independently invented the roundabout.
With shops exceeding the size of several football fields. You'd think they'd have electric wheelchairs. For old farts like me with bad backs. The nice young man in the vast electronics store carried my new printer out to the car.
We were chatting in English too. Such service! I expect he was afraid I'd be on my hands and knees by then. Pushing the printer box ahead of me. As I crawled across the car park. Not a good look! Mind you, people would probably think I was just another drama queen influencer. 😊
Dinner was mackerel in sunflower oil on toast with tomatoes.
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