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Monday 3rd 58-70F, sunny but cloudy too.
If I was going to design a duck from scratch I probably wouldn't start from here. And stop grinning!
I have to take our old [1990s] car to the workshop for a check prior to the official test. Now I'm worried about avoiding infection. A workshop has lots of contacts. Which must increase the risk of infection. If the mechanic drives the car it means handbrake, steering wheel and gearstick must all be cleaned afterwards.
Or, I have to wear gloves and discard them afterwards. A dust mask might be a good idea. Except for difficulty with communication in my pidgin Danish. I gave the car a good wash and brush-up yesterday to get rid of the green algae. If nothing else it would save the mechanic from getting filthy if he accidentally rubbed against what still passes for paintwork.
I use the term loosely because the crook who sold me the car had polished it with Vim and a yard broom just prior to our purchase. He failed to mention that there was an electrical fault with the car. Which flattened the battery if left connected for more than a couple of hours without the engine running. Probably a diode pack going south but no mechanic has ever felt able to repair the problem.
It took me 3/4 of an hour to walk briskly back home this morning. This was after leaving the car to be checked at the workshop. Lots of traffic on the roads. Including harvesters and tractors to avoid by hopping helpfully onto the often, waist high verges. The car needs quite a bit of work this time. [Yet again?] Still cheaper than buying another, old, secondhand car with unknown problems. Cars are still the absolute proof that time does not ring backwards. Even if, what passes for art, offers ample proof of the reverse.
We've had this old car for years. Though it rarely gets driven these days. It just feels too drastic to give up having a car altogether as we live out in the countryside. An electric car might as well be a Lamborghini as far as affordability goes. The garden seems twice the size without the car stuck in the corner of the nominated parking area. A very odd visual vacuum exists. Where it usually stood so forlornly.
I risked a ride to the supermarket/parcel centre late this morning. To return the first pair of walking boots which were far too small. My wife found a cloth mask for me to wear inside the shop. Which worked fine for the few moments I was there. Fortunately, for me at least, only the checkout operator was present. I hope she could tell I was smiling my profuse thanks for her bravery in the face of the Jinping Pandemic. Though I have no idea how efficient the mask is/was against the Jinping Pandemic. Hopefully every little helps stave off the seemingly inevitable.
It all seems so weird and unreal. The headlines about a lack of masks, due to suddenly rocketing demand is so utterly typical. The stories of negative stock have been replaced with promises of restocking within the next few days. You probably don't know that the most common phrase in Danish is: "We can get it/order it for you!" Take my word for it. I've been hearing this phrase for well over 25 years and still have to force back a tear.
None of our orders, for home delivery from the online supermarkets, is ever complete. Not even once so far! Not that anything has really changed in this respect. When I cycle shopped, in person, not a single day passed when I didn't return empty handed regarding various items. Or I was told off for taking a long detour to another, more distant village. Always in the vain hope of finding non-existent stock at another supermarket. Danish supermarkets are not so much air-conditioned as suffer a constant, partial vacuum. In failing to provide up to any reasonable degree of expectation.
The supposedly perfect, re-ordering system. Which the supermarket chains bragged about all those years ago. Thanks to computers and clever algorithms and constantly logging sales, is complete and utter nonsense. Often the most common items, like bread and milk, are absent from the shelves. Special offers are little more than outright fraud to get the eternally optimistic [deluded] punter through their automatic doors. Probably in the hope that, once there, they'd buy something. Anything, to fill the yawning gap.
Many supermarkets deliberately take stock off the shelves during advertised special offers. Then return the items to the shelves, in abundance, the very second that the offer has elapsed. I have seen the evidence, with my own eyes, repeatedly, for more than two decades. I can only presume that they profit more from the manufacturer's temporary discount. By selling at the full price when demand is artificially high. How else can you explain suddenly empty shelves? A mystery buyer bought all the discounted stock? Really? I think not!
I have shivered in padded shorts and racing jersey outside supermarkets, before they opened in the morning. To ensure I was first in line for a tempting special offer. The second most common phrase in Danish is: "We never had any in the delivery." Why would I point out, to a vacuous, pre-pubescent, child slave, shelf filler/checkout operator, that the same shelves were full to overflowing only yesterday evening? When I checked the labels, on the way home, just in case of an early discount.
Which would save me from an unnecessary [trike] journey in yet another mis-forecast, of inclement weather on the morn. Or during a severe downturn in favour of a ride by The Head Gardener. In [unspoken] expectation of long unfulfilled chores being finally attended to. Rather than my "running away" from my responsibilities. With yet another, pointless ride to nowhere in particular. Non-cyclists simply don't understand the gnawing pangs of hunger from failing to manage a ride that day. Any ride to fill that vast empty space inside. Where all the miles compress down into a high density layer which can never be re-expanded to fill all the space available.
I spent more time this afternoon, in searing, 70F tropical heat, hacking at the 20' prickly, shared hedge again. If there wasn't an identical, but even taller hedge on the other side of the neighbour's, unmanaged garden, we'd be able to see the trees beyond that. I have long wanted to take a chainsaw to the hedge. Raize the whole thing to the ground. Then start again with a less vicious example of properly domesticated, leafy husbandry. Alas The Head Gardener still clings to illusions of regular management from the Other Side. Which probably means Hell will freeze over first! 🙄
It all seems so weird and unreal. The headlines about a lack of masks, due to suddenly rocketing demand is so utterly typical. The stories of negative stock have been replaced with promises of restocking within the next few days. You probably don't know that the most common phrase in Danish is: "We can get it/order it for you!" Take my word for it. I've been hearing this phrase for well over 25 years and still have to force back a tear.
None of our orders, for home delivery from the online supermarkets, is ever complete. Not even once so far! Not that anything has really changed in this respect. When I cycle shopped, in person, not a single day passed when I didn't return empty handed regarding various items. Or I was told off for taking a long detour to another, more distant village. Always in the vain hope of finding non-existent stock at another supermarket. Danish supermarkets are not so much air-conditioned as suffer a constant, partial vacuum. In failing to provide up to any reasonable degree of expectation.
The supposedly perfect, re-ordering system. Which the supermarket chains bragged about all those years ago. Thanks to computers and clever algorithms and constantly logging sales, is complete and utter nonsense. Often the most common items, like bread and milk, are absent from the shelves. Special offers are little more than outright fraud to get the eternally optimistic [deluded] punter through their automatic doors. Probably in the hope that, once there, they'd buy something. Anything, to fill the yawning gap.
Many supermarkets deliberately take stock off the shelves during advertised special offers. Then return the items to the shelves, in abundance, the very second that the offer has elapsed. I have seen the evidence, with my own eyes, repeatedly, for more than two decades. I can only presume that they profit more from the manufacturer's temporary discount. By selling at the full price when demand is artificially high. How else can you explain suddenly empty shelves? A mystery buyer bought all the discounted stock? Really? I think not!
I have shivered in padded shorts and racing jersey outside supermarkets, before they opened in the morning. To ensure I was first in line for a tempting special offer. The second most common phrase in Danish is: "We never had any in the delivery." Why would I point out, to a vacuous, pre-pubescent, child slave, shelf filler/checkout operator, that the same shelves were full to overflowing only yesterday evening? When I checked the labels, on the way home, just in case of an early discount.
Which would save me from an unnecessary [trike] journey in yet another mis-forecast, of inclement weather on the morn. Or during a severe downturn in favour of a ride by The Head Gardener. In [unspoken] expectation of long unfulfilled chores being finally attended to. Rather than my "running away" from my responsibilities. With yet another, pointless ride to nowhere in particular. Non-cyclists simply don't understand the gnawing pangs of hunger from failing to manage a ride that day. Any ride to fill that vast empty space inside. Where all the miles compress down into a high density layer which can never be re-expanded to fill all the space available.
I spent more time this afternoon, in searing, 70F tropical heat, hacking at the 20' prickly, shared hedge again. If there wasn't an identical, but even taller hedge on the other side of the neighbour's, unmanaged garden, we'd be able to see the trees beyond that. I have long wanted to take a chainsaw to the hedge. Raize the whole thing to the ground. Then start again with a less vicious example of properly domesticated, leafy husbandry. Alas The Head Gardener still clings to illusions of regular management from the Other Side. Which probably means Hell will freeze over first! 🙄
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