30.06.2021 Attention seeking fuckwit at the T-de-France has been arrested.

 ~~

Wednesday 30th 65F, bright overcast. A breeze today. The local wind turbines have been static over the last couple of days. The forecast is for possible showers or even cloudbursts with thunder. It hasn't rained yet [8.00] despite overnight and early morning rain forecasts. First light rain at 14.00. Heavier rain at 15.00. Waoo Internet at 80/200Mbps. 40% of what I'm paying 100% for.

Canada has seen very nearly 50C, 120F in another record breaking day of heatwave. The US is enjoying similar weather. With the usual rolling blackouts to protect the electricity supply industry's, filthy rich, coal investors. Meanwhile the number of heat deaths climbs and climbs.

Genocidal Donny von Chump's "Ain't no global warming on my watch!" will haunt him in his next Pootin bankrolled election. If there's anyone left alive amongst his Chumps. Hopefully the world will be saved from the embarrassment of watching the same sorry spectacle all over again. All it needs is an official ambulance chaser with enough balls to prosecute him. God knows, there's no shortage of ambulance chasers.

The attention-seeking fuckwit, who brought down half the field at the T-de-France, has finally been arrested. Only a few hundred thousand more fuckwits to go. I have been complaining about these attention-seeking fuckwits for years!

Attention seeking fuckwits running alongside each rider? For a few yards up a mountain stage? This should have been banned, years ago! The nutters often affect the outcome of the race. Ban vehicles from parking anywhere on the mountain. Make the bastards walk from the bottom if they want some exercise. Let's see them run up the road then! 

Ban the waving of all flags, banners and placards in the roadway. Why is it even allowed? Why don't the police clear the road ahead with their motorcycles? Send an advertising car just ahead, not behind the riders. They can use an EV to stop choking the riders with their usual, exhaust filth. 

~~

29.06.2021 Mark Cavendish wins his 31st T-de-F stage!

 ~~

Tuesday 29th 76F warm, humid and rather cloudy. A walk to the lanes. Light traffic. Not much else to report. Waoo Internet at a stupendous 81/200Mbps. 40% of the guaranteed speed! Wow! 

Just a walk to the lanes. It felt warm and humid and remained that way all day.

Cavendish has won yet another sprint finish in the Tour-de France. His 31st stage win makes him second highest stage winner in T-de-F cycling history. His 48 tour, stage wins places him third overall in cycling history.

~~

28.06.2021 An afternoon ride.

 ~~

Monday 28th 65-78F, bright sunshine out of a clear blue sky. Waoo Internet is a stupendous 83/200Mbps today.

A walk to the lanes without incident. The traffic was light. Reminding me that countryside requires peace to earn the title. I passed a tree where a blackbird and a warbler were competing for volume and eloquence. Another blackbird spoke more softly from a distance. All was as it should be.

After lunch I rode an errand. Only about 7 miles. It was 78F hot when I left. Cool on the trike. Going well. The countryside is at its best.

~~

27.06.2021 Attention seeking fuckwit brings down T-deF.

 ~~

Sunday 27th 61F, heavy overcast. There was precious little sun yesterday. The same seems to be true today. 

I shall be holding a [private] party [of one] to celebrate a single moment of Waoo Internet actually meeting its "Guaranteed Speed" today. [It can't last!] The average performance is not so much "Wow" as "Whoah!" 

 Is there somebody with a red flag walking [slowly] in front of Waoo's "rusting iron horse?" 10.00am Waoo "Guaranteed" 200Mbps already down to mid 80s. Only 79Mbps in the evening.

A walk to the lanes in warm, humid conditions under a grey sky. A bird of prey was circling over the prairie before settling on top of a tree. I snapped away, using different settings, but it was very distant. 250m or 275 yards according to Google Earth. I was using the 100-400mm at 300mm on my Lumix G9. 600mm equivalent in full frame. I had probably engaged the in-camera, 1.6x Teleconverter. So 480mm = 960mm FF. [Handheld!] I used heavy cropping to enlarge the bird's image. Fortunately the bird was stationary as it landed. 1/640 at f/11, ISO800.

The-de-France has been spoilt by yet another attention-seeking fuckwit. When are they going to sue these attention seeking fuckwits for damages when they cause a crash? They are obviously not spectators. The deluded fuckwits seem to imagine themselves as active participants! Fuckwits!

~~

26.06.2021 Fade to grey.

 ~~

Saturday 26th 65F, bright but only a little sunshine through the overcast. Waoo Internet at a truly magnificent 77 out of a guaranteed 200Mbps.

A warm walk to the lanes. A bird of prey was going away but I was unable to identify it from it's silhouette. Blackbirds were singing. As was a single warbler. The sun almost broke through at 9am but soon decided the better of it. Fade to grey.

If I was required to describe the vehicles from this morning's crop they would all be large Audi/BMWs. Many of them were people carriers. Or whatever black, mini buses are called these days. The immediate suggestion might be wealth without conscience. 

There is certainly a very long way to go before those million EVs finally reach the Danish roads. I seriously doubt they will all be Teslas. Not unless they have a chromed, Audi/BMW badge on front of a shiny, black people carrier. Otherwise their equally unequal neighbours would talk about them!

~~

25.06.2021 Genocidal, junk food, advertising ban circumvented.

 ~~~

Friday 25th 63F, sunshine but with some cloud. Calm. Waoo "Guaranteed 200Mbps" Internet at a magnificent 83Mbps today.

As the UK bans advertising for junk food, the GENOCIDAL, trillion pound, fat, sugar and salt wholesalers will use loopholes. After all, 60% obesity in the UK cannot possibly be blamed on their bottom lines. Can it? 

How long did it take to ban cigarette advertising? How many more decades to ban it from open display in supermarkets? Now remember children, fat, sugar and salt are all good for you. If they were poisonous then nobody honest would sell it. It would be banned. Just like dangerous drugs. So they have to sell their shit on every street corner. 

Why do supermarkets have half of their shelving areas dedicated to pushing this shite? Because it is profitable and they are sociopaths. Just like drug and tobacco dealers. Keep taking the money!

 

~~

24.6.2021 Still complaining?

 ~~

Thursday 24th 62F, cloudy start but brightening to sunshine. 

Waoo Internet at 78/200Mbps = 39% of the <cough> "guaranteed speed."
 

From their own website:

Danish: "lynhurtigt internet med hastighedsgaranti" [Mindst 200Mbps.]

English: Lightning fast Internet with speed guarantee" [Minimum 200Mbps]

I had an odd walk today. Having taken to the spray tracks, to capture some images, I discovered no easy way back. There followed a circuitous route along the edges of the fields. Before I could escape back to the road. There are lots of dark red [magenta] grasses at the moment.

~~

23.06.2021 Orphaned Amazon Parcels.

 ~~

Wednesday 23rd 58F, heavy overcast, calm. Even less sunshine on offer today. Waoo Internet is having an early surge to the guaranteed speed. Expected to quickly drop to upper 70s or lower 80sMbps. As it does every day. 84Mbps by 9.00. Is this a joke?

A walk in mild conditions under grey skies. Only a few blackbirds singing today. I didn't hear a single warbler. A gentle breeze is moving the trees now.

After morning coffee I set off for the village on my trike to try and find a missing parcel. The tracking showed it had gone out for delivery, last Friday, but it had never arrived. I guessed that the driver had simply dumped the parcel off at one of the local, parcel pickup shops to save himself the effort of making a delivery. Without any phone number, nor email address on the package I was not warned of its location.

By sheer luck I found my parcel at the second parcel pickup shop. My previous parcel had never been delivered either. That had showed it as being out for delivery but it had never arrived. So I must assume that too followed the same misdirection as last time. That had eventually been returned to sender. I have lost six weeks on a construction project. For want of the receipt of my original order. All thanks to a bone idle, lazy, van driver.  

Waoo Internet at 75Mbps. It's getting slower than ever. So much for Guaranteed 200Mbps speed! Do the Waoo staff get only 1/3 of their full salary for failure to provide the guaranteed service? I doubt it!

Three blackbird chicks suddenly appeared on the lawn. They were sitting very still as I wandered about tidying up. Then a neighbour's cat turned up. It is of a nervous nature. So it failed to notice the birds as it did figures of eight around them while staring at me. I shooed the cat away, fearing the worst. Each of the birds then dashed for cover when they had summoned up the courage.

~~

22.6.2021 Internet up to "GUARANTEED" speed? Surely not?

 ~~~

Tuesday 22nd 54F, rather overcast, with sunny periods and 70F promised.  

Internet at guaranteed speed today!??! If today, then why not every day? Back down to 83Mbps later. 78Mbps later still at 16.00. You don't pay for a whole kilo, or a litre, at the shops and then get only 300g or 300ml. Day after day after day!

A walk to the lanes under grey skies. Later I had an 8 mile ride along different lanes on an errand. Going well again. The headwind had picked up on the way back. 

Two birds of prey were soaring over a tongue of forest. Not sure what they were. Too far away for naked eye details. Other than short tails and pointy wings. Plus a buzzard-like cry.

A long, grey afternoon.

 

~~

21.06.2021 DMI national weather website down again.

 ~~

Monday 21st 56F, overcast and breezy with rain promised. The "Guaranteed 200Mbps" Waoo internet has drooped to 77Mbps. 

The DMI [national weather service] website is down again. They must be using Waoo! Not enough bandwidth to cope with a major weather event? Two days in a row? Surely not?

It remained grey, with a gentle, northerly breeze, for my walk to the lanes. My knees felt slightly fragile as I left but soon resumed normals service. I spotted a large brown, bird of prey in the distance. Only a glimpse before it was hidden by foreground trees. White tailed eagle? There were some up by the forest a few years back.

Guess who forgot to check their TZ7 camera battery? Correct!  It was supposed to start raining at 08.00 but didn't. Not yet. It has just started at 9.00 instead. Thanks to TV2 for the weather warning! 👍

I managed to get the Sigma bike computer going again. It required I pulled the batteries out of the head and the speed sensor. That seemed to wake it up.

~~

20.06.2021 An afteroon ride!

~~

Sunday 20th 60F, bright, windy and cloudy. Rain or thunderstorms possible. 

At 8.50 it was darker than at 03.30! The sky turned black and the first rumbles of thunder could be heard. The weather front had approached as bars across the sky. With dark, ragged clouds above. The wind rising in the roadside trees as I hurried back from the lanes. 

At 8.55 the sky emptied its load. Lightning flashed, the trees thrashed to squally gusts and the first thunder erupted nearby. The national weather centre [DMI] is broken.

It continued raining hard for at least the next hour from a leaden sky.

With the weather being so bad it wasn't fair to expect shopping to be delivered. So I went myself in the car. Probably for the first time in 18 months. I was the only one wearing a mask and rubber gloves. 

13.45 73F, windy and cloudy again after an early clearing with a little sunshine.

I actually went for an afternoon ride. Can't say how far because my Sigma BC16-16STS Cadence computer packed up. After returning from the menus, having reset the wheel size, it refused to show any advancing figures. It must have indigestion from having three new batteries fitted. 

There was obviously something wrong when it still showed a screen after three days without movement. It should have gone to sleep. Now it is showing the message "SLEEP." I have never seen that before. 

When  I left, it was showing half my usual speed. It had reverted to 16" wheels during the battery swap instead of 700C. I stopped to play with the menus but it just kept going round and around in Statistics. With no escape. It is surprisingly difficult to read the screen with sunglasses on! 

A tailwind, sunshine and warmth made it a delight to be out on the trike again. The light was shining on the various crops and highlighting the blossom. The lanes were almost empty and the undulating countryside absolutely magnificent. 

I was going like a bomb on the way out except for climbing the steepest hills. Then I turned back. Straight into the teeth of the wind. I was in bottom gear for some of the time. Even on slight descents. Probably about twenty miles. Considering my very limited mileage, I'm amazed how well I went, even into the wind.

~~

19.06.2021 It's too hot, man!

 ~~

Saturday 19th 70-80F,  bright but cloudy again. Waoo Internet at 85Mbps out of a "guaranteed" 200. 

An early but still too hot stroll to the lanes. More pictures of the same subjects as yesterday and the day before that. Distant haze.

It became unpleasantly hot in the sunshine later and windy. 

Possible thunderstorms with heavy rain tomorrow.

The new virus mutation is in a race, to the death,  with the number of vaccinated.

Waoo Internet shrank to 80Mbps later.

~~

18.06.2021 A warbler a day..

 ~~

Friday 18th 68-78F, Bright, calm, warm and cloudy. Waoo internet at 82Mbps at 6.00am. The same at 16.30.

It was already warm as I ambled towards the lanes. Still lots of warblers singing. Pretty Dog roses are bursting out of the hedgerows. The traffic was very intermittent this morning. 

I am continuing to cross the road to allow lorries and buses to pass unhindered. The freedom to wander the roads, in the absence of traffic, is becoming quite the norm. 

An afternoon ride on an errand. There was no stock. So I rode back again. Total only about 7 miles. I passed a bunch of club cyclists in the lanes. They were congregating in preparation for a training ride.

~~

17.06.2021 Heatwave warning. Day 1.

 ~~

Thursday 17th 67-84F, bright and windy but cloudy. The first day of a heatwave warning. Expected to reach 28C with strong, all day sunshine. 

Yesterday, we stretched a horticultural quality, shade net over the lean-to greenhouse. These greenhouses are foolishly described as a "conservatory" in the sales hype. A conservatory is something tall enough to lift the excruciating heat well above the occupants. Anything lower is a solar oven!

Stopping the sun from reaching the glass is the main idea behind the net. By the time the sun hits the glass it is too late. UV becomes infra red and heats everything. 

It was incredibly easy to arrange a rope along the top of the sloping roof. I had previously threaded the rope through the pre-made "buttonholes" of one, long reinforced edge. The net was light enough to rise freely up to the ridge as the rope was tightened and the netting seems almost immune to the gusty wind. 

Too early to say how well the net performs thermally. Temperatures would always soar out there in summer. Freeze in winter. Largely due to single pane glass. The roof vents made zero difference. Not even with double doors wide open at both ends.

We hang white cloth and lightweight tarpaulin sun screens inside but they have no discernible effect on soaring temperatures. Though they do make it slightly more comfortable to be lightly shaded. Unfortunately, most materials soon shred due to UV exposure. 

Expensive ideas for wooden slat shading on the outside never came to fruition. "Egg crate" panels would have been far too heavy and very difficult to fit and retain with such poor access. It would be a leaf and tree debris magnet and impossible to keep it clear.

Don't be taken in by paid models "relaxing" inside conservatories [greenhouses] in bright sunshine. It is an extremely uncomfortable experience to be in there for more than a few moments unshaded. Even in welding glasses and a wide brimmed hat! That is why the models are paid to do it. Nobody [normal] would do it voluntarily! Plants last a day or two. Unless they are hot, desert plants, like cacti.

I joined two, lean-to greenhouses, end to end, two decades ago. Hoping the 7 meters [or 22'] of glass would provide free solar warmth in winter. It does almost nothing, at all, in providing warmth when we most need it. It does shelter the southerly facade of Chez Hovel from the worst of the weather. The only way to gain warmth in winter is adequate insulation. Keep it in before it escapes.

What we should have done was to grow sheltering, deciduous trees. Something like birch would help in summer. Except that birch drops debris all year round. Beech trees might be better. How do you control the height and girth of sunshade trees without access to a professional, cherry picker platform? How do you use a hired one? When you have no access to the field in front of your own home? 

I see that Ireland is taking Climate Change very seriously. Homeowners can get up to 50% of the cost of improving their insulation and replacing inefficient heating systems. 

Denmark had a small pool of money available for energy efficiency improvements. The entire sum was gone within hours on a first come, first served basis, online. When it comes to fighting climate change it is deeds, not words, which matter. 

~~

16.06.2021 New iSpeed record? Nope: As you were!

 ~~

Wednesday 16th 60F, sunny from a clear blue sky. A warm walk to the lanes. Snapping away at the grasses. I discovered the problem with the camera. Somehow I had "Bracketing" enabled. No idea how.

Today, I recorded the fastest ever, speed test on my "Guaranteed 200Mbps" internet connection. Two days after complaining [again] to the ISPs tech department. Exactly the same home PC set-up as always. Wired, not wireless. No special tricks.

If it can do this today, why hasn't it done it for all the times [2 years?] it was only at 75-85Mbps? Where do I queue for my refund? I would have talked to Trading Standards in Gravely Blighted but they don't have anything like that over here. 

They just talk about this sort of thing behind other people's backs. Back then they would be talking about "False Advertising, Unfit for Purpose, Not of Merchantable Quality..." There would be headlines and big fines. Depending on the seriousness of the Consumer Crime. 

 

FALSE ALARM! One hour later and our Internet speed has crashed back to Waoo Normal. The TV keeps circling, pixelating, juddering and going completely blank. AGAIN! How do Danish businesses cope with this lack of service?

Had Chump's NSA suddenly stopped "filtering" the Danish Internet cables for a second or two? [Following global headlines] Or had Google.advertising.con increased internet speeds globally? To cope with its massively increased, advertising, diarrhoea dump. Now that the Jinping Plague is finally subsiding in those very few places where the sociopaths don't rule the midden. 

I keep getting Google advertising for a child's ball game. Now played by multi-millionaire drunks and drug addicts. With weird "girly" hairstyles and very poor, foot-to-eye coordination. Or so I heard somewhere. I haven't shown any interest in such infantile, spectator sports since I was seven. Those who can: do. Those who can't: Get fat and talk drivel about it. Before enjoying an early death from morbid immobility.

Should I start crowd funding, amongst my billions of followers? To pay for the required, full frontal lobotomy. Spectator sport is little more than urban tribal warfare at its best. Reverse Robin Hood, money laundering, at its worst. I blame Pootin! 🙊 Or any other, tin-pot despot with his hand in the till.

~~

15.06.2021

 ~~

Tuesday 15th 63-68?F, sunny. 

Warm too, as I plodded towards the lanes under high cloud cover. A warbler kept flying backwards and forwards along the hedgerow. Just too far away to capture. They must have followed me home. The garden is full of birds competing for volume and virtuosity.

My camera is still playing up after the firmware update. With exposures going up and down in brightness. This one was taken at f22 as an experiment. It had to be lightened by several stops for the blog. I like the weird result. 😊

 

~~

14.06.2021 Waoo Internet crawling again.

 ~~

 

Monday 14th 59F, bright and breezy but rather a lot of cloud. Temperatures are expected to rise throughout the week. With 30C or higher promised by Friday. 

Waoo Internet is at 73Mbps instead of the 200Mbps I pay for. 

A warm walk to the village in brilliant sunshine. My Lumix G9 camera is misbehaving after an update. So is the TV. Google's sociopathic obsession with advertising has broken Android. 

So is Firefox broken after their latest update. It takes over a minute to wake up and show the Browser search page. It must be that last Windows update. The update straw which broke the iCamel's back. 

Did I mention that Google Blogger isn't working again? No drag and drop for images on either of my W10 machines. No automatic text justification around images.

Today marks a relaxation of the Jinping Plague protection measures in Denmark. No more masks in most public places. What can possibly go wrong?

09.20 and Waoo has crawled up to 95Mbps. I had a very quick response to my email to tech support after I completely lost the internet twice today. I was asked to test the speed at the fibre box. This produced 190Mbps on a one meter cable on my fast laptop. Close to the "guaranteed" speed but hardly a real world test. IMO. I carried out the other recommended measures and made some interesting discoveries. 

The Cat6 cable to the TV seems to be less reliable than another one I tried. There have been no cut-outs since I swapped cables. My approach to the "speed problem" is that I can fairly regularly [but not reliably] see 220Mbps on my PC after the router without any special procedures. Which is why I have been questioning the very low speed I see more often than not. 75-85 is almost normal. I shall buy another Cat6 cable for the TV to see if that solves the drop-out problem.

 

~~

13.06.2021 6/10! 6/10? 6/10!!!

 ~~

Sunday 13th 54F, heavy overcast. Another cooler and cloudier day, with wind. 

I walked the wrong way today. To reach the woods by the steep climb. The fields and paths were full to overflowing and blossom everywhere. Four hares out on the fields but not so many birds today. The cool wind may have switched off the spring chorus. 

Eventually the sun came out. Making it too warm for my protective clothing against the expected wind and cold. I descended from the forest by the direct route. To save a log walk back, along the main road.

 

It is reported that 6/10, Danish, public drinking water, deep boreholes are now contaminated with agricultural pesticides. A doubling in only five years. A previous, right wing, "Pig Farmers Rule" party relaxed decades of environmental controls. 

They dropped rules about spraying next to watercourses and other sensitive areas. They quickly destroyed decades of the respect and admiration which Denmark once enjoyed. As a world leader in caring about the global environment. 

From then on it was just empty words and emptier promises. The cost to Denmark will be measured in trillions over the longer term. Not to mention the health service costs. But at least there will be savings on old age pensions. Meanwhile the rich got much richer and the number of Danish children on "antidepressants" increased exponentially.

Joke of the Day: Lifetime, genocidal dictator, Sly "Plague" Jinping says the world is no longer ruled by small groups. Stop laughing at the back!! This is the despotic sociopath's response. As the G7 sets out its damned lies watered down aims to cure the badly broken world. 

Global News: The world will end in only ten minutes. Denmark v Finland: A late kick-off!

~~

12.06.2021 Pulitzer prize in the US. A fine in Denmark.

 ~~

Saturday 12th 58-62F, overcast. It is supposed to be cooler over the weekend. 

Waoo internet is at 85Mbps today. Instead of the "guaranteed" 200Mbps. Their advertising suggests that they alone [amongst all other Danish ISPs] provide the service they advertise. Which I would call "false advertising" based on long, personal experience. BTW: I use Fast.com. An Internet speed test provided by Netflix. 

A wander down the road, snapping away at nothing in particular. Only now, at 9.00am, is it beginning to brighten. There were swallows and warblers everywhere. Lots of small, brown slugs too. The blossom is already beginning to turn brown.

We are being snowed under with flying Elm seeds. I thought there were no Elms left after the devastating disease but our local trees look fine.

 __________________________________

A young person who filmed the George Floyd murder, by a white trash cop, has been given a Pulitzer Prize mention and reward for her bravery. Her film helped to ensure the guilty verdict of the racist cop.

Ironically, the young person would have to be very much braver in Denmark. Because she would have been prosecuted for sharing her film of a crime. Which is a criminal offence. With sanctions which may exceed those placed on the criminal. 

In Denmark, she would have had to approach Chauvin as he murdered Mr Floyd. To ask his permission to share her video! It goes without saying that she could not have obtained Mr Floyd's permission. Not without some considerable difficulty. Dare one suggest that her video must have made a greater impression on the jury than multiple, verbal witnesses?

The irony doesn't end there. When a terrorist crime takes place in Denmark, the police will canvas for relevant film on private security cameras in the area. The very same cameras which must [by law] be aimed to avoid all public spaces.  The Danish police would have to be convinced that a private, security camera helped to protect an area from repeated, violent crime. Before giving permission for a camera to be pointed at a public space.

In Denmark you can be prosecuted for filming the pavement outside your own shop, home or business premises. Even if it suffers from repeated thefts. Or threats from protection racketeers, or racists? The right to privacy, while committing a crime, is obviously[?] paramount.

There are countless YouTube videos, mostly from the US, where doorstep theft of parcels is rife. Pointing a camera at a public space in Denmark. Then sharing the proof of theft, online. Would attract the risk of a fine. The person with the camera must have asked the criminal for their permission to publish the film. 

The majority of Danes are in favour of more relaxed, security camera rules. Only now are the Danish police placing security cameras in public spaces to try and reduce criminal gang warfare in the streets.

Privacy law in Denmark - Wikipedia

~~

11.06.2021 Can't see the grass for the trees.

 ~~

Friday 11th 64-68F, a bright, misty start but cloud expected. Waoo "Guaranteed" 200Mbps at only 82Mbps today.

I went for a walk much earlier than usual. The traffic was busy but avoidable. Thanks to the verge having been gently clipped.

I took nearly 300 [poor] images of the infinite variety of grasses on the verges. I was using a small aperture to increase the depth of field. Resulting in too much information for the eye to spot the grass in the foreground.

A Marsh harrier came sailing over, saw me and abruptly turned away. None of my snaps was worth sharing.

I see the football industry is hoping for renewed profits from the manufacture of a new generation of mask-free clones. I just wish it kept them off the streets.

 

 

~~

10.06.2021 Partial solar eclipse.

 ~~

Friday 10th 62-74F, bright but rather cloudy. Probably high cloud. Thickening just in time for the eclipse.

I didn't notice anything. at all unusual, after yesterday's Jinping Plague jab. Today I am aching all over. As if it had found all my muscle pain from the heavy lifting I do too often. Though not enough to limit my activities so far. 

A warm walk to the lanes. Too much traffic! I was trying to capture the verges before they are cut down. I am using smaller apertures for greater depth of focus. 200mm at f22 for these poppies.

I spent the late morning capturing images of the partial solar eclipse. Still a few, odd aches and pains but nothing serious. It is going to be a warm and sunny afternoon after lunch time cloud.

The Head Gardener is unhappy with the endless early spring. When it was too cold and wet to bring her plants outside. Now it is suddenly summer but much too late.

~~

9.06.2021 Big jab day.

 ~~

Wednesday 9th 60-72F, bright sunshine with only a little cloud. A warm and sunny day is promised.
And was duly served up by the bucket full.

Today, I shall have my first vaccination against Jinping Plague. I wonder if it cures ADHD?

A warm walk to the lanes. A distant bird of prey defied my camera. So I snapped away at the blossom in the hedges and on the verges. The processionary moths are back for the umpteenth time in the same roadside hedge. They leave the bushes covered in unsightly cobwebs. 

The warblers are still chattering away everywhere I go. There are so many delightful variations in their voices. 

According to newspaper reports, the richest men in the world pay no [or almost no] income tax. Which means that all income tax, of the working classes, is a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the ultra rich. The Reverse Robin Hood Syndrome with bells on. In the same way, the freedom from taxes, of the tech giants, is a global subsidy to the tech giants. Meaning that no competitors can possibly arise. This is made worse by the tech giants buying up countless start-ups.

The vaccine went without drama. Completely painless. There was a 15 minute wait, on widely spaced chairs in a large hall, before we were supposed to leave. Just in case of an allergic reaction. The staff were excellent. All very cheerful and helpful. I wanted to go back for seconds but thought better of it.

The afternoon was spent, yet again, DIY-ing in soaring temperatures.

~~

8th June 2021

 ~~

Tuesday 8th 53-61F, cloud clearing. A warm, sunny day is forecast. 

A warm walk to the lanes, in bright sunshine, as the mist lifted into white, steamy clouds. I criss-crossed the road several times to let lorries and buses pass unhindered. The verges are chest high now. The lack of traffic offers much greater freedom to be helpful. 

The blossom seemed even more vivid thanks to the morning sun. With the birds adding their songs to the air of natural perfection. The quiet blanket of summer heat seemed to lie over the misty, undulating landscape.

~~

7.6.2021 I got weed[s.]

 ~~

Monday 7th 60-68F, heavy overcast with a light breeze. Waoo Internet started at 210Mbps but dwindled to 81Mbps when I checked again at 18.30

Walked to the lanes. The blossom is amazing! Particularly the Hawthorns in the field hedges. It is everywhere in profusion. Coinciding perfectly with the popular Spirea hedges for gardens. It is a shame the flowers go over so quickly. Meanwhile the verges are full of Queen Anne's Lace.

The warblers are easily outnumbering the locals. We even have several chattering away in our garden. Probably nesting along with all the other birds.  First brightness at 13.30. Even a hint of sunshine! 

 

~~

6.06.2021 Belated Heron.

 ~~

Sunday 6th 60F, overcast but with possible glimpses of sunshine later. A walk to the lanes in perfect comfort. Just a light breeze. Saw a woodpecker, Bullfinches and assorted other birds. The traffic was very light even for a Sunday. 

Today's picture is of yesterday's Heron at a distance. Heavily cropped to make is visible. The only one of a dozen images which was reasonably sharp.

~~

5.06.2021

 ~~

Saturday 5th 64/74F, A warm and sunny day is promised. Though with high cloud taking the edge off.  Waoo Internet is unstable. Up and down like a yo-yo. It has settled on 80Mbps for the moment. It is "guaranteed" to be above 200Mbps but rarely is.

A walk to the marsh lake. Where I disturbed a Heron fishing on the near bank in the reeds. It flew a couple of circles as I beat a hasty retreat to avoid further disturbance.

~~

4.06.2021 Plumber's nightmare!

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Friday 4th 65F, bright, with an easterly wind and quite a lot of cloud. Supposed to be dry and warm today. I need a walk to undo my superhuman, plumbing efforts of yesterday. 

Already 69F in a warm breeze. The wild flowers, trees and plants were all rocking. Traffic has long pauses in between. Making it quite pleasant to walk the main road. Though I had to take to the overgrown verges to avoid a bus and a lorry. Both drivers waved.

More plumbing followed. The iron, heating pipes are finally gone.

 

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3.06.2021 Firefox has broken Firefox with a broken update!

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Thursday 3rd 56F, gales, heavy overcast and raining hard! The forecast is for sunny periods. I was woken by thunder in the night. Waoo Internet was down in the 60s earlier but has recovered to 87Mbps. It is "guaranteed" to be 200Mbps according to their lies advertising. 82Mbps at 12.30. 

Firefox has broken Firefox with a broken update. Another, fast track career builder? On an inflated salary? Desperate to make their mark? Get a new update out there. Whether it is broken or not. Untested, or not. Absolutely pathetic! I wonder if the perp was poached from Android? That's broken as well. 

Or, did Microsoft of "Edge" fame pay them off to break Firefox for a six figure backhander? I was offered Edge this morning without asking for it. How did they know Firefox had broken its [once] popular Browser? Below 8%? And falling fast, no doubt.

I am having to tolerate [tax free] Google Chrome from the Google [tax free] global monopoly. Spelling checker doesn't recognise temperatures in F? Mbps? "Add to dictionary" every single time the numbers change! 

Poster sized "normal" [default] text? Is it responding to my complaints of micro-text on everything? Let's see now: Low contrast, microscopic, pale grey text on a white background? It must be the 21st century! It must be an official document aimed at [and abusing] the elderly but trying to look trendy. Dugh. 

Google/Chrome spelling checker doesn't recognise "dugh" and "dogh?" I'm trying to be trendy here. Do try to keep up!

It's no wonder "smart" phones are so damned big! They have to be tablet sized so users can read their constant rain of messages without needing a bløødy microscope! Or are they that big so they can show their bbf the latest, cringing humiliation of the human race? Smaller phones don't fit their big, fat, baby hands? How do they reach the middle of the screen with their fat, prehensile thumbs?

Well, now we know: The giant script is only for composing. It shrinks once published/posted. <sigh>. OMG! The text is changing size, at random, as I typo. Google Chrome spelling checker doesn't recognise OMG? Seriously?

No walk today. I was dismantling the heating system after the immersion tank developed a leak. Rusted away at the bottom. Some people pay good money for this much exercise! Many people pay heavily [sic] for not doing any at all. 

How about hanging off a three foot steel pipe on the handle of a Stillson wrench just to get a joint "moving?" Then again and again on all the other 1½" iron pipes to gain a few more degrees of a turn. Now do it all in the confines of an airing cupboard. In searing heat from the lean-to greenhouse across the hall. Am I having fun yet?  😅 This is a "smiley" intending to show I was saturated in sweat for most of the day. Most of me disappeared down the plughole when I poured warm water over myself in the bath.

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2nd June 2021

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Wednesday 2nd 60F, bright sunshine but quite cloudy. Waoo Internet back down to 85Mbps. Instead of the <cough> "guaranteed" 200Mbps.

Mild enough for a T-shirt on my walk today. Lots
of mashed potato overhead. It even rained lightly at one point. Captured a warbler with my camera but it was slightly too fuzzy to share the picture.

Saw two Teslas within half an hour of each other. So, that means only another 999,998 to go. Before Denmark has reached its target of one million EVs by 2330. We are saved!! 😎

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Ist June 2021 I'm a martyr to "APPS!" [Energy Crisis!!]

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Tuesday 1st June 64F, light winds and bright sunshine but with thin high cloud. Walked to the lanes. Saw three spraying machines. Came home.

We have just had a circular from the electricity supply company. They are offering a "smart phone" "APP" to go with their new "SMART" electricity meters. No "smart phone?" No "SMART" meter? Dogh! This means we can't compare our energy consumption with our neighbours. Oh, wow! 

The circular was written in micro-text. As they do with everything these day. This is so you can't read the toxic symbols on everyday food labels. They assume everybody is carrying a tunnelling electron microscope "APP" on their "smart phone." No "smart phone" here! So I fetched one of several magnifying glasses we leave lying around and can never find. Then I washed my hands thoroughly after handling the letter. 

Oh joy! The DHW [immersion water heater tank] is dripping this morning. You would not believe the catalogue of horrors this throws up! The bare tank costs £500+ plumber's and electrician's fees. I fitted it myself last time but I was twenty years younger then. 

Our old wood stove has a heating tank which I installed years ago. The stove is arguably an antique and falling to pieces. We wouldn't want a replacement even if it were legal to buy one these days. It requires crawling on your hands and knees just to see into the door. It is also temperamental. Depending on wind direction, mood, etc.

No old stove + no water heater means we won't need the "gravity" pipes. Which I also installed years ago. The idea back then was to heat the underfloor pipe system. Which I also installed when I redid the floors. The floors proved to be so cold that the stove dripped tar inside. So we gave up on that idea and have never run the floor heating system again. The stove just heats domestic hot water now. Aided and abetted by costly electricity only when required. [Summers on Thursdays] The unused, circulation pump probably doesn't even turn any more. 

Alternatives: Buy an Air/Air heat pump and get rid of the old stove. This won't heat the rooms away from the core of the house. Where the wood stove presently sulks as our sole means of heating. Get a simple water heating/storage tank.

1) Air/Air heat pumps are simple and cheap. They don't heat hot water. They don't heat floors. They are quick to install, don't need wall space for all the "TECH" and don't take up much room indoors. The indoor labour needn't be here for very long. Easy to control even if we don't have "THE APP!"

2) Air/Water heat pumps can do everything at four time the retail price + five times the labour charges and ten times the complexity. Hot water + floors + radiators [if required.] We are in the middle of a pandemic. So having labour indoors for several weeks/months/years isn't going to happen. "We" wouldn't understand the complexity of the "THE APP" control system anyway. Best not to go there.

3) Get a new and more modern, wood stove. Something with a glass door. Something which doesn't need a limbo dancer to feed and tend to its constant needs. The downside is reliably procuring the heavy briquettes. Our local dealer ran out months ago! Just as a record cold and wet month rolled over us like a tsunami!

There's a pandemic on. So shopping at the supermarkets for wood briquettes is a serious no-no. The supermarkets just aren't set up for bulk buying anyway. The trolleys will barely manage ten bags x 10kg. Nor can I any more! Every supermarket seems to have heavy inclines. Plus idiots who understand nothing of bump steer, inertia and momentum!  I'm [officially] too old to wrestle a loaded shopping trolley these days! 

We are both getting too old for handling bulky and heavy fuels. It requires the car, loading and unloading the trolley into the boot. Multiple handling and carrying at home. Plus [negative] indoor storage of bulky and unsightly fuel which often smells strongly of turpentine. 

We have no room for a 1TON pallet full and the quality of briquettes varies enormously. The dust, the smell and constant labour/tending makes alternatives, like heat pumps, seem even more attractive.

4) Pellet stove in the living room. All the problems of wood stove, fuel procurement, purchase, storage and multiple handling. They also require electricity to run and there's the noise of built-in fans.

5) Despite the government's claim to be reducing Denmark CO2 bulk manufacture there is no sign of any serious effort to help the rural householder escape from solid fuel. There was recently a tiny cash pool for those who were already online. When the obedient, computer slave auction started. All the available cash was gone in minutes! The rest of Denmark spent several days waiting in vain to get onto the list. Just to get onto the auction site. Let alone actually being allowed to bid for a modest discount from the miserly, national, "Save the planet from Denmark's CO2" fund.

6) If you aren't on district heating then other, familiar alternatives, are also off the table. No rural district heating probably means no rural gas either. The big money guys have zero interest in digging up miles of farmer's field just to lay vast, insulated pipes to remote cottages and ex-farmhouses. Nor gas pipes for that matter. They are laying a gas pipeline right across Fyn. Which, judging from the earthworks, you could use as a [non-existent] motorway. So near yet so far!

7) Some choose to burn industrial pallets in huge, old, antique stoves. Bulky, seriously heavy, hideously unsightly storage and handling involved. Requires easy access for a vast tipper truck. Plus the screech of un-silenced, blunt chainsaws to make the filthy pallets into useable fuel. Then there's the constant stench of unknown timbers and smoke pervading the neighbourhood. Best not to go there either.

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