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Monday 28th 33-43F. Clear, with another day of sunshine! There is a tobacco filter on the NE horizon. An early walk in heavy traffic. A hard white frost made a tour out on the spray tracks possible. Leading to a flooded marsh pond without a single bird in sight. Followed by an ungainly plod. Back along the overgrown verge. To avoid more crash test dummies on commuter autopilot.
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Sunday 27th 30F. Clear sky! It may even be sunny all day. AGAIN! Most sunshine in 5 months in Denmark yesterday. My usual walk. A flock of Redwings and Fieldfares were foraging for breakfast out on a field. Gulls moved nervously around on the prairie. As gulls do. An almost cloudless day.
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Saturday 26th 31F. 6.00. Some sunshine is promised. It will probably snow! Warm sunshine all day.
It remained dry for yet another bout of intensive downsizing. I can't get into the trike shed for a huge stack of filled boxes waiting to be collected. Fortunately the buyer turned up and took the boxes away. Then it was onto filling the trailer with accumulated packaging again. Two trips finally cleared the whole lot. Now I need a rest!
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Friday 25th 36F, too dark to see but forecast to be raining this morning. 0709 and there is now some patchy snow visible on the ground. The trees are rocking to the westerly gale. The weather was horrible as I brought out the Long John & Short John. With wet snow falling in a gale I had to quickly cover them with a large tarpaulin. A bit of a struggle because of the wind.
The bikes only just went into the buyer's van with the [bikes] front wheels removed. Another burden lifted. [Quite literally!] Ever such a pleasant bloke he was. My Danish returned quite effortlessly in rare conversation with an intelligent Dane.
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Thursday 24th 41F, heavy overcast, gales and rain. An early walk to avoid the rain was shortened by... rain. A grey blustery day. It snowed [wetly] at 17.30.
The Long John and Short John carrier cycles should be collected tomorrow morning. It was an awful waste having them completely inaccessible. Right at the back of the shed. I thought they'd been there for twelve years but it was all of 18 judging by the date stamped photos. Thankfully the shed is weatherproof. Though that doesn't stop metal from corroding due to condensation from rising temperatures.
There has been not a single response to my online advert putting my Higgins 'Ultralite' trike up for sale. So much for the global reach of t'Internet.
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Wednesday 23rd 37-45F, cool but with an almost clear sky. Almost daylight at 0710. An early walk would be a good idea. Not very. It was cold in the wind.
I have to take a trailer full of accumulated junk to the recycling centre. Then probably a return trip with more unwanted "stuff." First, I have to drag the trailer uphill while standing on soggy grass. The recent rains have turned the soil to liquid mud. I might have to use the old hoist. The car was sliding about in reverse as it struggled out of its usual parking spot. I used the secondhand boat winch to pull the trailer up to the car. Job accomplished. Drove to the recycling yard. Twice. Sunny periods but breezy at times.
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Tyranny can only exist where weak men sit on their hands. Or cling to their crowned beer glasses.
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Tuesday 22nd I was up in the early hours to sort out 25 years of accumulated packaging. Nested boxes from every purchase since we moved in. I have several items for sale and needed to locate vital stuff. Then I had to repackage lots more stuff for collection. That took several hours. I never did go back to bed. It rained at 17.00.
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It was blowing a gale on my walk. Cold on the hands too. A few crows or rooks were foraging on the verge in the lanes. They took one look at me and flew off before I got there. And who can blame them? I thought I saw a dead swan way out on the prairie. Then it rolled over and proved to be wind blown, white bag. No bags were hurt in the creation of this post.
I spent the morning clearing packaging from the shed roof. Hard work it was too having to crawl about on my hands and knees. Why we'd need to keep the bulky packaging after the guarantee has expired I have no idea. It was simply too easy to stuff it out of sight, in the darkness, up in the rafters. There was sunshine later in the morning. The packaging was used to cover the ground where weeds are coming through the hedge.
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There was a light frost on the grass and thin ice on the puddles. A road salting lorry passed just as I reached the road. The few gulls jostled for position out on the prairie. An indistinct sun glowed from behind the clouds. The scene as gloomy as my own mood.
A successful, caving, search and rescue mission occurred this morning. After a severe struggle I finally managed to bring the LWB, Long John cycle to the surface. This had involved ropes and pulleys. Hooked over each of the shed, roof joists in turn. Once freed from its imprisonment the LJ was provided with basic health care. Which meant a wipe down with a filthy rag after a spray of engine cleaner. With extras on the heavy duty chain.
Its stamped, serial letters and numbers show it was made by SCO [Smith & Co.] in Odense. The serial letter Z suggests a 1963 or 1984 build. It was already old when I bought it more than 12 years ago. So I am going with a provisional 1963. Coinciding with my own mid-teens.
Whether anybody in Denmark will value the Higgins as a very well equipped, Trykit 2WD, vintage trike I have absolutely no idea. It has 30 gears, Campag Chorus brake levers/shifters, TA rings, SPD pedals and 700 HPs.
I am asking £500 equivalent in Danish Kroner. The original paint needs restoring after all the miles I rode on it. Up to 10k miles/ 15k km per year. It deserves a good home.
https://www.dba.dk/1954-higgiins-ultralite-e/id-1088122644/
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Saturday 19th 37-43F rather cloudy. I hardly noticed the storm. All thanks to a more southerly track and favourable wind direction. Still too dark to check for possible damage. The smudged moon is scudding along in the west behind the clouds. Venus hangs low in the south east. Some field flooding on my walk. A bird of prey circled. Probably looking for breakfast.
One of my old bikes which I shall be advertising for sale. Genuine vintage with proper lugs and relaxed angles. Not one of the modern, welded items.
These bikes were once popular with shops and tradesmen for carrying goods and tools. Or beer crates. I regularly see them parked outside town houses with a beer crate tied onto the rack. Some have racks mounted front and back. Room for two beer crates!
These days these bikes are often used outside a shop. Perhaps with flowers in a basket, to attract attention. Sometimes with a decorative modern shop sign on the advertising plate.
I will clean it up a bit before trying to sell it. It has been trapped at the back of the shed for years. The backpedal [cruiser] brake now needs updating with an added front brake. To match a recent change in the Danish law. Whether stirrup brakes are still available I have yet to discover. It would be a great shame to lose the character with modern wheels. The balloon tires add suspension and load capacity.
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A later drive to the shops showed almost every hollow in the landscape was full of rain water. The usually invisible streams were all brown, rushing and often close to overflowing. The edges of the roads and sometimes the whole road were flooded at frequent intervals.
They were pumping a hollow of deep water on the main road up to the motorway. Sadly the workers hadn't thought to put up a warning sign before the last junction. So the long queue of cars had to turn round individually in a narrow dead end with half the road taken up by the queue!
My long wheel base, bulk carrier, Long John cycle. Modern versions are known as cargo bikes. Again, mine has only a backpedal brake. Rod steering with a bit of slop in the joints adds a hint of excitement to downhill journeys. These things weigh a ton! They typically sell for £5-600 equivalent.
The large and heavily built basket would carry luggage from the train station to a hotel or private address. Or deliver meat, bread, fruit, vegetables or parcels. Many villages had a dozen shops and workshops in the not so distant past. Local deliveries must have been quite popular. Riders were mostly young men.
They were designed to carry significant weights! One hundred kilograms is sometimes neatly painted on the rack. Only one gear suggests a fair amount of pushing up inclines. You see them being ridden both briskly and very skillfully in Danish cities. Even by teenage girls. Which I saw in Odense on my last visit. The sheer width of the basket requires a lot of practice on the typically narrow cycle paths. But then, child carrier trikes are also ridden in large numbers in Danish and Dutch cities. It's all a matter of practice.
I have just discovered there are LongJohn websites with all the details for identifying manufacturers and dates from the frame stamps. Only after 1942 was it required to date and number Long Johns. I had originally planned to use it for shopping in the village but it proved quite a handful on the only time I rode it. I was much keener on riding trikes at the time. So did not persist long enough to become adept.
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Out in the wilds this morning I passed a field of scruffy grass. It was tightly packed with a mix of geese, gulls and rooks. All so busy having a feeding frenzy they never looked up. A couple of smaller trees, with wet feet, had fallen over here and there. Otherwise this last storm was more about heavy rainfall than damaging wind speeds.
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Friday 18th 37F, 0700 dark and cloudy. Dry but cool and breezy on my walk. Three, large, brown birds of prey out on the prairie.
Tonight's storm has been slightly downgraded and its most dangerous path forecast to travel further south of us. Winds turning westerly a little earlier is also a huge relief. We benefit from a helpful tree line which has expanded into a copse.
I bought a compact, picnic gas stove and canister yesterday. In case the electricity goes off. The wood stove can warm us this time. Without the need for electricity to drive a circulation pump. Anybody with a pellet stove would be in trouble without power. The UK has a rare, Red warning for 90mph winds. Let's be careful out there!
I spent the morning fighting my way down the shed to remove long unused cycles. Which I intend to advertise for sale. Nothing very exciting, nor valuable, I'm afraid. We are making a concerted effort to downsize our possessions. It was our hobby, a couple of decades ago, to visit weekend markets to buy stuff we liked. There were a lot of things which were completely novel to us back then. Flea markets were everywhere. They were housed in garages, barns, basements and even garden tents. They would advertise in a small ads paper. We would spend most weekends touring out and back. It seems so long ago now.
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Thursday 17th 41F, heavy overcast. Moving rapidly across from the west. First light at 07.30 show the trees are all still there and rocking in the remaining gusts. No sign of damage in the still poor light. We heard a few roars around bedtime but it did not keep me awake. No doubt my wife will beg to differ.
No sign of any damage on my walk. A few twigs blown out of the hedges onto the roads. Just the usual.
A new and far more dangerous storm is expected tomorrow night. Its path will be right over us. With gusts to 37ms. 84mph! Worse still is the SW direction of the wind before midnight. This sounds as catastrophic as the Great Storm of 1999! Which had a devastating effect over our local area. With five days loss of electricity and water. The barns of the farm, behind us, were literally ripped apart. Causing massive damage to the house joined in the middle.
We lost an area of our NW roof covering after it banged deafeningly all night. I had to repair it myself and was ripped off by the local builder's merchant for half a damaged ladder. Then had to drive for miles to find a roof ladder hook. A telegraph pole with a TV aerial blew down and severed our water supply. I had to dig down and then find a fitting to join it back together.
A neighbour's double garage, corrugated steel roof, flew high overhead for hundreds of yards. Before landing in a field as a tight roll beyond us. The local supermarkets were stripped bare next morning. We could not heat the house for nearly a week because there was no power for the water pump! Mid-winter too. We have an independent wood stove this time.
No news about the storm back then because there was no power for TV or radio. We had no idea when we would get power or water back on. When the power finally came back on there was nothing about the storm. Nothing! It was already old news. Besides, the storm missed anywhere "important." Like the vital, national TV studios in Copenhagen. Desperately needing to analyze the latest football results.
A late morning drive to the shops. Saw several Kestrels hovering over the road. Several, larger birds of prey perched in roadside trees.
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My painful knee is not improving. I keep wondering if it would help to have a short ride. I am having to climb and descend the stairs half a step at a time. One foot forwards to be joined by the other.
Tonight brings a storm. Followed by yet another on Friday and Saturday. Oh joy!
It reached 47F mid-afternoon. Though windy, we are best sheltered by trees from the west and NW. The forecast is for gusts up to 26m/s by midnight tonight and into the early hours. That's nearly 60 mph!
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Tuesday 15th 41F, mild and grey with a cold wind. Saw a couple of geese go over and come straight back again!
The Danish government is handing out taxpayer's money to subsidize those affected by gas price increases. As predicted, Pootin has weaponized gas by rationing supplies.
Now we come to the real unfairness. Being presented with massively increased gas prices, for their central heating, caused many gas users to fire up their wood stoves. So suddenly, those, for whom a wood stove is their only form of heating, cannot obtain their vital fuel!
When it is in stock, the prices have risen dramatically. The question is: Will the really poor, for whom wood fuel is their only form of heating, also be generously compensated? Central heating is still a luxury for many of the impoverished and very unequal in Denmark.
Gas central heating is CO2 heavy and fills the pockets of Pootin and his henchmen. So compensation for increased prices for gas is actively encouraging climate change and Pootin's war machine. No wonder the right wing parties are pushing for extreme generosity with the gas compensation payments!
Meanwhile, back at Chez Hovel: Last year we paid 100Kr for five 10kg bags of compressed wood chip briquettes. It was even six bags per 100Kr at one time. [About £11GBP] Today, the same outlet wants 33 Kroner per bag. A 65% increase!
That is quite a price hike! I bet their huge stock is leftovers from last year. So the increased pricing "due to increased demand from gas consumers" is pure profit! Where do I queue for my taxpayer handout? Answer: You don't. You aren't rich enough!
Danish proverb: "They have no wood for their stoves? Then let them have subsidized, gas central heating!" đ
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"Freedom from vaccines" convoys are denying freedom to everybody else.
What do you call it when the police break up a "freedom from vaccines" convoy?
Refuse disposal! đ
War in Ukraine was only averted by letting a 15 year old, girl skater win gold. While "doped up to the eyeballs" by The Russian Doping Federation.
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Monday 14th 45-46F, mild but windy and grey again. The usual walk despite my poorly knee. Skylarks singing. Geese overhead.
Sunshine in the afternoon but the gales make it rather chilly to be outside.
The Tricycle Association wasn't remotely interested in online service to their members at the time. I left the forum behind when the "creeps" joined. Desperate to share their hideous chips on their shoulders and paranoid delusions. I thought I was falling over backwards to be friendly, encouraging, kind and helpful!
I haven't even decided what the Higgins is worth. It carried me for many tens of thousands of miles in all weathers. The Trykit 2WD axle let me travel freely all year round. Even in 4" of snow, uphill and down. Eventually I began to get back pain from being stretched out too far. Or it was just too much tricycling? Even the shortest handlebar stem didn't help. That was when I had the R951 stainless steel Trykit built for me by Geoff Booker.
The Higgins has had very few outings since then. I'd like somebody to cherish and ride it as much as I did. It is an awful waste to have it hanging from the rafters of the shed. My wife wouldn't know how to advertise it if anything happened to me. It would probably be scrapped. Along with all the other bike stuff I have collected over a lifetime. I have boxes of saddles, gears, brakes and chainsets just sitting there year after year. If it was the UK I'd have it all on eBay.
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Sunday 13th 35F, heavy overcast and breezy from the SW. No rain forecast. The wind wasn't that bad but it was cold. My first singing skylark of the year. I bet its eyes were watering! Mixed flocks of Redwings and Fieldfares out on the fields. Dozens of sparrows.
It is a very unpleasant feeling. When you suddenly realize that a lifetime's passionate interest. Not to mention the considerable investment. In time and money and research and materials and testing in a hobby. Has finally reached an end. I have been building audio equipment and following Hifi publications for over sixty years. My father before me and we traveled much the same path over the long decades.
So I was close to panic [and tears] when I placed an online advert to sell all my audio equipment for a mere pittance. Just to be rid of it. What use is audio equipment and giant loudspeakers? When deafness prevents normal conversation at home. When one can no longer hear the dialogue in films. How would my wife cope with any of it if the statistics suddenly catch up with me? A charity shop van at the gate to drag everything away? No clue as to its collector's value on the classic English Hifi enthusiasts' market. Not even how to assemble it correctly.
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An unusually tame Hooded crow alighted and picked at the ground some 50 yards away. Image cropped from 5MP to 1MP. 100mm 4/3 [200mm focal length equivalent full frame.] The grain crop still looks like a lawn this early in the year.
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It stayed dry as the sky steadily darkened to a leaden lid. A distant deer grazed on a winter compost crop. While a solitary swan headed south with precision guidance.
It started snowing at 10.30. Expected to last at least an hour.
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The deluded commons clown surrounds himself with mere yes men. Like all good dictators before him. His reputation in tatters. He still imagines himself a statesman. While the real contenders must force down their sniggering. Until the clown has slunk back to the bar.
Koalas are now threatened. By those elected to protect the country and the planet. History will apportion the blame where it lies. Probably the only mention these crooks will ever get in their deliberately dystopian future. Keep taking the money.
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A wave formation cloud hung low in the west. A quick snap failed to live up to expectations. A narrow blue strip between huge plates of speckled cloud split the sky up above. A hint of a glow in the east. There is a slight risk of real sunshine this afternoon.
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Wednesday 9th 43F, very heavy overcast and wet. I delayed my walk until I saw a gap in the radar. Then had to shorten my walk as it started raining more heavily. Aside from the tire spray, from passing vehicles, I managed to become damp rather than wet.
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Bidenzzzzzzz has finally mentioned Tesla after yet more lies praising non-existent Ford and GM's contribution to BEVs. Two in a row equally as corrupt as Chump? What way to run a country! No wonder Pootin and "Plague" Jinping are acting so bold! Keep taking the money!
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Tuesday 8th 44F, 09.15, very heavy overcast, breezy and raining hard. Still waiting for the weather forecasters to admit is it raining. When none appears in their pointless tables. The radar shows rain moving away. So I may yet get my morning walk. And did, luckily between showers. It started raining hard immediately after my return. Unbroken sunshine in the afternoon!
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Monday 7th 36-41F, white frost on the grass. Ice [snow?] on the greenhouse. Sky mostly clear.
There was ice on the puddles as I picked my way along the drive. An icy cold headwind was blowing from the NW. The sun rose from behind the low hills at halfway as I reached my familiar turning point. A pair of geese veered away as they passed low overhead. The car traffic was busier than usual. Probably because I left earlier due to the brighter skies. I kept to the verges wherever possible to keep the two way traffic flowing.
As it approaches 09.30 the white frost is still hanging on unchanged in the shade. It might even be snow.
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Sunday 6th 39F, mixed cloud and clear. Another day of mixed, wintry showers. It stayed dry for my walk as the sun made a brief appearance through cloud. Now overcast, becoming darker and increasingly windy.
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Saturday 5th 36-41F, overcast with a light breeze. The forecast is for early sunshine. The latter appeared at precisely 09.15. By which time I was well on my way to the lanes. The light coloured bird of prey retreated despite being several hundred yards away. Perhaps it was merely coincidence. Lots of car traffic today. A long day of wintry showers and sunny periods.
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Bozo, the slaver, is having a new slave ship built. Slavery is alive and well. Hail Bozo!
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Friday 4th 42F, heavy overcast and gales after earlier rain. We might just escape further rain until this afternoon's deluge arrives. Even then, the radar shows we may just squeeze underneath the more northerly, blue blot on the landscape.
It remained but grey and blustery for my walk. The birds were entertaining this morning. The same Great tit [as yesterday] was scolding me from the safety of its hedge. Then a tiny bird of prey just missed catching another small bird. The Sparrowhawk shot of down the road about two feet off the asphalt. Straight as an arrow until it made a sharp exit. Later, two Whooper swans flew right over my head at only about fifty feet. They make a pulsing sound like a bicycle pump to match their wing beats.
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The Danish government is preparing a law to make bloggers and influencers responsible for their utterances. Presumably this is to give them better control over "misinformation." Such as has occurred frequently during the pandemic. To the detriment and probable loss of many lives.
Fortunately, for all of us, I do not enjoy the cult leader status of a brain dead and corrupt "misinformers." My badly misjudged humour and childish pokes. At the expense of the supposedly great and less than perfect. Means I may never need to correct my <cough> "work" by force of law. Though it is just possible they will demand I improve my punctuation. For the benefit of all my readers. đ
It started raining at 11.00am.
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Thursday 3rd 40-43F, dark grey overcast, misty and raining hard.
10.00 No walk so far.
I went after morning coffee instead. It rained steadily so my jacket was wet on the outside. Warm and dry inside. I wore my man made, waterproof trousers just for a change. They proved to be wet with condensation on the inside on my return after 40 minutes. So much for breathable material! That said, my walking trousers were not wet and would have been. Had they been exposed.
Later I was shopping in the car, still in the rain. Very few people were wearing masks today.
There were huge clouds of rooks all mixed up with gulls on a roadside field. The combination of vast numbers of jet black birds with snow white looked strangely untidy! I can't remember ever having seen these two types of birds mingling so thoroughly. The gulls were mostly on the ground and didn't seem too bothered about the aerial invasion. Presumably the rooks are pairing off for the breeding season. I couldn't stop to watch their antics because of the traffic. They were there yesterday while I traveling the opposite way.
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Cloud soon arrived to spoil the show. Not completely but enough to hide the sun. The birds seemed far more active yesterday. With some singing for the first time this year. Today they were just foraging and making alarm calls. When I went out in the car yesterday there were huge flocks of rooks and Fieldfares out on the fields.
Two deer were making their way across a field some three hundred yards away. They reached a copse and disappeared. It was much more pleasant walking with the wind than across it.
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The Commons Party Clown is taking a crate of his trademark beer glasses. With etched crowns. As a gift to the Ukrainian people. I just hope they have enough booze to keep his glass filled right through the coming parties official celebrations. Tsar Pootin 'The Awful' must be relieved Ukraine's visitor wasn't anybody important.
EU corruption is still trying to make Pootin's weaponized farts smell green.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60229199
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Tuesday 1st Feb 35F, heavy overcast. With rain forecast for all day. I have to take back some rotten/mouldy fruit to the supermarket a few miles away. At least two supermarket chains were selling mouldy/rotten organic clementines yesterday. I had to dash off from the checkout to quickly find a replacement for one obviously rotten bag full. Only to discover that the bag I had taken was completely mouldy/rotten when I got home.
That's the problem with living in a country where there is no detectable consumer protection. Not even for the thousands of Danes. Who had their pensions stolen by swindlers on the government's, own <cough> "secure," online, payments system.
Grey and breezy, at first. It started raining at halfway on my walk to the lanes. No that it mattered to me in my recently reproofed, winter coat. Three deer broke cover from a distant hedge. Then ran uphill, diagonally across the prairie. Probably some 800 meters in all. They paused to look back just before entering the forest. Meanwhile a bird of prey sat bemused throughout the whole drama. It was sitting slightly to the left of their route. So in no danger of being trampled.
Denmark is freed of most Covid restrictions from today despite soaring levels of positive tests. THis doesn't mean that it has gone for good. Just that it is no longer considered a national, survival critical pandemic. I shall continue to wear a mask. Who knows how new mutations will affect people in the long term?
What will the overpaid, brain dead, anti-vax "influencers" make their dirty money from now? Probably get paid for downplaying the dangers of oil and coal to climate change. Probably much too late to make a quick buck from downplaying tobacco. Though there's always artificial tobacco products to promote. For a nice, big, fat backhander from the tax-free classes.
I returned the rotten/mouldy fruit to the supermarket. Where the staff member would not give me a refund because I did not have my receipt. I had changed jackets because of the rainy weather today. I persevered and the overtly racist, checkout operator put the coins in the tray. Just as she has done in all the years I have been shopping there.
She always slides the fence across. So I have to go right around the belt just to reach my shopping. Even when nobody else is anywhere near the checkouts. My receipt is always placed in the money tray. Unlike every other customer. Where nothing is ever too much trouble and she smiles and hands them their change and receipt.
I just checked the independent, online, customer rating website. To discover that this supermarket chain is very badly scored and has quite a number of racism accusations. They must be specially breeding their staff to get such a low score!
Thought for the day: What is the value of any "justice system?" Where, if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it!
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