~o~
Wednesday 24th 47F. Variable overcast. Light winds, dry and some sunshine promised. I can ride to the museum. Up early. So I can go for an early walk.
The dandelions "clocks" are strangely tall. Some heads are up to and over 60cm off the ground. As if stretching for the light. Could it be due to the drought? There is no shortage of light. More sunshine than usual. Definite lack of rain.
7.40 10C/50F. Increasingly heavy overcast. Just a short walk to capture a few pictures of the oil seed rape going over. The flowers remain yellow but fall off the plants. Leading to a noticeable thinning. A thin mist hung over the landscape. Softening even the foreground views.
14.30 Safely returned from the museum. I dusted display items from the original kitchen. The kitchen area had to rebuilt due to subsidence and rotting timbers. So the barrels and huge bowls had been stored. Later I helped to move a massively heavy, wooden trough back into the original beer cellar. This was followed by hoeing the gardens to remove weeds. The soil is dust dry and as hard as concrete!
On the way there and back I twice saw a teenager on an electric motorcycle but with pedals. After pulling a couple of wheelies on the road. He swung across the road to travel along the opposite cycle path in completely the wrong direction. Then blasted it up to 80+km/hr! Or over 50mph! I was traveling at 35km/hr and he left me behind like a dragster racing against a push bike. Obviously showing off to his mate, or me.
No helmet. Road legal? I doubt it. Insurance? Who knows? Large, black rear hub. Enclosed front triangle, again all black, may contain the batteries. Wider tires than a standard bike. Certainly not a home built design. Not by the look of it.
Far too fast for the Speed-Pedelec "45km/hr" [28mph] standard. By a very, very long way! I met him again later. He was cruising at high speed down through the shopping village. Where 40km/hr or 25mph speed limit applies. Not that all cars bother to adhere to it.
His having a twist grip throttle is probably illegal too. Unless the bike is registered and insured as a motorcycle. No number plates make it unlikely. Normal, road legal, electric bikes must be pedaled to gain electric motor assistance. He was not pedaling at all. A "45" requires an approved helmet be worn. He was bare headed. Bright, approved lights must be showing, front and rear, at all times. He had no lights either.
17.30 It reached 67F/19C this afternoon as the sunshine took over from cloud. It is 32C/ 90F in the west facing, glazed gable end, former balcony room. With no easy way to ventilate it. I hoped the roof space above the attic ceiling would be cooler but it wasn't. I slipped an external sensor to a digital thermometer up there and it only dropped by 1ºF. Opening a lower window has had no effect at all so far. [After 15 30 minutes]
The now closed, balcony space needs a vent for removing the heat to the outdoors high up. To take advantage of heat rising. A small skylight window on the north side of the roof might do. It would be weatherproof and sealed in the winter. The digital thermometer, which I use out there, is at chest height and in the shade. It is probably even hotter higher up.
I had filled the [large] waste paper basket in the kitchen again. So I went outside to sort it into the bins. It is actually easier than before. With milk and drinks cartons being separated from the household rubbish. I can rinse and then throw the cartons straight into the waste paper basket. They go into the same bin as the plastic, poly bags, etc.
Even after I stamped on them, the milk cartons always bulked out the rubbish, pedal bin. The food waste is now going into the small container on the window sill. Which means the big pedal bin doesn't stink any more. Even though it was well sealed and the rubbish dropped into a plastic bag. I quite like the new system. Despite initial hesitation about the exposed food waste basket in the kitchen. Its enclosed bag need not wait for emptying day. To be dropped into the bin outside.
18.30 The inevitable question of making dinner now arises. Lazy toast? Or spend half an hour "slaving" over a "proper" meal? 😋
Or, I could just buy more crockery from the charity shops. Extend the worktop for another meter/yard to hold the dirty dishes. Genius! 😏
Dinner was chips, chicken and mushrooms.
~o~
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