3.12.2023 A bit of a longer walk.

 ~o~

  Sunday 3rd 27F/-3C. No new snow. Up to 30cm may fall in north and east Jylland. Germany has experienced heavy snowfalls. Up at 6am after a reasonable night. 

 7.30 I had to light the stove because it had dropped below 15C/60F in the room overnight. 59.9F! It just felt too cold to be sitting still. The washing on the clothes airers felt cold too. I had washed all four pairs of my scruffy [recycled] fleece trousers. So had nothing to put on over my long, "skiing" underwear. 

 Which, in reality, meant long, thin, black underwear on special offer at a local supermarket. Probably over a decade ago. Which was vital for [tri]cycling in the Danish winters. A pair of tights was enough to allow me to wear padded racing shorts. Fortunately the old trousers were all dry this morning. 

 7.40. The room has just risen to a tropical 60F. The new [recycled] kindling is fine and burns readily. I am burning the very last of the compressed firewood blocks from last year. Or was it the year before? One a day shouldn't harm the stove.

 7.50. It is just starting to get light enough to see outside. The sky is uniformly grey. Or just plain featureless.

 9.55 65/18C in the room. It was nearly 9.00 when I finally left for my walk. With no real plans to go anywhere in particular. Frozen rain came and went again. The snow covered, spray tracks were too tempting. I reached the forest without having to walk to the village first. Where I would have to do a hairpin turn to follow the main track. This adds considerable distance along the road with three blind bends.

 One I reach the entrance to the woods I climbed uphill along the edge. For scale, the prairie I was circumnavigating is about 1000m on a side. Two swans went over. Making their strange sound with each wing beat. Perhaps they are panting in time to their wings? A solitary cormorant flew over too. The sky was leaden around most of the the horizon.

 The frozen ground was roughly cultivated under the snow. Requiring some care to avoid a twisted ankle. I was wearing my heaviest walking boots. Which provide the necessary ankle support and grip. Yet again I took a lot of snaps with my phone camera. Only to have them fail to upload to my PC on my return. The last image visible in Google Photos was the first I took yesterday morning. Nothing since, despite many pictures on the phone and multiple attempts to upload I am going to have to Goofle the problem.  

 I had to manually activate backup in the phone settings. My pictures have now uploaded. Why would backup not work as it always has? 

 13.00 33F/1C. Bright sunshine. Lunch. A huge arc of snow-bearing cloud is rotating clockwise north of my location. So we may not get any more snow this time. The most it has dumped so far is about 4" [10cm] over east Jylland. [Jutland] The snow plough drivers are happy it is falling on a Sunday. With the roads almost clear of traffic they can get the job done far more easily.

16.00 I just had to refill the log rack in the living room. The stack in the greenhouse is going down fast! So I will need another trailer full to restock. Each trailer load costs 1000kr. [£115] So that may well become the monthly heating bill for the stove alone. 

 The small, oil filled radiators in the kitchen and bathroom will be an added expense. The temperature in there is being deliberately kept to 55F/13C. This feels comfortable for short stays.

 I didn't keep any record of how many logs I bought last year. There were quite a few left over to use until the last week or so. It has been unusually cold for November and early December but not excessively so. The early months of the year are usually colder. 

 I may restock from the timber yard. Rather than the far more generous furniture factory. Spending hours outside, splitting [mixed] oversized logs with a sledge hammer/maul is not for the average septuagenarian. So I will try to avoid it in future. The timber yard's logs are much more uniform in length and breadth. With a nice range of sizes. Hefty, for keeping the fire going for some time. Or smaller stuff, for a rapid burn from scratch in the mornings.

 Dinner was chicken and mushrooms. With a fried egg and beans. The egg was fine but broke just as I lifted it out of the frying pan. (Sniff!) 😞

~o~