10.01.2024 33F!

 ~o~

 Wednesday 10th 33F/+0.6C. Still lots of snow lying. Up at 7.30.

 8.30 59F/15C in the room. I ought to light the stove. 

 I am seriously considering dropping out of the fortnightly cooking classes. The cost is spiralling. Do I get my money's worth in micro-socialising? Which must surely be the main reason for attending. The six to eight members of each class have a good time. With some overlap between classes. Not everybody attends two classes like I do. Only one or two others do. 

 Is there enough reward for the increasing expense? For the improved language skills and close human contact. Am I benefitting from the close company in staving off the constant depression? I might become a hermit! This is actually a serious comment. Having appointments ensures I maintain my appearance, shower and launder my clothes. 

 The complex meals we produce and consume are almost irrelevant. The cooking education of doubtful value. I still haven't found much to carry over to my rather monotonous diet at home. My skills with a potato peeler are increasingly polished but I don't enjoy potatoes very often. 

 Then there is the travelling time and expenses. Good fun on a warm, dry day on the e-bike. Riding on the gorgeous rural lanes and being blinded by the early sun. Much less fun when it is peeing down and I am driving the car in commuter traffic on the main roads. I find myself increasingly irritated by having to attend on the alternate weeks. It feels as if I am denying myself some basic freedom. Particularly when the weather is good enough for a proper bike ride. 

 Initially, there was a very good case for re-socialising after years of rural isolation. The loss of my wife left me even further isolated. My social circle barely extended beyond thanking the cashier at the supermarket checkout! Research suggests that isolation accelerates dementia. The mental gymnastics in maintaining conversations helps to keep the brain alive and functioning. Particularly in a foreign language.

 Are there alternatives to cooking classes for basic socialising? I still have the museum. Though that isn't so intensely communicative. Often involving lengthy periods doing some humble task while working alone. I don't see myself being a volunteer at a local charity shop. It doesn't appeal. It was suggested I could drive a van for a charity shop. I had plenty of experience of van driving in my youth but not for decades. Could I manage the delivery of heavy furniture or picking it up?

 9.20. Dark grey but dry. Time for a walk?

10.00 Back from a short loop around the drives. Getting away from the speeding traffic saves me having to take to the snow covered verges so often. It was much more slippery than yesterday. I presume the higher temperatures have produced a slight surface melt. Reducing friction dramatically. I disturbed a heron fishing in the beck. It flew in a circle but I lost it behind trees towards the end. Hopefully it found its fishing spot again. The beck was the only water not frozen solid.

  I brought back the wheely bin with waste food and real rubbish. Since there was plenty of room left for more until the next emptying. The recycling system has greatly reduced the volume of these two types of refuse. The problem lies with the plastic waste and milk carton bin. Which is now almost full. Do I want to drive to the recycling yard with several sacks of the contents? 

 I seriously doubt they'd accept my arrival with the wheely bin lying in the trailer. Though it might be fun just to make a real nuisance of myself! I wonder how many of my neighbours missed having their bins emptied due to icy drives? They have steep hills to cope with. While mine is flat along the main drive. I didn't have the nerve to lift the lids! My reputation for eccentricity already precedes me.

10.40 66F/19C in the room. Motivation at zero %. Another day of passive YouTube viewing? Does it count if I educate myself with science videos? 

 12.30 I have collected the plastics recycling bin from the main drive. The contents filled a standard, translucent, bin bag. I'll bung the bag in the boot. Then take it to the recycling yard on my next shopping trip.

 It seems a number of others are daunted by the up front cost of cooking lessons. Three members have dropped out so far. Which probably means this year's, spring/summer, Tuesday series is cancelled. It is obvious that it needs a minimum number of people to make it work. The lessons take place at a disused, village school. I believe the rental charge per kitchen session has increased. So now the owners of the school get nothing. If the education authority still owns the building. Then they are undervaluing the long term health benefits of the attendees.

 What value an empty building? Better ask the property investors. Who are betting on property price inflation continuing into the far, distant future. What is the true value of an empty property left to rot? In my opinion? Zero. Or even negative if the property negatively impacts on neighbours. 

 The rules don't seem to take that into account. Nobody is checking whether the thatch is badly holed and the house is full of rats. Or if the garden is full of weeds, towering trees and scrap cars. Owning a property, even in absentia, means beneficial loans can be taken out against its official value. Rich people are property owners. The rich make the rules for everybody.

 Dinner was cheese on toast with fresh tomatoes. Followed by an apple for desert.

~o~

9.01.2024 Swept away.

 ~o~

 Tuesday 9th 17F/-8C. Cold, calm, misty and overcast. Up at 7.40 after a very restless night. 

 The sweep is coming this morning. So I haven't lit the stove. Lots of tidying to do. 55F/13C in the room at 8.45. The dustbin men still haven't been. The telephone service doesn't open until 10.00.

 9.15. Showered, changed, vacuumed and tidied some more. Every visitor demands effort to achieve some degree of normality from the usual squalor. Thank goodness for visitors! 😄

 10.20 20F/-7C. I even cleaned the inside of the glass on the stove. Though it wasn't too bad. Mostly around the frame where it is cooler. The glass is now invisible. The sweep has left after his usual thorough job. The stove is lit. 54F/12C in the room. It is almost like an open fire with the glass so clean. 

 Brightness is threatening but with lots of cloud. The mist is almost gone.

 10.30 First sunshine. The greenhouse is at 33F/1C.

 11.00 60F/15C in the room. Greenhouse at 39F/4C. I rang the recycling firm responsible for emptying the bins. It seems there was too much snow and ice on the entrance to the drive. The rules are that I am not responsible for clearing the 200m drive on somebody else's property. I have no choice. I must empty the full bins into sacks and transport them myself to the recycling yard 5km away. Which is only open on Wednesdays and Thursdays. 

 It is bad enough having to drag the heavy bins the 120m uphill to the main drive. So the bin men don't have to drive down my section. Which I have cleared of snow despite it not being my responsibility. It was ever thus. 27 years and counting. The next official bin emptying, weather permitting of course, is in a fortnight. 

   The parcel I delivered yesterday to the PostDanmark packet shop still hasn't moved. According to their own track and trace. £10 equivalent to send a couple of kg across country? Nice work if you can get it!

 The cooking classes start again next week. The frosts are continuing beyond that date according to the DMI. It might reach a toasty -2C this afternoon. The sunshine is fleeting. Dragging the greenhouse only up to 43F/6C so far. 

 16.00 30F/-1C. The greenhouse reached a maximum of 46F. Before the sun gave up the struggle and it all turned to solid overcast. The room briefly hit 69F/20C earlier but quickly dropped to 64F/18C. I am trying hard not to have an afternoon nap. Last night was a nightmare in all the wrong ways. I felt I was awake more than I was asleep.  

 Dinner was a variation on a theme. Broccoli with chicken and mushrooms. The ten minute broccoli was fine as to texture but lacked enough salt.

~o~

8.01.2024 Winter without end!

 ~o~

 Monday 8th 23F/-5C. Up at 8.30 after earlier wandering. Room at 55F/3C.  Greenhouse at 28F/-2C. Both thermometers agree.

9.00 Breakfast over. I had better light the stove. Then go for a walk. I have been slacking. My back and shoulders are aching. Probably from moving stacks of logs and snow clearing. Both are unfamiliar forms of exercise.

 9.30 Golden sunshine.

 10.30 25F/-4C. Bright sunshine. No wind. Back after a walk looping along the drives. Followed by a loop around the spray tracks on a roadside field. Returning by the new drive again. The flooding is about the same but frozen hard. The beck much lower than before. This will change once the snow and ice melt.

 The Sorel boots are rather good for this sort of low key off-roading. I would not wear them in the mountains. Though the grip is fine for such a relatively smooth sole on ice. I slipped only once. My own fault for turning back to look at something. While walking on clear, water ice. Otherwise normal care and attention to slopes and icy surfaces was enough for safety. 

 The roads were wet and far clearer than before. Though not without ridges of hard packed snow and ice in places. The salt spraying is obviously not up to the job below certain temperatures. The traffic has a share in breaking up these ridges when they run over them. Most drivers avoid them. Which prolongs the ridges existence. No doubt tire spray helps too. I took to the verges as each vehicle approached. To allow them to pass safely, without deviation and to avoid being sprayed myself.

 10.40 58F/14C in the room. The greenhouse has risen above freezing at 33F. Still too early for full sunshine to reach into the greenhouse. Until it does there is nothing to add warmth to the air.  

 13.00 29F/-2C. Warm sunshine! 66F/19C in the room. 70F/21C in the greenhouse! I have been shopping in the village. I took in a parcel. Only to discover that Post Danmark continues to commit deliberate suicide at our expense. They pick up packets before 9 o'clock for next day delivery. Take in any later and they won't be back until tomorrow. Keep taking the tax-payers money! The dustbin men haven't been yet.
 

 After I got back I finally managed to open the Morris Minor door. The lock has a plunger which is exposed to the gap in the door. It was frozen fast and I was afraid of breaking the tiny little key. I used de-icer on the key and lock yesterday but it had no obvious effect. It was the plunger which needed attention. I started the car to warm it through after a week of freezing temperatures. It started easily thanks to the new battery I fitted soon after purchase. I should recharge it fully.

 I had a dizzy spell after lunch while I was browsing. My head suddenly started spinning. So I went to bed. Woke up fairly normal. At least by my standards.

 Dinner was salad. I have no idea why I added a poached egg.  It was still slightly runny even after 6 minutes.

~o~