3rd October 2019 St.Greta will be very cross!

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Thursday 3rd 44-50F, rather cloudy but calm. Walked to the far woods. Well, it is the same forest as all the rest but there are bumpy fields in between. An hour and a half at a brisk pace under grey skies. It was often wet and muddy underfoot where forestry vehicle had been thinning out the conifers.

Abandon hope all ye who were fooled by the empty election promises of the new, <cough> "Green" Danish government. It was all lies, as usual, just to get their grubby hands on that fat, lifelong pension. 

They are even planning to increase taxes on electric vehicles! This after suggesting they needed half a million EVs on Danish roads to match their vacuous 2030 targets for CO2. Denmark already has the lowest take-up of electric vehicles after massive import taxes were introduced by the last lot. This promptly killed the EV market stone dead. No change there then.

Plans for buying up marshy fields from farmers to reduce serious CO2 slippage are on hold. These fields are very unproductive but farmers can claim subsidies for every square meter they own and those they don't. Of course they will want top market prices for their "finest agricultural land" and sod [sic] the CO2 problem, climate change and sea level rises. They can always claim compensation, down the road, when their fields are flooded with seawater. 

Don't believe me? Denmark is traditionally run by several, mutually parasitic, political parties. The supporting, coalition parties are all expressing their deep dissatisfaction with the lack of ambition displayed by the latest crop of vote winning, professional, musical chairs players.

When will deliberately lying to the electorate become a crime punishable by imprisonment? These members of parliament are not of merchantable quality, sort of thing? It's no wonder they don't want anything to do with consumer protection!

I was just reading how Nissan ignored a loyal EV customer's concerns about empty hype on mileage per battery charge. After years of complaining the Nissan Leaf dealer finally offered to replace the faulty battery. For little short of the price of a completely new car! This owner has never had anywhere near the claimed mileage per charge from new.

The price demanded for the new battery was three times the present value of the Nissan Leaf, of the same age, on the secondhand market. Assuming, of course, it was a "good one." i.e. A car which had actually matched Nissan's empty claims on range per charge. Do we sense another VW diesel fiasco on Nissan batteries? Owner reviewers do not seem well pleased with the Nissan Leaf's range.

It seams that car dealers never change their spots. I bet they used the same lies when they were selling steam, traction engines to farmers and hauliers. And probably horses and carts before that. It sounds as if Australia has no more consumer protection than Denmark. Or it is simply inverted? With its head buried deep in the desert sand. 

I expect Denmark will be having a visit from St.Greta Thunberg when she gets back from scowling at Oberst "Legless" Von Chump. Somebody much nearer to home needs a good scolding!

The US is presently "enjoying" record high and record low temperatures. Simultaneously with record snow falls. Talk about a divided nation! 😉

A young man in Denmark is facing confiscation of his car after he was stopped on a busy motorway. Police claim he was driving at 229kmh or 142mph while having a race with another car. The police patrol said they had great difficulty keeping up with the racing vehicles despite their own extensive experience and special training for driving at high speeds. One of the "competitors" got away. The court has now ruled that the driver will lose his car and it will be auctioned.

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2nd October 2019 On autumn sogginess.

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Wednesday 2nd 40-48F, clear and bright. First cold night this autumn steamed up all the windows. We have yet to ignite the wood stove. Both forecasters would have us believe it is cloudy. Though it isn't. Only one forecasts a wet afternoon. Eany meany..

I walked anticlockwise up to the woods by the steep track and then made the first, autumn, direct descent. The grass everywhere was extremely wet. I shall have to dig out my gaiters. There was a small [Roe?] deer  sunbathing in the hedge up on the ridge. I took several images at full zoom and cropped the best of them to bring out the deer.

I really don't want to get into DSLRs and heavy lenses just for these rare occasions. Though I ought to take some reading glasses to help me see the Lumix TZ7 screen. But what a bore to have to take out glasses every time I want to take a "snap!" Which is most of the time. I can only make out general features and am completely blind to any text or numerals on the screen. Thank goodness the menus are more "sturdily built" and therefore legible. I am a martyr to one diopter reading glasses on the computer. Though I need an additional half diopter for important things like DIY brain surgery. [Using a shaving mirror.] Lest thee doubt my words.

I should really call my photography "lucky imaging" but that is something else entirely. This is a technique where software-selected, "sharper" frames are saved from videos. To [hopefully] make an even sharper and much more detailed final "still." All the poorer frames being discarded.

A fairly large bird of prey was looking for breakfast and ignored my presence as I stared up at it through my binoculars. Pointy wings and lots of white plumage suggest a Goshawk, but what do I know?

It rained in the afternoon. Dashing all hope of a ride to collect the items only promised by the supermarkets but which inevitably failed to turn up. Yet again! Several chains couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. And that, is a mortal sin in beer loving Denmark.

I am decidedly of the opinion, that the supermarkets literally take stuff off the shelves every time there is a special offer. Then they can pocket the difference to profit from their own suppliers. Who probably subsidised the product at a discount to the chain. There is never [ever] any shortage of the special offer the week after it has finished. You can set your watch by the loaded trolley coming out of the back room. Don't get in the way of the staff!

Perhaps the new government will invent consumer protection for the Danes. Though I'm not holding my breath. After all, they haven't pushed through their plans for doubling their already, extremely generous, lifelong, tax-free pensions as a reward for a short stint of being self-important.

Still absolutely no mention of how they plan to cut CO2  by 0.00001%. Let alone 70%. Or whatever nonsense they promised an endlessly gullible electorate. We are putting off burning the last of the furniture. Just in case "They" decide to subsidise an alternative means of warming the largely uninsulated, Danish, housing stock.

Luckily we each own down jackets. These were culled from charity shops before they were stripped bare by container lorry driving, East Europeans. Apparently, and I have it on good authority, their own Mafia sells even the clothes and toys donated to charity by warm hearted, Western Europeans. Meanwhile we two, warm hearted, immigrant bods cower under blankets while we watch TV. With constant water droplets hanging from the ends of our noses as ice forms on the double glazing. I had to get rid of the central heating when we moved in.

Not only did it roar like an F16 jet engine, ready for take-off, but it swallowed heating oil like it was water. Every time we had the tank refilled, at twice-weekly intervals, the oil man insisted on checking the system. Then charging us an arm and a leg for the privilege. That system was not long for our world. Obviously installed by an amateur with a penchant for black iron piping crossing every threshold in the entire place. The same amateur who had installed doors after the medieval practice of aiming for eye level lintels. I lost more skin from my scalp in those first few weeks than in any of my previous lifetimes.

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1st October 2019 Autumn has arrived.

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Tuesday 1st October 45-50F, grey, raining and almost still. Walked to the lanes in steady rain. My back shoulders and arms were soon feeling cold from rain penetrating my old HH jacket.

Afternoon shopping ride returning heavily laden. It would have been even more if the crooks supermarkets had any stock of the advertised special offers. No bread either! Dry but grey with no real wind. Only 7 miles. Heavy traffic. First ride of the autumn wearing my cheap, supermarket tights and MTB boots. There were shorts involved too. For those of you given to such fantasies.

Still looking for more, thin, thermal vests to match the tights. The thinner the better. Because these wick moisture [sweat] away from the bod. Without having enough substance to get all wet of itself. I suffered for years after buying thick thermal vests in my youth. They were advertised in every damned break on ITV in Gravely Blighted back then. Dreadful waste of money unless you were literally comatose. Being therefore quite unable to lift a finger. Which might have left the wearer prone to the icy chill. Which was guaranteed to follow that sudden, terrifying feeling of excessive warmth. Leading immediately to a mobile sauna.

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