6.02.2024 Man the lifeboats?

 ~o~

Tuesday 6th 44F/7C. Dark, wet and windy. A month's rain is supposed to have fallen by this evening. Up to 2" or 50mm total. Some flooding is expected. We are getting 2mm or <1/8" of rain per hour. Meanwhile California, The Sunshine State, is getting a whole inch or 25mm of rain per hour.

Up at 6am after quite a reasonable night. Only one trip to the fire bucket at 4am.  

 7.00 63F/17C in the room. The stove can wait.

 Looking down on the flooded wood and back gardens.

 8.45 Raining. Stove lit. I can see the sky reflected on the floodwater on the back field through the window. Worse than anything before. The phone camera wouldn't focus on the background. It is raining hard.

 A quick burst of online homework later: Zoom first and then tap the touch screen. To force the camera to focus on the desired area. Job done. Not great, but I can't get out on the field to be clear of my own trees. Because of the fence and very marshy ground. 

 The water is right up to the boundary out of sight to the left. The parking area has puddles. From water running down the gently sloping drive. 

The view from my northern boundary towards the new drive. It is impossible to avoid the low hanging trees.

 I walked around to the other side of the flooding. Which lies below the new drive on the back field. The woods and neighbours' back gardens are flooded. All the fields are flooded. The beck has risen well above the 40cm drainpipe level. As I feared it might once the sheer scale of the earthworks became obvious. 

 All my clothes were wet in the time it took me to capture 100 photographs. It was difficult to take pictures which showed the true scale of the flooding. I took my 50-200 lens. Which acts as a 100mm telephoto even at the short end. I should have taken the 12-60mm.

 Flooding is reported over Jylland and elsewhere. With town centres flooded and sandbags protecting their doors. Home owners are being subjected to the wash from cars driving through the flooded streets. The rain is expected to continue until after 6pm locally. It sounded quite heavy on the greenhouse roof as I collected more logs just now. The weather radar shows very heavy rain over us.

 17.30 Returning from a shopping trip to another village. Where I had a chat, in English, with two lovely, ladies. I had been informed by a contact at the museum that one of the ladies was English. The other was much travelled and had lived and worked in England. Today was the first time I had dared to introduce myself. We ended up chatting for an hour. They both liked my Morris Minor. A crosswind was blowing hard where the road was unprotected.

 The light was fading but the flooding on the back field looks worse than ever. It will take some time to run off the sodden landscape. Flooding has occurred in several Danish towns and cities. One place had already recorded 60mm of rain this morning and it was still falling. More rainfall records are broken going back over 180 years. Meanwhile, this week's, green-washing, climate minister is having his empty claims torn to shreds by the real experts. As usual it is untouchable farming which is the major sinner. 

 Dinner was fish fingers, chips and tomatoes. No pictures.

 

~o~

5.02.2024 The absence of proof?

 ~o~

 Monday 5th 41F/5C.  Heavy overcast. We are promised 36 hours of continuous rain. With up to 50mm or 2" falling in total. A whole month's worth of rain in a day and a half. Increasingly windy from the west. Snow is forecast further north. Up at 7am after two trips to the fire bucket. 

8.40 62F/17C in the room. I ought to get a walk in before the rains starts. If I wait for the stove to settle down it will be much too late. It can wait.

 9.00 It was raining lightly but steadily. As I performed my now routine loop along the drives. A female pheasant has discovered that there is food dropping from the neighbour's bird table. I dragged the two recycling bins back from the corner. Still no sign of life at the newly sold house next door. I presume it has been added to an investment portfolio. Perhaps spring will bring builders? To tart the place up for rental. Just another of life's mysteries. No longer, it seems. It belongs to a carpentry business. 

 I was trying to watch a film on YouTube on the TV. Being Android controlled it won't allow an ad blocker. The film was bing interrupted literally every 5 minutes with adverts. This was a once in a lifetime attempt to watch YT on the TV. The Google occult sociopaths truly are sick to their very core! I shall never buy another TV with the Android control.

 The whole multi-trillion, global tech facade is propped up. On the empty belief that advertising actually works. So they sell that fraudulent message to their deluded advertisers. Who don't give a damn about their customers. As long as sales rise quarter on quarter. So their share price doesn't sink through some rumour. That a corrupt influencer has moved to another corrupt supplier. As if anyone actually takes notice of the Chinese dictator's garbage. Which they are foisting off on a vacuous world. As if it were made locally by cute little elves. 

 Tesla managed to reach No1 in car sales without any advertising. Where was Google and Microsoft and Rotten Apple in building Tesla sales? Was it an act of god? Which one? 

 There was little choice for dinner that didn't involve fish fingers and chips. So I went with mackerel on toast. With halved tomatoes for decoration. Washed down with a beer and followed by a several chocolate biscuits. Decadence has no limits.

 

 ~o~

4.02.2024 Sainthood awaits me.

 ~o~

 Sunday 4th 42F/6C. Overcast and windy again. A few, light showers promised for this afternoon. 

 Up at 7am after an awful night. I topped up the fire bucket six times! No drinks after tea at 17.30. Nothing out of the ordinary during the day. Salad is mostly water but does it pass straight through? I had a 31km/19 mile ride in the cold wind but I was comfortable in my layers. It was 68F/20C in the room at bedtime. Dropping to 62F/17C this morning. I never felt cold in the night. Not a chill then.

 9.00 Stove lit. Time for a walk. I put on my fleece jacket under the down sweater. Both zipped up to the neck. I am not taking any chances.

 9.20 Back again after braving the cold gales. It was far windier and colder than expected. The DMI suggests 17m/s gusts on a 10m/s base. It felt much more than that.

 The rest of the day was spent on YouTube. Interrupted at frequent intervals by the advertising sociopathy department because I have an add blocker. How many times do I have to tell them,? I shall never, ever buy anything for as long as I live. Which is advertised without my express and prior, written permission.

 Dinner was chicken, mushrooms, peas, chips and ... Bisto gravy. As an influencer I have to state that I have no interest in Bisto. Other than its convenience while long out of date.

 I rescued an enormous spider from the bathroom. It was transferred with much pomp and celebration to the greenhouse. Where it will live out its days preying on everything else which lives out there. 

 I am burdened by the knowledge that indoor spiders do not fare well out of doors. So I am using the greenhouse as a sort of halfway house. It is always free to make a dash for the door whenever I am going in and out.

 My wildlife management moved down a notch when I removed a woodlouse. From the endless torment of perambulating the bathroom floor. It too was despatched to the greenhouse. Hopefully their paths will never cross. Though I cannot be held responsible for every tragedy which befalls either of them. Am I psychic?

 I have sent off an email to the relevant authorities. Requesting a Monday or Friday appointment to receive the trappings of my sainthood. Handmade, gold threaded robes are said to be involved. Though I'll find room on the makeshift clothes rack somehow. Do you suppose the wings are optional? I don't fancy cutting slots into my cycling jackets. Apart from the loss of weatherproofing the drag would be quite prohibitive. The drain on battery reserves could well become problematic.

  Dr House on Netflix is making me laugh and cry at intervals. I'll pretend it is therapeutic but who am I kidding? I cried and laughed at Korean comedy series involving ghosts and demons. My emotions are buried shallow and easily triggered. Did I tell you I wanted to be an actor? Sadly a lifetime's longing to be the centre of attention does not sit well on an amnesiac. Now where was I?

 I dragged the two recycling bins along the drive to their tipping point. An LED work lamp sits in my jacket breast pocket. To light the way, handsfree in the dark.

~o~