Week 38

Week 38

An early morning podcast during the week...

About the threat of bushfires this year in Australia

 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story

It got me thinking about climate change...and the fact that we live in the middle of the forest here in Wijnjewoude. 

2030 is one of the "target" years over here - "this or that has to happen by 2030" (the list seems to grow almost daily)...but obviously that will be here before we know it - as will my 80th birthday, if I make it that far :)

Would it ever get that bad over here? that we had to do some bushfire prevention...it has only happened a couple of times over my years here (including 2023) that there have been notices placed on the walking tracks that there is a "no-smoking" or open flame ban...a far cry from the new  "Catastrophic" category of Fire warnings in Victoria.

Hard to imagine as winter approaches... and I'm more concerned about leaking rooves and whether or not I have enough firewood. Come to think of it, they'll probably start banning our wood fires shortly....

Old mate Andrew has a "bush" property and really does have to grapple with all the prevention measures...he even has a fixed monitor, but fears that he may be physically past being able to stay and fight ( a notion mentioned in the podcast). Another friend Andrew also has fire prevention jobs with their place In Gippsland.

Life goes on...

I was going to list all the "troubling" things here...it is a long list, in fact. But then I remembered a podcast - The BBC News Quiz, I think, where a panelist said "life's pretty good - except for everything that sucks"... it might have been "Oh God, What Now?"  :)

And, as there is seemingly little choice other than to go on about our daily lives...I'm still working on the boat - and deriving a great deal of pleasure from it.

On Saturday, it took me 5 hours to do the masking tape (240 metres so far) and paint two white rails... 8 x 15 metres had already been used just to paint the green. On Monday, I'll have my helper back - to paint the deck and the bottom - and take the doors off - and do the "winterising" - new oil and antifreeze in the motor - and drain all the drinkwater from the whole system.

The kitchen planning...

front runner so far...but with different colours of eveything - so more for the layout and equipment.

or a bit like this...

Luckily, I did some forward planning when Janny's parent's apartment was built - hot and cold water and a 100mm drain are within easy reach - even though they were intended for something else at the time :)

The Greek workers have left. So we are moving into that much smaller apartment.

One of the Greeks borrowed €2000,00 from the boss for a holiday in Greece - and then did a midnight runner...

In Dutch the saying is "Met de noorderzon vertrekken" 

The (noorderzon) northern sun was previously used to indicate midnight. This is especially true in shipping, where sailors in the seventeenth century divided the day into blocks of several hours. At 6:00 AM people spoke of the eastern sun, at 12:00 PM they spoke of the southern sun, at 6:00 PM they spoke of the western sun and midnight was therefore known as the northern sun. Anyone who left with the northern sun did so in the middle of the night. Handy, because then the chance of being seen was the smallest.

So, when the boat is finished, we'll be able to begin the demolition work :)

The apartment with the arrow...(I dug up an old plan which still shows the groups' accommodation for 120 people - I'm having to learn all over again how to change the details).

The travels of Ben (cont.)...

Ben is moving out of his apartment in Amsterdam - we're going on the 22nd of October to pick up his stuff. He'll be registered as living at home again - people have to be "written in" wherever they are living.

But, he has already arranged a "modelling" gig in Chile, of all places. So, we'll have him home for just a little while.