Week 11 The Riddle of The Sands

 Boat finished

Lucas birthday - too much cake!

aunty 100

voting

No more quotes for major works - from our local company

firewood

riddle of the sands

500 hours

Tjeerd was also happy with our work!...rightly so!

During the week, we found that the hard winds had knocked down some of our fencing. The treated poles have just rotted away - after about 14 years. We're thinking of making a new pumpkin patch, so we can remove some other fencing and use it to patch up the broken stuff.

We had Local Government elections during the week. Only 50% of eligible voters (nationwide) bothered to turn up. We knew the results early the next morning, even though it was only for local government.

Including the oldies from our family...

 

(Gee, voting is so well organised here - I can't get over how that other "democracy" is so much into voter discrimination and looking like they are going to get away with it - with consequences for the rest of the world).

100th Birthday

Janny drove some family members down to Amersfort for the 100th Birthday of one of Janny's aunties. She had 10 kids, so it was a fair sized gathering.

Thursday was a firewood day - Janny ordered some "dry" firewood, ie ready to use. Tjeerd and I did 4 trailer loads and then we found that Janny had also arranged some from the Local Government workers near our house - they had been cutting down some of the oak trees on our road. We have to pay for it, but we're just glad that we can get some at the moment.

More to get on Monday...

Ready to use...

Oak from the road that has to dry a bit before we can use it. 2 years is normal, but these trees were already dead, so it may be a bit less.

The Riddle of the Sands...

It's no riddle, in fact, but it reminded me of one of my favorite books from an early age...

The sands have been blowing into Europe from the Sahara Desert...all the way onto our newly painted boat!

..also measuring up for the new hatch

We contemplated going away for a day or two, but there was too much work to do at home...

so just a short spin around the industrial terrain and then a cuppa and safely back into her berth. And we just clocked 500 hours with the new motor - not many in the grand scheme of things, but every one of them a source of joy!

There's a new company operating near the haven - making pre-fabricated housing components. They took over from another company who were set up for road transport, but the new company just installed a new crane for delivering by ship...

The raw materials for making the concrete pre-fab sections are already delivered by ship - much larger quantities than by road.

Gas and other prices continue to rise...our local installation company - who we would have asked to install our heat pumps - have said that they can't take on any more work for the foreseeable future!

The Province of Friesland (a hard to describe link in the Government chain) have set up an initiative to help "care" facilities like ours to become more energy efficient. Normally, I let Janny deal with things like this, but I bit the bullet and overcame my telephone angst and started organising it. The chap was very helpful and said he could understand me perfectly well! 

So, we are getting a free "Energy Audit" of the business buildings with a plan of action for quotes and gaining access to the various subsidies available. 

It probably won't help if there are no heat pumps available for 12 months or so...but at least it is a step forward.