Week 13
Tuesday...
March 2022 will go down as the sunniest since records began, with at least 211 hours of sunshine so far and more to come before the end of the month. The record weather is due to an area of high pressure over a large part of Europe, which has changed little since the start of the month, according to NOS weather forecaster Peter Kuipers Munneke.
The month has also been extremely dry, with just two hours of rain, compared with 56 in an average March.
But despite the sunshine, the month is not among the warmest on record, because temperatures at night dropped to below zero on no less than 11 occasions.
And then, on Thursday, we had snow!!
And then Friday was the coldest April 1st on record!
I was the first human to cross the bridge - the deer (and/or other animals such as badger and wolf) use it too!! Wolves have been sighted fairly close by and just last week there were 4 sheep killed (and badly mutilated) in Ureterp, just 5 kms away.
Ruffled feathers...
For 14 years now, our clients have mostly been a gruntled lot, but we had a few ruffled feathers during the week. Ankie and Janny did their version of knocking a couple of heads together and everything now "appears" to be OK.
( I just wanted to use gruntled in a sentence)
Screen printing...getting closer
Using some leftover paint from the boat...the screen rinsing-station is ready...
Heat pumps, et al...
On Wednesday evening, we went to yet another Information Day presentation about installing heat pumps!
This was the write up on the local website...(google translate)
More than 75 villagers came to the Swingel with interest, where the second information day about hybrid heat pumps was held by WEN (Wijnjewoude Energy Neutral) on 30 March.
With a hybrid heat pump, a saving of 40% to 70% on gas consumption is achievable. Very attractive at a time when energy prices are skyrocketing. It is an excellent solution for the somewhat older and not perfectly insulated houses, which our village is rich in.
Inside, WEN held a short presentation explaining the hybrid heat pump, the costs, savings and subsidies. There was a Daikin demonstration bus with a number of setups outside, and the heat pump noise could be experienced with your own ears. In the Swingel a demo set-up by Installatiebedrijf de Boer in collaboration with Thermo Noord. There was plenty of opportunity for conversations with members of the WEN savings team, energy coaches and enthusiastic fellow villagers who already own a (hybrid) heat pump.
Wijnjewoudsters could pick up the free Earn-E energy monitor at the WEN table and have it registered immediately.
All in all, the information day was experienced as pleasant and, above all, very meaningful. Various visitors were able to ask their last questions and many left with the intention of ordering a hybrid heat pump and using their incentive contribution for this. Unfortunately, no firm commitments could be made about delivery times.
We did commit to having our local installer come along to give us a quote, so at least we are "in the system" but nobody knows about delivery times.
Actually, we did joke about "when can you start?". Ours is a special case which they have looked at because we need about 7 of the heat pumps, unless they can work out a way to combine a couple of the apartments. They also looked at giving us the €2000,00 subsidy for each apartment - but they couldn't manage it because the apartments don't have their own (official) address - the Local Government have turned a blind eye to it (the apartments) because of the nationwide housing shortage.
House Prices...
Another old house was sold in Wijnjewoude, to a girl who used to work for us. The market being what it is means that there is an "asking price" and buyers are left wondering just how far above that they have to offer in order to make the purchase. Janny mentioned €100.000,00 being possible - i.e. above the asking price.
Regugees...
We have no room at the moment, but one apartment will be coming free when niece Lotte gets their house "liveable". Maybe 2 months yet. Then the young woman with 2 kids will move into the much larger apartment. Then we'll contact the Local Government to see if they need the smaller one for the Ukraine effort. Nationwide, there is already a lot being done.
Before the snow came...
Getting ready for the vegie patch.
My helper, Tjeerd, has the green thumbs - he reckons we can do it all from seeds - so I ordered these; we begin tomorrow.We also have a new "glasshouse" to set up - a 6x4 m plastic tunnel. I wonder what the weather will do this year.? I just tried to read a climate report - it became too technical about 1 paragraph in - it was basically saying that Europe has been experiencing a (name?) drought since 2018 - only the third such event in 250 years...
There's a site called the European Drought Observatory
Nothing doing yet - hard to imagine with snow on the ground! The planning goes ahead, however...
Janny has rearranged the kids' weekends so that they only come every second week - meaning that we have more time for the boat.
We'd like to do the Elfstedentocht route but Janny needs more time off for that one.
We have a trip to Rotterdam to organise - in order to attend the World Police and Fire Games in July.
We'll do the Turf Route again - gets the boat closer to home - a picnic trip for the clients is on the record - a list of activities that we can finally plan after 2 years of Covid.
The Admiralty Days Festival wiil be on again in Dokkum - we already have bookings for the beds! That's the first week in September.
Blokzijl and Utrecht are also on my wishlist...
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