Week 36 Oh God, What Now...?

Week 36

One of the (too many) podcasts that I listen to is called "Oh God, What Now?". It started off being about Brexit and continues to look at the existing conditions in England / GB - still with a "what on earth were they thinking of" bias when looking at the consequences.

I have the "Oh God What Now?" feeling with all the things we are dealing with at the moment.

Covid (expected to worsen as winter comes)

War (no comment needed)

Nitrous Oxide (Killing off the local forests - but nobody wants to stop the farming that causes it)

Climate change (we try to do our little, but seemingly futile, bit)

Gas Prices (totally unmanageable - I hear things from England about setting household "caps" and "windfall taxes" - but not much here yet)

Drought (who saw that coming?, including the consequences of the Rhine not having enough water - I haven't had to mow much at all this year!)

It feels like there should be more on my list...eg the long waiting times to get anything done. Do-it-youself energy projects don't get the subsidies - but I'm getting sick of waiting...

Other Stuff

New clients?

Ben

Apartment available

Orphaned kittens

Boat

On Monday, I rang our local government offices to speak to someone about having an apartment available for Ukrainian Refugees. The receptionist said that they were "too busy for my call to be put through" - so, I had to send an email. Which I did, using Google Translate...

In part...

We have housed refugees for Gemeente Opsterland in the past and would be pleased to do so again if it is financially possible.
The apartment is very basic but serves now as temporary accommodation for people in need - eg. family separations or house building.
I imagine that it may well serve Ukrainians also in need.
I would be pleased to hear your reaction to my suggestion.
Yours faithfully,

We hebben in het verleden vluchtelingen gehuisvest voor Gemeente Opsterland en zouden dit graag weer doen als het financieel mogelijk is. Het appartement is erg basic, maar dient nu als tijdelijke huisvesting voor mensen in nood - bijv. gezinsscheidingen of woningbouw. Ik kan me voorstellen dat het ook Oekraïners in nood kan dienen. Graag verneem ik uw reactie op mijn suggestie.

Met vriendelijke groet,

(It would be nice if I could actually write Dutch like that - In the letter, I did own up to using Google)

We last had refugees in 2016 - about the same time that I started a "blog" for my family...this is what I wrote back then... (I was wary about the cost of GAS even back then - 10 times worse now!).

(2016) Meeting with Local Council

Now that the Certificate of Occupancy, Zoning, and "informing the locals" have been attended to, we had a meeting with the woman from the council who started the ball rolling. It was mainly to introduce another woman who will be taking over the role, but we did have a chance to put some ideas on the table. Luckily, I had done some preparation and made a checklist which we worked our way through. So much better when it is YOUR checklist! It was in English but this is rarely a problem with people at this level.

If the Council were providing the housing, then they would be able to "break even" with their costings. We are a "for profit" business and so we need to make a profit, obviously. My checklist included all the things I could think of that would incur extra costs if we have people living in the apartments. Our asking price is more than they were expecting (or hoping) but it became obvious that they hadn't yet considered all the things on the list. We will probably reach a compromise but the big item is the GAS usage; it is almost a cultural thing that people learn about "closing doors", "putting an extra jumper on" and so on, just to keep the gas bills under control. (I think the first thing Janny's Dad ever said to me was "deur dicht!' (Close the door!) - I also remember that I knew what he meant without understanding the language).

Part of our role will be to help the people to learn about things like that. When they get their permanent house, it will be subsidised, but they will still need to pay for their own gas and other utilities.

2022(It's been a week now and I still haven't heard anything other than "your email has been passed on to the appropriate department". From the news that I read, I had the impression that there is a crisis in finding housing for refugees (and other people for that matter)...but they're good at bureaucracy here...so I wait... in the meantime doing some cleaning and painting in the apartment.)

Gas Prices

It's going to be bad for just about everyone... this was one of the comments from Nu.nl. I like to read through them to try and get an idea of what people are thinking.

There's also a lot of talk about opening up the Groningen gas fields again - the largest in Europe - and use the money to pay for the earthquake damage, and reduce gas prices. And get off Russian gas altogether - as quickly as possible.

(I think the Govt, are a bit "gun shy" of this one - damned if you do and damned if you don't.)

We're making plans to only heat one room - even moving the business PC's downstairs. We'll have the wood heater on and keep the central heating on only to stop the pipes from freezing - if it gets that cold.

Warm Days...(over 20 degrees)

The limit of a hundred warm days this year was broken on Sunday. At 10:00 it became 20.2 degrees in De Bilt, which means that the hundredth warm day of 2022 is a fact. According to Jaco van Wezel of Weeronline, this is becoming more and more normal.

It is the twelfth time since the start of the measurement series in 1901 that there have been a hundred or more warm days. Of the twelve years in which it came to more than a hundred warm days, eight are from this century.

In the current climate (average over 1991-2020) there are on average 93 warm days in a year. In the climatic period 1981-2010 this was still 85 warm days. In the period 1951-1980, 69 days was normal.

Climate Change Research Initiative

(from Nu.nl - translated to English)

https://www.nu.nl/nu-klimaat/6222781/klimaatverandering-stoppen-we-hebben-het-nog-niet-echt-geprobeerd.html

While politicians are mainly concerned with the emission targets for 2030, we also have to look ahead to 2050. We are still not doing enough to initiate the drastic changes needed to become climate neutral, says Heleen de Coninck. On Friday she will give her inaugural lecture as professor of Sociotechnological Innovation and Climate Change at Eindhoven University of Technology.

Together with fellow scientists, De Coninck was asked this year to devise a design for a national center for climate research. On Friday they will present the advice to set up a Climate Research Initiative Netherlands (KIN). With a budget of 100 million euros per year, this initiative could investigate how the Netherlands can become climate neutral more quickly.

In her speech she said (amongst other things) that winter ice-skating and long rainy summer days are a thing of the past in the Netherlands....

The foul water tanks (on boats)...

The debate continues within Parliament...the minister even suggesting that it might, in part, come under the realm of "good seamanship" - a notion that was ridiculed in the article that I read.

We visited a friend's "historical ship" in Dokkum last week and they had the old "through hull" toilet pipe - I raised an eyebrow at it, but the owner just shrugged her shoulders and said "it's all natural stuff, isn't it?"...

I think that most people think along similar lines, or that "my little bit won't hurt, surely".

Part of the discussion includes the prospect of fraud - ie people simply replacing the "seal".

Perhaps it needs to be more elaborate than this...

I forgot last week to show this boat photo...

I had been idly staring at one of our coasters that we use for the coffee table with the clients. They each have their own - that we brought from Australia - an animal collection - koala, platypus, kangaroo, etc...

As I was staring at it, I thought "that might be OK on the boat".... so Janny made some stickers and we gave it a try... (I also bought some two component varnish to tackle the doors!! - the oiling idea was a total failure).

New Clients?

A Care Farm near us is closing down and the owners have asked if we would like to take over the clients. Janny needs to go there and check them out - to see if they would fit in with our existing people.

There is also the question of "do we have enough room?". On one hand yes, but if we need to use the large recreation room, then we need to be able to heat it! We had to use it during the Covid Years - just so that we could get the 1.5 metres between everyone - we have been getting ready to go back to our old arrangement for the coming winter.

The prospective clients also have a say in whether they want to come to us - so I'll just wait and see on that one.

On one of my podcasts, I heard that Birmingham are preparing "warm zones" - public buildings where people can congregate to keep warm - if they can't manage it themselves.

Janny told me there was talk of "living room sharing" in the Netherlands - a bit light-hearted but with an element of truth i.e. it may well come to that.

Ben in Thailand

As usual, he seems to be doing well and coping so easily. It's his choice of lifestyle, of course so it's just as well!

He has been doing lots of "castings" for the modelling agency and has landed a few real jobs out of that. He has also been maintaining his own freelance work on-line - even taking on a few new clients! Not much time for partying - yet...

One of his new clients is a local government (gemeente) -

Ben had to write a letter (in English) explaining to residents that the Gemeente has a program designed to help with energy bills...

(Ben sometimes asks me to proofread his stuff - sometimes I might suggest something, but it is usually very good - especially considering that it is his 2nd language).

Subject: Help with saving on your energy bill

Photos

Ben has been using scooters as his "taxi service" - they can more easily avoid traffic jams: he

has to wear a helmet..