Week 40
Things that rot...(cont.)
Only took me one afternoon - still have to paint it yet - and fill in the gaps.
Treated with anti rust - and some in the new wood as well.
From The Atlantic...
A discussion about Facebook being offline...
"But Facebook is much more of a threat to democracy, and to humanity, when it’s online than when it’s off."
House Fires...
More claims were made for house fires in 2020 than the previous year, partly as a result of people working from home, according to insurers. The insurers’ association (Verbond van Verzekeraars) said the total cost of claims was lower because people were more likely to be at home when a fire started, reported them sooner and were able to prevent them spreading. A total of €225 million was paid out in claims, compared to €248 million in 2019, with the average claim costing €3,376. Altogether there were 66,657 claims for house fires, up from 64,879 the year before. Richard Weurding, general director of the VvV, said the fact that more people were working from home appeared to have contributed to the increased incidence of fires. In recent years insurers have seen more fires caused by electronic devices being left on charge. ‘It’s very important to react quickly to a fire,’ he said. ‘Good smoke alarms throughout the house will alert you quickly. You can get yourself to safety quickly and limit or even prevent damage to your home and possessions.’ The busiest day for claims was January 1, when insurers received 2,167 reports of house fires, more than four times as many as on December 31, and almost seven times the number on the third highest day.
Saturday was the Frisian Windmill Day. More than 40 of them were open for inspection and working, if possible.
Gas Price rises....
Also on Saturday, we were both able to catch up on a lot of paperwork - end of the 3rd Quarter and personnel and client records up to date.
We had an email from our Energy supplier "Energie Van Ons". They say that they have a "variable" rate - from 1 July to 11 November the price is 36 cents per cubic metre. The announced rate from 11 November to 31 December is going to be €1.38!!
Almost a fourfold increase!! If that lasted for a year, our gas bill would be close to €50.000,00 p.a. Time to get into investigating the heat pumps - which our local Wijnjewoude Energy Neutral group are encouraging.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to think of a gentle way of informing our apartment residents...it will also be a shock to them. The Government have announced that they will provide assistance to lower income families, who more often than not live in "energy poor" housing. A couple of ours already have rental assistance, so I imagine that they might also qualify for energy assistance.
If we get that far, it means that we would have to install at least 5 of the Heat Pump installations.
I found a pretty good description of the installation - with a step by step planning process, here... (right click translate to English)
Walking off the stress (it does help!) - this morning
Last night - 18 months later...
In March of last year, we were due to have the opening of the refurbished Multi-Functional Centre in Wijnjewoude (de Swingel). It finally went ahead last night after being cancelled due to Covid restrictions. We still had to show our QR codes and it had to close at midnight...
I only lasted until 2230hrs and then cycled home in the cold... (it's getting cold very quickly this year, it seems to me).
The beer glass photo shows how they serve beer over here...the full head is "normal".
A niece
Janny's sister and two nieces
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