Nope, the continent refuses to play sensibly and it's 27°C for some reason.

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I think it might be time to turn the North Wales connection on for all games by default...

Ti 'di'n meddwl Mrs T?

How are things with y'all? Over here the school holidays got changed to two-week half terms and I am wondering if becoming a teacher is still on at my age. Currently jobseeking, so you never know.

I flogged my writing muse yesterday to great effect and today she's gone AWOL just when I need her to help me write a webpage and a bunch of campaign emails. And the windy miller is having a day-long snooze after overdoing it (not Covid - we've tested). On the plus side I've booked a trip to England in late Nov instead of at Xmas. At least I'll get a decent break in December instead of dashing all over the place.
I have no idea how people do teaching. My pa was a teacher for 35 years.

(pen) Mine too. He taught English, a language he couldn't speak until he was about 8.

[Rosie] That's impressive. Mine was an art teacher.

(pen) Have you inherited his talent? I can only draw steam engines.

[Rosie] I did Art O-level in one year and got an A (I did the still life and calligraphy papers) but that's as far as I took it. I thought I could 'always do art at home' so I studied science instead. I think I might have a bit of talent but it's completely untrained and I get frustrated that my lack of training doesn't let me produce the things I want to produce. But I've got all the kit should I ever feel the urge to practice...

[penelope]I have no talent for art whatsoever. I’ve tried, but lack the whatever-it-is to convert what I imagine to what I can draw. The Stevieling is *extremely* talented, but refuses to work at it. She draws manga-style for fun, but is capable of much more - we persuaded her to take a class in college and she claimed she enjoyed it but she dropped it next year. Very frustrating for me. She has fantastic ideas and a great imagination. I’ve tried to get her to draw comics or illustrated stories but to no great success. Aaaaargh.

[Stevie] Bad luck. I bet she's not going to fall for reverse psychology any more either

I can't art either, but I can script and I can program. Not well, but I can. So I use PoVRay and/or Blender, and that lets me program a computer to do what I want. Yes, this is easily as difficult as just drawing the stuff, and in many respects it's much more work, but it's something I can do, whereas I cannot draw

The barometer has fallen to 982 and it's gone dark outside.

[Rosie] You still 'ere mate? I've been across the North Sea and back since you posted that and I can confirm both sides are still here. (the crossing last night was very smooth, by the way)

(pen) Yma o hyd, to use a well-known phrase or saying.

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Still 'ere

. Extensive research has revealed that the darkness was due to the well-attested rotation of the earth and it was twenty past four. It's going to get cold - you'll be able to skate here soon. I'll be there with my camera.

[Rosie] Indeed. I watched a few of the models this morning. Mentally making a list of my thickest socks and their likely locations.

(pen) Went down to -3.5°C last night ym Mhlas Huws. First frost of the winter (v. late) but I think it's now going to seriously rectify this happy anomaly.

Frost here also, and the thermometer didn't make it above 0°C all day. Another thermometer is showing 38°C, as I've managed to get Covid again.

I went out for a bicycle ride this afternoon, but I had to turn back in half a mile. It was too dangerous, with patches of frozen ice everywhere, unmelted frost from last night that was still frozen, even where the sun was shining and some traffic had passed.

[Bismarck] Bummer. Hope you start to feel better soon.
Just above freezing outside in N Brabant but clear blue skies and sun (warming up the living room to 21C but my home office is on the north side of the house so still cold in 'ere - and no heating on in the house today...)

A tad of snow here in Bedfordshire. Just enough for the seasonal crop of cars in ditches.

–7°C in my NE-facing front porch this morning. The lowest I've seen it since putting a thermometer there some years back, so I can assess the cryotesticular potential without stepping out of doors.

I would imagine the repair of the copper/zinc primate, now meteorologically appropriate, is a matter of some delicacy.

[Raak] Got very cold over the weekend here too. So cold, in fact, that the brass shut-off I have on the sillcock at the back of the house split because I shut the valve in the brass part but stupidly did not remember to turn off the sillcock itself, so a column of water about the size of the end joint of my thumb was residing in the brass manifold, which was enough to fracture it.

To maximize the fun I did not realize this had happened until the thaw, when I went down to the basement and discovered a nice new paddling pool.

The water had sprayed up the side of the house for about a day and a half and frozen in many interesting patterns, but had also soaked into the ground and waterlogged it, causing many leakes through the basement wall and seepage through the floor itself. I took over 40 gallons of water out using the wet-vac, a submersible pump and a stream of class four Words of Power.

[Stevie] Are those adult words?

Like Kinell or Effeffess?

Words of Power are the way one forces out the anti-handyman demons infesting whatever it is one is attempting, in this case, keeping my machine tools dry and unrusted. I went directly to class fours as I had only just solved a similar crisis brought on by my having new gutters installed on the house and the gutter guy not understanding that if he dumped the rainfall on umptytump square feet of roof next to the basement wall, the water would soon be inside the house. I have to come up with a proper solution to that one. right now I just have an 8 foot pipe running to the edge of the property where a nice new pool forms every time we get a storm.

Does "edge of the property" = "neighbour's basement wall"?

[CdM] 8oD

Among other hindrances and irritations (including starting the year with Covid) the windy miller has a case of the burnout from his real-life job and is taking at least two weeks off to sleep, and I have eczema on my effing eyelids (that's a new and unusual place, even for me).
Still to look forward to: three months of my route to work in Rotterdam being absolutely shut during June, July and August because of repairs to the massive Haringvliet bridge and a tunnel under the river a bit further north. I don't fancy joining everyone else on the road coming from Antwerp and Zeeland heading to Rotterdam taking two and a half hours to drive 40km. Hmmph.

Feel your pain with the eczema. I get it inside my ear tubing sometimes. As far as bridges and tunnels over a river, time to buy an army surplus DUKW. You could run a bus service to recoup fuel costs. It seats about twenty

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so c'mon and bring your juke-box money

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