Hi J, How are you keeping? Drop me a note (even if it's only a NAK) to reassure me that you are still functioning OK, because... I've had an interesting year so far. That would be "interesting" in the ancient Chinese sense, but not as interesting as the modern Californian sense. We're all fine and completely unharmed.
Christmas and the New Year themselves were the normal overeating and a little bit of drinking by me.
The problems were all caused by the New Year freeze. The first issue was that we had getting on for 6 inches of snow (btw I found a website called topographic-map.com from which I can say with a fair degree of confidence that my altitude is 97m and Halt Close is 217m). You probably had snow as well.
S was down in Cork and the rest of us were in K. S didn't fancy getting the bus back and neither N nor I fancied driving down to Cork in the snow, so everyone stayed where they were in the warm. Then we had a power cut which lasted 24 hours (not so unusual for me. Lots of overhead wires). We have an open fire so we could keep one room warm and we had plenty of bread etc for sarnies. We just reverted to the Dark Ages and went to bed early. The only thing I really missed was a hot drink. And after the power was restored the weather got colder and our water supply froze up. Not a burst pipe, but the supply branch from the main to the house is too shallow and it freezes sometimes (I don't know how deep it actually is, just "not deep enough"). The last time for me was 2010. Of course, while all this was happening, the roads weren't really driveable. First problem was me driveway. I cleared that and got both N's and my cars towards the front of the house. I only dug S's out yesterday (Saturday). She's still down in Cork. I walked to town on a couple of days to top up with essential-essentials: bread, marge, milk. It wasn't too bad a trip. I have proper equipment and a rucksack. One day I got a lift there and back!
Still the thaw is with us and we're getting back to normal.
How was it all for you?
And for your amusement, It seems that my idea of "The Vital Spark"/"The Electric Coaster" is not so mad after all. Behold the electric cruise ship:
https://www.hurtigruten.com/en/about-us/sustainability/worlds-most-energy-efficient-cruise-ship
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/eco-conscious-cruise-ship-future/
I seem to be running one or two years ahead of the herd!
