Photos of the cold weather

Yesterday it was -6 C ( 21 F) and the canal was just about completely solid.
This morning it was -10 C ( 14 F ) and completely solid. So much so that people have been able to skate on it.

It's much the same for all the lakes around this area. No snow as yet, but a very heavy frost.

All the bike paths are kept clear of ice, though.
Icicles on our windows have grown to about 40 cm long.

This hasn't stopped people going out, of course. In fact, it's given them new things to go out for:

Flemish Liberation Army Against Freedom

Another excellent firework safety campaign this year. This is just one of the videos. The website for "FLAAF" can be found here:

http://flaaf.be/

The whole lot of the videos can be seen here:
http://nl.youtube.com/user/laaf21

The Dutch go completely bananas with fireworks at New Year. There were more fireworks being let off here than I've ever seen in my entire life before now. I couldn't see the road from our house for smoke. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are quite a few injuries resulting from this, and more so when people import extra powerful and sometimes illegal fireworks.

The campaign this year is "Flemish" because one of the biggest problems at the moment is that you can legally buy more powerful fireworks in Belgium than in the Netherlands. Some of them are shoddily made with much shorter fuses than they should have.

2000 year old computer

A chap in London has recreated a 2000 year old Greek "computer".

It's not exactly a general purpose machine. However it is very neat.

The second biggest potato in the world

In a story which sounds just like something out of Father Ted, the Isle of Man has for a few years had the world record for the world's largest potato at 3.5 kg. However, a Lebanese farmer has now grown a 11.3 kg potato.

The owner of the 3.5 kg potato says there is still a lot of local interest in the potato and that "we're still a world champion - we'll call it the second biggest potato in the world.

My question is... How far would you travel to catch a glimpse of the world's second largest potato ?

Frozen canal

These two photos were taken on this morning's dog walk along the canal which on the western edge of Assen.

The sun is out today which makes it feel a lot warmer than yesterday. However it's actually only 1 degree above freezing, so there is still ice for the birds to stand on next to the house boats.

Four roofs

Four identical houses in a row. Ours is the house on the left, where least of the ice has been melted by our heating, therefore showing that the insulation I've installed in the roof is working well (or perhaps that we've got our thermostat set lower).

We haven't really done much in the way of loft insulation yet, it's a start and we will add more.

I covered our cavity wall insulation a few months back.

In 2017 we added more insulation to the roof and there's now a more impressive photo showing the roofs.

Read more about the many things we've done to improve the energy efficiency of our home.
 

Beer

Yesterday was Pakjesavond, the time when Dutch people give and receive presents.

Sinterklaas brought me two bottles of "Old Speckled Hen". The first British beer I've had in over a year.

Brown coloured beer, served warm. Wonderful. Now don't get me wrong, I do like Dutch beer too. However, I still like this better - especially after waiting so long for it.

Things that don't fit...

There are a number of things I've quite wanted to put on the other blog but which have nothing to do with cycling. That's what this blog is for.

I'll start with this piece of paper which came through the door a few days ago.

This is the Afvalkalender or Waste Calendar for our area.

It tells us when to put out each of our three wheelie bins, the black bin for general waste, green bin for compostable waste and the blue bin for paper and cardboard. The green and black bins are collected every other week and the blue bin once a month.

There are a lot of initiatives here about waste disposal, and I've written them all up on a webpage.