Week 12

(end of Daylight Saving this morning)

Which meant I was up early and the fire just picked up with the vent open - the advantage of burning good wood (beech).

The boat goes back in the water tomorrow - I decided to defer this year's painting - it just felt more important to get back to it...at worst it will cost me an extra use of the crane if I decide that it needs painting mid-season.

Yesterday, I finally varnished the mast - it is very discoloured and I said to Janny that it looks OLD - she said "that's OK, the boat IS old, but much loved" - could apply to certain old blokes too, I hope :-)

Ben is still in Bali - he looked at coming home early - but the current crisis meant that he would have to pay €1400,00 to change his ticket...so we have to wait a bit longer.

He stayed at a friend's (self designed and built) house in Bali...

Somewhere else he had booked accommodation - but it wasn't available, so they gave him this instead...

Last Sunday from John P. Weiss

(the first half was about poor service and sullen teenagers)

And there it was.

The other half of it. The part that is easy to miss if you are not paying attention. The grace that waits just beyond irritation and disappointment.

Rilke’s words came back to me, about sadness passing through us, about what it can change within us if we allow it. There will always be sullen teenagers in coffee shops, poor service, broken systems, and small frustrations that accumulate if we let them.

“You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of.”

But these things are not the whole story.

If you let them pass through you, if you refuse to let them settle and harden, something else reveals itself. Just when you think the world is dimming, two young girls will stop and smile and ask to pet your dog.

The dog will wag his tail. They will laugh. And for a moment, everything will feel as it should.

And you will remember that there is still grace in this world.

I looked up some other Rilke quotes...

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." "Although it's difficult today to see beyond the sorrow, may looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow." "If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again."

Boeke likes to visit Janny's Mum...(he gets spoilt there, too)

Ellen put me on to Pearls and Irritations

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/03/resistance-and-the-regime-message-from-the-editor/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=98c3bdf724-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-98c3bdf724-745124476

Catriona Jackson

Resistance and the 'Regime' – Message from the Editor

March 28, 2026

Something is happening in the United States. It’s not just the rise of a tyrannical, anti-democratic, narcissist President. It’s a people’s movement in response. It is the rise of a nationwide resistance, led by skilled truth-tellers who defy the tsunami of post-truth bilge and document the death toll and other obscenities.

Local News

...and needing to find some more grace...

New walking routes in Drenthe - leave your phone behind

From a Local Government site

Connect with nature

We are used to always being 'on'. During four new, special walking routes in Drenthe, you set out consciously. You connect with nature, with your surroundings, and with yourself.

You are invited to:To let go of your phone for a moment
To look, listen, and feel more consciously
To reflect on your place in the bigger picture

Along the routes, you will find small tasks and questions to help you slow down. Along the way, you will come across a Zinzitter : a special place to sit, reflect, and simply be. Want to enhance the experience? Leave your phone in a locker at the starting point*. While you recharge in nature, your battery recharges there too.

Currently, charging lockers are available at the starting points of the Noordsche Veld and Drouwen routes.

Other "local" news

A blunder by Lelystad local council means the city will be home to a data centre which will use more energy than all local households put together, news website Nu.nl reported on Wednesday.

American data centre giant Equinix gained planning permission for the project in 2021, with just the SP and two local parties voting against.

Councillors were told the centre, to be built at the Flevokust Haven industrial estate, would “not be a huge development”, CDA councillor Jelle Hijmissen told the news platform. According to Hijmissen, he had been given the impression by council officials that energy demand would be limited.

Other councillors also said they had not understood at the time that the planned centre would be one of the most energy-intensive in the country.

Our Best Man Paul rang during the week - part of the discussion was about fires in EV's - or more to the point, Hybrids. Paul is an ardent EV advocate and rightly so - we're still saving...and waiting for a BIG tax bill to be paid first...so I thought I'd better look it up...

this from a 2024 report... (only trouble is that it is a "report from the US" - so we never know how much of the report has simply been paid for...cynical? yes - I find myself too often saying to Janny "I don't know if it is true or not, but did you see this...?).

When discussing electric vehicles (EVs) in social circles, the issue of fire hazards inevitably arises – and the belief that a car with electric drive is more fire-prone is widespread. However, the basis for this conception is unclear as there is little reliable data available. "In Germany, there is not even a statistic on how often vehicles actually catch fire," Markus Egelhaaf from DEKRA Accident Research states.

Instead of electric vehicles being fire-prone, the few figures available suggest a different situation entirely. Referring to a recent study conducted by a US insurance company, Markus Egelhaaf reports that, relative to registration numbers, most fires occur with hybrid vehicles, followed by petrol cars. Battery electric vehicles are least likely to catch fire.

According to Egelhaaf, it is no surprise that hybrid vehicles rank first in the statistics. The causes of vehicle fires can generally be divided into three categories: Causes that are unrelated to the propulsion system include the standard 12-volt on-board electronics, where shorts circuits or defective equipment can cause a fire. In a second scenario, the entire scope of the battery, including battery management and electric drive, can cause a fire. Lastly, we have specific causes related to petrol engines, such as defective fuel lines or hot surfaces. Hybrid cars combine all three risk factors, hence the higher number of fire incidents compared to other types of vehicles.

Around the Farm

Monday mornings always start with a cuppa and Show and Tell - then I'll tell Tjeerd some things I have been thinking of - like last weekend I prepared some new fencing poles for a "knee-high" fence - ie short poles because the bottom half was rotten.

So we had a look and decided that we needed to first do something about the slope down to the drain - sometimes precarious on the ride-on mower.

... it took nearly 3 days - all using recycled materials (non asbestos roofing sheets from 2010 (cut in half) and old fencing poles).