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izmeinaBeen a lazy day at the Lair. Izzie is such a hermit serpent. Would normally slink in to the city, being one of our days off and all that. But the city does not look that exciting when there's a weather forecast of 40 celsius
Was intending to go to Freo again which is near the sea and therefore always breezier and cooler than dreary Dursleyville. But first there was a bunch of things to be done
Like listening to the kooky Californians at midday as part of Radio National's summer season
Could then get the bus around 1.30 before slinking off to Subiaco like last Friday. Just as well did not bother with that option. The bus goes right past the very gorgeous and most enormous Kings Park. But there was a huge fire today so all the roads would have been closed off
But there was an incentive to leave later than 1.30pm. Wanted to be around to watch the magic megawatt appear on the electricity meter. Since the morning started at 997, it would be some time between 1.30 and 2.30 pm that this would be most likely.
So this silly geekish bean counting serpent sat outside near the meter with a glass of red in one hand and the radio in the other and had a toast to the magic moment when the 999 ticked over to the big 1000
The original megawatt milestone was Saturday before last but not a hope in hell of seeing it tick over due to being at work at the time
It was 38 celsius and seriously sizzling at that stage but not actually unpleasant due to a mild breeze. Certainly not slinking into the city weather or even down to the local shops. Snoozing and snooping in Cyberia was more the thing. There's plenty of snacks and books in the Lair and no need to go outside the door in search of the latest brightest baubles.
And that's exactly what the Izzie did apart from a boring bit of dish washing, sweeping and general tidying up before curling up in the serpent basket
The news was then full of stories of the various fires all over the place - most likely caused by vandals or filthy stinking careless smokers and the folks from the weather bureau claiming that the first 16 days of January were the hottest on record - not for the highest score - today's 42 is somewhat short of the record of 45.2 but the highest mean at 34.5
But that's a total pile of totally arbitrary twaddle. Last summer was infinitely stinkier and stickier for longer but because the heatwave started on 24th December 2007 and crossed the year into around 8th January, lulled for a bit and then flared up for another two weeks at the end of the month, it is not considered significant. All those 8 40 plus days do not count because they had the bad manners to be drunk and disorderly by disregarding our puny human calendar
Had been expecting to have to leave the Lair for the afternoon due to being all pickly and sizzly but closing the whole place up at around 8 this morning, windows, doors, blinds, curtains and everything - it kept the heat out. And after around 8pm it was time to open it all up again and let the evening breezes do their stuff
But several days of such weather with no breeze and lots of humidity would be a rather different story indeed
So then spent the evening watering the weeds and stirring up a cauldron of cow dung. Well - a cast iron cauldron would be just the thing - must steal one from the ma. Made do with a large plastic bucket.
The evil black powder is officially called a biodynamic soil activator but in reality it is a pile of cow dung matured in a horn for six months with bits of nettles, chamomile, horsetail and various other interesting weeds tossed in for good measure
Will be interesting to see how well it works. This stuff is aimed at beginners since the real thing is supposed to be stirred for a whole hour and not a measly 15 minutes and there's all sorts of rules about moon phases and stuff
It truly is a most witchy ritual indeed. But next time will get a bigger bucket or use less water so we can stir up a proper vortex the whole way to the bottom of the barrel without worrying about all the water splashing out. It's a strangely hypnotic sensation - all this stirring and whirling.
The poor weeds need a bit of magic potion after today's sizzle. Even the grapes have started to turn purple
Was intending to go to Freo again which is near the sea and therefore always breezier and cooler than dreary Dursleyville. But first there was a bunch of things to be done
Like listening to the kooky Californians at midday as part of Radio National's summer season
Could then get the bus around 1.30 before slinking off to Subiaco like last Friday. Just as well did not bother with that option. The bus goes right past the very gorgeous and most enormous Kings Park. But there was a huge fire today so all the roads would have been closed off
But there was an incentive to leave later than 1.30pm. Wanted to be around to watch the magic megawatt appear on the electricity meter. Since the morning started at 997, it would be some time between 1.30 and 2.30 pm that this would be most likely.
So this silly geekish bean counting serpent sat outside near the meter with a glass of red in one hand and the radio in the other and had a toast to the magic moment when the 999 ticked over to the big 1000
The original megawatt milestone was Saturday before last but not a hope in hell of seeing it tick over due to being at work at the time
It was 38 celsius and seriously sizzling at that stage but not actually unpleasant due to a mild breeze. Certainly not slinking into the city weather or even down to the local shops. Snoozing and snooping in Cyberia was more the thing. There's plenty of snacks and books in the Lair and no need to go outside the door in search of the latest brightest baubles.
And that's exactly what the Izzie did apart from a boring bit of dish washing, sweeping and general tidying up before curling up in the serpent basket
The news was then full of stories of the various fires all over the place - most likely caused by vandals or filthy stinking careless smokers and the folks from the weather bureau claiming that the first 16 days of January were the hottest on record - not for the highest score - today's 42 is somewhat short of the record of 45.2 but the highest mean at 34.5
But that's a total pile of totally arbitrary twaddle. Last summer was infinitely stinkier and stickier for longer but because the heatwave started on 24th December 2007 and crossed the year into around 8th January, lulled for a bit and then flared up for another two weeks at the end of the month, it is not considered significant. All those 8 40 plus days do not count because they had the bad manners to be drunk and disorderly by disregarding our puny human calendar
Had been expecting to have to leave the Lair for the afternoon due to being all pickly and sizzly but closing the whole place up at around 8 this morning, windows, doors, blinds, curtains and everything - it kept the heat out. And after around 8pm it was time to open it all up again and let the evening breezes do their stuff
But several days of such weather with no breeze and lots of humidity would be a rather different story indeed
So then spent the evening watering the weeds and stirring up a cauldron of cow dung. Well - a cast iron cauldron would be just the thing - must steal one from the ma. Made do with a large plastic bucket.
The evil black powder is officially called a biodynamic soil activator but in reality it is a pile of cow dung matured in a horn for six months with bits of nettles, chamomile, horsetail and various other interesting weeds tossed in for good measure
Will be interesting to see how well it works. This stuff is aimed at beginners since the real thing is supposed to be stirred for a whole hour and not a measly 15 minutes and there's all sorts of rules about moon phases and stuff
It truly is a most witchy ritual indeed. But next time will get a bigger bucket or use less water so we can stir up a proper vortex the whole way to the bottom of the barrel without worrying about all the water splashing out. It's a strangely hypnotic sensation - all this stirring and whirling.
The poor weeds need a bit of magic potion after today's sizzle. Even the grapes have started to turn purple
no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 03:52 am (UTC)I had a chuckle at the earnestness of that lot when I caught them on the week I had off after Christmas.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-19 11:53 am (UTC)So far - the Christmas day show was the best one so far - a sort of guide to Defence against the Dark Arts. ;)
Izzie only ever gets to hear the Thursday and Friday programs as most of the others are not worth waking up at 1am to listen to and there are no podcasts or transcripts if they are
The Bioneers are a much better bunch. Much less ambitious and pompous. Still not quite worked out though if it is the accents or the tone of the presenters of these Californian programs that are so insufferably annoying
Looking forward to next week when we get our real programs back again but it looks like half of them will be missing. Izzie is one of those sad geeks who loved the Law and Religion reports. Assuming that gorgeous Norman Swan and his health report did not get the chop. Now that is what we call an adorable accent. But then again, Izzie is prejudiced in favor of Scottish accents for some inexplicable reason