… the time to do the guttering this afternoon. All of that netting stuff that I bought for €1:00 per roll seems to work fine – there’s still some left on the roll after doing this – it didn’t take much.
I was going to hold it on with cable ties but while I was looking for something else I came across (and how often does this happen?)a reel of that green plastic stuff that is used for fastening plants to canes. That did the job exactly how it ought to be done, and this should hopefully prevent all kinds of nonsense falling into the guttering, and keep the internal filter much cleaner.
But the proof of the pudding is the eating and what we need to test it is some rain, but there’s no hope of that for a while. It was another glorious day here. My solar shower reached 44.5°C so I had another scalding shower (at 19:00 it was still 42.5°C) and the water in the immersion heater went off the scale – that is, more that 70°C. In fact the washing up water was scalding as well – at 22:00 when I washed up the water in there was 64°C.
But there’s no doubt that my hot water – at least in summer – seems to be working fine. In the winter of course I’ll be having one of those stoves that heats, cooks, and boils water. But that’s a long time off just now.
This morning I emptied Caliburn of all of the stuff that was still inside (and that was about half a tonne) and took the solar panel off his roof. And then Marc and I went to Montlucon for the plasterboard for Marianne’s house. It’s a good job that Caliburn has a good roof rack as 9 sheets of 13mm plasterboard weighs a tonne – that’s the reason I use 10mm plasterboard – remember I’m on my own and I have to manoeuvre it around myself. 10mm is of course lighter.
But at Marianne’s she showed me today’s local newspaper. There’s one of my photos in all of its glory, suitably cropped of course. But I wish that one day they will put my name up in lights.
And in other news, another event that I have been foretelling has finally come to pass. A Dutch court has ruled in effect that the Dutch Army was responsible to a large degree for the massacre at Srebenica.
If you don’t know about this, Srebenica was advertised constantly as being a “safe haven” for Moslems during the Civil War in ex-Yugoslavia (although why a safe haven was declared and why the UN didn’t insist on all of ex-Yugoslavia being a safe haven and enforcing that is something that I never really could grasp), and it was guarded by part of the Dutch Army. And when the Serbs invaded the area en masse the Moslems flocked en masse to Srebenica and what they were promised was safety.
However, when the Serbs arrived, the Dutch commander drank a toast to them and then kicked all the Muslems – even those working for the Dutch Army – out and stood by watching as they were all slaughtered. The Dutch commander said that he was outnumbered and outgunned and didn’t want to needlessly risk the lives of his soldiers. But “needlessly” – when over 8,000 civilians were being slaughtered before their very eyes – that was always a shameful comment. The Dutch soldiers never even fired a single bullet to protect these civilians.
Everyone (well, everyone except Yours Truly) is said to be surprised by this verdict today. I’m surprised too – but surprised that it took all this time for the correct verdict to be given.
