Operational barn Sunday, 08-Mar-26 21:22:16 CET

Sunday, 15-Mar-26 23:01:00 CET

Replacing the roof of the wood-store house at our cottage in Sweden

We went to Sweden this week and removed tiles from the roof of the wood storage house.

Monday 9 March

Monday, not much happened today. I was a bit annoyed that some spelling glitches had passed into the blog from last week. I prefer the blog to be flawless, because that appeals to my inner perfectionist. It was just that I was a little too tired to do the final revision, and that annoys me.

Merida was patient with me most of the day. When nearing 6 PM, her patients were over. She demanded something to eat. She made assaults on my feet to call for my attention. I had her on my lap while I finished the last keypresses of the day.

We had Sahara dust in the air lately. It makes hasy sunsets and sunrises.

Tuesday 10 March

Good morning. It’s a relatively beautiful morning, 9°C, perfect for biking to work, but I’m not doing that because of two reasons: it is going to rain in the afternoon, and DD will come and visit us on a short visit. DW and DD will pick up their ceramics works this evening.

There is a lot of traffic this morning.

In the evening, I picked up DD on the way home. We had a late birthday dinner to celebrate DS, and all four of us were there, and DW made her grand spinach-blue cheese quiche. DD made the dessert and the salad.

	Dessert: Puff pastry with apple, jam, and cinnamon.
	DW's signature dish is the spinach-and-blue-cheese quiche.

 

After dinner, we went to the place where DD and DW had done a workshop on throwing clay. The cups had been biscuit-fired and had a glazing burn as well. The cups were now ready to be picked up.

They made beautiful pieces. I am a little jealous of this project. Lately, DW has been looking at the Great British Pottery Throwdown show. It is highly inspiring. I want to finish plastering our atelier, and then who knows, we will have our own ceramic oven installed?

Wednesday 11 March

So this morning I worked from home while DD was sleeping. She is good at sleeping. DW went to a wool event with a friend. DD had received a tool chest from the PILs that we brought home last weekend. DD and I sorted out what she should keep. She now has a better tool chest than I had at her age.

After lunch, DW and I had a telephone conversation with a company selling home battery solutions. After our holidays, we will have an IRL meeting with the company to discuss the possibilities. A home battery can be useful for storing the electricity produced by the solar panels during the day. Then it can be used in the evening.

Thursday 12 March

So it is Thursday morning, and it is sunny, and I completely forgot to lubricate my bike yesterday. But I’m biking, and that’s good, it’s good for me, it’s good for the environment, and I can be babbling about things on my blog without disturbing anyone. It has been raining, so my bike is a little bit damp, but that doesn't count; true lubrication is the best stuff.

When I had just started biking this morning, I came across two owners' dogs. I was just about to bike past them, but the dogs started barking at each other. Had the owners not restrained the two beasts, they would have attacked each other. Well, one of the dog owners is the neighbour with her dog, Tito. I took a chance to stop and talk to my neighbour about Tito. The thing is, he really likes our sheep too and wants to play with them, but they don't understand. They are scared of Tito.

Anyway, I talked to my neighbour about the problem with Tito and our sheep. I told her I had an idea how to solve it, and she liked that. My idea is quite simple, and it all involves talking to each other and communicating when the sheep are close to their property. At those moments, Tito could have a little more restricted garden time, and she was open to that idea. We will see how that goes.

Here I had to stop at the local waste mountain, take a photo, and ever heard of sheep roaming the mountain.

Just so beautiful, I’m biking through park and farm landscape to get to my work, and it feels so fortunate. Yes, being out in nature is great.

When DD came to us yesterday, we talked about planning the trip to Sweden. Right now, the plan is to be in Amsterdam to pick up DD and her friend tomorrow at 2:00 PM.

And now a short reflection about the situation in the world. You can bullshit people, but you cannot bullshit the Treasury bond market. You cannot bullshit a flood because the powers of nature are stronger than Donald Trump. Simple.

Last week, I was listening to several blogs, and they were all critical of Donald Trump’s failed invasion of Iran. There is no off-ramp. As I see it, this war is very male. Nethanyaho and Trump are two male figures fighting the male leadership of Iran. Before this war, there were signs of a female movement in Iran. Change from within, from the people who need it, for the people who need it. Now we are seeing schoolchildren being killed in Iran, and it is not a good thing. What were they thinking? Iran has a more stable constitution than Russia combined.

I passed a house with a Ukrainian flag that looked especially proud in this windy weather. Слава Україні!

Now I’m biking home from work. I wish it were simpler to start the microphone system dictation with Word. I think I figured out how I should do it: I start the Larksound Lark Max 2 app first. Then I open the Word app and insert the USB dongle to establish a connection between the phone and the microphone. We will see if that works the next time.

It’s a bit chilly this evening, but the weather is nice, and in some trees I see little pink flowers.

At work, I see in the statistics that we are doing well. It makes me happy. Happy customers mean more business. It feels like we are near new records, and I’m so excited about that.

I currently have two examples of services I signed up for that send emails to my failed email server. And there is no way to change the email other than by talking to their customer support. It’s so bad. So, what do I put my energy into? Do I recover these services by indeed contacting their customer service, or should I resurrect my crashed e-mail server? It is not crashed; it is just so completely outdated that it's no longer supported. I already created a new mail server. I just need to prepare it for multi-domain usage. It is just so annoying! I’ve been doing other things than programming my lyrics editor, but that was the primary reason why I didn’t fix my e-mail server situation. I have been doing other things; this body only has two hands.

What this situation definitely proves is that my idea of offering an email reset option for my lyrics editor service is sound. It’s a very simple idea. So in the welcome message, I plan to provide an email reset code. I will tell people to keep the code in their digital vault so that, if they lose access to their e-mail, they can always change the e-mail address using this code. Well, I haven’t made that functionality yet, but I am sure I will get it working.

Now, with all the weird stuff going on in the world, it feels like I would like to write a couple of songs about Donald Trump and Netanyahu. I mean, what curse words rhyme with Netanyahu or Trump? That could be a couple of death metal songs, don’t you think?! But for that, I would like to have my lyrics editor software to work properly, and right now it is just a local service. This body only has two hands.

Rolling down from the bridge over the high-farting canal, I have good wind in the back, so I hope I will reach the electric house, just by rolling... Yes, I passed the electric house just by rolling and even the metal sign! I reached the third tree after the metal sign. That’s a really long way! This was only possible because of the wind in the back.

Friday 13 March

It is 9.5°C and raining. DW went to bed early, but she did not have a perfect night's sleep. It has been really windy, almost stormy, since yesterday. The car is currently at 189496 kilometers. I drove to the farm shop to buy zucchini seeds, and it's right now pouring down heavily, so I’m waiting a few seconds before walking from the car to the shop.

I got my Ola Gabriella zucchini seeds! After the holidays, I will sow these in the garden. I had so much fun harvesting the Ola Gabriela zucchini last year. I want to repeat that success.

The disadvantage of this action is that I am now slightly damp. My next mission is to find a USB extension cord. We will see how that goes!

I found something better! There was a car kit with an extension cable. That is nice! We got a power outlet in the trunk of the car, so the people in the back can charge their phones and gadgets as well.

It was pouring again when I packed the car. DW worked from home in the morning while I prepared the last things before our journey. When she finished her last meeting, we had lunch. Then we drove to Amsterdam to pick up DD and her friend. From here on, I will call him WB. It is not a shortcut representing our relationship, like DD stands for "Dear Daughter". I am running out of abbreviations. I could go for "Dear Daughter's Friend," but I am fine with WB.

We arrived exactly on time. That is how I like it. WB had some tools to bring and bags, of course. We got everything neatly packed, and it was great. Now we were four in the car.

We drove back the same motorway we came on. When we came back to our own city, there was a traffic jam. That was a bummer. Had I known about the traffic jam earlier, I could easily have bypassed it, but I was not expecting it, and it came as a surprise. So then we sat waiting in the traffic jam.

DW, DD, and WB played a game with dice and everything while I was driving. We switched drivers in the Netherlands before Groningen when they finished their game. DW won! WB drove to Raststätte Hasbruch in Germany.

We had dinner at the restaurant of the raststätte. I had chicken and pommes frites, and it was okay. The others were not that happy with their food. For a better restaurant experience, one should not go to a restaurant at a tank station along the autobahn. The lady at the counter did her best, though. She spoke English, and she was friendly. I even got two bags of mayonnaise for free. Pommes frites and fried chicken cannot go wrong.

After the dinner, DD drove to the hotel. While eating, it had turned dark, and the rain intensified. We booked two rooms at a hotel in Siek. This is a little town north of Hamburg. It feels great to check into a hotel after Hamburg. It is a city that often experiences traffic jams in and out. Today, we had no issues with that.

We arrived in Siek at a location somewhere behind the hotel. It was raining. After a while, we found the front side of the hotel and the entrance to the parking lot. We found a parking space outside the hotel's breakfast restaurant.

It is nice to wind down after driving. We had a drink in the bar of the hotel. Here we discussed the strategy for replacing the roof of the woodhouse at Sunnerås. This is the main goal of the trip to Sweden.

We got our own room in the wine cellar. It was a little chillier, and it had artwork of Audrey Hepburn on the wall. Audrey grew up in the Netherlands before going to the United States.

After the drink, we went to bed. We had two separate rooms.

Saturday 14 March

We had a nice stay at the hotel. It was simple and not that expensive. The name was ”Old School”.

The mattress was on the stiff side, but the room was nice and big. We had windows towards the street, but it was not a busy road, so that was fine as well. To be sure of oxygen, we had a window open. I used my earplugs preventively. That worked out very well.

There were small touches of luxury in the room. The shampoo and conditioner were in small bottles and not screwed to the wall as they usually are. The bottles had caps that were incredibly difficult to remove!

There was an extra cushion on the comfy chair, and I used it as well. The regular cussions were of that kind that compress so well they vanish after three minutes due to the weight of the head. I don't like those cussions.

I got 87 points for the sleep. That is not bad at all. I had 43 minutes of deep sleep, and that is more than I usually have, so that was really nice. I think DW didn't sleep well, but she liked the very stiff mattress. DD and WB nicked the bottles as souvenirs of the stay. DW pointed out that all the little loose things that create the luxury feeling also produce waste, and, as we all know, waste is not good for the environment.

In the morning, we were ready for the next day at 8 PM. DD and WB were also ready. They had not slept that well. DD likes softer mattresses, so she was a little disgruntled. Either that or she often has a morning mood. She is different than me, I usually wake up like a happy puppy. I am so annoying for slow morning people.

Upon checkout, we received free coffee. That was sweet. It was a sweet hotel, I liked it. If I had a list of good hotels, I would put the Old School in Siek in the top ten.

The city is nice too. I had not minded having a walk around in the city, but we had no time for that. The city center had nice old buildings. We went to a nearby grocery store with an in-store bakery. The choices were great! It smelled nice. Here we bought our breakfast. I had a croissant, but the others got a really advanced pastry. In the counter, I noticed a chocolate cookie powdered with gold flakes. That was extraordinarily luxurious. This town makes luxury into something ordinary. It was a special experience.

Then we started our journey. I drove the first part of the way to the ferry. We had decided to take the ferry this time. When I entered the area approaching the check-in, I came in slightly too fast and received a speeding ticket. That was a bummer.

We could drive on to the ferry from Fehrmarn to Rödby right away. That was highly convenient. A couple of years ago, when we stopped taking the ferry, we had long wait times and no information about what was going on, which was frustrating.

I noticed they now have an app you can install that provides better information. Perhaps that would improve the ferry experience. At the ferry, there were not many cars. Hence, it was not crowded. It was nice to experience the ferry this way again. There are preparations for the tunnel going on on the German side. Roads and train tracks are prepared for the tunnel. The tunnel is scheduled to be opened in 2029. That is in three years.

 

In Denmark, I drove the first part. We stopped at a parking along the motorway. There, we switched drivers. WB continued to drive through Denmark, over Öresunds bridge, up through Sweden to Örkelljunga. It is a small city with 5600 inhabitants.

In Örkelljunga, we went to a second-hand shop. The shop was located in a yellow-brick building along a road that went up a hill. It was a nice location. On the other side of the street was a blue wooden villa.

 

The yellow-brick secondhand shop building was situated along the road, and it had many rooms. This secondhand was run by some obscure sort of church. It could be that I was tired from the trip, but the stuff did not interest me. The most interesting thing was a beamer for 125 SEK, which is 11.6 euros, 13.2 USD, 9.97 GBP, or 90.9 CHN. I hesitated a little about whether to buy it. I do have a beamer in the Netherlands that I salvaged, but it is noisy. If I could find a beamer that was silent yet produced a lot of light, I would be interested in buying it for that price. In that case, I would not buy it on a holiday. I have an idea of using a beamer for visual effects in my DJ show. That is why I am interested in a beamer. I did not buy a beamer.

DW bought knitting needles. They are compact items, easy to bring on a holiday. Much better than a bulky beamer. DD bought trousers. She did not put them on to try, so it can become a disappointment, I suppose.

Then we continued the journey. DD drove. There was not much traffic at all. It was not raining, so the driving was nice.

In Värnamo, we stopped at CityGross. It is a large grocery store. We bought enough food for a couple of days. We did not need a princess cake, but we bought it anyway. It was delicious!

We arrived at the cottage at 5:20 PM. We are in good shape, all of us. DW cooked chili cin carne, and we fired up the wood stoves in the living room and the kitchen. DF and DM had already turned on the heating in the house, so it was pleasantly warm already. When we arrive, we usually turn off the electric heating and switch over to wood heating.

I got a violin in the cottage. I took it down from the wall; it was still fairly well tuned. Practiced tunes on the violin in the evening! Tried the tunes from the course in Austerlitz with Täpp Ida Almlöf. It was challenging, but I think I'm on 90% of these tunes.

Sunday 15 March

DD and WB slept for a long time. Nothing new. I discovered that we had an unopened package of ecological coffee that expired one year ago. Exactly.

There is a spring in the trailer's axle that, when the car brakes, compresses and engages the trailer's brakes. It works beautifully when driving on regular, even roads. When reversing on the property, the system responds too eagerly to a bump or reversing up a hill. The brakes are then engaged, making it difficult to operate the trailer. I started the activities today by making a stick that will prevent the trailer from breaking. Out on the regular even roads, this is obviously not a device to use, but when driving around the property, it is perfectly fine.

The next task was to transport the scaffold from the barn to the woodhouse. I could move the entire scaffold in two loads with the trailer. At this point, DD and WD had finished their breakfast and came out to help me.

We erected the scaffold and began removing tiles from the woodhouse's roof. It was okayish to walk on the roof. I was prepared for the worst-case scenario that we had to rebuild the roof before we could walk on it. That was not necessary. This side of the building is the south side, so the sun and the wind have kept the roof relatively healthy.

The scaffold behaved beautifully. We had enough pieces for the entire length of the building's long side. I had planned shorter pieces for diagonal supports, but those could now be used to extend the scaffold exactly to the building. That was really nice.

When the roof tiles were removed from the building, we had lunch. Well, there were heaps of tiles on the scaffold still to move down. DW had prepared bread that she had baked. With the bread we had fried egg. The wood stove in the kitchen was hot, and we put sandwiches with cheese in the oven to melt.

I was delighted we had removed the tiles from one side. It felt like something we could have finished in two days, but it was already finished on Sunday. After lunch, I had a nap to regain some energy.

We moved down the tiles from the scaffold and placed them on the ground. Then we moved the scaffold to the north side of the building. This time we put the scaffold lower. We will see how that will work out. These were the roof activities for this day.

Then we went to DF and DM for dinner. DM had made kabbage pudding. That was delicious! As dessert, we had cups of yoghurt, pieces of apple, crumbles, and cinnamon. It was a clever dessert. Delicious! WB's Swedish was not on speed yet. He is fluent in Dutch, but his Swedish is still not fully developed. But he managed well.

Here ends this week's blog. We travelled to Sweden and removed the tiles on the south side. That is a nice achievement for this week. I wrote 3690 words, which is not bad at all. Welcome back next week to read more about how we replaced the roof of the wood shed and other stories.