River Cruising Water Cooler

[Canal archive]

Is this the south west of England the temperature in my back garden is -9.6 at the moment, so I’m not going out!

[notamermaid]

4 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Is this the south west of England the temperature in my back garden is -9.6 at the moment, so I’m not going out!

All still clad in snow here, a blanket of white. You may have just beaten our temperatures in the valley or been close to the minimum we had. It was between -10 and -5 in the valley. The East of Germany managed -14 in a few areas. Still in the minus here now, no sunshine. No fresh snow as far as I can tell though.

 

Was going to drive to an illuminated private house in a village, famous for putting on a large display. But what I have been reading online they have scaled down this year. A pity but understandable.

 

It is not so noticeable when you have not been here before, but when you can compare to last year you can tell that the lights displays are bit reduced in several places. The LED technology helps to keep the costs down and lights on, a great help!

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Daisi]

@Canal archive, I'll admit I'm not up on my weather for the UK, but that seems cold for a daytime temp. I hope you have a nice fire going.  I'll think of you as we are sitting at 2C, and watching the snow melt.....

[gnome12]

26 minutes ago, Daisi said:

@Canal archive, I'll admit I'm not up on my weather for the UK, but that seems cold for a daytime temp. I hope you have a nice fire going.  I'll think of you as we are sitting at 2C, and watching the snow melt.....

You may be watching the snow melt, but here in Toronto the wet snow has begun. We are expecting 10-15 cm by tomorrow morning, on top of the rain we had earlier that will probably be turning to ice. This storm is heading in your direction, with up to 25 cm in Ottawa I believe.

[Canal archive]

Okay that was the 7.30 in the morning temperature with no morning sun although the temperature did not go above 3 degrees all day.  Still I kept really warm dressing the tree all glitter & twinkle.

[Daisi]

Yeah, I heard from a friend down that way that there was a fair amount of freezing rain before the rain. Hopefully with just the snow, your rush hour will be better. They are now calling for closer to 30 - 35 cm here, so I guess we'll be blowing out the laneway instead of shovelling it. At least being rural we don't have to worry about sidewalks, just the plows sealing off our laneways. 

[notamermaid]

The snow is almost gone in the valley, we will most likely not have a white Christmas. Oh well... I have had a busy few days. Work, short trips, shopping. Looks like I will not get to any more Christmas markets further afield this year.

 

Cancelled my appearance at the office Christmas party as I am just too busy at home.

 

Thankfully my heating was fixed before it got really cold and the repair job was actually cheaper than anticipated.

 

Last week I saw a river cruise ship with a big Christmas tree in the lobby, all bright, it looked really lovely through the glass doors, even from the relative distance of the river embankment.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[Daisi]

Glad you got your heating fixed, that's important! We ended up with 40cm of snow from early Friday morning to Saturday morning, and very heavy & wet. Many branches down to pick up next spring once the snow is gone. Pics of our front & back yards. The squirrel is sitting outside our bedroom window looking for us to finish clearing up so we can feed her. 🙂

[Canal archive]

Pretty pretty love your red squirrels. We now have lots of rain, steady not drenching.

[Daisi]

We have lots of squirrels, and they are pretty good at sharing. 🙂

[notamermaid]

It is as the British would say pi**ing down here in the valley. Temperatures too high for this time of year which puts me in a not so festive mood. I am very busy, just popping in to say take care in the US and Canada, friend from Charlotte reports power outages in the area and very low temperatures. Put your water pipes in a blanket and if that is not feasible turn the tap on often to keep the water from freezing. But you probably know all this.

 

Quick trip/errand to Koblenz means I could take a glimpse at the market at Forum shopping centre. Busy with shoppers and nice lights everywhere. And a Viking river cruises coach passed by while I was waiting at a traffic lights.

 

notamermaid

 

[TheKingD]

It is currently 27F in Charlotte, and the wind chill makes it feel like it is a lot colder.  @notamermaid, I wish we could share some of our cold weather with you, and your friend is correct that there are scattered power outages all around.  We live in an older part of town with lots of huge old trees that are notorious for dropping limbs on power lines.  We will definitely leave some dripping faucets tonight, and we will also wrap some pipes.  At least we have crystal blue skies and no snow, so we are luckier than other parts of the country.

 

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all!

 

[Canal archive]

Keep well and take care all with these weird weather systems. 
For some obscure reason I often feel that when any river cruise coach passes we should wave but wouldn’t those on board think we were weird?

[Coral]

So I am in the Midwest - we are just now starting the warm-up from the bitter cold and near blizzard conditions. We didn't get a lot of snow but the cold is far worse.

 

Our temps have been -40 F with wind chill. Yesterday. We finally made it above 0 F (with out wind chill/-25 with wind chill) and I ventured out. We are currently 1 F (feels like -12 F) and will make it to 17 degrees.

 

I has been incredibly cold but it is uphill from here. I think by Thursday we will be 45 F.

 

I had no issues but several friends had pipes burst and frozen pipes.

[Daisi]

We are still having high winds, blowing snow and our temps dropped quite a bit. Yes, it's a typical Canadian winter. Plows have been pulled from the main roads (side roads are usually "take a chance") so hopefully emergency vehicles can get through. Several serious accidents on the main highway across the province from one end near Montreal to the other at Sarnia. I think this is the first time I remember that road being closed almost it's whole length. Most people who didn't travel to families by Wednesday may not make it home for Christmas.

 

We're hoping that by today, the winds will die down, and are very grateful to our local Hydro (power) crews for quickly re-connecting our services. It must have been wicked with the winds and sudden drop in temp.

 

Wishing all a safe & Happy Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate. May you have tables full of those who are special to you, and lots of laughs.

[Host Jazzbeau]

We thought we had passed on the Christmas Open House duties to our daughter, now that she has a house [just as we got them from DW's mother when we got a house], but DD is sick so – as of this afternoon – we are hosting on a few hours' notice!  But my DW is so amazing that I'm sure it will be wonderful!  [And I will do the one thing she asks of me – "stay out of my kitchen!!!"]  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.  🎄

 

[notamermaid]

Well not smooth running here either, literally the kitchen waste water pipe is blocked, leaking through a pipe connection into the cellar. Cooking delayed and the dish washer is out of bounds, so everything is back in the kitchen sink bowl. The hole in the yard is going to stay for quite a few days longer and should the pipe problem get worse, I will have quite a bit of additional work till a company can help out on Monday. How they are going to get to the cellar with the yard being a building site will be fun to sort out... Oh well there are bigger challenges in life, like riding on a donkey and finding shelter in an animal shed.

 

Merry Christmas everyone. 

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Coral]

7 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Well not smooth running here either, literally the kitchen waste water pipe is blocked, leaking through a pipe connection into the cellar. Cooking delayed and the dish washer is out of bounds, so everything is back in the kitchen sink bowl. The hole in the yard is going to stay for quite a few days longer and should the pipe problem get worse, I will have quite a bit of additional work till a company can help out on Monday. How they are going to get to the cellar with the yard being a building site will be fun to sort out... Oh well there are bigger challenges in life, like riding on a donkey and finding shelter in an animal shed.

 

Merry Christmas everyone. 

 

notamermaid

 

 

So sorry! I hope your issue gets resolved soon.

[Daisi]

Wow @notamermaid, I hope things get sorted soon. Seems like things like that always happen over holidays.

 

We were talking the other night about past storms at Christmas time, and both of us decided that the best one was when we woke up with no power due to an ice storm. My B-i-L had just built a house in a new neighbourhood over the summer so the kids had spent all summer playing together. They were also smart enough to decide to use a wood stove as their main heat source, so we drove up to their place with our "breakfast" only to find they were hosting several neighbours and kids. It was fantastic, as everyone brought the gifts for  the kids to open (they were all about the same age around 6-9 yrs old), and we got to play parents and set up all the toys while the parents got a break to enjoy Christmas..   My poor sister was like you @Host Jazzbeau, she had a couple hours notice that she was hosting Christmas dinner as she was the only one in the family who did have power.

 

Hope everyone is safe, and enjoying their day.

[notamermaid]

On 12/25/2022 at 4:31 PM, Coral said:

So sorry! I hope your issue gets resolved soon.

Problem now apparently in the large pipe between my neighbour's and my flat. Builders hopefully coming tomorrow to dismantle a plasterboard wall section. Buckets and wash basin are my good friends today.

 

On 12/25/2022 at 5:22 PM, Daisi said:

Seems like things like that always happen over holidays.

As my elderly relative with strong Rhenish accent said in that sentiment: "Et is ja Weihnachte, ne!"

 

Today we recalled stories of other mishaps but have had laughs as well and watched a video sent per e-mail of my youngest relative meeting Father Christmas, the Weihnachtsmann (he is actually called Klaus which is short for Nikolaus so a really fitting name), she was not too sure what to make of him being less than two years old!

 

Daisi, thank you for that story of the lovely dinner in the adversity of power cuts. So good to be able to find the good stuff in a bad situation and share, with happy memories being created.

 

Wish I had a wood burning stove, one of the small German cast iron ones would do. Love English fireplaces though. The videos on youtube of crackling fireplaces are adorable and soothing.

 

If I get round to it before New Year I will post a selection of photos from my day trips etc. I have just been too busy in recent days for fun at the water cooler.

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I have just been too busy in recent days for fun at the water cooler.

I'm so glad you are busy!  The way Covid hit the travel industry, I had feared that your work situation might go the other way...  Here's a toast to a Happy – and Normal – New Year!

[notamermaid]

On 12/26/2022 at 10:22 PM, Host Jazzbeau said:

I'm so glad you are busy!  The way Covid hit the travel industry, I had feared that your work situation might go the other way...  Here's a toast to a Happy – and Normal – New Year!

Yes, a more normal year would be nice. For me it will start busy with family commitments and the car going into the workshop to finally have the windscreen replaced. The crack in the windscreen has got bigger.

 

I have actually been busy more with family than work but thank you for thinking of me. Work has been back to normal for several months and all in all, winter and Christmas markets have been less disrupted than we anticipated would happen in September.

 

Now I have got a week off work, the office is closed, or let us say my team is not working office hours as tourism is quiet here now. No winter sports in my mild valley, although above 400m altitude we do have a little not too far from where I live (just not right now, too warm). It is good that I have time off. The pipe has been fixed, hooray, praise to the fact that we have a couple of people ready to work at short notice. Now I am clearing up things after them but have had to phone the plumber to have the hot water boiler serviced which means clearing junk out of the small boiler room... Work in the yard continues after New Year so more days of walking over muddy cobblestones. Oh the fun!

 

But all in all life is good around here, hope with you water cooler visitors and other river cruising friends and folk, too.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

The food is in the oven, preparations for my little dinner party are progressing and I have a little time to reflect and post. Got2Cruise in another thread asked where we are going next year. Sadly I have nothing booked and little planned. In 2022 I did get away a little but plans had to be changed at the last minute, a trip to England did not work out and to my embarrassment I have fallen way behind in posting about trips and suggestions in connection with river cruises. The Idstein trip in Spring report still needs to be concluded. 2022 was somewhat a worse year than 2021 although life returned to almost normal after April. I can say that at least I scrapped my half-serious plans to emigrate. But there have been good short trips. The year started with a walk in the Eifel hills, up a path to a chapel. Spring came with exploring unknown areas of Koblenz, the trip to Idstein and a return to other places in my area. I had a nice stay in the Würzburg area in summer, when I spent some time in hot and interesting Wertheim. Autumn came and went unspectacularly. A revisit in November to the Moselle was pleasant. Christmas markets I largely had to ignore for time and a car problem. The plan for a trip to France went down the drain (pun intended) due to the hiccups in the kitchen and workmen visiting. Some info on the Christmas markets I visited will go in another thread. Perhaps some of the nicest hours spent in December (outside of my home that is) were in the Westerwald hills in the snow at a small do in a bed & breakfast hotel. Such fun with English tea, mince pie and bag pipes. It almost made up for my non-trip to England! Bittersweet it all is, but no more moaning now - well apart from me complaining about it being so warm that there is no chance of my fingers getting cold lighting fireworks. That is not on!

 

The path in the Eifel:

 

What may be behind the horizon in 2023? Hopefully much light among the clouds:

 

Time to clean the sparkling wine glasses. Cheers! 🍾

 

notamermaid

 

[Daisi]

Enjoy your evening @notamermaid. Our snow is fading fast, it's been raining since last evening. Our creek is open, the ducks are back, and our poor little red squirrel that lives in our tree is having to move out as all his stashed pine cones are wet. We've been having lots of fun watching him going back and forth with pine cones longer than he is cross ways in his mouth taking them from the tree to the wood pile that is covered under a tarp.  I guess between him and our Pileated Woodpeckers, the tree has to many holes in it and no longer keeps food dry.   Oh well, we are babysitting my Sister's cat while she is off on a cruise (Panama Canal), so it's helping to keep her entertained.

 

Happy New Year to all, may 2023 bring new adventures to all, no matter how you travel.

[Canal archive]

Happy New Year all I’ve just binge watched the fireworks around the world, well a lot of them. I’m now receiving messages from far flung family members, wow the wonders of the internet. So my glass (full of Tasmanian fizz) is raised to all have a superb new year.