Big J

A beautiful morning on the bike today, after 20-25cm snow yesterday. 100km at minus 6°c and epic beard-cicles afterwards ⛄

It is still snowing and there is 20-25cm of snow now. Went sledging and it was a lot of fun. The pictures aren't uploading for some reason - I'll try from my phone...

A lot of snow has fallen overnight. Enough that I was supposed to be doing an extra shift at work today but I won't bother as I'm fairly sure the forklift will be having serious trouble moving. And it constitutes 'unnecessary' travel. I'll get some photos once it's light. Because it's windy too (-4c), it has drifted as well. Not something you see so often here.

It's not a workshop, but we recently fitted a diesel heater in our VW T5. It's not exactly this model, but ours is very similar: VEVOR Diesel Luftvärmare Allt-i-ett 12V 5KW LCD-fjärrkontroll för husbil inomhus | VEVOR EU EUR.VEVOR.COM Upptäck VEVOR Diesel Luftvärmare Allt-i-ett 12V 5KW LCD-fjärrkontroll för husbil inomhus, Uppgradera din värmeupplevelse med vår effektiva lösning, designad för att... It's a pain on colder mornings getting the car defrosted, and on very cold days (below minus 10c), getting the engine up to temperature takes a long time due to the very relaxed nature of driving here. With the diesel heater, the car is entirely defrosted in 10-15 minutes from a minus 10c frost and you can leave it on for a while afterwards to keep you warm so that you don't have to draw heat from the engine. Uses sod all diesel too (less than 1 litre a week at the moment). When I use the van in summer to go cycling in Norway, I can use the heater overnight as I like to stay as high as possible (altitude acclimatisation) and even in July, it can be pretty chilly. Maybe the best £200 upgrade I've ever made to a car.

Hurrah! It's arrived. Happy New Machine Day

I struggle with Christmas somewhat. It's all very sociable and I have limited energy for that. We always have family staying - usually my wife's parents, brother and sister in law over Christmas and then my mum over New Year. I am good and bake, cook and do the dishwasher as required, and I'm sociable for most of the day, but I also cycle a lot during this period. There is this challenge on Strava called the Festive 500 where you cycle 500km between the 24th and New Years Eve. So I'm doing that. I swear it was invented by grumpy, antisocial dads who just need some time to themselves! 😆 I don't like the concept of gift giving either because I don't like to have things that I don't want or need, and find the overconsumption and waste associated with this time of year rather frustrating. Especially with the kids, who just want pointless, plastic shite that is lost/broken/forgotten in a month. But I do really enjoy all the Christmas lights around the village. Sweden still does Christmas very tastefully, and even though we've not had any snow this year, it still looked lovely. Either way, the highlight of my Christmas (holiday) is having more time out in the forest on the gravel bike, even if I did nearly get taken out by five wild boar yesterday! 😄

I'm reminded of a Gyles Brandreth quote: "The definition of a Scottish Gentleman is someone who knows how to play the bagpipes, but chooses not to"

Just started at the other large sawmill in the village this week as work had been a bit inconsistent at the first. But the first are desperate for me too now, so it seems I have two jobs! In the long term, I'm hoping to split my time between the two, but I am not sure that'll be optimal for everyone. We'll see.

I'm in Sweden but work in the sawmilling industry. I'm British, but also have a German passport, so I didn't have to deal with post-Brexit red tape. @josharb87 would be my first port of call. He's worked extensively in arboriculture and would be able to offer good advice. For general "moving to Sweden" stuff, I can help, though I live very rurally, so our situation is quite different to that of someone in a city.

Fell it and replace with something nicer. Literally anything is nicer than a leylandii.

Not surprising anyone here, I suspect.

The forecast is extreme for the Bristol channel. I checked Minehead and it's forecast a steady 105kph gusting almost 150kph. We did a lovely thinning job on a hill above the town in 2021. It's going to get hit square on. Id be surprised if much is left standing after that. Shallow, rocky soil and 100ft plus Douglas fir. Included is the forecast for Minehead tomorrow morning

It was only minus 3c, so normal (fairly cheap) winter cycling gloves are fine. When it's much below that I switch to ski mittens. In my previous post, it should read serious gales, not serious fakes. Bloody autocorrect.