It's been another bitterly cold day, so much so that I donned an extra layer in the form of a thermal vest to fend off chilling me to the bone. Instead of one long walk, I ventured out three times for shorter periods, as I found the cold quite debilitating, perhaps because humidity level is higher. Still no sign of snow apart from a brief flurry at lunchtime.
On Monday, gas engineers from Wales and West Utilities dug a hole at the end of our street to access the junction between the trunk main and the branch that serves us. We were advised that there was water in the pumping. To our surprise yesterday, we were asked to move our car so that a hole could be dug in our usual parking spot. It seems the branch main can be accessed through at special joint just there. This morning a portable pumping engine appeared and set to run for several hours. I asked the guy minding the machine if it was sucking or blowing. He smiled and told me that it was sucking out and depositing in an attached tank a mixture of water and oily fluids, which at some time in the past had been injected into the pipe as part of a fault inspection process. Its potential toxicity would mean it couldn't be released into the sewer. Hence the tank.
I collected our organic veg bag before lunch. It had a generous supply of freshly picked brussels sprouts my favourite winter treat, not just for Christmas dinner! We cooked some frozen sprouts on Sunday and despite the care taken, the texture wasn't quite right. The ones we get from Coed Organics started the day in a frosty field west of Cardiff and were picked for delivery. Perfect! A treat to look forward to.
Despite differences of opinion between certain vaccinologists about the age range in which the Oxford/AZ is to be recommended, the W.H.O. has today declared that it's good for use with adults of all ages, with all covid19 variants known so far. It's not the perfect remedy but the best of all possibilities at the moment. It takes into account ease of manufacture, storage, transport globally and production cost. These factors are as important to take into account as vaccine efficacy given the urgency of inoculating the maximum number of people around the world to stop the pandemic.
This evening we watched a delightful programme of Rick Stein's about French Catalan cuisine in Languedoc. It has it's own special character given its proximity to the Spanish border, the other side of which is the region of Catalunya. In fact people in that region use Catalan as well as French and Occitane, the ancient regional tongue. Catalan is said to resemble mediaeval French, probably true also of la Langue d'Oc. They're all deeply interconnected.
One summer back in Geneva days in the nineties, we spent a couple of weeks staying in a cottage owned by a CERN scientist in the country near Gaillac and Albi. We took our bicycles with us strapped to the back of the car and rode around on quiet country byways. A lovely experience. It was a rare occasion when I forgot to take a camera with me, so we have only happy but fading memories. Gaillac wines were not widely known and still seldom found in UK supermarkets, but I remember them with pleasure. I must look among my journals to see if I wrote about the trip at the time.
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