Rick's b.log - entry 2022/06/18

Heat

Which is probably just as well, the oaks are raining honeydew - plenty of hungry aphids around.

It is expected to be around 38°C this evening, reaching the peak at 5pm. We're on orange alert for heatwave. So is Loire-Atlantique, which is why France's biggest music festival, Hellfest is once again taking place in Clisson after Covid absence. As it's "only" an orange alert, it hasn't been cancelled. But, then, if it was a red alert, who would have the balls to tell ten thousand metalheads to go home?
We'll gloss over the part that, a stone's throw from the southern limit of Clisson, is the Vendée, which is red alert for heatwave, as in "stay the hell at home".
Apparently at Hellfest, they're using fire hoses to keep the crowds cool. So, metal and water and alcohol. Great combination!

Aside: Main stage 2 next Saturday. The line-up is Eluveitie (~4pm), Epica (~6pm), and Nightwish (~8pm). As in, a died-and-gone-to-heaven lineup.
It looks like they get about an hour each except Nightwish that have enough awesomeness to fill two hours, and the stages alternate.
Which is a shame as it would have been impressive to have Nightwish duking it out with Guns n'Roses (on main stage 1, a two and a half hour set!).
That evening, there's also Draconian on one of the side stages (usefully between Epica and Nightwish), just in case you're feeling a little too happy...well, that would be the rosé, but I digress.

It is supposed to fall quite sharply tonight, from 31°C at 8pm to 21°C at midnight, with an entire night of impressive thunderstorms.
That's according to Météo France. AccuWeather reckons the fall-off will be an hour later (31 at 9pm, 21 at 1am) with a single thunderstorm (2.9mm rain) at 7am on Sunday.

And my current headache could be not just the heat and brightness, but the atmospheric pressure loosing ten millibars (hPa) since midnight, with half of it since 11am.

Yesterday, I came home and it was 34°C. So I put my "bedding" into the washing machine. Bedding is in quotes because it is two adult sized sleeping bags zipped to each other so I have room to move. It was quite a bit cheaper to buy two entire sleeping bags... than a duvet cover. Go figure.

The machine claimed to be capable of a 5kg load, and it squeaked a lot until the first burst of high speed spin threw water everywhere inside. Then the squeaking went away. Otherwise, it worked fine, even spun without walking across the room.
I did force things a little, only heating the water for six minutes (I'd guess it was maybe 16°C?), advancing the main wash cycle (as it wasn't grungy) and skipping a rince cycle. Doing that had it done for half six. I hung them on the rotary line in the evening sun, and by half nine everything was completely dry.

It's too damn hot to think about cooking. I got some burgers (crap! forgot the onions again!) but I don't think I could stand cooking them right now.
So, easy backup plan. Weetabix and cold milk.

Weetabix - that's better on a hot day.

What might be the only thing stopping it from being insanely hot, as opposed to just crazy hot, is the pollution. This was the sky just before 8am this morning.

Plenty of atmospheric plooshun.

That's endless amounts of dust, smoke, the odd airplane trail, and the souls of the dead. Kind of makes you want to hold your breath, doesn't it?

Vide grenier-ish

I got up, got dressed, and swigged down a vitamin pill with added caffeine. I didn't take tea because I didn't want to worry about needing the toilet with crowds.

I was on the road by 7.45, and got their by quarter past eight. It "officially" started at eight.

Because of the impending heatwave, there were perhaps a quarter of the expected sellers. And very few people around.

Bereft!

It seemed as if the majority of people around were old folk. Maybe they're the only ones that get up early on a Saturday? Remarkably few children. There was one girl, maybe eleven or so, who had either wet herself or tipped a bottle of water in her lap, and didn't seem the slightest bit concerned about being wet. Given it was only 22°C...

A person I know from work told me that the exposition, supposed to run from 8am to 6pm, was packing up at 2pm due to the heat.

I got myself a game, for four euros. A traditional game. It's the sort of thing mom would have liked... only on the way home I realised that I don't have anybody to play it with. Hmm...

Riches of the world game.

It's listed on Amazon at €25,99 (down from €31,99). The cheapest new and used is "very good", €17,54 with €6,16 delivery. Given the one I bought was apparently only played once (and looks like it), and appears to be complete, and in great condition... I'm guessing the gameplay was too convoluted... I could, in theory, list it for slightly less and $$profit$$. Or, worse, do the same as the "used, like new" seller Maisonjeuxetjardin who is offering free delivery but wants €59,90.
I don't get that, when Amazon are selling actual new stock for less than half of that price.

But, no. While I'm quite sure a lot of good vide grenier finds end up on Amazon/eBay/LeBonCoin, it's not something I'm going to concern myself with. I could probably make some useful money selling mom's books (in three languages!), but the logistics of getting stuff to the post office, not to mention plenty of horror stories about fraud on eBay (like buyers saying stuff is damaged, and sometimes even posting back completely different items which means the seller loses twice as a refund has been issued; not to mention eBay's famously arbitrary arbitration system) mean that the idea of selling stuff online is a headache that I'm just not interested in dealing with.

Maybe one day I'll pack up stuff and attend a nearby vide grenier. If my attention span can handle sitting there whilst people continually ask inane questions.

I went shopping afterwards, and was home by half nine. The sort of time when, on a Saturday, I'd think about getting up having exhausted all the websites I read.

I took a hundred euros out of Pig, came home with ninety six. Still, at least it wasn't cancelled.

The money that came back.

It was rather amusing to see loads of things on the shelves in the supermarket...unless you wanted mustard or vegetable oil in which case you're out of luck.

There were also plenty of people restocking the shelves. Clearly they'd rather leave palettes and boxes all over the place and annoy the customers than employ people to restock on night shift. Having said that, I was a bit concerned by the person who brought out a palette of ice cream stacked higher than my own height. I get that loads of people are buying ice cream for obvious reasons, but exactly how much of that stuff is going to get uncomfortably warm before it enters the freezer? It does make a mockery of the entire food supply chain trying hard to keep chilled things adequately cold, only for supermarkets to cut margins so much that they'll have a single employee taking over an hour (or so) to transfer stuff to the freezer. Stuff that is sitting around in ambient, especially on a hot day like today.
At least Picard, when I have seen them restock their freezers, they bring out a shopping trolley of stuff. The trolley itself is lined with a large isothermic foil bag. And the trolley is unloaded quickly, because, frozen stuff needs to be kept properly cold.

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Gavin Wraith, 18th June 2022, 19:20

I think you meant "pallet". But I like the idea of painting with colourful icecreams. When I was little icecream was a rarity, mostly vanilla, maybe strawberry or chocolate. When we drove from Leicestershire to my grandmother's in the Lake District we would stop at a shop in a back street of Warrington that sold green icecream - a big treat. How my Dad found it I cannot imagine.

Rick, 18th June 2022, 20:35

Yup, I meant pallet. ;) Though, in my defence, we use plastic pallets at work and it is "palette" in French, so... brain scramble. Blame the heat.    Speaking of which, my clothes were dry in two hours!    I'm currently uploading a video of something amusingly dumb that I tried today.

Rick, 18th June 2022, 20:37

Perhaps your dad's dad showed your dad, who showed you... did you pass on the knowledge?

Rick, 18th June 2022, 20:50

When I made the second part of the video, it was just after 7pm and 36°C. It's now quarter to nine and 25°C and quite gusty. I think this might be the beginning of the end of the heatwave.    Which means 🌩️⚡😱.

VinceH, 19th June 2022, 17:14

Just looked for your video, and ICBW, but you appeared to put the frying pan on the chair at the start. If so, you should have left the pan in the sun for a while first to allow it to heat up. (And on a surface that itself gets - so is already - notably hot so existing heat conducts into the pan.)    If it's hot enough, the egg should fry - possibly a little slower than with the pan sitting on an active heat source (i.e. a job or whatever), but it won't take a huge amount longer than normal.    A little cooking oil helps as well, if only to make it easier to remove from the pan.    FWIW, I haven't ever tried it myself, but had it demonstrated to me a lifetime ago.

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