Has It Sprung Already?

 Do people still say 'spring has sprung?' It was a common saying when I was growing up.It seems like we were just decking the halls and dreaming of a white Christmas and now I'm looking at spring flowers from a friend's garden.

They do look quite lovely, especially against the pine branch left from the Christmas flowers she gave me one short month ago. The yellow really pops against the dark green. But I'm not ready for spring yet. Then again, I never am, so I guess it doesn't matter. 😏

Our phone service returned this morning. The only reason I knew this was because I heard the buzz indicating that I'd gotten a text. It was from Irish Water saying that the boil water notice remains in place. This does not annoy me the way it did last month, when it went on for 2 1/2 weeks. After having no water at all, boiling it now doesn't seem like a big deal. Probably a good reminder to me that having water flowing from the taps is a privilege to be grateful for, whether I have to boil it before drinking or not. I've lived with no running water in the past, but that was in a place where that was a fairly common thing, so alternatives were in place and it was no big deal. Understandably, that's not the case here. 

Whatever you're doing today, I hope it's pleasant!

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Recovery

 Recovery from Storm Eowyn is ongoing. Many premises still without power and water and some are being told that it could be 4 February before they get their power back. Crews from Austria and, I think, France, have arrived in Ireland to help with the necessary repairs. We were lucky that our power came back on just 7 1/2 hours after the red warning expired and 17 1/2 hours after it went out. Our water returned after a day and a half. The only thing yet to return is our phone service and if we have to be without something for any length of time, that would be the thing. I rarely use it for phone calls--I've had the phone for 2 years and maybe had 20 calls or less during that time. We can make emergency calls if we have to, but hopefully we won't.

People have really stepped up to help. Of course, the crews out there working hard to restore power and water in sometimes adverse weather conditions are doing a difficult job. Others are offering what they can. Over the weekend, a local small business owner, Joe of Joe's Tech Help, opened up his tiny shop and told people to bring their devices in and leave them to be charged. He also offered his wifi so people could send and receive messages. He offered what he had to people who needed it. A local school opened up so people could come in and get hot water, fill flasks, have tea, toast, and a chat. They offered what they could. In other parts of the county, GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) clubhouses opened up to provide hot showers and laundry facilities. They offered what they had. In Donegal town, a church set up a Recharge Centre, where they are providing hot meals and beverages, electricity, wifi, and a place to come together and chat. The hot meals are being provided by local restaurants because they have licensed kitchens. It's a space to recharge devices and people. Everyone is offering what they have to help people who need it. The storm was awful. The response has been an outpouring of care, kindness, and community. With all of the super-sized ugliness in the world right now, this care and kindness is comforting to witness.

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Blowin' in the Wind

 Storm Éowyn, an extratropical cyclone, blew through yesterday, bring record breaking sustained wind and wind gusts. This was apparently a sting jet event. The entire island--both the Republic and Northern Ireland--was under status red warnings and we were urged to shelter in place. We prepared as best as we could, charging up lamps and phones (and my e-reader), filling containers with water, and making sure we had food that didn't require cooking. We knew the power would almost certainly go out and we'd have no heat as a result, but fortunately, we do have lots and lots of woolly garments and plenty of blankets. Those, combined with the excellent insulation we have in this apartment, left me confident that we could deal with the cold. And we did.

At 4 am on Friday, we lost power and phone service. A few hours later, we lost water. At about 9:30 last night, the power came back on. That was a surprise because we thought it would be out longer. Nationwide, 725,000 people were without power and we expected it would take longer for ours to return. The streetlights didn't come back on last night, but buildings on both sides of the street had their lights on. We still have no phone service and no water. Once we got our power and WiFi back, I was able to go to the Irish Water website and check on our area. I'm signed up for text alerts, but with no phone signal, I'm not getting those. On the website, I discovered that there's a boil water notice in place again, but no reported outage. In order to report an outage, I have to call. I clicked around for a long time looking for an alternative, but there were none to be found. I tried the perky 'Chat with Us!' button, which got me into a 'conversation' with a bot named Ami who was useless. Ami informed me that there's a boil water notice in my area, provided me with phone numbers to call to report an outage, and, when given the information that I couldn't call, spend a minute 'thinking' before apologizing for not being able to help me. So I have no idea what's going on with that or when we will have water again. I don't know whether they're aware of a wider issue or if there is no wider issue and it's an issue with this building. I can try to contact the office of the guy who manages this place, but if I send an email they're not likely to see it until Monday and without a phone signal, I can't call anyone. Right now it's icy out, but it should melt in a while and at that point, we'll venture out both to try to buy some water and get any information we can about the situation. I'd love to have a shower and some coffee, not necessarily in that order. The coffee I can have once we get back with some water, assuming the power stays on. Not sure when I'll get the shower.

Sadly, there is one reported fatality--a man in Donegal was killed when a tree fell on his car. We're being warned that more wind is expected tomorrow--nowhere near as strong as Éowyn, but possibly enough to bring down structures and trees already weakened by the storm. I hope no more damage to life or property occurs.

I hope the weather is calmer in your neck of the woods!

Update: We went to the store and joined the water-buyers queue at the till. We bought 5 jugs of 5 litres each and lugged them home and up the stairs. I was thinking, 'I bet now that we've lugged this lot home, we'll have water pretty soon.' I turned on the faucet. Water came out. We can still use the water we bought since we have the boil water notice in effect and it may last some time. Last month it was 2 1/2 weeks. I will probably not use it all and I will save at least a couple of the large jugs so that when the next storm approaches, I can fill them in advance. I've lived in places without running water, but there things were set up for it. It's a challenge here. But of course, we should always be thankful for precious water. I'm grateful all over again to have it flowing from the tap. Bill is doing the dishes. The coffee is brewing. I'll be having an extra layer of appreciation for that this morning, too.

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Bamboozled

 I started this book today:

Getting it was not without some minor drama.

It all started when I was reading If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal. In one chapter, the author discusses truth default theory (TDT) and this book. I sent an email to a (US) friend about this because I knew she'd be interested. She went off on her own journey, looking into the idea further and recognizing herself. We had an email 'discussion' about it. Near the end of December, she emailed me and said she'd ordered the book for me and was having it sent directly to me--she commented that this way I can mark it up as much as I like. She'd inadvertently used the wrong address for the order, though, so she had to get that all sorted. It was dispatched during the last days of 2024. By the time it got here, we were in the middle of a winter weather event. It was far worse to the south of us, but we did have plenty of ice, cold temps, and a little bit of snow, which was enough to cause chaos. Unfortunately, the courier the bookseller used was Fastway, a company with drivers who always have a problem understanding where we are. So when the book came to town on the Fastway van, the first I knew about it was when the driver sent a text saying he'd dropped the parcel off at a small shop at the edge of the town. Needless to say, I was annoyed. Normally, I would have been only slightly annoyed and a little bit amused at the incompetence that is apparently clustered in this one company--no other courier has a problem, only Fastway. I would have briskly walked to the shop and picked up my book. But considering that it was a complete mess outside and we had ice warnings in place, I opted to contact the shop instead. The woman was very nice and kindly offered to hold the package until I could go get it. A couple of days later, we made the treacherous trek, walking in the road because, as the lady at the shop said, 'The footpaths are lethal.' Indeed they were. But we made it and I had my book. I am thrilled with it! I have started to mark it up and I have questions that I hope will be answered as I read on. I am sure it will be an informative read. I'll let you know.

On another note, it seems as though we're having strange wifi issues and I am unable to access/comment on some blogs. I couldn't even access my own this morning. So I am going to attempt to post this now and hope it works. 

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Sounds Good!

 Last night, as it approached midnight, I settled in, picked up my crocheting, and hit play on the latest episode of In Our Time on BBC Radio 4. I've been listening to this show for more than a quarter of a century, albeit sometimes with a long time in between listens. I'm not interested in every topic, but I can always go back and listen to older episodes that I've missed. There are over a thousand of them on the site, I think.* The latest episode is the one I listened to last night. The topic was slime molds. It was a mind-bending, extremely fascinating discussion. As always, the host, Melvyn Bragg, had three guests, all of them experts in their fields--in this case, slime mold researchers and someone who was not quite as immersed in that world, but was deeply into fungi. Melvyn Bragg always does such a great job of getting them to explain things in language that is understandable to people who have no background whatsoever in whatever the topic is. He will ask again if he feels it necessary to do so for clarity. I also like the way he is often amazed at what he's hearing in the same way I am.The result is a collection of intelligent, highly informative, very entertaining, worthwhile discussions about a whole array of specific topics in the broad categories of history, philosophy, science, religion (as an institution, not as dogma) and literature, music, visual arts. Each episode is around 45 minutes long and when listening online to the podcast, there's a few minutes of extra discussion, so they clock in at around 50 minutes. I get so engrossed in what I'm listening to that the time whizzes by.

So, slime molds--no brain, yet better than humans at some things. Can find their way out of mazes quite adeptly, for example. One of the guests told the story of his friend, who can never find his way out of an IKEA store. He set up a small slime mold sized replica of one in his lab and the slime molds found the quickest way out in no time. Slime molds have memory and will mimic behavior of other slime molds. They know which slime molds are related to them. Someone mentioned flatworms in the discussion and explained that they can be taught to do tricks and they remember what they've learned. If their heads are cut off, they will grow new heads with new brains, yet still remember the tricks learned when they had the previous head/brain. So where is this memory stored? I love learning new things, especially things that stretch my mind, and this definitely did.

*Although I've put the links in above, this show and so much more can also be accessed via the BBC Sounds app, which is a wonderful app to have. I particularly like BBC Radio 4 and 4Extra. They have some really excellent content that ranges from radio drama, comedy, and mystery to science programs to books to news to opinion pieces and more. It's definitely worth checking out.

Another thing I listened to last night was the latest song posted on YouTube by Wendy Jensen, a Canadian musician. I discovered her a little over a year ago when a different song of hers was suggested to me. I listened to it, loved it, sent it to Bill who also loved it. We've purchased some of her music in the year since. It's quite lovely and peaceful to listen to. Here's the one I listened to last night, but there's more on her channel, which I highly recommend. I think her music is only available there and on Bandcamp, which is where we got our albums.

I'm not sure yet what it is I'll be listening to tonight, but I hope it's as good as last night's listening was! Hope you've got some good stuff to listen to as well.

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