ShedLogo2
Hi
I will not be at the shed this Friday either, we had hoped to be up north longer but travelling south again on Friday as unexpectedly my son in laws father who was taken into hospital with pneumonia earlier in the week has died this morning. No COVID involved there as far as we know but none of the family were able to be with him, not even when he was checked in so all a bit fraught. Also grandaughter from same family came down from Aberdeen last weekend to go to Redford Barracks and a camp with the OTC and caught COVID so is now isolating in her room in Aberdeen Uni. Apparently quite a few caught covid at this event despite very stringent precautions being taken by the Army and they are still getting new positives three days on. So guys take care it’s all still round us and even if we don’t get it it can disrupt any routine we think we may have. Fortunately our granddaughter did not go home so her mother has mixed feelings about that but at east the houshold was clear!
We have had an exciting time up north where the Skinner resilience plan excelled itself and even impressed the neighbours who were able to get a hot meal (via our standby camping two burner and grill stove), plenty of hot water and room heat (via gravity feed from our new multifuel stove) and limited phone charging (Via my always charged battery power pack with inverter) so I’m well pleased! The LED 12V desk lamp also works well of the inverter and I’ll probably add that in instead of candles in the future – now thinking on making a ‘domestic ups’ for houses and see my comment below on the new fire alarms!
The journey up on Thursday was pretty uneventful, a bit of rain and wind but nothing unusual, Friday was pretty much the same with quite a nice evening but Saturday saw things change very rapidly when Storm Malik came in with very high, gusting winds. The picture of the spray from the sea was 11 or 12 on the Beaufort Scale – i.e. the sea was white and flattened by the wind force it was so strong and it was not until it reached the rocks and the harbour wall that it rose up into a huge cascade of spray which then was blown over the front street and houses in the village. As spectacular as I’ve ever seen it and I’ve seen a few storms in my life here. By contrast Storm Corrie came and went much more sedately, certainly high winds but not nearly as gusty and by that time most of the damage had been done already, at least in the north although not in the northeast..
Power cuts came in about 9.30am on Saturday but we were lucky in that we were restored by 6pm the same day and though we had a lot of flickering and tv outages on Sunday it never went of again unlike many other places close by. The linesmen in this area seem to be getting a helping hand with repairs as many cars have a new accessory – a chainsaw in the boot having been caught out in the earlier storms when no one could travel because of fallen trees!
Another issue with power cuts – all the new interlinked smoke and heat alarms are great news but do the wired versions have back up batteries for when there are power cuts or what happens? I’m glad I went for the battery ones as I still can not find out information on this issue - unlike burgular alarms which have a backup battery in them do the wired alarms have a backup?. Given that candles are still a fall back for many households probably not the best if your fire alarms don’t work!
The news from the shed on what’s app seems very positive, with bench tops and wood arriving to carry on the internal work on the shed. I’ve put a couple of bags of cement in the car tonight to take back down for the step work and to keep us weighted down on the journey – it’s going to be windy again!.
Enjoy tomorrow. Cheers for now, stay safe and regards to all
Alister
Best Regards,

Alister Skinner
Chairman
Pentlands Men's Shed
Email Marketing Powered by MailPoet