neighbours

london 7.29am sunny -3.6C (the lowest reading near me). most are around -1C or -2C. tuesday 2018

well, we are  supposed to be hit by the beast from the east, the cold winds from siberia.  but it is a sunny day and blue sky out there now. so might be london is not going to be so disrupted with snow that blocks the buses and tubes.

as usual, the tubes and trains have put out warnings as they are bound to do, and if there had been rain, which would turn to snow by the cold, they would be proved right. too bad for them that there is no rain. haha. whatever they do, they will get scolded for it.

so far i dont see a lot of rain heading to london. maybe on friday. there is a big bunch of rain then , and maybe we will see a nice dump of snow to give us a white snow landscape in london. the weather website says most parts of london is below zero C. but the downstairs must be having their heating on all night, because my flat felt warm. 18C according to the nhs thermometer that i have. so it is very pleasant inside. maybe that is why i am rather calm about it all, and just look on this cold weather  with pleasure, rather than dread.

perhaps not everyone get their heating from downstairs flat, so my situation may be unique. who knows really. for all i know, the top flat may be the ones getting all this heat from the flats below them. and that is only possible if they have insulated the loft first.

i have noticed heat gets through the ceiling of the flats below you. my floor is made of concrete, and being built in 1889, they dont seal the spaces very well, because a lot of heat goes up through the floor from the flat below. most people have wall to wall carpets and this can act as a good insulation layer, but my carpets are still the original laid down when i first bought the flat 25yrs ago, and they are not thick carpets. i like the colour that is why i did not bother to replace them. it is a lovely deep green colour that i could not find in the modern carpets they have nowadays.

before the upstairs flat got sold they have wooden floors and i can tell you my heat goes up to them real quick so that it was cold in my flat a lot even with the heating on full blast. but luckily they sold it, this is about 10yrs ago, and the new owner promptly laid down carpets, and suddenly my flat got warm even without me putting on the heating. and it had been so since. and an added bonus is that we dont hear her upstairs clipclopping on the floor in her high heels anymore. haha. or the occasional rattle of something hitting the floor … i suspect it is a cat playing with its rattling toys. ever since then, i dont get any bother from the neighbours. which from what i hear can be a real pain. noise from the neighbour above you seem to be more noticeable than the noise from the downstairs flat below you.

there have been a time when the flat above have been rented out by airbnb, but i think the noise they made (they were playing very loud music)have brought on a blanket ban on airbnb in the estate because i saw a notice pasted on our communal board saying no airbnb allowed. 

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is it cold where u are?

london 8.54am 2.9C sunny blue sky tuesday 2016

this morning is supposed to hit -1C in london so i was rather eagerly expecting it, but i had a look at the chart in the weatherwebsite and i see the lowest we (angel and farringdon) got was 0.9C at about 6.38am this morning.

well, i suspected as much in a way. it is really difficult for london to go as low as -1C. at least in central london where i am.

i had a look at crystal palace because it is always cold there it seems. the nearest reading for that area, (crystal palace itself have no reading strangely enough, maybe people felt it is on a hill so do not count, or no one lives there. haha. it is where all the masts for broadcasting tv and radio signals come from isn’t it?). the nearest is mitcham, kilmartin ave, and it is -2.8C now and got as low as -3.5C at 7.35am this morning. so it really is true that area is cold. i mean everywhere else the temperature is rapidly rising, but not mitcham.

actually i just realised my asking is it cold where u are is meaningless really. everyone will have their central heating on now so how would they know how cold it is outside. even myself , who must be the only one in london who dont have the heating on, dont feel cold. do any of us have indoors temperature gauges? i rely on a nhs thermometer, and that reads 18C now.

so we all rely on the weather website and how reliable is that? i ask you.

it is rather nice and fun to guess it and to have vicarious pleasure when we see it hit -3.5C. haha. and have a nice vicarious shiver at it.  especially as we dont experience the cold really, seeing we are all nice and cosy in our flats. and since i started writing this post the temperature has gone up to 4.9C now. so gone up by 2C as i write.

added 12.51pm 10.5C sunny . i went to the nearest pizza express and got those free snowball doughballs. i have to wait a bit , so it seems they prepare them fresh. came in a nice box and a sweet dip. there were 8 balls.

they dont taste of anything. i should have expected that, after all that is what dough taste of. so it was necessary the sweet dip. 

north vietnam colder than london!

london 8.56am, 5.3C thursday 2016 . yesterday high 14C, low 9C.

very mild weather we are having here in london. but in s.e.asia and hongkong things are cold. -4.2C in sapa, north vietnam. granted it is a hill station but still, unusual i would have thought.

i first heard something was amiss in that region of the world when i read in a blog frm an expat in chiangmai about how cold it was, but did not think of it, as i tend to think people in s.e.asia will say it is cold when i would think it a warm spring day… haha. but this morning i read this article. dozens dead from cold in asia. and they were talking of temperatures of 4C, 9C. though i wonder why some people died from it. i mean such low temperatures are at dawn, and it will soon get really hot again later in the day. some regions have gotten wild swings of temperature, all in one day… so that might explain it. even then, to die at those temperatures which dont last long, seems rather excessive. positively careless, as oscar wilde will put it.

to me, those who died are those whose souls wants to go and chose that excuse to go. we tend to forget that for some people(more than we realise) death is a release and a welcome one at that. 

i looked at kuala lumpur in the weather website and see this high 37C, low 24C. i wonder how cold did it get on monday in kl? to us in london, if it ever gets as low as 17C at night ,we would be rejoicing. haha. i bet in malaysia most people dont even notice it has gotten colder. 

it is strange that none of the uk newspapers mention this cold spell at all. not even online nevermind the printed newspapers. maybe the blizzard in america swamped all other cold weather news. 

this winter, in london, i cannot remember such a mild winter as we are getting now. granted i might have to eat my words as winter isn’t over yet and there is still a surprise later in the month if we get a really cold spell… but the air felt so crisp and clean… lovely really. (i find it real difficult to believe what they keep saying to us, that london air is polluted…) 

 

its quite cool here in london

london 8.38pm sunday 2015

Even though the official online weather websites say it is 11C, it is still quite cold as i felt this morning when i went to the library at paddington.

it is the library that opens on sunday morning, (the others open in the afternoon only, if they open at all) and it felt distinctly nippy as i walked out. i had to wear a bobble hat and gloves, it was that nippy. haha.

if u read the newspapers u would still find headlines saying we are having the warmest april etc etc. dont believe them. haha. but of course if u read the news about the weather u would long ago realise not to believe what they say.

i got a comment from garfieldhugs saying it is 35C and high humidity in singapore now. and it made me realise how easy i forget how dreadful it can be at those temperatures. its been ages since i visited s.e.asia. and i have forgotten how uncomfortable those high temperatures and humidity can make it for those who have to live there without air conditioning. 

i like the cool temperatures that i am getting now in london;  but for those who dont like it and yearn for heat;  just remember what 35C and high humidity is like and then u will be glad to get these cool days. we humans forget that extremes of temperature is no good so that anything below 0C and over 30C are bad. period. haha.

not much is going on in london now at least where i am concerned. it is a dull day, too and i am just glad that my routine of going to the library to read the sunday papers takes me out of the flat, and outdoors. otherwise with the grey weather i would stay at home.

even the newspapers were a bit dull, the headline is the one about the capsized boat carrying those refugees from libya. 400 died it seems. (some say 700, i wonder how they know. did someone count them? more likely they look at the ship, guessed its tonnage and estimated how many it can take, and add a bit more  if it is overloaded. it is said they all ran to one side of the boat when they saw a passing merchant ship  and it tipped over as the people smugglers have so overloaded it. that is also a guess, though a good guess but who knows, really.

 for any sensitive souls it would be anguished reading. but remember all you sensitive souls… if u make yourself saddened and depressed and despairing at this news, it wont help those who have died, your being saddened and depressed would not be of any use to anyone least of all to yourself. so dont be. the world is what it is.

i think the people smugglers have got europe by the balls, nothing we do will make us look good.

where did these refugees get the money to pay the people smugglers? it is not cheap, the amount they ask.

A fishing vessel of the type that sank at the weekend might cost $10,000 (£6,700). But 600 passengers squashed into space for perhaps 200, each of them paying a minimum of $1,000 provides a handsome earnings multiple – a return on investment of almost 6,000%. link

so are these so called refugees economic migrants  composed of richer- than- normal inhabitants of libya who can afford to pay to get out? whatever the case, europe has been presented with an impossible situation. thanks goodness i dont have to solve it. 

i am just glad i have such a mundane life and be happy in my life without feeling i have to solve the world’s problems. i am right glad i dont have to carry the burdens of the world on my shoulders.

added. 21.4.15.actually one country have been through it, australia. and here their pm has suggested that europe follows australia in dealing with it. 

Buckingham Palace aides under fire after 25 windows are left open on one of the coldest days of the year | Daily Mail Online

Buckingham Palace aides under fire after 25 windows are left open on one of the coldest days of the year  | Daily Mail Online.

this picture was taken to show the flag at half mast on the death of the saudi king recently, and people noticed the slightly opened windows and start grumbling about it.

i think it rather disingenuous to say it was -3C, it wasn’t at that time. it was never -3C in london that day , even in the early hours of the morning. it is somewhere in scotland more like.

in fact, i have some of my windows in my flat opened a crack like that shown that morning. it was that nice a day with blue sky and sunshine and i did not feel it being cold at all in the flat, because i always wear warm clothes.

i dont have heating on, so dont feel any qualms about opening the windows as there is no heat to get lost out of the windows.

 

and i doubt the palace had any heating on in those rooms if they are being decorated as they have said.

but they still have to heat the place even though  it is not cheap and it will still be cold.  it shows that it is not all that great owning a palace, and have all those huge high ceilinged rooms take forever to warm up. you can freeze in a palace. haha.

i just have a thought. those old palaces dont really have v good ventilation… and it just might be that they open the windows to freshen the air inside. nowadays modern buildings have ventilation shafts that worm their way all over the place and they are used to force air to circulate and expel stale air and bring in fresh air using hell of a lot of electricity during the process, but old buildings are less wasteful of power and rely on just opening the windows. 

not that cold really

london 2015 tuesday

i think the papers and people like the idea of the coldest winter , because then we can shiver in delight and marvel and congratulate us on overcoming it when we find it is not that cold after all. haha. i know that in london it never gets really cold. and by that i mean -10C continuously. we have headlines saying uk is colder than moscow, just because some mountain in scotland got -10C in the early morning. that is not cold. cold is having it -10C allthe winter months, with dips of much colder temperatures for days… that is cold.

so in london it is very nice really. and having lived through a few of these so called coldest winters for x years scaremongering, i am absolutely certain that it is fine and the cold is nothing to worry about. and i speak as someone who has not put on the heating since 2008 because there was no need. but of course life is full of different people who feels all kinds of different things, so there will be people who suffer from the cold. well, that is their lot, is all we who dont suffer from it can say to them. it is your lot in life. it might sound fatalistic but the alternative is to get angry about it and rage about it and make your life full of disastisfaction and unhappiness.

my own belief is that i can change the way i look at things, and if i feel the cold, i can change that attitude with the strength of my mind. that is my belief and because i believe that my mind can change to make me feel i am not cold.

i used to be very cold when i first came to london to live , it seems now so long ago. and now when i look at myself then, i think i was just so ignorant, i did not know how to keep warm, wearing very flimsy clothing.

no wonder i felt cold all the time. no one pulled me up and tell me dont be a little fool, wear this and that and the other. or maybe people did tell me but i was too stubborn or thing i know it all to listen to them. now when i see someone behaving like that , i realise that was me years ago. but do i tell them to wear something warm? no i dont. haha why?  because they wont pay a blind bit of notice haha. or  they will resent it, to be told what to do. either way it is not worth the hassle. 

each person have to learn their own way, some want to learn it the hard way, others not. 

events comes around every year in a very predictable way

london

most things comes around regularly every year and it seems people like it. it is predictable and familiar.

so yesterday it was the switchingon of the oxford street lights for christmas. it seems quite a crowd went there to see it, though from what i saw of the lights decorations when i was there in the day it looked very plain.

just white globes strung across the street. maybe it looks better when they are lit up. i got a look at the picture of it when it was lit, and it still looked like white globes. i thought they might give it some colour and light them up with mulitcoloured lights.  

and i got an email from john lewis telling me of their new christmas advert and saying i can be among the first to view it before it gets aired. maybe they hope i will put it up in facebook or something. some people have said they are moved to tears by it, but i guess i am more cynical. haha. it did not do anything for me other than to see it as a clever ploy to get children to pester their parents to buy things. i understand that it is an important time for businesses, as most of their profits are made during this christmas period and the run up to it. so good luck to them.

the more sensible people like me will just enjoy the sights and sounds whilst not contributing to it. haha. a freebie and i love freebies.

i am just glad there are other people who like spending on christmas. i am reminded again that it is the spendthrift ways of a minority that helps pay for services. there was a tv program last night about energy bills (it is another of those programs about heating that comes on like clockwork at this time of year) and people cannot afford to heat their houses.

it seems the profit is from a few who uses huge amounts of energy. they say the average bill for gas and electricity is about £1300 a year. i wonder how many people have that kind of bill. mine is £230 a year for electricity. i dont use gas.

  so there must be quite a number who uses way more than the average and they are the ones who are paying so the people like me can get the service. if not for these high usage people,  supplying electricity or gas to households becomes so unprofitable that the companies will go bankrupt.

so all i am saying is thanks guys for using so much electricity and keeping  the companies in business.

in the tv program they mentioned and showed two families who live next door to each other, same numbers of people and houses,and yet one household pays £800 more than the other. they did not go into their lifestyles to find out why… that would be more interesting to me….instead they put their reporter in a room at 12C without any warm clothing and let him freeze and film him for us to see him shivering away. haha. and then warn us that will happen to us if we keep our rooms at 12C. they have not heard of warm clothing obviously. but u can see if not for those households who just either carelessly or ignorantly ring up huge electricity bills, and they must outnumber people like me who dont use much; we may not even have companies wanting to supply electricity to people like me, as it is a loss maker to them.

i cannot imagine what profit they can make out of me ( after all, half of that £1200 annual cost is incurred by expenses in supplying it) so if not for the many others who cannot bring their usage down i doubt they would be interested in supplying me.

 many of those featured seem to think just because they have a medical condition,are old,  or have children , they must put up the heat or they will die or something. that is a fallacy. but no one dares tell them, because depand on it, they will die (of their condition but who is to say it is not brought about by it) and whoever gives that advise will be sued. that is why so many of these public annoucements dare not say it.

but if u use a bit of common sense, cold temperatures by itself wont kill you if u know how to keep yourself warm. afterall the eskimos are a good example of that. i am a good example of that too. i have not need to have any heating in my flat for years. and i am still alive and healthy. and i might add i dont even notice the cold nowadays.

tell me is it cold at this time of year? to me it is very mild.