Family, Photography and other misc news
Family related posts; generally only of interest to fellow members of the Brown Clan and relations by Marriage into this mad house.
We had a big family get together this weekend, it was Caroline’s fathers 80th birthday.
We had nice meal then an evening of embarrassment, as we dug out the old projector screen and projector and had a slide show, some of the slides went back over 50 years.
It was great to see such old photographs, its a shame that today a lot of photographs may get lost. Whilst we all take hundreds of digital photographs, what will happen to them?
So there, we have had the partial eclipse. It was quite fun. We had a pretty good view, and good weather from the office windows and I quickly put together a pinhole camera to view the eclipse safely with.
The human eye is a fantastic thing and adjusts for an amazing number of light levels, so while it seemed to get a little darker, it was not until you checked with a light meter you could see how dark it had really gotten.
Afterwards I logged into my homes solar panel system and as you can see in the above chart, the dip at 9.30 matches the eclipse.
The end of February saw us setting the first seeds of the year. Whilst the onion sets are already planted and the potatoes are out to chit, this weekend was the first weekend of sowing seeds. Cabbage and Leeks, sowed direct into seed trays then out into the cold frame.
Last year we had great success with the leeks but the cabbage white catapillar decimated the cauliflowers, lets hope this year we have better success.
https://twitter.com/AstroTerry/status/571700996360970241/photo/1
It was a sad day last week when Leonard Nimoy died. An inspiration to a generation of scientists, pilots and astronauts.
What is less know was that is was very good photographer, artist and humanitarian.
Well all the DIY, new boiler, windows and doors have been worth it and we had are new EPC completed yesterday and we are now a a grade D.
This means we can now go ahead with the Solar PV installation, which should make us energy independent during the day. If you have a grade D you can get more government help in the form of the feed in tariff to help pay for the installation, basically you get paid more for generating the electricity if your home is more efficient.
We had three local companies round and from those got four quotes, two basic systems and two more high tech systems which while costing more would produce more electricity.
The savings in fuel costs of the period more then off set the expense and with the feed in tariff you end up with a better return then if the money was sat in the bank.
Generally we holiday and commute on the motorcycles, and when the weather is dry commute on the bicycles. The car gets used for the heavy lifting, and has been really abused over the last year while we get the house straight, so this Monday it was time to get the car sorted and give it a bit of TLC.
Caroline had washed it the day before and today we were dropping in to the local inderpendant VW dealer, to get a number of things sorted.
We bought it from the main Skoda dealer but were less then happy with the servicing and the local independent garage gives us far better service. Its often worthwhile finding a local independent rather then the main official dealer as you tend to get a better deal.
Actually I was planning having the day at home anyway as I am not superstitious, its the start of a week long holiday where we will be trying to get a number of key jobs done at home and to the car.
So typically I have come down with a cold, so no DIY, no photography and not really a holiday. Hope this passes quickly.
It does seem like support for Apple pay is growing. Its going to be interesting to see if it takes off in the UK.
Whilst I general try to frequent independent coffee shops, Lincoln’s Coffee Aroma and Norwich’s The Window being two of my favourites if you need a coffee then the big chains like Costa, Nero and Starbucks are always nearby, and if your a Starbucks iOS app user in the USA you can now use ApplePay with the Starbucks app.
Living out in the country with no gas supply unlike most city dwellers we have to use oil to provider our heating and hot water. This is not very green and not exactly cheap.
To improve matters we have been looking installing solar panels on the roof. Its quite a minefield and there is a lot to consider.
Do you go with a central inverter or micro inverters. DC-DC optimisers or a simple string installation. Also if your property is old is there other things you can do to improve it that are more cost affective. If your after the UK governments feed in tariff you can only get the top value if your property achieves a EPC rating of at least D.
So lots of research and i’ll be contracting three local companies for quotes.
We are now in the middle winter and we are still trying to catchup in the garden. Sunday saw us both in the garden again with Caroline trimming shrubs after cleaning out the chickens while I was up a ladder trimming and removing branches from a few of the over grown trees.
Our first year we mainly maintained the garden. The major changes were removing two large conifers that were too close the house.
We also added the vegetable plot and replaced the old wooden shed at the bottom with a chicken coop.
This month we got onions planted and the potatoes are in the shed getting ready to chit.
We still have a few more trees to trim but we are running out of time. One of the trees in the front garden is already coming into bud so will have to leave that now to next winter.