The Good Life

Some of you will remember the TV series "The Good Life' in which a professional couple gave up the rat race to turn their (admittedly large) garden into a self sufficiency smallholding. With the lockdown, and then retirement, we finally have time to turnover over a part of our garden to vegetable growing. Here I'll capture some of the lessons we learn on the way. Read More…

Going down the EV route

At the end of November 2022, I made what I hope is pretty much the last ever visit to a petrol (gas) station. That was to fill up my last ICE (internal combustion engine) to drive to London to pick up an almost new Tesla. (Sad observation.. when Tesla reduced the prices dramatically, I could have bought a brand new car for the same price). Initial observations here. Read More…

Solar Energy nerdiness

We were keen to reduce our carbon footprint, and have installed a solar generation system with solar panels, an inverter and 12 kWh of battery storage. This system is backed up with a lot of data, and I may revert to nerd mode and talk about this system from time to time. For now, an observation. In the first 12 months of operation, we generate over six megawatts of electricity. Read More…

Bird photography: the beginning

A little bit of background about my interest in wildlife, especially bird photography. It is relevant to note that I have a presentation entitled "The unremitting misery of bird photography" Read More…

Dabbling in Stained Glass

One of my 'on and off ' hobbies is creating images as stained glass panels. I'll post from time to time about my failures and successes. Read More…