A Simple Life of Luxury | Weblog

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Winter Projects and Post-Christmas Blues

No camping for me last weekend, but I did manage to catch a nice little surf session in the sea. Post-Christmas Blues That time of year is upon us again—the days after Christmas when everything seems to slow down. The weather’s not great, and while the days are technically getting longer, you barely notice it....

Extreme Camp 1

Amber Warnings and Whiteout Nights: A Wild-Camp in the Dyfi Hills

I’d been meaning to get out for a wild camp for a while but hadn’t had the chance. So, when the forecast came in with amber warnings for snow and ice, it seemed like the perfect opportunity! Perfect, that is, with the relevant safety plans, backup strategies, equipment, and skills in place. I decided against...

Rigged and Ready - but not enough wind 0

Back on the Water

Various factors had conspired to keep me off the water lately. A lack of wind—or, on occasion, too much wind—weekends away, and work were the usual culprits. Adding to the delay, the construction of a new shed, which is now almost finished, had left my windsurfing kit inaccessible for over a month. One Last Hoorah...

The village at night 1

Christmas at Portmeirion

With Morgan in Canada last year, Christmas at home for Anna and me was something of a non-event. We still had presents around the tree, Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, and even stockings. There was the usual snooze in the afternoon and some corny Christmas films. But with just the two of us, it...

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Two Screens, One MacBook Pro, and a Minimalist Office Dream

New Office The technology giants’ marketing has worked again. Having bought the last of the Intel generation of Apple Macintosh computers—a specced-out Intel i9 iMac about five years ago—I’ve been feeling a little left behind. At the time, Apple was about to transition to their own Apple Silicon ‘M series’ of chips. Rather than take...

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The Geeky Charm of Custom Keyboards: A Beginner’s Journey

Let’s talk about a rabbit hole I’ve just tumbled down: custom keyboards. If you’ve never explored this world before, prepare yourself—it’s part art gallery, part engineering lab, and 100% Geek!! As a designer and developer who spends an ungodly number of hours at a keyboard, I never thought much about the device itself beyond, “Does it...

Alan, Anna and Morgan Lego Bauble 1

Christmas Decorations

With the family visit to Bristol complete and a day off on Monday for Anna and I, we were able to get the Christmas decorations up. It’s all change this year with new lights, a new pergola to decorate, various things going in the bin and a new location for the tree. Let’s hope it...

Iconic Bristol 2

Christmas Gatherings – Victorian Style

It’s that ‘most wonderful’ time of the year again. I’m sure it comes around quicker each all the time! Anna and I have a slightly, no, scrap that ‘very’ different Christmas planned this year. I’ll let you in on what it is once we’ve done it, but the run-up to Christmas is going to be...

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Almost Time for Christmas

Now that December is here, it’s almost time to put up the Christmas decorations. Although a few things have felt a little Christmassy already. First, we added some lighting to our new pergola. We put these up in the middle of November so I was a little worried that people might have thought that we’d...