Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
Well, our decision to install solar panels, battery storage, and an EV has just taken a very welcome turn for the better. Overnight electricity prices have effectively been slashed in half — dropping from 7p per kWh to just 3.49p per kWh. Because we charge the batteries overnight, we can now shift almost all of...
Windsurf sessions have been few and far between lately, but with Alastair visiting on holiday with his family, a weekend sail had been on the cards for a while. Fortunately, the wind gods were on our side, delivering a solid north-westerly forecast for Saturday. I rallied the troops and we gathered on the beach —...
We had a busy weekend last week, with a trip to the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield and a night nestled in the Shropshire Hills, courtesy of my uncle Paul and Anne-Helen. A Visit to the National Memorial Arboretum Anna had been invited to play the Last Post at the unveiling of a new memorial...
A Stop-Start Winter for Thursday Night Rides Our Thursday night MTB rides have been a bit hit and miss so far this year. The dark nights, cold temperatures, and particularly the wet, windy conditions have kept enthusiasm low. One week it was just Lorraine and me; the following week I turned up and no one...
Gogerddan, where I work, was officially the hottest place in the UK yesterday, reaching a maximum temperature of 20.9ºC. Not bad for March! It really was a lovely day. Even at home, where temperatures are cooled a little by the sea, we managed to hit 20.4ºC on the Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station in our...
It’s been a while, but with time in the bank, the sun shining, and a decent breeze, it was time to get the toys out! I was a little rusty, and as always in winter the waves were quite a bit bigger than they looked from the beach. There wasn’t quite enough for the 5.0...
I very nearly went to Scotland at the weekend to backpack and wild camp along the Affric Kintail Way. But then I realised that it would be dark by 6 pm in Scotland, and sitting in a tent on my own in the dark from 6 pm onwards could be a bit of a drag....
The mild weather and lengthening days mean that the grass has started to grow already. The daffodils are out earlier than usual, and on the odd occasion that the sun comes out, things are looking decidedly Spring like. The bees are flying, the rhubarb is ready for harvesting and buds are breaking on the trees....
Back in November 2021, I wrote a post about how I built my own Solax WordPress plugin to display data from our inverter in real-time. It worked extremely well for years, and for our setup at the time it gave an accurate picture of our solar production. However, towards the end of 2025 we added an additional battery...
Exciting News! We’ve changed broadband provider. Yes, I know, yawn, yawn, that’s not news, it’s just common sense to change now and then to save some money, but it does come with a few new ‘upgrades’. We were fortunate back in 2016, despite living in the middle of nowhere, we were one of the first...
Fitness / Technology / Triathlon
Fixing the Altimeter on my Garmin Forerunner 910XT
Monday, March 17th, 2014
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Surf Ski, Kayaking and Canoeing
Bringing Two Surf Skis Back from the Dead (Maybe)
Tuesday, June 16th, 2026
