Alan Williams's Blog, page 50

Solar Allotment Shed

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Not A Solar Bird House

I had a kit for a solar powered shed light. The receipt was still in the box, and it was over 4 years old, so I wasn’t sure that it would work, but I thought it would be worth a try.

It was a fairly simple build, just required a couple of screws and no wiring; so I installed it on my allotment shed. The back of the shed faces south, and is also where my bird house is, so I installed the panel on top of the bird house, as it has a good angle to catch the sun, and I plac...

Quick Links 19th December 2016

Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

Life

I’m enjoying doing the Post A Day thing – I hope I can keep it up until the end of the year – haven’t yet decided whether to carry it on past the trial period.

Otherwise I’ve been spending a...

Newsletters

I’ve asked readers before about whether they’d read a newsletter if I produced one, although essentially Quick Links is becoming a weekly newsletter in the form of a blogpost anyway or seems to be evolving that way in my view. I’ve made no plans to change the current arrangement, although a week of blogging every day has taught me a few things and given me some ideas, but for now I thought I’d share some of the newsletters that I read and might interest you. Most require you to sign up, (the...

Star Wars

There’s a new Star Wars film out today.

The original films were a staple of my childhood, before video and DVD the only way to see them was in the cinema. My Dad took me to see all of them when they first came out. When the three prequel films came out, I took him to see them. When The Force Awakens came out he was too ill to make a trip to the cinema, so I bought him a copy on DVD. I don’t think he ever got a chance to watched it before he passed away though.
I’ve heard great things about th...

Christmas Red Cabbage

I love red cabbage at any time of the year, but it’s even better when you enhance it’s flavour. I found this recipe on YouTube, and I think I’ll be giving it ago for this Christmas.

My Books of 2016

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According to GoodReads, I’ve read 52 books this year, I might get another one or two in before the end of the year, and I’d argue that some are a bit short to really be books in their own right. There were a couple of audiobooks in there and Warren Ellis’s “Normal” was really a book in four parts, but they’ve been listed individually. It was though one of my favourites of the year as a whole.

The counter gets reset to zero on January first, and my TBR pile will probably be larger than ever b...

Santa Dive

A little game to play today: Santa Dive

Thanks to Giuseppe Sollazzo for the link, I recommend signing up to his weekly newsletter.

A Ban On Petrol And Diesel Cars

A short piece that I wrote for LinkedIn yesterday:

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On Friday (9th December 2016), The Independent published a story that Jeremy Corbyn is considering a ban on petrol and diesel car sales as a future policy of a Labour Government, amongst other things.
Could It Actually Happen

Now obviously this is a long way from being the policy of any government but let’s just say that in 2020 a new government comes into power and this is a keystone policy of their manifesto; a ban on all new fossil fuel c...

Quick Links 12th December 2016

Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

Life

This past weeks been taken up with catching up on preparations for Christmas. Up until this week I’ve not done anything much in that respect. So putting up lights, writing cards, buying pres...

A Post A Day

I was going to start this next weekend, but I feel like starting now, so here goes…

I’m going to try and post something here everyday between now and the end of the year. After that I’ll see what happens. It might be something simple, like a photo I’ve taken that day or perhaps an old one; or it might be something else.

So to kick off, here’s a photo from nearly a year ago, in a garden centre car park, in Warwickshire – I was waiting in the car with the dogs, listening to a radio programme o...