Progress this week

While I was enjoying myself in London going climbing Doug has been busy.
This is not fully fitted yet as the units need attaching to the wall and then the work surface needs to be secured and everything fillered, sealed and the walls tiled as well as the plumbing doing

We are going to stain the work surface to match the beam at the top of this picture. Normally we would prefer the pale wood but think the darker colour will work here. Worth an experiment anyway as this will just be the utility room eventually

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The solar hot water

We spent some time today trying to understand why the solar panels seem to heat the bottom of the tank then the top afterwards.

Our tank is an Akvaterm solar plus which has an additional coil to the Akvaterm solar tank. There is a controller shown on the diagram here as a sort of white cross near the solar panels on the red lines. This puts the fluid from the panels through the top coil when it is above a certain temperature, otherwise it just goes through the lower coil.

 

This is the controller. It has a fixed temperature at which is sends via one route than the other

This is the pipework for the solar input and the hot water output

This is all the instruction manuals for the heating

We have asked the installed what temperature the controller switches at, because as far as we can tell it almost always or possibly always loads in to just the bottom of the tank. It is not a problem as such, we are not losing energy it is just not the most efficient way as the tank needs to be hot at the top for the domestic hot water (shower etc). We bought the more expensive tank with the second coil to get this efficiency, so it is annoying if it never uses it for some reason.

Climbing

Aidan has been climbing for some time. I gave it a go a couple of times last week (less on then practice) as something that would perhaps be fun that didn't involve drinking and is fit making at the same time. I am not mad on heights - where it is my sense of balance that is keeping me up, I am fine when strapped in or something. But despite that I enjoyed it, maybe a bit because of that as it made it seem more of a challenge.

The picture is not me, though I did climb up here on the very easiest colour (which are white with green dots - you can't really make them out)

This is bouldering (without ropes and short climbs) whereas Aidan more often does rope climbing. I am going to give that a go too - it seems safer to me as there is a rope keeping you up if you fall, but then I suppose you are going higher.

It was pretty tiring on the forearms and fingers (and nerves) but not really a work out like going to the gym. More fun and sociable though - I am not at all keen on the gym.

A couple more scarfs

I knitted these a while ago but did not entirely note down the patterns used

This one I can't remember exactly what I did at the edge of each of the end bits. It has left a nice pattern of holes anyway. I must have used an increase/decrease that did that.  I suspect it was a ssk yo ssk on one side and k2tog yo k2tog on the other with an increase with a yo as well.

It is similar to this pattern anyway

This one again I cannot remember what I did at the edge. I think it is 2 stitches of moss stitch.
Start with 3 rows of knit (garter stitch)
Right side
k1 p1 k4 (C4B every 4th row) k1 p1 k1 k6 (C6B every 6th row) p1 k1 p1 k4 (C4B every 4th row) p1 k1
Wrong side
k1 p1 p4 p1 k1 p1 p6 k1 p1 k1 p4 p1 k1
Knit until it is long enough to go round your neck and finish with 3 rows of knit (garter stitch)

I didn't do button holes, the wool is quite chunky so the holes between stitches are large enough.
I probably used 6mm needles and wool suitable for that size of needle

Back to work - and DRY JANUARY

Unfortunately we both had to return to work on the 2nd of January. In some ways it was a relief to be able to stop drinking and eating way too much, and get back to a more normal schedule. But the downside was that I have to abandon Doug and Poppy for part of the week.
We both had a lovely break as hopefully you can see from other posts.
Here is where we were at New Year. I had to stop off there to pick up Poppy's bed on my way to the airport as we left it there in a hungover stupor on the 1st. If you need somewhere to stay they have lovely Gites and look at the pool (not for this time of year obvs...)

It would have been nice if there was more snow for skiing, but the sunny weather made the skiing we did do as well as horse riding, walking and just hanging out really lovely and warm. It can get a bit depressing in the winter when it is cold and muddy.
We have decided to do dry January (different sort of dry) again to help our livers a bit and to take off a bit of the Christmas weight. It seemed a really good idea on the 1st of Jan but will seem less good I imagine as the month goes on.
Doug is coming to London at the end of the month, so we are not actually going to do quite all of January as he misses British beer and we need to drink as much of it as possible that weekend.

Happy holiday me (though this was one day when it wasn't so sunny)

Byeeee Doug and Poppy. Boo hoo

Goat's cheese puffs

These are super easy to make and really yummy.
You need bought puff pastry (or home made, but who has the time for that??) and some of the goats cheese in the roll with a kind of skin on (it is like bree with a fuzzy skin but much smaller diameter)
Like this

Cut the pastry in to squares so that there is about 2cm round the cheese and slice the cheese and put it on the squares. The cheese needs to have a skin on as above, so that when it melts it doesn't run all over the place.

With a sharp knife cut round the cheese leaving a bit of a gap (0.5 cm approx or a bit more) round the cheese. Don't cut all the way through but cut as deep as you can - it is find if it goes all the way through in the odd place.

Cook as per instructions on the pastry. These were done for 15 mins about 200C. The pastry in the uk seems to be puffier and you get a more distinct rise of the edge with the cheese weighing down the middle more. I suspect this pastry is more synthetic and rises whatever you do to it, but not so much. Anyway either way is v nice. Serve with pickle or cranberry sauce or marmalade or whatever takes your fancy.

Happy New Year!!!

Yummy looking French cakes for New Year

Hope you all had as much fun as us...

We are a bit worse for wear today...