So, our PERC holes had to be dug on a day when we weren’t available to be there. That’s because we were running to meet the ‘if we want to build this autumn’ deadline - which we found out a few days ago is actually unachievable.

It turns out that even had we got all of our ducks in a row (which they are pretty much) then we couldn’t have hit it ( Read more... )

Identity is a funny thing. Before we moved I didn’t really consider the impact that not living in Britain would have on my own identity. I mean, I considered myself British - my friends often remarked that I was one of the most English people they’d ever met: driving a Morris Minor, listening to radio 4, drinking copious quantities of tea.

But I ( Read more... )

So I’m still working on some kind of bread recipe that’s a bit like decent British bread, until I feel like doing something more sourdoughy.

After various experiments I’ve had the most success playing with this recipe.

1 cup warm water (tepid)
2 tablespoons sugar (trying a variety of things - thinking I might try molasses next)
2.5 teaspoons active ( Read more... )

So, this morning - after many discussions with my beloved - I called our realtor and said yes, we’d like that land.

We’re spending an enormous chunk of our cash on it.

We can only actually build on it if we get the loan which we’re only income approved on. So this is quite scary at this point…

We may be about to be come long-term campers, but ( Read more... )

But I still deeply want to get a copy of the white label Punk-a-wallah’s remix of Desi on the Streets of Calcutta. I heard it once on Radio 1 - then ran home and downloaded the show and saved that segment, thinking (foolishly) I’d just buy a copy of it on vinyl. Then I discovered it’s a whitelabel remix. Then I found out how hard it is to get hold ( Read more... )

I applied for this job a little while back. I didn’t really think I had much of a shot at it, and I had been on nights so it wasn’t my best application ever. I ended up hurled the application together, and submitted it when I was barely happy with it because I really wanted a shot at it - but they were already interviewing and I didn’t dare leave ( Read more... )

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under ( Read more... )

So a few minutes ago I was looking at the ‘spreadsheet of optimistic numbers’ and was all “oh, yeah, we can *totally* afford to build the house. Easy”. When my wife helpfully pointed out that I’d neglected to include the actual cost of buying the land.

Oops.

Still, with a loan it should be do-able.

Now we just need someone to give us a loan.

( Read more... )

We spent some time talking to the strawbale architect consultant about building today, and the price for the timber frame alone is prohibitive, and startling given the costs we’d seen for kit-built-post-and-beam houses.

Some of the cost assumptions we can tweak, because we’re happy to do things like using used components as long as they meet ( Read more... )

So the Rav4 EV uses an obsolete charging standard. J1773 - or Magne Charge is a nifty contactless inductive charging standard, where you stick a paddle into a slot on the car and lo, charging doth occur. It’s actually nicer in use, I think, than J1772. Certainly, it’s less fiddly.

However, the charger is approximately the size of Spain. And weighs ( Read more... )