oneshot

They have just unveiled a blue plaque for Tommy Flowers. Tommy worked for the Post Office and during the war was responsible for building Colossus - the world's first computer, that was used to crack the German codes. He built it mainly out of old telephone exchange parts. Due to the secrecy around Bletchley Park and what went on there, he was never formally acknowledged for his contribution. When eventually the information was declassified in 1977 he started to get the recognition he deserved. He died in 1998 but not before he was able to see a rebuilt Colossus switched on and running at Bletchley Park. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/tommy-flowers/

We have just changed from a gas (LPG) range cooker to an all electric. 5 Induction areas, grill 2 ovens and a slow cooker oven. 32A supply needed which my sparky put in for me. It's great and far better than the gas one (made by the same company incidently).

We have had 5Kg of damsons from our damson tree. Also have a vine in the conservatory.

Have a tracker in the Esprit - fitted by Tracker themselves (well an authorised fitter) at home. Doesn't cost me anything annually as I took out the lifetime subscription which is a one off payment with no yearly charges. Will activate if the car is moved - detects if the car is lifted to be put on a trailer. Once went off when it was in for service - the mechanic pushed the car from one side of the garage to the other - I got a call from tracker to check if everything was OK.

So we live down a single track road. Currently they are working on the road to repair the potholes so access is restricted. Both ends of the road have signs up. One end says that access to the cattery is maintained. The other end has a sign saying that to access the cattery to follow the diversion which takes you to the other end. Two customers yesterday got lost. Both young. One was in tears. They were saying they followed the diversion and it took them back to where they started. What they were actually doing was initially following the diversion and then following their satnav. We came to the conclusion that the yound people of today simply follow the technology in the car and don't read road signs or in fact the road ahead.

Why is there a child crouching on the table??

Apparently it wasn't actually listed but there were ongoing discussions about getting it listed. The suspicion is that this happened before it got listed.

Don't know if anyone has seen this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-66459842 I have been there many times - it was a truly unique pub. It is all very suspicious and there is currently a police investigation as to what has gone on.

@C8RKH you are probably right about the savings but the cattery paid so less for the tax man to take and it also is a selling point to potential customers who often say that the cats have it better than people being in air conditioned facilities.

If you ignore the swimming pool as that is a luxury - the cattery ones which are air to air I believe have made a saving. We are on LPG with a 2000L tank. Given that we have to have heating/cooling on 24 hours a day (it is a licence condition that the temperature in the cattery has to be maintained between 2 limits) we are not using anywhere near the amount of gas that we did. The air system also circulates the air so the condensers aren't always running. It recycles the warm air in the units and tops it up (or cools it down) as necessary. Very rarely are the condensers running at full tilt. The only time I noticed was when we had the very hot spell last summer and then they were going at full chat to cool the air.

We currently have 4 heat pumps. However 3 are air to air heat pumps. One is air to water which is used to heat the swimming pool to a nice 31.5 degrees. The other three are combined heating and cooling. We replaced the gas heating in the cattery with these air to air systems. In winter they heat and in summer they cool. When they were commissioned they take the temperature at the air outlet into the buildings. On heating it was 65 degrees and on cooling it was -4 degrees.

So the BBC can't even agree with themselves. This article says it will get cooler: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66289494 and this one says heatwaves will be the norm. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66304220

First world problem..... The circulation pump on the swimming pool has packed up So a new one is required and until fitted means the pool is out of action.

There are new build houses now being built with 3 phase by default. One for the house, one for EV charging and one for house heating (heat pumps). This then allows the Govt to charge a different tax rate on each phase.

Now we're cooking 😎