Solar panel aside

The solar panel kit that I bought has two solar panels and is intended for use with two 12V batteries.   The system can be used in parallel at 12V or in series at 24V.   The little instruction booklet explains how to connect batteries in parallel or in series.   The diagram of the parallel one is fine, but I wouldn't follow their advice on the series connection, if I were you.

In fact, if you connect them like in the second picture, the batteries will not just be not included, they might well not be in one piece after a short while.   And watch out for boiling acid.

A Little Solar Project

As we all know, solar panels are wonderful things, despite the fact that we have to wait about 10 years before they have given back all the energy used in making them.   Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

But I need some electricity down by my veg patch, mostly to power a watering pump, but I can use it for other things as well.   Getting a full power mains cable there would be a nightmare, so I decided to try a little solar project.   For less than €350 I got the bits for this installation that gives me just over one kWh of battery storage, plus whatever the sun is providing at the time.   I could probably just use bigger batteries for more power if I needed it.

I'm keeping the wires long since we might be selling up and I don't know where I will be installing this sytem in future.

Robinia Pseudoacacia

It must be 8 - 10 years ago I planted these trees, they were suckers from a tree at the entrance to our place, and about 3 feet high..   They have gone from "someone's planted some trees there" to "there's trees there".   This is the first year they have flowered prolifically.  Cool.

A tractor

My friend and neighbour Bryan has got himself a new* tractor.   Not brand new, in fact it could be described as ancient.   He swapped it for an old miltary-style digger that he had. 

This tractor looks like it's bomb-proof.  A noisy, single-cylinder diesel, not especially powerful but perfectly adequate for its intended use.  All the controls are cable-operated; there's no electronics anywere.   It could probably survive an EMP attack.  Here it is pulling a trailer with my rotovator on it that Bry is borrowing.

*(In french, there is no confusion in the meaning of new.  Neuf/neuve means brand new, nouveau/nouvelle means new to me.)

Climbing roses (Ena Harkness)

I told myself I'd not bother to put climbing roses against any new house we might move into.   They are a pain to maintain and they scratch.  But then.....

Exbury Gardens

It must be 35 years ago or so that we visited Exbury Gardens near Beaulieu in Hampshire.   I have only a vague memory of a pleasant garden of Rhododendrons and Azaleas, and that we had just missed the ideal  time for a  visit.   35 years makes a huge difference to a garden and they are now magnificent.

Since we have been running the gîte in France, the generous sprinkling of long weekend public holidays around now has meant that we have not been able to get away at this time of year.   This year, what with the huge increase in energy costs, rising inflation, job insecurity and higher taxes, people have a bit less money to spend on an indulgent break in our gîte, so we were free to visit.   So we organised a weekend with my sister.

It really is a fantastic garden, and I think we caught it at the perfect time of year.   It is well-signposted, with clear maps dotted around the grounds showing where you are, and where everything else is.

There is even a little steam railway that you can take to visit the more remote parts of the garden.

We closed the day off with a chinese dinner with sister and her hubby at an excellent restaurant not far from our hotel.   After which our best-laid plans went a bit agley.

I woke at 3AM on Sunday with a pain in my side that I recognised as a kidney stone.  Fortunately Anita had brought a good supply of paracetamol that dulled the pain, so with some difficulty we managed to do some shopping at the local Tesco where she got some hard-to-find-in-France groceries.   I spent the afternoon lying on my sister's couch, chaining paracetamol.  (500mg every three hours, but the pain relief only lasts 2h45, and kidney stones HURT.)   Ferry back to France overnight, collect the cat on the way home, dump the luggage, then off to the Polyclinique at Laval for urgent admission.   Yep, kidney stones.  I now have a stent to release backed-up urine, and an appointment in a month's time to get the stones out.   Such is life.  But take a look at this lake at Exbury: