Great night out

It's not every day you get to lick out a walnut whip.

The PTA organised a quiz night at the school.  I say PTA but I think that means Jenny and helpers.  I'm on the PTA but I didn't even make it onto the PTA team.  I think I'm an also ran.

My team was great.  I'm not entirely sure about the team selection process.  I think I just happened to be staying in the right place at the right time at the school pick up.

Anyway - booze was really cheap because it was a bottle from the wine rack.

Food was really cheap as it was just a bag of crisps and a bag of Japanese cracker things that were in the cupboard.

Company also shared my base sense of humour.  Either that or they were very polite and tolerant.

I drank, I laughed, we didn't win, but I didn't care.

Next time, same team, more fun, some cheating (can't believe they didn't want to cheat at all) and more winning.

Naughty Boy Pancakes

Ethan was mean to Hannah yesterday.  It was completely unacceptable behaviour and it required a tough punishment.

He had been waxing lyrical about how much he was looking forward to pancake day and that was his undoing.  His punishment was to have no pancakes on pancake day.

He cried.  I felt guilty.

This morning he woke up crying.  I felt guilty.

This afternoon when I picked him up from school he cried.  I felt guilty.

He told me that this was probably the worst day of his life.  I laughed silently and invisibly at the lengths to which he would go to try and get me to change my mind.  Outwardly I was considerate but firm and stuck with the punishment.  I also explained to Ethan that in a normal year there are about 362 days that are pancake free for him and perhaps he should re-evaluate the disastrous nature of the predicament in which he found himself.

Hannah had pancakes (about ten of them), Ethan and I had none.

I thought you might like a recipe for pancakes.  Let's call it Naughty Boy Pancakes although in reality it's merely Nigella's recipe repackaged.

Makes ten (ish) pancakes:

Ingredients

• 150g flour
• 1 egg
• 325ml milk
• 30g unsalted butter melted and cooled a little
• More unsalted butter for cooking

Method

• Take flour egg and milk and put into a tall jug (the sort that comes with those whizzy blender thingies).  Use whizzy blender thingy to mix batter then stir in melted butter.
• Melt some butter in a frying pan.
• When butter is sizzling a little then pour in enough batter which when swirled around the pan adequately covers the bottom of the pan.  I find that when poured the batter covers about two fifths of the pan before swirling.
• You need to cook until nicely browned on the underside.  This should be less than a minute.
• Flip the pancake with either panache and style using just the pan and a toss or, if you're like me, using a fish slice.
• Cook for same amount of time on this side and then serve.
• I find I end up being a pancake factory on Shrove Tuesday constantly serving hungry mouths but if you want to make this more of a sit down at the table affair then cook all you need and just ping in microwave to warm them up before serving.
• Serve with whatever you fancy.

Ethan's talking to me now and I think we're friends again.  He has a short memory.

 

 

Solar panel installation part cinq

It's over, or has it just begun?

The panels are installed, the bills have been paid and we're just waiting for the certificate, a copy of which needs to be sent off to our energy supplier.

This weekend was the first time we'd had the chance to see whether the panels were working properly.

They are.  We're happy.

Help required

On 25th March there is a half marathon in Brentwood that (literally) runs past our house.  It's an annual event and we can usually be found enjoying a coffee whilst cheering on the runners.

Last year though the half marathon happened soon after the terrible tsunami that hit Japan.  We decided we had an ideal opportunity to harness the money-making potential of other people who watch the marathon near our house.

With Hannah and Ethan as top salespeople we ran a homemade cake stall and raised about £175 which we sent off the the Red Cross Tsunami Appeal.

Given that it worked so well last year we thought we'd do it again this year.  This year though we thought we'd raise funds for Hopefield Animal Sanctuary, which I think is our closest charity.

The baking has started and so has the resultant freezer filling.  Clearly the freezer capacity I have dictates the amount of cake I can make ahead and make available for sale.  Unless of course I enlist your help.

Would any of you bake cakes that we could sell?  A cake or batch of muffins from every reader of this blog would be amazing.  A casual chat at a tweetup has already generated the offer of some cakes which got me thinking that other people might be willing to pitch in.

The experience from last year taught me that sale of hot drinks would be appreciated.  I can get my hands on an urn but I would love some extra hands to help sell, serve and drum up business.  Could you help?  Do you have access to another urn?  Do you have any access to free cold drinks that we can sell.  I plan to ask Sainsbury but do you know anywhere else that might be able to help?

I don't want this to be the Ann show.  Basically I have a location that is brilliant for taking advantage of an event that is already being organised.  I want to raise as much money as I can for a very worthy cause.  I don't care who you are, if you want to help me do that, you're very welcome.  Can you help?

 

Solar installation part quatre

There's an expression that starts "If you can't stand the heat…" but there were no kitchens involved in this installation so it doesn't really fit.

The best expression that might fit would be "The sun always shines on the righteous."  Allow me to elaborate.

CB Renewables sub-contract the fitting work and the first of these sub-contractors to turn up this morning were the roofers.  I was in the shower when they arrived and wasn't really looking my best.  Dave sorted access to materials in the garage and moved my car while I rushed to to make myself presentable, or at least put some clothes on and dry my hair.

I made tea for the roofers and the electricians who had also arrived.  It was just after eight in the morning and we needed to leave for Ethan's saxophone lesson.  I promised I'd be back at about nine.

When I returned I popped the kettle on again and warmed up some pre-baked banana and chocolate muffins that were in the freezer.

I figured we might need more muffins so I baked a batch of double chocolate muffins which came out of the oven just before the guys had reached this stage of the installation.

Everything seemed to be going well as I went outside to sort deliver round two of tea and muffins.

About an hour later and the kettle went on again and out went a tray with tea and double chocolate muffins.

I decided I needed more muffins and knocked out a batch of orange and date muffins which accompanied another round of teas another hour later.  The install still seemed to be going well and panels were going up on the roof.  There were some questions about the electricity earth arrangements that I couldn't fully answer but which were cleared up with a few tests.

I waited another hour before refuelling the install team with tea and orange and date muffins and thought I might need another muffin variety to entertain the troops.  I looked at the ingredients in the cupboard and found some cranberry sauce.  The next batch I churned out were therefore orange and cranberry and by this time the install looked like this:

The team and I were keen to test the output.  A worried spark came into the house saying there was a problem.  The system was generating 660V and the inverter was only able to take an input of 550V.  The only conclusion was that we'd need a different inverter.  The day had been so sunny, and so cold, that conditions were perfect for optimal power generation.  Solar panels like it sunny and cold.  The panels had exceeded our expectations to the extent that the inverter couldn't cope.  Whilst that means a delay to the completed install, it also means more power generated than we expected which is fantastic news.

The kettle went on for the final time and I served up the experimental orange and cranberry muffins with a hot mug of tea.

The sparks will be back to redo the inverter installation, so I'd better get baking because the sun always shines on the righteous.

 

Solar installation part trois

One of the things we had to do ahead of the installation was get the ivy removed from the roof.  It's a shame that the tree surgeon only took it off the roof and not the wall too.  Luckily the lovely Matt at Prince trees sorted that out today, or rather his super speedy team sorted it.

Four blokes turned up and, in the time it took me to make coffee and them to drink the coffee, they'd finished the job.

The other thing we needed to do was to send the Wattson off for upgrade, transmitter and Easifit kit.  We did that too and haven't had it returned yet, but if my luck goes well then it'll arrive back tomorrow.

The last thing was to clear the garage to make space for the solar panel delivery.

We have sifted and sorted and got rid of a ton of stuff to charity and Freecycle.  Today we had two deliveries even though I was only expecting one.

To the first van driver that arrived I said "Have you got some solar panels for me?"  He didn't, but he had the hardware and the inverter that would would be needed to fit the panels.  The panels arrived later via lorry.  It was a good job we had cleared a space in the garage because the panels were delivered on a pallet and they are huge.

So we're ready, and we're really excited (or I'm really excited).

Solar part deux

Steve came round today for the survey part of the process of Solar Panel installation.

We'd agreed I'd be flexible.  Steve was travelling from the other side of London and I was going to be at home most of the afternoon.  Our "meeting" was for sometime in the afternoon.  In conversations with the Carmichael Brown office we had a guess that it might be about 2:30 ish.

Steve finally made it round the inglorious M25 and to my door by about 4:40, just as I was thinking we needed to leave to get the kiddiwinks to their swimming lessons. I said hello to Steve, unlocked the garage and then abandoned him to the garage and the house.

You might think this is strange as I don't really know Steve, but I trust him because my friend Sindy wouldn't marry a bad'un.

Having dumped the children in the changing room I legged it back home to make Steve a coffee and answer questions.

I need room for a generation box and a meter.  I'm probably using the wrong terminology but I need something that shows what's being generated at any point in time and a meter that tells the Feed in Tariff pot holders what to pay me.

Steve said that it is possible to link the generation box to a Bluetooth system which allows generation to be shown in the house.  This is perhaps more of a consideration for us because our system will be based in our garage which isn't attached to our house.

The other exciting thing is that we might be able to link a system with our Wattson which will show how much electricity we are using or how much we are feeding into the grid.  Steve went away to explore that a little further.

It turns out the judges that were looking at the Government's Appeal regarding the Feed in Tariff reduction couldn't make a decision and so have given themselves some more time to make a decision.

So just over an hour later and Steve was done and on his way.  He'd measured the roof, looked at the electricity supply, realised we didn't have an earth in the garage (oops) and explained the Bluetooth Wattson solution choices.

I then dashed over to the swimming pool to collect two children who were exhausted and hungry, not unlike myself.

Horns of a dilemma

I am a lucky person but maybe that's because I "always look on the bright side of life."

Yesterday I spent most of the day in a Planning Appeal Hearing.  I was supporting the Council, and on the opposite side of the table were our neighbours.

We, "the residents", did a good job of making our case.  There were a lot of us in the room and we presented our points effectively.

I don't know whether the Planning Inspector will uphold the appeal or not.  He seemed to be a very fair and reasonable gentleman and I have complete faith in his abilities.  He had clearly done his homework, as we had, prior to the meeting and this was very reassuring.

You might think that I might resent my neighbours for putting us through the stresses and strains associated with the Planning and Appeal process, but I don't.

Ken and Jane are trying to improve their circumstances, and I don't know that many people that would say no to an opportunity to make a quick profit.  What they don't realise is that, regardless of how the Planning Inspector concludes this case, they have done me a favour.

How many of us know our neighbours?  We might say hello.  We might nod acknowledgment when we pass our neighbours in the street.  We might even pop round to collect a package left by a courier company in our absence.  But that isn't really knowing them.

Because of this planning application I have knocked on doors and met people.  I've had proper conversations with the people in my neighbourhood.  I've invited local people into my home for tea, coffee, wine, beer and cake (always cake).  I've got e-mail addresses and phone numbers.  I don't just say hello to these people anymore.  We stop and chat when we bump into one another.  And you know what - they're the best people.

I've had an amazing amount of support from this wonderful group of people and I like living here even more than before.  I have Ken and Jane to thank for this.

I hope the Appeal is refused, but Dave and I need to think about what to do if it is allowed.  Previously we had said we would move.  In fact we had planned a big extension to our house but have scaled back our plans to something far more modest.  Our current plan is to fix the house and mend the things that need mending, decorate the things that need decorating.

If the Appeal is allowed we will then have a house that is ready for sale (in a few years time after the build is completed because nobody wants to move in to a house that is next to an existing or potential building site).  If the Appeal is refused we will have a house that is mended and decorated and a pleasant place to live.

The dilemma is that if the Appeal is allowed and we plan to move, we will be moving away from lovely people.  Maybe that would be enough of a reason to stay put.

A little gem

Today I needed to get a document printed.  46 pages of A4 in colour.

I went to Hussey Knights which is a well-established company in Shenfield.  They told me they were busy and I'd have to wait an hour and a half and then quoted £58.  I fell over and had to be resuscitated. Not quite, but that's expensive.  I walked out without any prints.

I remembered someone recommending Brentwood Community Print in Warley so I hopped in the car.  They could do the job while I waited and would charge £13.80.  I asked for two copies.

Brentwood Community print is a fantastic organisation that helps people who are recovering from mental illness to integrate back into the community.  They are helpful, friendly and cheap.  I can't recommend them enough.

We're taking the plunge

I've wanted to install a Solar PV (photovoltaic) system for a while and I mean years.

Things that have held me back include: husband's reluctance, not knowing which company would be a good company, not understanding how it all works and generally being busy and not having time to find out more.

The thing that changed all of this was a conversation with a friend and the discovery that her husband and son are in the Solar PV business.  I've known this friend for a long time and, whilst she's as mad as a badger, she's also someone I admire immensely.  She has endless energy and the biggest heart which feeds her generous spirit.  Any husband and son of hers would be excellent people to do business with.  They would be trustworthy, reliable and do a good quality job.  They wouldn't be able to help themselves; it would be genetic.

Sindy's son Seb came round one day to explain the systems to us.  He was knowledgable, affable and patient.  He sat with a foot in plaster talking to me while I was wearing a Santa hat and he didn't bat an eyelid.  He went away with the task of preparing a quote and we stayed at home convinced it made sense.

I could try and explain the feed-in-tariff, the energy bill savings and the export tariff to you but you should really talk to Seb.  I will tell you that in April the feed-in-tariff is likely to reduce and acting sooner rather than later is a good idea.  There will be a decision this Friday that could restore feed-in-tariffs back to their pre-December values for the short period between now and December so if you are interested you should move now.

My lethargy seems to have paid off.  Solar PV is much cheaper to install now than it was a few years ago and if we're lucky we'll get the high feed in tariff too.

Seb came back today with a quote and a pen and I signed on the dotted line.  We're getting 10 x 327W Sunpower PV solar panels fitted to our garage roof.  Apparently these have an estimated peak rating of 3.27kwh/peak.

I actually quite excited.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Company contact details if you're interested too:

www.cb-renewables.co.uk

@cbrenewables

Facebook.com/cbrenewables

 

Santa has a plan

Hannah is a very considerate and thoughtful child.  She's always been quite impressed by Father Christmas' abilities and she's spent some considerable time contemplating how it is he does what he does so well.

I know every family has a slightly different Santa experience.  This experience is often a combination of inherited traditions which are combined or which morph into something new.

In our house Father Christmas is treated to a mince pie and a tipple.  The tipple varies but I'm pretty sure he's had beer, sherry, port and wine at different times.  Rudolph always gets carrot which this year was chopped up at  upon request (apparently the other reindeer were losing out to greedy Rudolph.)

Stockings hang from the mantlepiece and are filled sometime between bedtime and wake time.

Santa also provides one present per child, generally one that has been requested via letter. This request has to be reasonable because Santa doesn't look upon greediness favourably.  This one present is generally left near the hearth.

Other presents from friends and family are collected under the tree (if our house) or another corner of the sitting room (if we're at Grandma and Grandpa's house).

Hannah has been considering the stocking bit and she has a theory.

She thinks that Santa buys maybe 100 different stocking presents and these will not all be suitable for all children.  Some will be better for older girls and some will be better for younger boys but there will be some that are universally appropriate.

What then happens is some sorting so that each child has a number of age appropriate stocking presents allocated for delivery.

The rest is history, or something.

 

The case of the missing apps

I had an iPad crisis.  Something, or someone, was eating apps.

BBC News disappeared, then BBC iPlayer, and Plants versus Zombies.  Then it got worse.  Instagram went, and the Camera disappeared.  YouTube evaporated and all apps that I still had that needed the camera refused to work.

In all I had about 30 apps that were there, but weren't.  They showed as installed which meant I couldn't blame Ethan for their accidental deletion.  This also meant I couldn't reinstall because the MacBook and the iPad both thought they were on the iPad.

I tried a restore from backup and I was left app-less.  I tried turning it off and turning it on again (the IT Helpdesk Special) and I tried a hard reboot (an action of last resort.)  Nothing.

I asked my trusty Social Media sites for help.  There was a glimmer of hope when Hugo sent me a link to something that was a bit like jail-breaking but not quite jail-breaking.  This sounded like a rather drastic course of action so I resolved to make a Genius bar appointment.

Navigating the Apple site I found an option to schedule a call.  This meant someone would call and advise me at a pre-arranged time.  That sounded easier than negotiating Christmas shopping crowds at Lakeside so I booked a call.

Lo and behold, the next day, at 1:00pm, I had a call from a lovely lady who helped me through a simple reset procedure.

I asked if she'd seen the disappearing app problem before and she hadn't.  She did reassure me though it was probably a software glitch and nothing I'd done.

Within about five minutes, I had all of my apps back.  They'd been there all the time but had somehow been hidden.  A reset set them free.

The service was brilliant and cost nothing.  My iPad is back to normal, all apps back where they belong.  I'm now even more super-impressed by Apple service.

Mary and I should go shopping

Mary Portas published a report today on the British High Street.

She has 28 recommendations.  Good for her, but good for the High Street?

Her report was reported as being produced in response to an environment in which apparently we don't want to shop on our High Streets.  Apparently we all want to buy everything online or in out of town retail parks or shopping centres.  Really?

I like seeing things before I buy them.  I would much rather buy in a shop rather than buy online.  So why do i buy online?  Well I can do it from the comfort of my home whilst drinking a cup of tea and the goods get delivered to my front door.  That must be the reason.

Well that might explain part of it.  Price might play a part, but I rarely compare online with High Street prices.

So what's the real reason?

Frankly it's because I'd need to travel to an out of town retail park or shopping centre to be able to buy the things I buy online.  My High Street doesn't offer me the variety I need.  I loathe shopping centres and retail parks.  I don't like driving to shops because I hate traffic and the M25.  I never know if I'll get stuck in traffic and that's not good if I know I need to get home in time for the school run.

I even buy groceries online because I have to use the car for a weekly shop and that means driving a distance or fighting for space with the other residents of Brentwood in the local Sainsbury car park.  The exception is the local farm shop which usually gets two visits from me a week.

There are horrible things about buying online.  Buying the wrong thing has happened to me and to friends.  It's easy to make a mistake.  In the space of a week I had the same jazz saxophone music book turn up to the house twice.  I bought from an independent music store online but forgot I'd also left a copy in an Amazon basket.

I loathe, with almost every fibre of my being, the courier companies that try to deliver, try again and then require me to visit their grubby industrial estate to collect my goods.  Had I been in when they tried to deliver they would have handed over the goods requiring just a signature, but because I'm collecting from them I need to take a passport, driving licence and utility bill and then sign for the goods.  This causes problems when one orders goods in one name, like Ann Cardus, but all of one's ID is in the name of Carolyn Cardus or Carolyn A Cardus.  The arguments I've had could fill a book.

I would do all of my non grocery shopping on the High Street if only the choice of goods was on my High Street.  I like the coffee shops; I like being able to nip to the Post Office, bank or library whilst doing some shopping. But there's no point, unless the right shops are there.

Brentwood is trying and the collection of businesses in Crown Street is really trying to improve the sense of vibrancy that a High Street needs.

Mary's right.  Car parking should be free.  Out of town store development should be stopped.  A High Street needs to be an interesting destination where consumers feel happy spending time and, more importantly, money.

 

I think I've started something

Yesterday was a bit of a different day for me at work.  I'd invited Anthony Nolan to work to try and recruit people for the Anthony Nolan register.

I'd seen a blog by Alice Pyne earlier in the year (http://alicepyne.blogspot.com/) in which she described her bucket list.  The thing that has always been at the top of Alice's list is "To have everyone eligible join a bone marrow register."

Alice's courage in the face of her cancer at the age of 15 was inspiring, and moving.  Her first thought is trying to get people onto a bone marrow register benfitting others with cancer.

I looked at how many people worked with me in the same building.  There must have been a few thousand.  It must be possible to get some of them to sign up to a bone marrow register.

I got in touch with Anthony Nolan and we set a date.

Yesterday I discovered how difficult it is to find new people for the bone marrow register.

In advance I had done some pre-event activity by walking some corridors and telling people about the event.  There was an e-mail that arrived in everyone's inbox I figured that some people might need additional motivation so I baked brownies for the first 50 sign ups.  Anthony Nolan said that 50 was their target for the day.  I thought that was easy.

The charity support team arrived in two parts, one in time for a ten o'clock start and the other an hour later.  There was a limiting factor of time as the Anthony Nolan crew could only be with us for just four and a half hours.  But I still thought we could hit the target of 50.

Then the day started.  I went corridor wandering again to drum up support, looking for 18-40 year olds who didn't have one of the many health issues that would exclude them.  It was then that I realised we have a dearth of "young" people at work.

I spent the whole of the four and a half ours on four inch heels, walking and standing, and talking to people about Anthony Nolan and why they should sign up.

There are the willing volunteers, the willing but scared, the scared and unwilling, the plain uninterested and the weird group that fake interest, say they'll come back and never do, or they fake a medical condition that excludes them.  For the record, fainting a bit a while ago is not epilepsy.

By the end of the session I was in severe pain having bruised my soles by spending too much time vertical in silly heels.  I had also shifted a fair few brownies.  And the really good news is that we hit our target of 50 sign ups.

It would have felt like failure if we hadn't hit 50, but because we did hit 50 I can call it a big fat success.  The next challenge is to try to achieve the same, or even better results, at Dunton and Dagenham.  And I wonder whether any of our agency partners (where there are loads of young people) might also be interested.