People leave cool things on the kerbside in London (by alaric)

Like this rather large power supply, spotted on Tottenham Court Road:

I'm glad I didn't have the van, or I'd have felt compelled to take it home and try to fix it!

This Weeks Disastors (by sarah)

Wednesday - the Rainbow man came and drilled wholes in our floor and concluded that we are still quiet wet.

Thursday - stomache v.v.v. bad wondering if boiling the spring water is actually killing the e-coli that resides within.

Friday - Barbara tripped over the leads of one of the fans that are drying her house out and hits her head and shoulder queit badly.

The weekend was fine as Alaric was about and so dispersed mine and my dads bad luck fields. Except for Sunday when we discovered that there may have been a double booking of the hall cuasing an issue with Cubs and Scouts.

Monday - broke Moo Cow glass that my friend Helen got me for my birthday yonks ago. Chipped one of the mugs that belongs to the nice set we got as a wedding pressant whilst unloading it at the Big Yellow.

Tuesday - Discovered that the Doctors have lost my blood tests so I have to have it all done again including starving. Discover that Jean has head lice and whilst out getting nit stuff the van breaks down and I discover that my RAC card is not where I thought it was. I trip over the rolled up carpet in the mill and jar my pelvis so that it is once again going clickity click. Confirmed issue with the Hall for cubs and Scouts - start trying to contact everybody.

Wednesday - Jean wakes me up with cries of 'Mummy, oh dear poo! Mummy oh dear water wet, Mummy oh dear cot floor icky yuck.' She had had a server containment breach of the nappy kindwhich resulted in bath, and all bedding washed including, 'MY TEDDY! Bear, bear no!' Teddy and bear and hopsital bear and kitten and Mrs Seal all had to go into the washing machine somehting that Jean was most indignant about with tears an' all.

Backup Power (by alaric)

As I have mentioned before, we have a petrol genset that we use to keep things going during our frequent power cuts. Immediately after the flood, too, when we had to shut down the house power since one of the outlets was submerged, I ran the computers off of the genset.

However, it is a pain to have to run the nice cable I made around the house, reach behind a filing cabinet to unplug the UPS that feeds the computers from the wall and plug it into the generator cable, unplug the fridge freezer, stretch cables about, etc...

So the logical next step would be to fit a second consumer unit, move the 5A lighting circuit over to it, and run a 15A circuit to a few strategically placed sockets around the house - where fridges and freezers are likely to ever be, and of course, up in the office where the computers live, and where the incoming phone lines are (where the ADSL router goes).

This consumer unit can run from a single 30A fuse in the main consumer unit (the slot currently taken by the lighting circuit will do nicely), but via a pair of 32A IEC 60309 connectors. The circuit from the main consumer unit would come out via a female socket, and the feed into the new consumer unit via a male socket.

Then the two can be connected by a short length of 32A cable with appropriate plugs on each end. And when the power goes down, I can turn the emergency circuit off with the master switch on the secondary consumer unit (because it's bad to use a plug and socket as a switch, interrupting a flowing current and arcing in the process), unplug from the useless incoming circuit, and plug into the genset's output... The genset can only produce about 10A; in practice, that's more than enough to run everything, and it has a 16A outlet on the front, but I'd feel compelled to see if I could find a 10A circuit breaker nonetheless, since with proper sockets stationed about the house, it might be easy to accidentally overload it. But I'm designing the system around a standard 15A socket circuit and a 5A lighting circuit, so that in future, I can get a bigger genset and power more stuff without needing to rewire it all.

What I wonder, though, is if this arrangement would actually be legal under the stringent UK wiring laws. As far as I know there's nothing wrong with having a 32A socket coming from a 30A fuse (after all, a standard 15A circuit feeds many 13A outlets); the question is, is it OK to have a lighting circuit and a set of outlets coming from a consumer unit fed from a 32A inlet socket?

I hope so, since it'd really make switching over to backup power easier than it currently is. And since anything I connect between those two sockets isn't a fixed part of the house wiring it would, I presume, not be governed by regulations, so fiddling with alternate power sources (such as turbines and battery arrays) would be a lot easier.

Lumps in wrist (by sarah)

I have not been my normal bloggy self mainly due to the fact that my hands started to hurt and act strangly during our last week in London. My right hand became so painful that doing anything for about three days was intolerable - no writing, no drawing, no guitar - something I had longed to do all the time I was in London.

Then I found a white squishy lump in my right wrist - assuming I had RSI I booked an apointment at the drs - to my releif he says that its probably nothing and I have just strained the hand and probably only noticed the lump becuase everythings stressful at the moment. Its probably just a fatty deposit which is of no concequence at all but just to be on the safe side I am going to have bloods done to check for early arthritis, thyroid problems and a host of other things that could cause general 'inflamation' symptoms like this - my pelvis and back are also acting up so he thought it all needed to be check out to be on the safe side.

I am being careful not to strain things furthure so writing is currently at a minimium.

The Strange Ecology of the Cats’ Water Bowls (by sarah)

At the weekend I was cat sitting and I went to empty the cats' bowl in the Mill to discover that it had what I had frist thought were drowned ants in it. Instead they were rather disturbing little tagpole type creatures swimming about in it - they were about 2.5 mm long with forked tails and littke spikey hair type structures coming off of them - there was a ring of slightly bigger orange spikes between the head and the tail compared with the dark grey of the rest of them this stood out quiet alot!

What where they? Are they in the Mills water supply? Had the water not been changed often enough and they were insect lavea that had been laid in there? If so what type of insect? They were quiet disturbing really.

I then went over to the Bakery only to discover that our cats' water had its own (but different) little ecology going on! It appeared to have little grey 'shrimps' living in it - the biggest being about 6 mm and hence very visable. their tails had three long hair type structures coming out of them - they really really looked like shrimps - but where on earth did they come from? Are their shrimps in our water supply or have they come from somewhere else? It is a mystery!

Anyone got any idea?