Sunday 9 January 2011

Happy New Year to you! Let’s make it’s a good one. The overall outlook for the global economy and environment still looks challenging but I’m sure I have detected a certain degree of common sense beginning to creep in to things as a whole. I’m sure we will muddle through somehow and even if we are not richer financially at the end of the year we can still be better off in other ways. Perhaps the start of a new year gives us a helpful nudge to look at many things with a fresh eye.

We had a great Christmas, all the usual simple stuff, relatives and friends, eating a bit too much and a nice change of focus away from the usual goings on. For a change this year we hosted the big Christmas day lunch and in honour of the festive season and the advancing years of the visitors we did turn on the central heating to get the conservatory/dining area warm enough to eat in. Things got off to a shaky start after finishing work on the Friday, I turned on the heating for the first time this winter hoping to build up the heat in the tile floor in plenty of time, at the same time I attempted to complete the replacement of a PIR light sensor on the front step. Things didn’t go quite according to plan. As I fiddled about with the sensor trying to get it to go I could see the house lights dimming and automatically assumed I had messed something up. Naturally everyone else assumed the same so the pressure was on. I quickly realised that it was unlikely to be me as my circuit was disconnected and I noticed that the central heating pump had stopped so that was my next worry. I turned off all the circuits in turn but then every time something was switched on the lights dimmed dramatically. Anyway to cut a long story short we contacted our electrician who came out to us at 9.30 in the evening and identified it as an external supply problem despite the neighbours being ok. He reported it to the supply company who arrived at just past midnight to take a look. We were disconnected at this point for safety and the line repair team came early the next morning to find and fix the damaged cable (worn through neutral wire). It’s only in odd situations like this that you notice and appreciate the backup services that are in place to keep our lives moving along and how dependant we are on things like a consistent energy supply. Lights, central heating, hot water, fridge and cooker and our phone system were all out of action and over Christmas that could have been a bit tricky. Once the floor heating was back on it heated up nicely although we did overcook everyone on the day as when I turned on the radiators on Christmas morning the only two we needed on were in the conservatory and the only two we had to have off were in the sitting room where the log burner is. Naturally the conservatory ones were stuck off and the others stuck on. I managed to get the conservatory ones to go but the other two wouldn’t go off, consequently we spent the whole day in the conservatory and even after several hours of the heating being off we still struggled to get in the sitting room, it is so well insulated! Naturally I was far to mean to open the windows, what a waste that would be.

We lashed out on the 28th with a second light lunch for 34 after our annual hockey thrash around and the heating came on again but this time worked perfectly!

Hope yours was fun too.

Back to earth with a bump this week, stormy weather blew off three of our tunnel sheets and there were a few old trees taken out. However we do have some new lovely POS boards here which can fit in our wooden display box effectively making a simple picture frame. More on these next week. I will take some pictures so those on email can see the great look.

Eco News

December turned out to be a record month for us on the wind turbines. It is usually one of the windiest months but it was over 20% up on estimate, which helped make up Novembers shortfall. The sensor issue on one turbine which hopefully is now solved has reduced overall output but we are still only about 5% below estimated kWh generation. Had the fault not occurred the we would have been about 2% up, but stoppages do happen from time to time so it is handy having three turbines rather than one, so something is generating even if not at full capacity. In December 74.3% of the electricity used on site was generated ourselves and we are continuing to export plenty of excess power to the grid.

The initial turbine service and tidy up was done this week so we can now finish off the odds and ends around each site and perhaps get some visitors in to see them in operation.

Fax availability – Why not change to email, get more info and save paper.

Over the winter I have stopped the automatic faxing of the actual availability list to those who still receive this service via their fax machine, to save wasting your paper. If you need a fax list please let us know, pick it up from the website or alternately send an email address or two as an alternative. The newssheet will continue, just to make sure you don’t forget us and to keep you up to date on the latest ramblings on things hairy.

Happy New Year, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

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