Thursday 10th December 09

Well yet another day of the plumbers trying to get the Solartwin panel and other connected equipment to work. The two plumbers had quite a bit of difficulty... including finding a small leak from the cylinder which they had to sort out, and then when it came to testing the system, 'commissioning' it, they needed a tank temperature of 60 Celsius... and the sunshine today got it up to just over 30. So, in the spring or early summer, they'll come back and set the valves to the right temperature, and it'll be commissioned (done... finished... ready to use). Finally, they decided to test the boiler... and guess what, a valve didn't work and so just cold water went through the boiler (which wouldn't fire up either!) and the warm water from the tank and panel didn't go through.

SO tomorrow morning, the (faulty?) valve is going to be taken off, sent back to Solartwin, and replaced or repaired or something. In the meantime, we have no instant hot water for smelly boys to shower in. Just hot water off the top of the stove.

Despite this, I had a fairly quiet day, spent some of it in the garden, some in the kitchen, some dealing with forthcoming Fiddlesticks bookings, and later on, cycled down to the station to buy my train tickets for tomorrow (early start... train leaves at 6.30am)

But I am looking forward to tomorrow, as I'm attending an event organised by the Community Composting Network called Growing for Well Being, which is about 'Community Supported Agriculture', a hot topic in sustainability and Transition circles right now, and links with health. There are a couple of visits to a market garden and an accessible garden too. Then on Saturday, there's the Community Composting Network Annual General Meeting... with the all important 'compost competition'. The categories are Leaf Mould, Soil Conditioner (that's garden compost to you and me!) Worm Compost, Mulch, and a new category for innovation... any other product which is environmentally friendly and socially beneficial. I've got to be careful to not take the competition too seriously or I risk disqualification. But I do want to win the 'innovation' category with my partly-composted-sawdust compost-toilet cover material. We'll see.

But due to my being away tomorrow, I don't expect to post a blog.