Considering that it's only ...

... the 5th of May today and there's about 6 or 7 weeks to the apex of the year, I am proud to announce that nevertheless I've set a new record today for solar energy. In the house, bank one received 173 amp-hours and bank two received 166 amp-hours. That's over 4 KwH of solar power and whichever way you look at it, that's impressive for just 780 watts of generating capacity.

And so you can tell the kind of day that we had. Beautiful blue skies and not a cloud anywhere. The kind of day that you would expect the solar water heater to give me enough heat to have a shower, a shave and a coffee as well. But it isn't to be because I've made some kind of error in my calculations. Looking for a place to install it in a hurry while I demolished the beichstuhl, I fastened upon a nice spot out of the way and in full sun, but shaded by the fence so that I can shower there in peace. But what I didn't take into my calculations is that while in the spring the sun has no problem heating the water, we are having issues with leaf shading from the trees and the water is struggling to heat up to a respectable temperature.

There is a way round this. The heat eschanger is really hot - 50°C is no big deal at all - and so I could run the water in the solar heater through the heat exchanger so that the water would heat up through there, and I even have a suitable pump to do it. But I can't get electricity down there to power the pump and Terry can't find the holesaw that he has for cutting through the stone walls so that I can run a cable through. I'll have to think of a plan B. Such as tipping some hot water out of the electric immersion heater into the solar tank.

Today was a paperwork day. I worked on the website first and then caught up with some paperwork that needed doing. I had a delivery from FEDEX and the contents of that required my attention too. I ended up having to go into Pionsat to the Post and to the Bank, and I've had to spend a shed-load of money today - errrr about €7,000 in fact. But it's all going to be worth it in the long run.

Back from the town, it wasn't worth starting in the barn and so I planted the tomato and aubergine plants that I bought 10 days ago, and thoroughly watered the garden. And despite having had 7mm of rain two days ago it was as dry as a bone and I used about 175 litres out of the dirty water butt that takes the rainfall off the barn roof. And if there had been more water there I would have used that too. It's hard to believe just how dry the soil is.

Anyway tomorrow I'll move the caravan body from the barn and burn it if I can, and then move the Cortina and the Escort. I'll be glad to have them in a secure place.