Portable Power Station II

The portable power station has been delivered, even though it said it wasn't going to be delivered till middle of October.

But since I had not got time to look at it in the day time, so I only unboxed it, played the app and registered the warranty, cannot wait till we start playing with it.

Slow Train is Slow

I was coming home from Sheffield, and I thought I would hop on the first train to Leeds, what a mistake.  I was on a train for a very long time, missing a connection that I could have gone on earlier, and some tracks was so noisy, that I put my ear plugs to protect my ears.  I should just stick to the computer suggestions.

Power Up Game Plan Revisit

The first power up session we tried to execute our game plan, and we did not manage to do everything we wanted to do.  I never remember laying out the cookies on the cookie sheets took forever, which had not been done before the hour, hence delayed many things, including the cheese straw.  I should also have envisage the dishes time/hot water in the calculation.

The bombay mix turned out well, as did all the cookies.  We managed to use 5.69kWh, let's hope they pay up!

Cardo Pedestrian Tracking

I turned the Cardo Ride on when I took Unthank to the MOT place, then I walked to work.  In previous time, it records the routes I walked, but this time, it had not.  I wonder if it excluded it due to my speed.

Mis-selling Electrical Goods

I have been browsing the portable solar solutions.  I noticed a lot if listings are incorrect, with an extra zero on their ratings.  That reminds me of a charging pod I got from Amazon, which also had an extra zero on their rating, I was furious!

Always get another pair of eyes, and double check the physical dimensions to confirm if it physically possible that item can deliver that ratings.

Portable Power Station

I have resisted in getting a house battery, as I don't think we are getting the most out of it and the battery are still improving.  Even with the "plug-in ready" house battery, it is still a bit silly, with its bad round trip efficiency, especially they are all grid tied.

On the other hand, I have thought about a portable power station, which is not grid-tied.  It goes back to the inverter size question, what can it do for me.  After much consideration, we are thinking about getting a 1kWh power station.  Watch this space.

Go Ape Annual Pass Calculation

We thought we would get a discount for a Go Ape Annual Pass from our recent Go Ape visit.  Then the discount code we received is not applicable to the annual pass.

Then I made some calculation, the annual pass is essentially 4 visits, or 5 visits if good deals to be had.  It is not impossible, but it is more impossible to do 4 or 5 different ones, which include travels, and all the ones "near" us, we have already done.

After much consideration, we decided not to go for it.  Although we have been making good use of our Merlin year.

Dipping Sauce Rejection

I am not a saucy person, but the hot meal deal from Asda includes a dip, so I picked nacho cheese dip.  We had a tiny taste, and it went straight to the bin.  Who likes dips?!  Just pure unnecessary chemicals.

Power Up Game Plan

In order to maximise the power up session, I have done a spreadsheet on what goes on when.  I am happy with the plan, it looks good, and I know what needs to be prepared and it takes the thinking out of the day.

Let see how well we can execute the plan.

River Wear on Boat

I was tempted to row or drive a boat the whole holiday, and I finally got the chance.  We went to Durham, and we hired a big old wooden rowing boat.  I have not been on a big row boat like this and probably not again.

The oars were long and made of solid wood.  I felt like I was a galley slave!

We went down the river, then up the river, and back to the pickup point.  It was hard work!  I will stick with my small row boat next times.

Urgent Flu Jab

Since the free jab is unavailable this year, we decided to get the jab right the way, so we filled in the form, and went to ASDA.  They didn't even bother with explanations or ask us to wait anymore.

We also stocked up on picnic items, it was an efficient trip.

English Cha Shiu

I decided not to chop up the cha shiu, so the loin was served whole on a plate, along with some roasted tomato.  Tada, Anglicized.

Multipurpose Car Trailer

A car trailer turned up at my neighbour's.  I cannot image any of their car actually fit in a car trailer.  Then it turns out, you don't have to only move a car in a car trailer, it can move a lot of boxes!  They were moving, possibly just borrowed any trailers available.

Fradley's Horsepower

I was chatting with Pete about cars, his Fiesta ST has 180 bhp.  And it only occurred to me that Fradley (118bhp) actually has more horsepower than Unthank (106bhp)!

But of course, the power to weight ratio, Unthank is much lighter.

British Currywurst

Chip shop curry sauce + battered/fried sausage = British currywurst.  I like the German ones better.

Greyhound Racing

I popped by a local greyhound track, and saw some running dogs.  Another British experience ticked.

Slough Day 7 - M25 Car Park Beds and Bucks

We packed up and left.  We hopped onto M25, and we met the infamous M25 Car Park.  There was supposedly a vehicle fire, and the 30 minute drives to Luton turned into a 1.5 hours drive.

We stopped at Stockwell Park for a lunch and a walk around.  Some of their collections were closed to public, but there were still plenty to see and walk around.

Then we drove to Bradwell Windmill for a harvest festival.  It was a restored windmill, but mostly cosmetic.  We fueled up, stopped at another Waitrose for the toilets, but their coffee machine was down, much to our distress.

Dairy milk powered our last leg of the journey.

Slough Day 6 - Battersea

My friends told us about CelebrAsia, after some research, we decided to have a day out at Battersea, combining it with Go Ape Battersea.  We also got some cheap train tickets, which also helps.

We had the Windsor farm shop sausages for breakfast, they are okay.  Then we brought our pack lunch to the station, and ate them on the train.  We walked around the park, before going onto Go Ape.  There were no chipped zipwire landing, so we stayed quite clean.  The course was longer than expected, it took us full two hours and we were quite tired by the end.

We went to the Power Station, had a look at their little museum.  It is big!

We started walking around and started grazing.  Most of the food was much Anglicized, how could a gado gado has no heat, negligible shrimp paste, no rice cake, no tempeh, no prawn crackers, but I won't complain about the satays. 

Meanwhile, my friend was stuck in traffic, after refusing to take the tube.  They arrived just before 8pm, and we had a quick hi and byes before we had to start walking back to the station.

Slough Day 5 - Windsor

We could do with a calm day, so we went to have an easy day out in the Windsor town.  We parked up and walked in.  We saw the changing of the guards.

We had a look around some library, parks, supermarket, charity shops, just about the normal things we do.  We even crossed the river into Eton.  We went back to the car on the Long Walk, which felt like forever, and drove home via the farm shop.

Slough Day 4 - Thorpe Park

We were excited about going back to Thorpe Park, and we had all the strategy worked out.

It was also quite quiet like Legoland, but very few small children in sight.  We went straight onto the first open ride like last time, this time was Colossus, which is good, set the bar low.  It was as clunky as we remembered it.  Then we walked onto The Saw, also with minimal queuing, it was so much smoother!  Followed by Nemesis Inferno, which was smoother than I remembered.

We put in a few small rides, and onto the water ride, before the bottom of the boat is flooded.  The 4d cinema was showing the same movie, so there were no surprise there, neither of us remembered one of the tactile element, maybe it wasn't working last time.  

The queue was a little shorter, some 35 minutes, for Hyperia just before lunch, so we went for it, it was one engineering marvel!  I would go on again if it wasn't for the queuing.

We went to lunch and came back in.  We went the ghost train, I don't know why we want to go to spend time in a dodgy train and dodgy train station, who knows.  We were getting tired and the roller coasters are getting less fun.  We went back onto the water ride, and as expected, the bottom of the boat was flooded.

I went onto bumper cars and Tidal Waves, 4 times, on my own.  I was very soaked at the end!

I did get a quick change before headed back to the car for further change.  We nipped to a Lidl, not knowing the car park was not free, that's London for ya.  We went straight in and straight out, I think we were lucky that they actually have unpublished grace period, phew.

Slough Day 3 - Legoland Windsor

The forecast kept changing, and when it came to it, it was a rainy day in Legoland.  We tried to keep dry by going into the indoor rides first, but they weren't open!  Our first ride was their pirate ship, it was not a children's pirate ship!

Because of the rain, the park was extra quiet, so on most rides, we were able to stay on first a second ride.

We were quite wet by the time we went to the water ride, thinking we couldn't get wetter, and we were wrong.  The water ride had a lot of water sprays!  Even the Legoland Express train side and the boat rides, they all have the added excitement of water sprays! 

The submarine rides were quite nice.  We managed to get onto 30 "rides".  In the late afternoon, the sun came out, and we managed to dry off before getting back into the car, except for my shoes, we had to change before I could start driving.

Slough Day 2 - Chessington World of Adventure

As children are back in school, some off the theme parks are closed some days mid-week.  It helped us to decide which order to go to these theme parks.  Chessington World of Adventure was first up, it was furthest away from our base and also shortest opening hours.  When we got there, they also closed the main car park, so everyone was doing a strange u-turns and started queuing on the road.

We had some advise from a friend, that the theme park draws more younger children, so those areas are the busiest and the bigger rides are quieter.  We also revised the videos in preparation.

We managed to hop on 21 "rides".  It was a dry day, so we decided to go the water rides earlier in the day.  Although we had just been to the zoo, it was nice to see a few more animals.  It was a nice day out.

We were tired, but we had to get the dinners for the rest of the week.  I stuck to the game plan, got us two Tesco Finest meals.  When we got home, we made some fish and chips.  

Slough Day 1 - London Merlin Adventure

This holiday is a similar holiday to our Surrey holiday two years ago, except this year we are Merlin, not RHS.

We took the train into London, it was nearly an hour on the train.  We first went to the London Aquarium, it was quite big and quite nice.  They also had the Gentoo Penguins.

Then we had some authentic okonomiyaki.  We had time spare before London Eye, so we squeezed in the London Dungeons.  There were elements that is similar to the York Dungeons, and at the end, there was a drop ride!

We went onto London Eye, it was so nice that it has air conditioning!  We were able to point at a few things, it would have been nicer if there were fewer people.  

We had some Matcha ice-cream before heading home.  I have also learnt to boil eyes with microwaves, so we don't have to bring all the eggs back to the North!

Slough Day 0 - Magic of Thailand Ealing

One our way to our accommodation, we went to the Magic of Thailand in Ealing to meet up with some friends.  We had a big picnic and got to try many Thai food.  The shows were a little far, but we did get to see a little of them.  It was fun, we would recommend it.

We picked up some food from the supermarket and went to the accommodation.  We could not find a knife, so I used my pen knife to cut up vegetable.  And we also realised there were no hob, so we had to drastically change our dinner plans.

Greek Hummus

We went to a Greek restaurant.  We were more familiar with Middleeastern style hummus, so when we had the Greek hummus, we found them to be smooth, but could be stronger in its seasoning.  Noted for future reference.

Twycross Zoo Babies II

We went back to Twycross to look at the Bonobo baby and the Gibbon baby.  There were also Cotton Top Tamarin babies!  So cute.

The penguins were very vocal.

Rivals for Catan

After tidying up our games shelf, we dug out my Rivals for Catan games.  Then it was suggested that I can play with a nephew.  I haven't played it for so long that I forgot most of the rules.  After reading the rules and a couple games, I think we both liked it, I am looking to play more of it.

Unite not Unify

There is a mosiac on Leeds Market, everyone walks past but nobody read.  I saw the Chinese portion that says Unify (consolidate into one 

統一), I was shocked.  I was trying to find out what they mean to have translated from, I found the English portion, it says Unite.  They are very not the same.... it should have been 團結...

Tuxford Windmill

Last week, I went to Tuxford the first time on my motorbike. It was a little bit of a hassle to have to get off the bike on a slope and open the gate. The flour was worth it though.

 

Wrawby Windmill

Wrawby Winmill only opens a few Sundays or Bank Holidays a year, I have been meaning to go, and it finally came the chance.  It is the first Post Windmill I have been in. I think I tried to go to the one in Suffolk and I saw the one in Thorpness.

It was interesting, the volunteers were all very friendly.  They were selling Maud Foster flour, so I bought some.  Nice little trip.