Mill

backblip

Thought we'd keep the holiday mood running a little longer so we broke up a day of chores with a trip to Houghton Mill.

After looking around the mill (which doesn't take long) we set off on a walk by the Ouse but Cupcake got distracted by some rowing boats for hire, net result was that E and Cupcake rowed off in one direction (or many) while I walked off in the other. I waited a while for them to appear but got bored.

I enjoyed watching flocks of low-flying birds skimming the water - I can never tell if they're swallows, swifts or martins.

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Back home, one of the round-to-it jobs was to upload the latest data from our Electric Widget.

The associate website allows us to compare our usage with other Elctric Widget users. Seems we're fairly consistently using 10-20% less than others, which is reassuring. One tip: to save energy/money focus on buying 'low energy' things that have to be on all the time - like the fridge and freezer.

It's that background 250 watts is costing us 90% of our bill. The energy ratings of the washing machine, microwave, kettle,... are insignificant by comparison.

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Interestingly, they've fitted a small hydro-electric turbine to Houghton Mill, providing power for themselves and feeding into the national grid.