Week 30: Sunsets
Some good things from this week:
- At the beginning of the summer I bought some fairy lights of ebay to illuminate the garden. I’d done this previously but used some lights that didn’t like getting wet, so this time I made sure I picked some that could handle getting rained on. This worked great for a couple of months but slowly they stopped turning on. All the lights still flickered so I knew there was no problem there, my guess was the cheap “8 function controller” was having some issues. Reading around the internet, I found this great web page from Big Clive detailing how to stop Christmas Lights from flashing. Sure enough his circuit matched my one very closely. So I soldered the pins of the thyristors together to short circuit them, and now I have a lighting set that works perfectly. I’m tempted to order up a bridge rectifier as he details to remove the whole controller circuit, but in the decade that has passed since I completed my electronics modules at University I’ve forgotten most of it and can’t work out if it would blow the house up or not. So I’ll probably stop now I’ve got working lights.
- This weekend I went cycling on routes that I’d not cycled on in over 5 years. It was confusing how my brain both recognised some stretches, but had completely forgotten some others. I did manage to get a Strava PB going up one of the hills I definitely used to target, so that made me quite happy as my strength must be coming back.
- We also got to go and see some friends and their baby this weekend. Last time I got to see them was before lockdown started and it’s amazing how much he’d grown and how mobile he’s now got. Seeing small children is always a good reminder of how much time has passed, because they have often hit another development milestone or two.
- With the hot weather last week we met up with some friends in Ruskin Park and sat and watched the sunset over the London skyline. It was warm enough that we didn’t need jumpers and could pretend for just a moment we were on holiday. It was perfect. Summer really is the best season isn’t it.