Pupdate

It’s been warm and dry[1], so the boys have enjoyed some nice long walks.

Fringe

Edinburgh Fringe was a regular feature of the twenty-teens for us, but then Covid happened. This year was our first time back, and it was great. We saw:

• Bec Hill
• Bobby Davro
• Comedy Allstars
• Mhairi Black
• Olaf Falafel
• Simon Evans
• Geoff Norcott
• Best of the Fest
• Abigail Rolling

They were all fantastic, and I’m not going to pick favourites. I do however hope that Mhairi Black gets some kind of TV deal. I’d love to see her travelling around Scotland in a show like Frankie Boyle’s or Kevin Bridges’.

It was all organised a bit last minute, rather than months in advance like previous trips, so many of the acts we wanted to see were sold out already. That now means we’ll be seeing a bunch of them in their post Fringe tours as they swing by London or Brighton.

One novelty was taking the train rather than flying, as it worked out cheaper this time, and it’s certainly a more relaxed way to travel. Another was that Edinburgh was warm and sunny :)

TPMS

$daughter0’s Mini needed a pair of new tyres. As I got to the confirmation page for booking them there was a note about Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) not being included.

Was this something that I needed to do something about?

I did some research online, and frankly there’s no clear guidance. It seems that received wisdom is “wait until they fail, but then you have to fix them otherwise it’s an MoT fail”, which didn’t seem very wise to me.

After a chat with the good folk at Munich Legends (where the Mini is serviced) I decided on getting new sensors fitted whilst the tyres were being changed. The car is 10y old now, and the sensor batteries are expected to last 5-10y[2]. Pattern sensors from Amazon (affiliate link) are only £11.49, versus something like 10x that for official BMW/Mini ones :0 I left them in the cup holder along with the locking wheel nut, and the tyre place obligingly fitted them with no extra charge.

Solar Diary

The best August haul of photons so far.

It’s now a little over 3y since the panels were installed, and they’ve generated over 12.5 MWh of electricity since then :)

Notes

1. Summer 2025 confirmed as the UK’s hottest on record
2. Here’s hoping that the sensors in the other tyres hold out a year or two longer…