IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Cecil Road, LONDON, W3 0DB

The houses were built in 1929, some semi-detached, some short terraces.

I have only recently seen parakeets in this area of London - I have seen them before further south and east.

The feeder contains sunflower hearts. An adjacent feeder has peanuts which are eaten slowly by blue tits. The sunflower hearts attract goldfinches as well and the feeder has to be refilled after a couple of days. A recent RSPB survey of garden birds had an increase in sightings of goldfinches,

After a long drought the two water butts filled in a couple of rainy days with some storms. The system uses standard components available from DiY stores. Diverter on the rainwater pipe down from the gutters of half the house, a 2cm diameter flexible plastic tube from the diverter down through the lid of the first 300 litre water butt, a flexible concertina pipe (which comes with water butt systems) from near the top of the first water butt and through the lid of the second which is 200 litres. A tap about 15 cm from the top of the second butt with a garden hose which takes overflow if the second butt fills. The water butts come with taps at the bottom, these are used for filling buckets or watering cans - or a garden hose can be attached. This way most overflow goes down the garden to water plants, though if there has been a lot of rain the plastic tube from the diverter can be moved to go into a drain.

Wind over the Sahara desert collected dust and sand. Strong Northerly winds transported them to the British Isles, heavy rain collected them, raindrops evaporated to leave a muddy mixture on surfaces, here on a window sill.

A batch of these suddenly appeared between paving stones outside our kitchen door, stayed long enough to be identified, and crumbled away by next day. This is another batch, which appeared today by our water butt. I picked one of the tallest, height 70mm, diameter 18mm, no ring or volva, gills very dark, and it does drop spores. I think I have the correct identification - I thought at first it was a common ink-cap Coprinus atramentarius. Later, looking at The Mushroom Expert article on inky-caps http://www.mushroomexpert.com/coprinoid.html, it seems they are hard to identify, only differ when viewed under the microscope, and are being reclassified following DNA studies. So I may never know the correct identification.

This shows the bars installed on the tiled roof, ready for the panels.

By late afternoon the panels are installed and connected, the scaffolding tower has been dismantled, and the fitters can enjoy tea on the lawn.

Here the inverter is fitted in the loft. Direct current from the panels comes in on the left, alternating current comes out on the right and is connected to the house supply and into the National Grid. The display shows the generation for that day, graphically hour by hour, and as output figures. These are also repeated by Bluetooth onto a portable display unit.