… photo of the new temporary electrical circuit here at Pooh Corner.

At first glance it looks very much like a close-up of the previous image but in fact a closer perusal will reveal the addition of a pair of American 110-volt sockets.

As you might recall if you are a regular reader of this rubbish and have been following these pages quite closely since right back at the very beginning, my house is powered by solar panels and wind turbines creating energy at 12 volts DC.

As a result I spent an inordinate amount of my time sourcing 12-volt appliances, because I can run these directly off my supply without the need for a transformer.

That calls for a 12-volt DC circuit around the house and that means that the cables will be carrying a heavier amperage (500 watts at 230 volts is just over 2 amps, but 500 watts at 12 volts is just over 40 mps).

And the heavier the amperage, the thicker cable – I use 6mm cable instead of 1.5mm cable.

Because North America runs on 110 volts instead of the European 230 volts, then more than twice as much amperage is required to power an identical appliance, and so the USA uses thicker cable.

Consequently all of their plugs and sockets are much more suitable for my purposes when it comes to a 12-volt system as they are built to handle heavier amperage and thicker cable.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this afternoon, expanding the 12-volt power circuit into the shower room.

All that remains to do now is to fit the wiring for the light circuit, drill two large holes through the outside wall for the air exchange, and then I can wallop the rest of the plasterboard onto the walls.

This morning though, once the sun had climbed well into the sky, I doused the weeds outside the house with this radical weed-killer that Liz gave me. I’m not quite sure just how well its going to work but it has to be better than nothing at all. I really do hope that it lives up to expectations.

I had a little relaxation in the evening and watched a John Wayne film – Fort Apache. This is one of what is known as “The Cavalry Trilogy” and is famous for two particular reasons.

1. it’s probably the earliest mainstream film to look at the American genocide – if not holocaust – of its ethnic citizens from the point of view of the victims
2. most of the action takes place over ground which I know extremely well, because you might remember that back in 2002 I drove for a couple of days through the Utah Desert and in particular through Monument Valley and The Valley Of The Gods where most of the action takes place. I recognised almost all of the sites and it brought back some very happy memories.

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