sjhoward.co.uk » Photos

Tynemouth Longsands

21 words posted by Simon on 6 January 2019

I was surprised to see how many people were on the beach on a rather cold Sunday afternoon in January!

This post was filed under: Photo-a-day 2019.

Supermarket strip lighting

1 words posted by Simon on 5 January 2019

This post was filed under: Photo-a-day 2019.

Royal Victoria Infirmary

53 words posted by Simon on 4 January 2019

I’m back at the hospital which gave me my first job as a doctor this afternoon – though the bit in this picture didn’t exist back then. I worked for this Trust for two years almost a decade ago, and yet still rarely walk through it without a familiar face saying “hello”.

This post was filed under: Photo-a-day 2019.

Smart meter

198 words posted by Simon on 3 January 2019

My energy supplier, Ovo, has been out today to replace my gas and electricity meters with ‘smart’ equivalents.

Wendy and I had smart meters installed some years ago in our previous house, and they did little other than submit their own readings, which was very handy as they were in an awkward spot. They did come with an ‘in home display’, but it was pretty useless, merely reporting how much gas and electricity we were using at any given time.

I’ve been surprised today by how much the technology has moved on. This photo is of the snazzy ‘in home display’ which came with my new smart meters. It seems far more useful: it has a clock synced with the meter system, it know what tariff I’m on, and it can give accurate cash figures for the amount of energy used each day, month or year. I can also set an energy budget, and as the screen above shows, the display will compare my usage to that budget. It also manages to avoid being offensively ugly.

All-in-all, this is better than I expected, and far better than the early smart meters we had in our last home.

This post was filed under: Photo-a-day 2019.

Glitzen left out in the cold

107 words posted by Simon on 2 January 2019

Once the proud centrepiece of the Metrocentre’s Christmas decorations, the oversized reindeer has now been stuck outside in the car park – although, in fairness, this does give a clearer idea of the sheer scale of the piece.

I posted a picture of Glitzen on this site five years ago, almost to the day. And posted something else about the decorations another couple of years before that. I’m going to assume that blogging for over fifteen years means the same odd ground comes up repeatedly from time to time, not that I’m an unoriginal tedious bore who pays far too much attention to corporation festive activity.

This post was filed under: Photo-a-day 2019.