36C & normally anything shady is a bit, well shady – Summer gadgets – Rubian traditional fair

Finally summer is here. The grass stops growing and turns brown, very convenient as it is simply too hot to cut it anyway.

Today we have  a weather warning. After the “English” summer its now straight to the “African” one, with maximum temperatures.

Normally anything a bit shady, well, is a bit shady. This dramatically changes when the thermometer blows its top, suddenly shady is “in”.

If you want to sit under grapes, we still have  a bit of availability in July. For August you could get lucky at Casa Victoria in Christosende (Debs and Mervin) or Tanquian tower in Tanquian !

Don’t forget to click on some of the images to see these in full scale.

Summer time is also gadget time. Sitting in my cool shady ! office with sunburned shoulders one (or at least I ) can not help but scour the Internet for gadgets.

Yours truely has or is trying them and so far they work.

Never again step into a dark and cold shower.

Simple, install this headset and a litle generator driven by the water pressure lights up the shower and also indicates when it is save to enter.

When it switches to blue its save as the water will be between 38 – 42. Hotter and it will turn red.

Usefull, well not entirely useless, at least during a power outage at night you can take a shower without searching for the soap.

Imagine, the mayor has finally had enough and the streetlight is switched off for good. Further imagine a moonless and starless night, wind howling and the power has failed – again – so your mobile phone is going hungry on its little charger somewhere – can I assume you get the picture?

At least after you had the blue shower and turned the water off?

Now you fumble for your wallet or wherever you keep your credit cards and take out the foldaway emergency lamp.

Flip it open – voila ! – Where there was darkness there is now light, at least very close by.

It is easier than trying to remember how to override your mobile phones energy save settings, if you can find it, that is.

Now the last gadget is actually not a gadget as such, it has real world applications.

Dimmer switches or twilight switches. Yes, they switch something on when it is dark and off when it is light.

Now being the ever obstinate techno freak I want one that does the reverse. Switch during sufficient daylight and off when it darkens.
You try and find one of those, without paying through the nose.

Here it is. From Germany – funny, seems a lot of practical people live there, just 12€.

You get a nice box, well sealed and a cable together with ample explanation and it is a change over.
So this does both – twilight on off either way.

Now I can switch my pumps when we have ample sunlight and the solar panels produce free electricity and/or dump excess energy into our underfloor heating system.

I may use this to control an air con with heat pump and an independent solar power assembly.

As usual if you need more info, drop me a note.

Rubian – near Boveda – has  a yearly traditional market / feria in July. We could not make it last year so we succeeded this year.

It is a nice setting, around the church. Simple, but effective stalls are created by using bamboo screening and a basic  frame work.

The mayor of Sober was there as well and I think he was envious, as he sidled up to Elias and faked interest in pottery.

Here are some more images from the traditional feria in Rubian

One stand caught my eye and you cant say Gallegans have no humor.
Click on the picture to see what I saw, and NO, I did not buy it.

Oh, by the way, in Rubian they pay the artists to demonstrate and for the artists attending is free by invitation.
Some ayuntamientos should take note and not try to charge extortionate fees.

So next time look out for this feria, it is well worth a visit.