The boys execising on their activity mat (Photography Copyright 2008, Naomi Lynch).




Connor Kenneth Docherty



Joshua James Docherty

Saturday past we all made it down for our first night in the caravan. Here are a few shots:



Suddenly the caravan looks like a nursary.



Getting on with essential baby business, Joshua gets a change, and Connor has a stretch.



Buggy Garage up and operational and Connor takes a nap. More to follow...

The boys having fun on the new playmat they just received from their great grandfather James, and their uncle John.

I’ve recently started planning and designing the low voltage renewable power system for the new house. It will be a little while before I really get a chance to implement the design, with boys taking up most of our spare time, and it will take a little while to settle into the new house. However, I’ve already started making requirements, and I’ve hunted out some components. Some of the initial designs are now in my notebook.

The majority of the system will be controlled by a nice all-in-one control panel, which is designed for a top spec motor home. However I also need an additional Main bus control panel to remotely control the main battery disconnect, and monitor the status of the Main bus. The Main bus will form the heavy current backbone of the system (initially spec’d for bursts of100A), and will provide power to the main panel as well as directly supplying heavy loads such as inverters, heavy pumps or motors. The Main bus should be able to cope with bursts of current up to 100A at 12V from a sudden ~1KW load.

A few of my requirements for the Main bus control panel included:

• A master switch which will remotely connect and disconnect the Battery bus from the Main bus, this will basically switch off everything
• An instant visual indication of the current state of the Main bus (Red light for Main bus power failure)
• A indication that basic verification of Main bus had been confirmed (Green light for system verified)
• A plunger push button to start the Main bus connect, and start Main bus supply verification
• A warning alarm system to alert us of a sudden power failure or a failure with Main bus verification (flashing Amber light with buzzer)
• A parallel switch, for paralleling any auxiliary batteries with the battery bus
• A timer module, which will provide a delay for Main bus verification. This is required to prevent the startup loads causing triggerging a low voltage battery or overcurrent disconnect.

One of my favorite websites for low voltage supplies is www.vehicle-wiring-products.co.uk. On this site I came across the following switch panel:



This fits my needs nicely, and I really do like the big red switch

My initial wiring diagram is included. This may require further tweaking, and I suspect there are a few simplifications possible, but I’ll need to look into these further:



Basic Operation

• Main bus is disconnected from the live Battery bus, the red switch above is down, and no lights are displayed. Everything is disconnected except those on the Hot Battery bus.
• The user lifts the main switch cover up, and lifts the main switch up. Main bus control panel is now live. The RED light will indicate that system Main bus is disconnected.
• The user starts the Main bus connect and verification system by pressing that START switch, at this point the RED light will extinguish, and the the Main bus becomes live.
• During the verification time all connected items will be powered allowing the initial burst of power to stabilize on the Main bus.
• After a 3 seconds the Main bus verification system becomes enabled. If it fails, the RED light will come on and the Alarm will start (flashing Amber light on top with buzzer). If the verification system passes testing, the GREEN light will illuminate to indicate that all systems are running normally.
• If at any time the verification system detects a problem, or the Main bus loses power, the RED light will come on and the Alarm will start.
• The Main bus can be switched off, including verification alarm system by switching off the main switch and by moving its red cover down.
• The parallel switch connects the Hot Battery bus to the auxiliary Hot Battery bus.
• I may add an optional yellow light at some point to provide a visual indication of the 3 second delay between Main bus connect and Main bus verification. Alternatively I may just illuminate both RED and GREEN light together for a short period of time.

Connor Kenneth Docherty (nearly 4 weeks old) and his Great Grandfather James Durnian (83 years old) meet for the first time.

Well in this case one fortunately. My brother and sister in law kindly gave us this cool little mobile a few months before the twins came along. Since we’ve had it, it has played plenty of music, but no turning. Well, I felt I couldn’t be beaten by something so simple! Then I opened it up, and about 4 parts sprung out in all directions, oops! Anyway, the mobile connector rod appeared to have separated from its friction clutch (presumable a safety feature in case it gets jammed). It was simply a case of reattaching it. The real problem is growing a third hand to help put everything back together again. Anyway, with a bit of wrangling we have the wee cute mobile working again for a second life, with plenty of tune, and some movement again. Don’t you love happy endings :-

The new house has come along a lot since we last visited the site. It is exciting seeing it again, although we are very down that our own house hasn’t sold yet. It looks good with fencing and slabbing finished at the front and back, and the garage also has its rear door. Here’s the South side of the house, with gate to drive way and double garage:



Here are two views of the garden, the sitting room is flat to the garden (no step). Not a huge area, but it is mostly south facing. The long section to the side of the garage should get sunshine from morning to mid afternoon (South by South East), and hopefully we’ll have room for some bushes, a greenhouse, a compost heap, and maybe the external water storage tanks for the rainwater harvesting system. The area between the house and the garage will either be a patio or decked area with some greenery, with lights and maybe a water feature. Maybe we’ll get a bit of grass in somewhere. Access to the garage is provided at the rear by a windowed door:



The front of the house with a slabbed path. To the left is a field , and in front is a large pond (out of picture). The space between the houses is a shared slabbed path that allows access to the gardens at the rear. Great for allowing room to get the buggy to the rear:

A cute black & white photo of Connor & Joshua on their second morning in the big world.

There are four engineers traveling in a car; a mechanical engineer, a chemical, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer.The car breaks down."Sounds to me as if the pistons have seized. We'll have to strip down the engine before we can get the car working again", says the mechanical engineer. "Well", says the chemical engineer, "it sounded to me as if the fuel might be contaminated. I think we should clear out the fuel system. "I thought it might be an grounding problem", says the electrical engineer, "or maybe a faulty plug lead." They all turn to the computer engineer who has said nothing and say: "Well, what do you think?" "Ummm - how about if we all get out of the car and get back in again?"

As many of you are aware, I am very interested in Eco Gadgets, and I have a few around the kitchen, some of which will be covered in a future posting. However, I was sitting down the other day reading the latest addition of “Clean Slate” the quarterly magazine from the Centre For Alternative Technology when I came across an article about our old friend the Pressure Cooker. My mother had one for years, and we’ve had one since the wedding, but we’ve only occasionally used it for soups and the like. Anyway, designed in 1679 by Denis Papin, it truly is one of the best Eco Gadgets you can have in your kitchen. Since the cooking inside occurs at 125oC at a pressure of 100KPa or 15psi, everything cooks significantly faster. I was also under the impression that everything had to be submerged in water, this is not the case, as little as 300ml of water (barely covering the bottom) can be used to steam pressure cook potatoes and carrots in as little as 4 minutes. Because the energy in the steam is only be lost through the valve and metal chest, most of the energy is being maintained in the chamber, meaning that once pressurized the gas can be dropped down. C.A.T quotes that on average cooking time is reduced by 70%. All the recent versions, of which ours is one, have various safety features, and tools to make cooking easy. For the outset of £50, it could be just the thing. Most come with instructions from cooking Veg, soups, casseroles, and just about anything... Worth checking out! By the way the picture below illustrates last nights cooking of potatoes and carrots, and just like it says on the tin, it took 4 minutes to cook under pressure, and about a minute and a half to achieve pressure. I’m impressed, you can bet my pressure cooker will see more use..... Oh and there’s something exciting about steam under pressure......

Since Fiona went into hospital I’ve really missed sitting down in a nice coffee shop, with a decent sized cappuccino and slice of cake. We braved for the worst, and set out with the twins, both filled to the brim with milk. Anyway, both behaved well and we had a nice break out of the house. Oh, and the Thorntons Coffee and ice cream shop at Fort Kinnaird is recommended.

The last thing you need when twins arrive is to have your washing machine go on the blink. When I looked out the window with sleepy eyes this morning, and noticed it was such a nice day, I took the initiative to catch up with the pilling washing. Half way through the cycle aloud crackling noise occured and the sump pump broke. This has happened before when the rotor popped off the pump motor shaft. However, unlike before, this time it wasn’t going to just pop back on, it was just too worn. After 10 minutes manually draining the machine, I phoned up local washing machine supply center who informed me that they had a new pump for £26. Poor Fiona was left with double trouble, and I stripped out the pump, got the new part, and installed the pump again. After some initial testing, and a leak check, I’m pretty sure everything is now back and working. Wheeewwww!

Okay, it was only a trip to Boots and back home, but it was our first time out with Double Trouble.



OOPS what happened to Connor!

Sometimes these babies like to gang up on Fiona and I, and they get really upset!

The Docherty twins and Fiona are home from the hospital. We all got back to the house at 21:30 last night, and for the we're still trying to bring some organization to the house after the initial chaos. First night went better than we initially thought, after both screaming for a couple of hours, we finally managed about 3 hours sleep and another hour and half later. We've been trying out our new kit today, and discovered that the swing and seats below work well. More to follow:

The Docherty twins now have names: Twin 1 is Joshua James Docherty (James after my Dad) and weighs 7lbs, and is the one on the left with the blue hat. Everyone thinks he looks more like Fiona. Twin 2 is Connor Kenneth Docherty (Kenneth after Fiona's Dad) and weighs 6lbs, he is the one on the right with the yellow hat. Everyone thinks he looks more like me.

Fiona and I have had two boys. No names yet, the bigger of the two (which Midwifes say looks like Fiona) is about 7 and 1/2lbs, the smaller (which Midwifes say looks like me) is 6 and 1/2lbs. It was a long drawn out labour, but the staff at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh were superb. In the end the boys were born by c-section, and Fiona has been recovering well after a few complications from surgery. As of a phone call this morning all three are doing well, and I've just woke up from a 10 and 1/2 hour sleep. Here's the picture you'll be sure wanting to see, details will follow:

Ah, the simple procedure of dismantling a buggy