Year: 2025

ProBreeze portable air conditioner review

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A photo of our ProBreeze portable air conditioner

Phew, it’s been a bit warm, hasn’t it? I was planning to write this review in a few weeks time, but seeing as we’re experiencing a heatwave in England right now, I’ve brought it forward in case you’re considering purchasing an air conditioner yourself.

Earlier this year, we bought a ProBreeze 4-in-1 portable smart air conditioner, and this week, it’s finally been warm enough to put it through its paces for a review. We went with this model as it was a Which Best Buy, and relatively cheap – £250 for refurbished model direct from ProBreeze. Also, I was able to pay for it in three instalments using Klarna, so I’ve actually only just finished paying for it. It’s available from Amazon (sponsored link), but unsurprisingly appears to have sold out.

There are cheaper models from other manufacturers – Terence Eden reviewed this one which cost him about £160 in March.

Setting it up

For an air conditioner to work correctly, you need to be able to pump the hot air out of the room. So, the air conditioner comes with a chonky hose, that you can poke out of a window.

However, to stop the hot air from coming back in again through the open window, there’s a window sealing kit included. This consists of a series of sticky-backed velcro strips, that you attach to your window and frame, and a membrane with velcro edges and a zip with which to make a hole for the exhaust hose to poke through. There’s also a more rigid plastic slidy thing for use with sash windows, if you want to pretend you live in Ecuador.

Part of the reason why I’ve not written this review until now is because the provided hose wasn’t long enough to reach the opening of our window. Our house is at least 100 years old, with nice big windows, and when the previous owners had double glazing installed, they insisted on windows which opened at the top. I ended up buying a longer hose, and some additional velcro strips, from AliExpress to reach the window.

Taking the sealing kit off and on again is a bit of a faff, to be honest. We’ll be leaving it on until the weather’s due to get cooler again on Sunday.

Using the air conditioner

I’m going to cover the disadvantages first:

  • It’s quite noisy
  • It’s more expensive to run than a fan

However, it did manage to cool our bedroom down very quickly. We’ve been using it in the evenings, and then switching it off at bedtime. I don’t think we would want it on all night due to the noise.

In terms of the cost of running, expect to spend 20-30 pence per hour to run it. As we’re a day away from the Summer Solstice, we still had sunlight late into the evening last night and so it didn’t actually cost us anything (thank you, solar panels and battery) other than reduced export.

You should also plug it directly into the wall, where possible, and not use extension leads. Because it draws a lot of power, you risk damaging your plugs and/or causing a fire with extension leads. Which would be terrible and also an incredibly ironic way to lose your house, seeing as an air conditioner is supposed to cool it down and not set fire to it.

Hello Tuya, my old frenemy

The ProBreeze air conditioner we bought is also a smart appliance. So although you can control it using buttons on the front, and the included remote control, it can also be controlled using an app or Google Assistant and Alexa.

However, the app in question is Tuya’s Smart Life app. Regular readers will know that I’m not Tuya’s biggest fan (pun not intended) but it seems to work okay, and easily integrates with Home Assistant through the official Tuya integration.

Maybe in future I can take it apart and flash the chip with something else to use it locally, but seeing as I’ve only just finished paying for it, I’ll leave it be for now.

The other three functions

I mentioned that it’s a four in one device. As well as air conditioning, this ProBreeze device can also act as a dehumidifier, and as a simple fan without a cooling mode. I think the fourth mode is a quieter ‘sleep’ mode for use at night. It’s still quite noisy in fan mode, even when it’s not actively trying to cool the air in your room. I believe it’s now branded as a ‘three-in-one’ device.

How it compares to a fan

A simple fan may cool you down, by blowing sweat away from your skin, but it doesn’t actually cool down the air in the room. That’s where air conditioning and air cooling devices come in. Air coolers are usually simpler and cheaper, whereas air conditioning units are more powerful.

Air conditioning at home is still something of a novelty to Brits. We’re not used to hot weather, and our homes are usually designed to retain heat to get us through cold winters. An air conditioning device is therefore unlikely to get much use all year round, but it’s made a difference over these past few days. I’ve glad we’ve bought one – even if it is a bit expensive to run, noisy and a faff to set up the window sealing kit. Anything for a good’s night sleep.

Recent travel miscellany

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Disembarking a Jet2 aeroplane at Athens Airport

This is the fifth and final blog post about my trip to Athens – bearing in mind that my trip was only for three and a half days. This is where I want to write about everything else that happened whilst not in Athens – i.e. the journey there and back. Here are the links to part one, part two, part three and part four.

Ibis Budget hotel at Manchester Airport

As I mentioned last Monday, my flight was a 6:30am departure from Manchester on a Sunday morning. With this in mind, I booked myself a room in the Ibis Budget hotel at the airport, and then got a train over on the Saturday night.

Now, if you’re staying in a hotel with the word ‘budget’ in its name, you need to manage your expectations. The rooms are small – there’s space for a double bed, but no bedside tables. There’s a small and narrow desk, a blind instead of curtains, and quite a thin mattress. But as I only needed the room for about seven hours, it was fine. There was free Wi-Fi, and most importantly it was in very easy walking distance of Terminal 2, where I needed to be for my flight. I didn’t want to stay somewhere that required a shuttle bus transfer which may or may not turn up at stupid o’clock in the morning. And the room was significantly cheaper than almost all other hotels at the airport.

A photo of the inside of Terminal 2 at Manchester Airport

Manchester Airport at 5am on a Sunday

Speaking of an early start, you would not know that it was only 5am on a Sunday once you were through security and in to the duty free bit before the gates. It was like the Trafford Centre on a Saturday afternoon – all the shops were open, all the lights were on, and it was heaving. There was a lack of seating, although Terminal 2 is being renovated at present which may explain the lack of capacity.

Judging by the airlines and destinations, it was mostly package holiday flights taking advantage of off-peak slots.

Flying with Jet2

Indeed, my flight to Athens was with Jet2. Jet2’s selling point is that they’re a budget airline, but they’re not as stingy as some of their rivals *cough* Ryanair *cough*. You’re allowed one standard cabin bag, and one small bag as standard, although you can pay extra to ‘guarantee’ space for your cabin bag in the overhead locker. My carry-on case was quite a bit smaller than the maximum permitted size and so I didn’t bother, and indeed had no issues with space. As with my trip to Dublin, I only took carry-on luggage with me.

If you want a meal on the flight, you have to pre-order it when checking in online. It is, of course, extortionately expensive for what it is, but the food was fine and rather welcome considering my early start. If you don’t pre-order food, the cabin crew may be able to offer any food that is left over after the pre-orders have been given out.

On more than one occasion, staff wished me a good holiday. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was travelling for work.

Flying with KLM

My flights back were with KLM, the Dutch flag carrier, and so this meant a connection at Amsterdam. I honestly expected more from KLM – after all, Jet2 is a budget airline and so I didn’t expect any niceties like in-flight entertainment or Wi-Fi. But I didn’t have those with KLM either, and both planes were also a bit shabbier and care-warn than Jet2’s plane. They were all variants of Boeing 737 planes, if you’re interested.

KLM did include a ‘snack’ on each flight though. From Athens to Amsterdam, we were all offered a Beemster cheese sandwich with a honey and mustard dressing, which was actually quite nice, and a small piece of cake. Drinks were also offered. Meanwhile, for the much shorter flight from Amsterdam to Manchester, we just got a packet of Mini Cheddars and a more limited range of drinks.

My flight back to Manchester also appeared to be a late aircraft swap. When I checked in at the gate, I was given a new boarding pass with a different seat number, having been moved from row 29 to row 22. Indeed, there was no row 29 on this plane. Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is KLM’s hub, and so they must’ve decided to swap the planes as the flight was under-booked.

A photo of a direction sign at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

After Dubai, Schiphol is the second busiest airport that I’ve been to. My brief layover there on Tuesday is, to date, the only time I have been in the Netherlands, and I don’t think it really counts as I spent my entire time ‘airside’. Unlike other big airports, Schiphol has just one massive terminal, arranged in a horseshoe shape. Thankfully, my arrival and departure gates were relatively close to each other and so I didn’t have to walk too far. Like in Athens, there were lots of food and shopping brands familiar to Brits. Although, unlike 5am in Manchester, by the time I got to Amsterdam at close to 9pm local time, many of the places to eat were closed. I ended up spending €10 on a WHSmith meal deal for some sustenance.

Getting home

I think some colleagues at the summit were a little concerned that my journey home to Sowerby Bridge consisted of two flights and then three trains. As it was, both flights were only delayed very slightly, and all my trains were on time – a relief as I had to change at both Manchester Oxford Road and Victoria, and the connections were both around five minutes. Not only that, but my train from Victoria to Sowerby Bridge was the last train of the night, so I was very relieved to make that connection.

Assorted notes on Athens

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A photo of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

This is the fourth of five blog posts about my recent trip to Athens – the first was a quick hello, the second was a visit to the Acropolis, and the third was about the actual reason for our visit – the LanguageCert HE Summit.

Whilst this wasn’t my first visit to Greece – I went to the Greek island of Crete when I was three, but don’t remember much about it – this was my first time in the Greek capital. As per previous trips to Paris and Dublin, here are some assorted notes about my time in Athens.

Athens Airport

My flights were to and from Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos”, which was opened in 2001 in readiness for Athens to host the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As such, it’s relatively modern, but it’s clear that passenger numbers have grown since it was opened. We were bussed between the plane and terminal both times, as there’s not enough airbridges to allow direct boarding. On arrival, we had to sit on the tarmac for a while to get a parking space and again to wait for the buses to arrive – the pilot commented that it was like they weren’t expecting us.

Inside the terminal, I was a little surprised at just how many British/global brands were there – the shops were all WHSmith, and there was a Burger King and Pret a Manger. It turns out they’re all operated by SSP, a British multinational which runs many franchised outlets in airports and railway stations. There were plenty of Greek options though too. Oh, and lots of adverts, in English, for Lidl, advising people that they can still use the Lidl Plus app in Greece.

Whilst our departure was from the main terminal, when I first arrived we were bussed to the satellite terminal. There followed a ten minute underground walk to the main terminal. According to Wikipedia, the airport was built with room to expand, and it looks like it needs it. It has two runways, either side of the A6 motorway, and on the return flight the plane taxied over the motorway to take off. Hopefully they will open another satellite terminal soon, and consider some kind of people mover to get people around more quickly.

The city of Athens

We arrived in Athens on a Sunday, and then Monday was Whit Monday, which in Greece is celebrated as the ‘Day of the Holy Spirit’ and is therefore a public holiday. As such, the city seemed rather closed up and deserted until Tuesday, which for me was just a half day. However, lots of shops seemed to be open late on Monday night, presumably because it’s cooler.

Athens also has a graffiti problem – much more so than Paris which I thought was bad. There were also more buildings in a state of disrepair, with some older buildings looking like they’d had scaffolding around them for years. However, this certainly wasn’t the majority and not reflective of the whole city.

Transport

In terms of transport, Athens has a variety of modes on offer. There’s an underground metro, trams, and trolleybuses, as well as the usual buses – some of which are zero-emission battery electric buses. As befits an ancient city, lots of the streets are quite narrow and there are one-way systems in lieu of dual carriageways in places. Coming from Bradford, which was the last UK city to get rid of its trolleybuses in 1972, it was good to see them still in use in Greece. After all, Greece is not short of sunlight for solar power, and I saw plenty of solar panels whilst there.

I was provided taxi transport to and from the airport, which took around half an hour, but the metro and suburban rail services also connect to the airport, using overhead electrified lines. That being said, I only saw a couple of trains in each direction – the railway is in the central reservation of the motorway links to the airport. Had I needed to take the metro, I would have been able to get very close to my hotel without any changes.

Speaking of motorways, these seemed relatively new and were tolled. Our driver had a toll tag, similar to the one we use when in France. Some of the motorways were quite twisty, with sharper bends that I would expect to see in the UK, but I suspect that this is due to the terrain – we also went through several tunnels.

Almost all signage that I saw was in both Greek and English.

The view from the hotel restaurant across to the Acropolis

My hotel

I stayed at the NYX Esperia Palace Hotel, which is part of the Leonardo Hotels group. It’s quite new, and way outside my normal budget for a hotel. There are two swimming pools – one in the basement, and a smaller one on the roof. The restaurant is also up on the roof, with a view of the Acropolis – I really enjoyed being able to sit outside at breakfast time with a stunning view across the city.

As a smart home geek, I was particularly drawn to the controls in the rooms. There were several human presence sensors to turn on the lights automatically, and several touchscreen panels to control the lights, air conditioning and even open and close the curtains. For coffee making, there was a Nespresso machine in the room – indeed, it appears that pod coffee machines are really popular in Greece based on my experience.

The hotel was also just on the next block over from LanguageCert’s headquarters. The Wi-Fi was free and worked well.

Mobile phones

I bought a 1 GB eSIM before setting off for £4 on Airalo, rather than relying on roaming. Greece has three main networks:

  • Vodafone, which Brits will be familiar with. Indeed, at Athens airport, there was a vending machine selling Vodafone SIM cards which was clearly aimed at Brits.
  • Cosmote, which is the state operator but is majority owned by Deutsche Telekom. As such, there’s a lot of T-Mobile co-branding. Brits may be surprised to see T-Mobile still in existence as in the UK it merged with Orange, became EE and was then bought by BT.
  • Nova, which is what both my UK SIM on 3 connected to, and the network used by my Meraki Mobile eSIM from Airalo.

Across Athens, 5G internet was widely available. Indeed, it may be that Nova has already turned off its 3G network (as all but O2 in the UK have already done) as when I couldn’t get a 5G or 4G signal, it dropped down to EDGE.

I realised after reviewing this that it sounds like I’m surprised that Greece has similar level of connectivity to the UK, as if my perception is that Greece is somehow less developed than the UK. This was not my intention – I think as someone who would feel very isolated without internet access, I was reassuring myself that I would have good access to services whilst travelling.

Food

The food we had during our stay was nothing short of excellent. Christine and I are both foodies and we cook a lot of Persian food at home, of which Greek food has some similarities. The organisers of the summit took us to a couple of excellent Greek restaurants for our evening meals – again, both with a view of the Acropolis. I ate very well whilst I was away.

Shortly before I left, there was a news article about a Brit who had been to Corfu and complained about the lack of “English” food which made me despair a little. For me, part of the fun of travelling is to try new food. Indeed, one of my gifts from LanguageCert was a Greek cookbook, and there was plenty of Greek honey and cheese to buy at the duty free shop at Athens airport.

Pokemon Go

If you play Pokemon Go, then there’s a Pokemon to catch which is exclusive to Greece and Egypt (and parts of Albania bordering Greece): Sigilyph. They’re not very common – it took me until the morning of my departure on Tuesday to track one down – but they often appeared on my radar. I later caught another at the airport whilst waiting for my flight.

I have one more blog post to follow, which will be another miscellaneous blog post about everything else that happened whilst I was away.

10 years of being a homeowner

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I’m a couple of days late writing this, but Friday marked 10 years since we got the keys for our house. In that time, we’ve done a lot of work to it:

  • Renovated the entire downstairs, including a new kitchen in 2022
  • New central heating boiler and new radiators downstairs
  • Complete re-wiring downstairs
  • Removal of old gas fires and associated gas pipes
  • Opened up the cellar to use as a laundry room
  • Renovated our nine-year-old’s bedroom with new plaster, floorboards and furniture
  • Re-decorated the bathroom
  • Added solar panels and a battery

Despite this, the house is still a work in progress. Although we have redecorated the bathroom, and made some minor changes (new taps, new bath panel, replacement shower and shower screen), we’re planning on renovating it once money allows. In particular, at present we have a shower over the bath, but would prefer a separate shower cubicle. After that, there are also our bedroom and our spare bedroom that need renovating, and the landing. But we’ve done more than half of the house now and it’s much nicer for it.

This also means that I’ve had the same address for 10 years – my longest period of stability since moving out of my parents’ home in York, back in 2002. Another eight (and a bit) years, and this will have been the place that I have lived the longest. I’ve already spent more time living in Sowerby Bridge (15 years this November) than Bradford (8 years).

We originally took out a 25 year mortgage in 2015. However, we’ve re-mortgaged a couple of times, most recently in 2022 when we took out a five year fixed deal shortly before the Truss-Kwarteng Fiscal Collapse. And changes to our payments, plus our over-payments via Sprive, should mean that next summer will be the mid-point of our mortgage repayments. So we’ve got a way to go before we’re mortgage free.

LanguageCert HE Summit in Athens

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Screenshot of the home page of LanguageCert's web site

The purpose of my recent visit to Athens was to attend a summit for staff working in admissions and English teaching in higher education, hosted by LanguageCert. LanguageCert offers tests in English, Spanish and Classical Greek for those wanting to prove their language proficiency for work, study or immigration.

I don’t tend to talk much about my day job on this blog, but as someone who works in international university admissions, I was already aware of LanguageCert. They offer a suite of tests, including an Academic test which is more focussed on the English skills needed for academic study at an English-speaking university. LanguageCert took over the running of the International ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) test from City & Guilds in 2015, and moved into online testing in 2019. Which, considering everything that happened in 2020, was a very wise move in hindsight.

Online testing

LanguageCert tests can be taken in a test centre – indeed, they’re one of only five providers offering a Secure English Language Test (SELT) approved by UK Visas and Immigration. But their tests are also available to be taken online at home, and it was good to hear more about the security and identity checks that they do for testers. I won’t go into too much detail, as I don’t want to share information given to me in confidence. Test takers have to download apps to their computers and mobile devices to verify their identity and to detect any cheating tools. We also got to see some examples of how they’ve been able to catch paid impersonators who have taken tests on peoples’ behalves. Their mobile app, ExamShield, can read the chips located in most modern passports, which can be compared with the printed details to avoid issues with fraudulent identity documents. The same app can also be used as a second webcam, typically positioned 135° from the primary webcam on the computer, to allow the proctor to see that the workspace is clear of any unauthorised materials. There’s more detail available here if you’re interested.

We also got to see behind the scenes, to see live exams being remotely proctored. They offer exams 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The AI elephant in the room

The topic of Artificial Intelligence came up several times during the summit, both in terms of opportunities and threats. AI, when used correctly, can assist humans with tasks – especially around fraud checks. But it can also be used for fraud, and this is something that LanguageCert are tackling. They have various tools and pre-test verification checks to detect deepfakes, where an impersonator will use live face-swapping technology to make themselves look like the person who was supposed to take the test. Their software is designed to lock down a computer, so, for example, it wouldn’t be possible to paste answers from ChatGPT into the writing section of a test.

Preventing fraud using AI is an ongoing arms race. LanguageCert’s software and platform is developed in-house – again, we got to see where their programmers work – and so they are well-placed to be agile in responding to new developments in the AI space.

The English testing market

LanguageCert is a relatively new entrant to the market for English testing. Most British universities steer people towards the IELTS test, which is run collaboratively between the University of Cambridge, IDP and the British Council. Meanwhile, TOEFL from ETS is usually preferred by American universities and Pearson PTE by Australian universities. Widening access to university education is something I feel passionately about, as I say peoples’ lives being changed every day by being able to undertake further study, and so having a wide range of accessible and affordable tests facilitates this.

Besides learning about LanguageCert’s products, and those from the wider PeopleCert group, the summit was also a good opportunity to network with colleagues from other universities. Several British universities besides my own were represented, but also universities from the US, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Poland. It was good to speak to other professionals, especially during a turbulent time for higher education in the UK and US.

It was a very useful and well-organised summit, and I really appreciated LanguageCert extending an invite to my employer and for covering our travel costs.

The Athens Acropolis

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A photo of the Parthenon at the Athens Acropolis

I’m back home now from my trip to Athens, having got home shortly after midnight this morning. Suffice to say, I’d booked today off work to recover.

Whilst the trip was primarily for work purposes, LanguageCert, our lovely hosts, also included a visit to the Acropolis on Sunday afternoon. Having travelled internationally for work before, this is something I really appreciated. When I went to Amman in 2015 for work, I didn’t get to see any of the nice bits of the city, and it was a shame to go all that way without seeing them. So, I made sure I packed some sturdy footwear and sun protection and off we went to tick another UNESCO World Heritage Site off my list.

The Acropolis

The city of Athens mostly sits within a basin, but with the Acropolis sitting on a raised rocky outcrop in the middle. The Acropolis itself contains several ruined buildings, including the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. We had a tour guide who showed us all of these, including the ongoing restoration work. This isn’t to recreate them as they were when they were built over 2000 years ago, but to ensure that they don’t degrade further. The buildings were damaged in the 17th century by the Venetians, and this is the state that they remain today. In their heyday, these buildings must have been even more impressive – we were shown some of the few remaining marble roof tiles. Some sculptures have survived and are still on show.

Further down the outcrop are two theatres – the Theatre of Dionysus which was built by the ancient Greeks and is now a ruin, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus which was built by the Romans and is still in use for events today – there was a show there on the Sunday that we visited. You can look down onto these from the Acropolis, and you get great views across the whole city of Athens.

Nearby is the Acropolis Museum – this is close but separate, and we didn’t go in. The current museum opened in 2008, and famously has an empty room to host the Parthenon Sculptures. Also known as the Elgin Marbles, these are controversially on display in the British Museum in London, but may be permanently loaned back to Greece soon. That part of the British Museum is due to close for refurbishment soon so returning them to Athens would make even more sense.

Accessibility

I always try to include an accessibility section in my Days Out posts, but I nearly didn’t bother with the Acropolis. It’s a World Heritage Site on top of a hill, so if you want to visit, you need to be able to handle steep slopes, uneven surfaces and lots of steps. If this isn’t for you, maybe stick to the Acropolis Museum rather than the Acropolis itself.

The good news is that the Acropolis has long opening hours, from 8am until 8pm – my advice would be to visit early or late as there’s very little shade available. We got there at about 5:30pm, by which time there were some shady spots to wait in. Even then, it was still very busy. All the signage is in both Greek and English.

Hello from Athens!

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So, last weekend I teased that I would be travelling for work. Well, I flew out of Manchester very early yesterday morning – there should be a law against 6:30am flights on a Sunday morning – and have safely arrived in Athens in Greece.

I’m here to attend a Higher Education Summit by LanguageCert, who are very kindly paying for my flights and accommodation. LanguageCert are part of PeopleCert, and offer English language tests for non-native speakers wanting to live, work or study in English speaking countries. PeopleCert, meanwhile, offer professional certifications, including PRINCE2 which I achieved in 2018.

I’m only here for a relatively short time and will be flying back tomorrow.

Our journey towards an electric car – part II

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Time for a second post in this series about our journey towards an electric car – part one was last week. This time I’m going to focus on the ‘why’ and the ‘why now’.

Why an electric car?

In less than five years, unless something changes, it won’t be possible to buy a new car solely powered by an internal combustion engine in the UK. From 2030, sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be phased out; there will then be a five year period where new cars must be fully electric, or hybrids. Then, from 2035, sales of hybrid cars will end too – so in ten years time, if you want to buy a new car, it will need to be electric. Or some other form of zero emissions vehicle that isn’t yet on the market.

Last year, around 20% of new UK car registrations were for electric cars. And, more and more public chargers are becoming available for electric car owners to use.

That’s the wider context. For us personally, an electric car makes sense for the following reasons:

  1. We’ll be able to charge it at home. Being able to charge an electric car from your own electricity supply is pretty cheap – especially if you have a tariff that gives you cheaper overnight charging for example. Currently, I work at home 2-3 days per week, and so we can have our car plugged in for long periods to charge up if needed. And we generate our own electricity from our solar panels.
  2. Most of our usage is short distance. Whilst we occasionally drive longer distances, most of our usage is for short journeys, and so we don’t necessarily need a car with a massive fuel tank or battery.
  3. It’ll be better for the environment. Electric cars aren’t totally emissions free – you still get particulate matter from the brakes and tyres emitted into the air. But you’re not burning a fossil fuel, and the UK electricity grid is become more sustainable all the time.
  4. It’ll be better for air quality. Where we live, in Sowerby Bridge, is a hotspot for poor air quality due to being in a narrow valley. By driving an electric car, we’d be no longer contributing to this.
  5. It’ll be quieter. Traffic noise isn’t a major issue for us, but just imagine how much quieter the roads would be without noisy engines. Also, as I have issues with hearing loss, less noise inside the car should make it a nicer driving experience.
  6. It’ll cost less to service. Compared to cars with an international combustion engine (whether on its own or as a hybrid vehicle), electric cars have fewer moving parts and consequently require fewer repairs.
  7. We won’t have to pay the ULEZ. I’m not planning to drive in or near London any time soon, but our current car would incur a charge under the Ultra Low Emissions Zone. Whilst many petrol cars are exempt, an electric car is likely to remain so if the criteria change. It used to be that electric cars were also exempt from vehicle tax, but that’s no longer the case.
  8. No gear changes. Compared to other nations, especially the US, us Brits have a weird obsession with buying new cars with a manual transmission, rather than automatic, and that trickles down to the used car market. Meanwhile, almost all electric cars only have one gear – electric motors work differently and so don’t need to have gears. Therefore, no gear changes. I think Christine was a bit cheesed off when she found out that she could’ve learnt to drive in an automatic instead, but at least it means she can drive our current car until we change it.

Why now?

As for why now, the key reason is that we need a new car soon. Our current car has lots of minor niggles that are starting to get annoying, and are likely to be costly to repair.

But also, more electric cars are starting become available on the used car market. We can’t really afford to buy a new car, but there’s a reasonable number of electric cars available in our price range. Whilst the capacity of the batteries does go down over time, we’re still happy to consider a used electric car.

Which UK counties have I visited?

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A map of the UK with the counties I have visited highlighted

Something that seemed popular on Bluesky last week was Sophie Stone’s UK Travel Visualiser. There’s a map of the UK (plus the Isle of Man) showing each county, and you can select each one to mark whether you’ve lived there, stayed over, visited, stopped or passed through. I’ve uploaded an excerpt of mine above, and included the full image below (converted from SVG to PNG because I can’t be bothered amending the WordPress config file to enable SVG uploads).

Here’s a text based breakdown for the counties I have visited:

Counties I have lived in

Just two: North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. I was born in York, in North Yorkshire, and then moved to Bradford in West Yorkshire when I was 18. Then, when Christine and I decided to move in together in 2010, we moved to Sowerby Bridge, also in West Yorkshire, where we still live now. Christine meanwhile has also lived in Lancashire and Derbyshire.

Counties I have stayed in

I’ve interpreted this as ‘counties where I have stayed overnight for at least one night’. There are a lot more of these:

  • Berkshire – last visited in 2021 when we stayed in Slough, ahead of a trip to Legoland Windsor.
  • Bristol – I last visited for work in 2014, which involved a couple of overnight stays.
  • Cheshire – an overnight stay in Chester in 2012 with Christine, marking a year since we got engaged.
  • Cumbria – lots of hiking trips to the Lake District, but I think our most recent stay was with a friend from university who has now settled in Kirkby Lonsdale.
  • Derbyshire – another hiking trip, this time to Dovedale in 2009.
  • Durham – we stayed overnight to attend a wedding in 2016.
  • East Riding of Yorkshire – my grandparents lived in the East Riding and so stayed over many times in the past.
  • East Sussex – on holiday in 2021.
  • Greater London – I last stayed over last year, however Christine has been more recently.
  • Greater Manchester – before I could drive, we used to stay over in Manchester after various music gigs. The last time was in 2014, when we saw Delain and Within Temptation at the O2 Apollo. Also spent a couple of nights there for a stag do in 2015.
  • Hampshire – we’ve stayed over at the Travelodge by Portsmouth Ferry Terminal a few times on the way back from France, most recently in 2023. Also that year, we spent an afternoon in Southsea.
  • Herefordshire – way back in the late 1990s, I went on a week-long PGL holiday near Ross-on-Wye.
  • Hertfordshire – another overnight stay for a wedding, this time in 2013, in Stevenage.
  • Kent – though we visited Kent in 2021, we stayed in East Sussex. The last time I stayed overnight in Kent was in 2000, on a short break ahead of a few days in the Pas-de-Calais region of France.
  • Lancashire – Christine lived here when I met her, and so I stayed overnight a few times during 2009 and 2010 before we moved in together.
  • Leicestershire – another overnight stay for a wedding, this time in 2018. The wedding was at the National Space Centre in Leicester, incidentally.
  • Lincolnshire – I had a few days in Lincoln with my parents in 2001.
  • Merseyside – shortly before the lockdown in 2020, we had a couple of nights in Runcorn as it was handy for Chester Zoo. Before that, we had an overnight stay in 2016, and our last visit was a day trip to Wirral and Liverpool last year.
  • Norfolk – last visited in March for Sci-Fi Weekender.
  • Northumberland – last year’s holiday.
  • Nottinghamshire – my grandparents used to have a canal boat based out of Nottingham marina, and we stayed overnight on it a few times in the 1990s.
  • Oxfordshire – most recently in 2018, on the way back from our holiday. We have family there, and will be back there later this summer.
  • South Yorkshire – stayed overnight in Sheffield in 2019 when attending a previous Sci-Fi Weekender.
  • Staffordshire – again, I have relatives here but our last overnight stay was in 2015 – once again, for a wedding.
  • Surrey – stayed overnight as part of our 2023 holiday.
  • Tyne and Wear – our most recent trip away was last weekend, when we stayed overnight in Gateshead to visit Beamish. Even though Beamish itself is in County Durham.
  • Warwickshire – spent a night in a hotel in 2019, so we could visit Warwick Castle.
  • West Midlands – not a wedding, but a stag do in 2013.
  • Worcestershire – my ex-girlfriend Hari had family on Worcestershire, so spent some time there up until 2008.
  • Edinburgh – last visited in 2011 when we stayed for a few nights. Well overdue for another visit.
  • Clwyd – another hiking trip, this time in 2009. We’ll be back there for our summer holiday next month. Also passed through in 2018 on the way to…
  • Gwynedd – our first Sci-Fi Weekender was near Pwllheli in 2018, which was the last one to be hosted there.
  • Isle of Man – technically the Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency and not officially part of the United Kingdom, but it’s on the map. Christine and I had our first holiday as a couple there in 2010.
  • Fife – one of my mum’s university friends lives in Fife and so I’ve been a few times. Our most recent visit was in 2015, and, in what is becoming a theme, it was for a wedding.
  • Perth and Kinross – very early in our relationship, Christine and I joined two other couples on a long weekend near Callander in Perthshire, in early 2010.

Counties I have visited

This is a much smaller list of places where I have intentionally gone to on a day trip:

  • Cambridgeshire – I’ve been to Cambridge once, for a meetup with other editors at the Open Directory Project, back in 2003.
  • Shropshire and Powys – as mentioned, I have family in Staffordshire and so I’ve been to Shropshire and Powys before on day trips – just not very recently.
  • South Glamorgan – I went on a demonstration against tuition fees in Cardiff in 2004. To date, it’s still my one and only visit to the Welsh capital.
  • Lanarkshire – I’ve also only made it to Glasgow once, in November 2009. I met up with several people in my World of Warcraft guild, including Hari – we had split up earlier that year and this was the first time we’d seen each other since. I’d first met Christine a few weeks before.

Counties I have stopped off in

  • Essex – literally just at Birchanger Green services on the M11.
  • East Sussex – part of Gatwick Airport is in East Sussex and so I would have been there very briefly in 1999.

Counties I have passed through

  • Devon, Somerset and Dorset – in the 1990s, when on holiday with my parents, we came back via Poole and Plymouth on occasion and so will have passed through these counties. But I haven’t visited them properly.
  • Gwent – on the way to Cardiff in 2004.
  • Rutland, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire – these are places I have driven through, but never visited. Christine has recently reconnected with some of her family in Milton Keynes, so Buckinghamshire may rise up the list in future.
  • Berwickshire, West Lothian, Midlothian, East Lothian. These are all counties that we passed through on our way to Fife in 2015.
  • Dumfries, Dumbartonshire, Stirling & Falkirk. Similarly, we passed through these in 2010 on the way to Callander.

Counties I’ve never been to

I’m not going to list them all, but this includes large parts of Scotland, mid Wales, and the whole of Northern Ireland. We’d like to go to Cornwall at some point, but it’s a very long way from where we are in Northern England. There’s a reason why there’s still a sleeper train from London to Penzance. Our nine-year-old has also expressed an interest in seeing the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland at some point.

How many points?

The UK Travel Visualiser also awards points – the longer you’ve spent in a county, the more points you get. I managed 184 points – not bad, but it would have been higher if I had lived in more places. Diamond Geezer managed 241, by virtue of having lived in more places, and being 19 years my senior.

Tuya Zigbee Window Sensors

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A photo of a Zigbee window sensor

I recently picked up a pair of these Tuya Zigbee Window Sensors from AliExpress. At £7.50 for two (plus VAT and shipping), they’re an absolute bargain; on Amazon (sponsored link), expect to pay more than double that for just one. The sensors detect when a window or door is opened or closed, and can both report the current status of the window or door, and be used to trigger actions when the window or door is opened or closed.

Wait, didn’t you rant about Tuya in February?

Why yes, I did rant about Tuya Wi-Fi devices, and I stand by what I wrote. However, you can get many Tuya-compatible Zigbee devices, which can be used with Zigbee2MQTT without having all your data go to servers operated by a Chinese company. So yes, I wouldn’t be keen to buy any new Tuya Wi-Fi devices in future, but I see little issue with Tuya Zigbee devices.

Installing the window sensors

The sensors come in two parts. One holds the batteries (two AAA batteries, not included) along with the circuitry, and the other, smaller part is what detects whether the door or window has opened. Each part comes with an appropriately sized piece of sticky foam, so you can just stick the small part to your window, and the larger part to the frame. You need to ensure that, when closed, the two parts touch.

To test whether they work, open and close the window or door – if you see a little red light flashing when this happens, then you’re good.

Zigbee devices need to be paired to your Zigbee mesh network. Once you’ve enabled pairing on your Zigbee controller (in my case, Zigbee2MQTT), you need to press and hold the reset button on the window sensor for five seconds. It comes with a little metal pointy thing to help with this – a bit like the pointy things for ejecting SIM cards on a iPhone. Once it has joined your network, you should be good to go.

Using the window sensors with Home Assistant

Any new devices in Zigbee2MQTT automagically appear as new MQTT devices in Home Assistant. Right now, I just have dashboard badges for the two window sensors, so I can see at a glance whether those windows are open. I’m planning to add an automation which switches the heating off when one or both of the windows are open, and potentially a notification at bedtime to remind me if I’ve left a window open as it’s getting dark.

You could add them to a door, so that when you open it, a light comes on, and then turns off when the door is closed, or after a certain time delay.

For now, I’ve only bought two of these. As mentioned, each one requires a pair of AAA batteries, and whilst I could fit them to every opening window, that’s potentially a lot of batteries to replace. At least they take standard AAA batteries which can be easily recharged. I’ve only had them a couple of weeks, and so I can’t yet give an estimate of how long the batteries will last, but they’re both still showing 100%.