2026 - Neil Turner's Blog

Turning a Tuya device into a Bluetooth Proxy

September 5, 2026 by Neil Turner

A Tuya IR and RF bridge that has been flashed with new firmware using tuya-cloudconverter and can now act as a Bluetooth Proxy

A couple of years back, I bought an M5Stack Atom Lite to act as a Bluetooth Proxy for Home Assistant. Last month, an update to the ESPHome firmware meant that more devices could become a Bluetooth Proxy, including Tuya devices, and so I’ve now got another Bluetooth Proxy in my home.

The device in question is a Tuya Infrared and RF bridge, which I bought cheaply from AliExpress. This runs on a Beken BK7231N chip, which I’ve been running ESPHome on for some time having used Tuya-Cloudcutter to flash it. Since April, it has been running as an Infrared proxy in Home Assistant, but as yet I haven’t got it working as an RF proxy. Although, to be fair, I haven’t got any RF devices that I need to bridge into Home Assistant, so it’s not a priority.

BLE on more chips

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) hasn’t been supported by ESPHome on Beken devices until last month’s update. Indeed, back in January, BLE was fully removed from ESPHome on these devices to save RAM and storage, as it didn’t work at the time. So this is quite the turnaround.

It’s not just Beken chips that have gained BLE support. By making BLE in ESPHome generic, devices with Raspberry Pi Pico and Lightning LN882H chips can also become a Bluetooth Proxy as well, making it available across most of the chips supported by ESPHome.

Better Bluetooth Proxy performance

Something else that’s worth noting about ESPHome’s Bluetooth Proxy support is that there has been a lot of optimisation work over the years. When I first set up my m5Stack Atom Lite two years ago, if you tried to add anything else in ESPHome to the device, such as a web server, you would get a warning when compiling the firmware. This is despite the Atom Lite having an ESP32 chip, which is amongst the more powerful chips that ESPHome supports.

That’s not a problem nowadays, and so an ESPHome device can comfortably act as a Bluetooth Proxy and something else. That means my device can be both an Infrared Proxy and a Bluetooth Proxy – and potentially an RF Proxy as well if I get that working. That means it’ll be capable of doing more with the ESPHome firmware than with the stock Tuya firmware that it came with, as well as no longer being reliant on the cloud.

The Bluetooth Proxy YAML code

If you use a recent version of the ESPHome Device Builder, then you just need to add these Components to your device:

Bluetooth Proxy
BK72xx Bluetooth Low Energy Tracker Hub
BK72xx Bluetooth Low Energy

That’s it – you don’t even need to set any Advanced Settings as the defaults will work fine. However, if you’re old school and want the YAML code, here it is:

bluetooth_proxy:

bk72xx_ble_tracker:

bk72xx_ble:

Then all you need to do is recompile your device firmware, and once it has restarted, Home Assistant should recognise it as a Bluetooth Proxy.

I’ll be keeping my m5Stack Atom Lite for now, but having a second Bluetooth Proxy at home means wider coverage of the house. I may even be able to do things like track the approximate location of BLE devices, based on which proxy/dongle they are closest to. And it’s great to be able to take an existing device that I already own, and give it new features.

Theoretically, if you have other Tuya devices like smart light bulbs with a Beken chip, and can use Tuya-Cloudcutter to get ESPHome onto them, then you could also make these act as a Bluetooth Proxy as well as being a light bulb. It certainly opens up some interesting possibilities.

A return visit to the People’s History Museum

September 3, 2026 by Neil Turner

A banner stating 'Murdoch is Bad News' encouraging people to boycott The Sun and The Times, at the People's History Museum in Manchester

Between returning from Wales, and our ten-year-old starting four weeks at summer holiday club, we had a fallow week where Christine and I took turns to look after them during the daytime. So, I took them for their first visit to the People’s History Museum in Manchester.

Christine and I have been before, back in 2013 before we got married, but neither of us have been since. The People’s History Museum was also in the news in June, as Andy Burnham, then newly-elected as the MP for Makerfield, essentially set out his vision for becoming Prime Minister. By the time we visited, he had indeed become Prime Minister.

Compared to 2013, the two main galleries remain similar. What has changed is the addition of some overlays, which give the experiences of recent migrants to the UK in relevant places. As part of my work in higher education, I found the section about migrants trying to get their professional qualifications recognised particularly interesting. Overall, the museum remains a very left-wing view of British history, with particular focus on the Labour Party, trade unions and the changing legislation to give different groups of people the vote. It’s a reminder of how far we have progressed over the years.

100 Years of Strikes and Solidarity

The current exhibition at the People’s History Museum is 100 Years of Strikes and Solidarity, which marks the 100th anniversary of the 1926 General Strike. As you would expect, the Miner’s Strike is a major focus but it includes more recent industrial action such as the Resident Doctors’ strikes and walkouts by Amazon workers. Indeed, until the end of this month, there’s a build-a-bot activity for kids where they can make their own paper model of a robot costume used by Amazon strikers that is on display in the exhibition.

Accessibility

The People’s History Museum is a model of good practice when it comes to accessibility, with lift access to all floors, more than one disabled toilet (offering a choice of left- or right-side transfer) and a Changing Places toilet. There are also Braille and large print guides to borrow and sensory packs.

It’s in Manchester city centre; we arrived by train and it was simply a case of walking out the main entrance to Manchester Victoria station and then following the River Irwell until we reached the museum, which took 15-20 minutes. It’s also not far from Manchester Piccadilly station either. I personally wouldn’t park in Manchester city centre and would instead recommend Park and Ride.

Entry to the museum is free, but a £10 donation is encouraged. There is free Wi-Fi if you ask for the password at reception, and there’s a café and gift shop.

Sliding into September

September 1, 2026 by Neil Turner

We’re into the final third of the year. As I work at a university, September is a busy month as new students arrive to enrol and returning students come back after the long summer break, so campus is going to be busy again after a quiet few months. This month also sees my employer adopting a consistent hybrid working policy at long last, which means I’ll be working three days a week in the office from now on. Previously it was just two days a week in the office, but there were times when I would work an additional day in the office and so I’m not too fussed about the change.

I’m also off to visit one of the universities in Leeds this month for a meeting, as part of a collaborative project that I’m involved in across several northern universities. We normally meet online, so it’ll be the first time I’ve met some of these people in person, which is nice.

Schools

Our ten-year-old goes back to school this week, to start their final year at primary school. They’ve put on a growth spurt recently and so we’ve had to buy all new school uniform in recent weeks, even though they’ll only need it for a year.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be heading along to open evenings at the local secondary schools. Whilst all three of us are pretty sure which school will be their first choice, we’ll investigate the alternatives as well. The application has to be submitted by the end of next month, and then we find out the outcome in March next year.

Railcards and birthdays

My disabled person’s railcard is up for renewal this month; I’m hoping the renewal process is straightforward and I won’t have to provide evidence that my hearing hasn’t somehow magically improved. That being said, the fact that I have an epilepsy diagnosis and have been deemed medically unfit to drive are also valid eligibility criteria. I’ll be purchasing a three year railcard, as over three years it’s cheaper than a standard annual railcard. And as I can use it for commuting, it saves me quite a bit of money – especially with me being in the office more often now.

Christine has her birthday next week; as with last year, it’s not a round number, but we both have the day off work and so will probably go somewhere for a nice lunch.

Bathroom renovation

Following our new kitchen in 2022, the next big renovation project on our house is our upstairs bathroom. Work probably won’t start this month, but we have had the majority of the new bathroom furniture delivered. Indeed, there is currently a brand new bath sat in its packaging in our living room, and we had to move half a tonne of tiles into the house last week. I’ll post more when work starts; most likely in November but we’ll see.

Unblogged August

August 31, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of a blue tit made out of interlocking plastic bricks (Lego, basically) at the RHS Garden Harlow Carr

August is my busiest month of the year at work, although this year I only had to work one weekend, rather than two. That was very much welcome and thanks to some changes with UCAS and some better planning on the part of our systems team at work.

Anyway, we’ve had some free time to do things and so here’s this month’s round-up of things we did that didn’t warrant a blog post of their own.

A return visit to Harlow Carr

We went to the RHS Garden at Harlow Carr in June, although it was a relatively short visit which also accommodated my parents and a member of Christine’s American family who was visiting. Following July’s trip to the RHS Bridgewater Garden, we decided to go back to Harlow Carr to do the bits we didn’t get to do last time, but also to do the Brick Explorers trail. As with Bridgewater, there are plastic brick models of flora and fauna all around the garden and so we followed the trail and ticked them all off. Today is the last day that the trail is running, so unless you can get there pronto, that’s it for this year, I’m afraid.

How to avoid private equity vets

We don’t have any pets, but if you do and you live in the US, Canada or the UK, then Private Equity Vets may help you to choose a veterinary practice that isn’t owned by a faceless corporation backed by private equity. Which is harder than it sounds, bearing in mind that many local veterinary practices retain their names when bought by these companies, rather than being rolled into a national brand. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority is investigating the vet sector, having identified a lack of competition with 6 large corporate groups owning the majority of practices. Here’s a quick YouTube video explaining what’s happening. Found thanks to this Bluesky post.

Backing The Guild: Ren Faire’d

I was one of the 45,000+ backers who helped to fund a feature-length edition of The Guild, Felicia Day’s web series about six characters who play a massively-multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) together. The series started 19 (!) years ago, and so the film is to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. Originally launched with a target of $1.5 million (the minimum amount needed to make a cut down version of the script), it went on to raise almost $6.8 million. That beat the Veronica Mars film‘s record of raising the most money for a crowdfunded film. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it goes into production soon, and that we’ll see the Knights of Good hitting a renaissance faire next year.

A recovery update

August 29, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of a jar of calcium and vitamin D supplements, and a box of Levetiracetam tablets

It’s been four weeks since I last wrote about my recovery, following my seizure in May. Because August is my busiest month at work, most of this month’s blog posts were written in advance and so I haven’t talked about what has happened with my health since last month. Things have happened and so it’s about time for an update.

I had a third seizure

Earlier this month, I had seizure number three. Number one, as mentioned, was in May and resulted in me breaking both my arms; seizure number two was in June. I managed not to have a seizure in July, but then had a minor one earlier this month. Like the second time, I was already in bed, so I didn’t fall and my head was supported. And again, like last time, Christine was there and was able to time it. As per Epilepsy Action’s advice, it’s not really necessary to call for an ambulance for seizures lasting less than five minutes, and once I’d come round, we all went to bed. I even went off to work as normal the following morning, with only a sore tongue from when I’d bitten it to show for it.

I’ve been fine since, although my neurologist advised my GP to increase the dose of my anti-seizure medication, Levetiracetam (more commonly known by its brand name, Keppra). I’m still on a relatively low dose for now though. It also, unfortunately, resets the 12 month seizure free period that I need to have to get my driving licence back. So, I won’t be able to do any of the driving for next summer’s holiday either.

I have a formal epilepsy diagnosis

Speaking of my neurologist, I had a call with them at the end of last month, where they stated that I met the requirements for a formal diagnosis of epilepsy. This, incidentally, was before seizure number three.

We’re still trying to work out what is actually causing the seizures, as there doesn’t seem to be a specific trigger. I’ve had two electroencephalograms (commonly known as an EEG or ‘brain wave scan’):

a standard EEG test last month, which came back normal and included a strobe light test
a ‘sleep deprived’ EEG test last week, where I stayed up all night, and then had the test first thing in the morning. That meant that I fell asleep during the test, and so they could monitor my brain activity whilst asleep. I then spent the rest of the day in bed. I’m still waiting for the rest of this.

Meanwhile, my ENT surgeon is looking at booking me in for an ear procedure that may help, whilst I await the results of another CT scan.

I also have an osteopenia diagnosis

On top of all of this, last week my DEXA scan results came back, showing that I have low bone density for someone of my age. This would likely explain why I ended up fracturing both arms during my first seizure. The medical term for having low bone density is osteopenia, and people with osteopenia are at greater risk of developing osteoporosis if it’s not managed well. I’ve probably developed it partly as a side-effect from having been on steroid-based asthma medication for over 30 years, but being able to breathe is important to me so I’ll take the compromise.

The good news is that osteopenia doesn’t need to be managed with medication – regular vitamin D and calcium supplements are usually sufficient, as is regular exercise and avoiding smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.

I still have some further blood tests to do, just to make sure that there’s nothing else causing my osteopenia that needs flagging up.

My mobility is getting there

I’m starting to regain strength in my arms, and my dexterity and mobility is improved. There’s some way to go before things are back to normal – I still struggle with getting things over my head, and putting a backpack on and off is a bit of a challenge, especially when wearing a coat. But I can do almost everything on my own now, with Christine just helping a little bit with showering and sorting out my shirt collars, for example.

I’m also in significantly less pain – whilst I’m still taking paracetamol and/or ibuprofen most days, it’s more as a response to acute pain flare-ups, rather than keeping chronic pain at bay.

I’m back at work full-time

I’ve been back at work full-time this month, and worked the extra hours for Clearing as per usual. Whilst I have been a little more tired on an evening than I would have expected to have been before May, I feel I’m coping well.

So I’m getting there. There’s still more tests and procedures to come, but I reckon I’ll be closer to my pre-May normal by the end of the year. I’m already not far off.

Submitting dashcam footage to Op Snap

August 27, 2026 by Neil Turner

A screenshot of West Yorkshire Police's Op Snap portal

In last week’s review of our new Nextbase dashcam, I mentioned that, within 48 hours of having the dashcam fitted, we experienced a near miss which was recorded by the dashcam. So, we submitted this to our local police force’s Op Snap portal.

Most police forces have an ‘Op Snap’ (Operation Snap) portal; for example, where we live in West Yorkshire, there’s one on the West Yorkshire Police web site. If you have witnessed what you believe to be a motoring offence and have footage of it, then you need to submit this to the local police force for the area where the event took place, not necessarily your local force. So, if we saw something whilst driving in North Yorkshire, for example, we would submit to North Yorkshire Police’s Op Snap portal.

What happened

Because the footage has been submitted to the police and is, at the time of writing, being investigated, I’m going to keep the details vague and not share the video. We were stopped at a red light, and moved off when it turned green. Opposite us, a driver also moved off to turn right to cross our path, and almost hit us – honking their horn in doing so. Now, this is a junction we know well, and so we knew that this driver had gone through a red light to turn right. Indeed, this was one advantage of having both front and rear dashcams, as the rear dashcam clearly showed the red light.

I’m not qualified to give legal advice and I’m not a police officer, but I believe that the other driver failed to stop at a red light and did not drive with due care and attention. So, after discussing it with Christine who was driving, I submitted the footage to the police using their Op Snap portal.

How to do an Op Snap submission

If you witness something that you think could be a potential road traffic offence, then once you’ve found the portal for the local police force to where the offence took place, there’s usually a form to complete. Now, it’s important to understand what you are submitting. The form is a formal witness statement, and the video footage is evidence of potential criminal activity. You need to be aware of this because, as a result of the evidence you have provided, the police could charge someone with a criminal offence and this could go to court.

Whilst unlikely, you therefore need to be willing to attend court if this happens, and this may be a court near to where the offence took place. In other words, if you live in Yorkshire, but submit evidence to Surrey Police of an offence that took place on their patch, you could be called to attend court as a witness a long way away from where you live.

There is also a time limit on submissions. You need to submit the footage within 10 days of it being recorded, as the police have a 14 day limit to serve a notice of intended prosecution if they deem that an offence may have occurred.

The form that I filled out for West Yorkshire Police was straightforward, and structured so that the witness statement included the key details that they needed. At the end, I could then upload the video footage and submit.

What happens next

After submitting the footage, I got a confirmation email to say it had been received. Then, I got a follow-up email a couple of days later, telling me that the police would now attempt to identify the driver of the other vehicle. This presumably means that the police felt that the footage met their threshold for pursuing a notice of intended prosecution.

However, this was back in June and I’ve not heard anything since. As such, I don’t know what the outcome was. If this was their first motoring offence, then they may be required to attend a ‘driver education course’ which is similar to the speed awareness courses that drivers caught speeding the first time may be offered. They could also receive a fine, penalty points on their licence, and, rarely, be required to attend court. The latter is more likely if they already had penalty points on their licence and are therefore at risk of receiving a ban from driving.

I’m not sure if it’s standard practice to tell those that have submitted what the outcome was, but it would be nice to know I suppose.

Should you submit footage to Op Snap?

So far, I’ve covered the ‘how’, so here’s the ‘why’. If you spend any time on or near roads in this country, whether as a driver, passenger, cyclist or pedestrian, you will have undoubtedly seen examples of poor driving. Whilst speeding is hard to prove with dashcam footage, your dashcam could pick up people driving through red lights, ignoring traffic signs (like ‘no entry’ signs), dangerous overtaking manoeuvres or just a general lack of care when driving. These are all things that the police can deal with – if they’re aware of them happening. And that’s where Op Snap comes in.

Unfortunately, some people are just bad drivers, and they continue to be bad drivers because they do not face consequences for doing so. The police can’t be everywhere all at once, but dashcams and members of the public can help. Being convicted of one offence may be enough to encourage those people to drive more safely, if they know that their poor driving does have consequences after all. And if it’s not, then repeated convictions should hopefully see them banned from driving, and potentially having to complete unpaid work or a prison sentence if then found driving whilst disqualified.

People sometimes make innocent mistakes whilst driving, but by submitting footage, you may help the police find a pattern if the same cars and drivers keep coming up.

Plus, there are some people who become unfit to drive for medical reasons (unfortunately, this includes me, but I haven’t driven a car since my seizures started for the safety of myself and others). At present, it’s on individuals to report themselves to the DVLA as unfit, but some don’t – either because they don’t realise that their health has declined, or they’re told to be a healthcare professional but don’t as they see it as a loss of liberty. Being prosecuted for careless driving may be the wake-up call that some people need for them to realise their driving has fallen below the acceptable standard and to do something about it.

Incriminating yourself

There is one other factor to consider before you submit dashcam footage to Op Snap. The police officer who reviews your footage will be looking of evidence of a criminal offence, and your driving will be scrutinised as well. As such, you could put yourself at risk of prosecution, if your driving was also to a poor standard. This happened recently to a cyclist who was fined £1200 for his bad riding, whilst reporting bad driving.

I would strongly recommend reading this FAQ from West Yorkshire Police, from which a lot of the information here is derived, as it explains the process and what not to submit. For example, Op Snap portals shouldn’t be used for actual collisions, or other forms of non-motoring offences.

So whilst dashcams are primarily there for car insurance purposes, they can also help the police improve safety on our roads.

Coyote vs Acme film review

August 25, 2026 by Neil Turner

A screenshot of the Coyote vs Acme web site

Although it’s not officially released until this coming Friday, it appears that a number of UK cinemas are showing limited previews of Coyote vs Acme this week. This included our local Vue cinema in Halifax, and so the three of us went along on Saturday to watch it.

The film is inspired by a 1990 essay in the New Yorker, where Wile E Coyote sues the Acme Corporation for all of the defective gadgets that he has bought from them in his quest to catch his nemesis, Roadrunner. According to this interview with the film’s lead scriptwriter, James Gunn (yes, that James Gunn) pitched the film to Warner Brothers about a decade ago, but it took until 2022 for production to finally begin. And by 2023, the film was finished, and ready for release.

A Coyote Ugly Cancellation

So why has it taken three years for a film to get from a finished state to being in cinemas? Well, because Warner Brothers decided to shelve Coyote vs Acme, and take a $30 million tax write off instead. However, this was only after they had done several test screenings, where the film was apparently positively received by audiences. And so started a campaign to get it released.

What this means is that, whilst this is a Warner Brothers film, with Warner Brothers characters, it has been distributed by Ketchup Entertainment. They bought the rights for $50 million, and have scheduled a release in cinemas to, at long last, allow the public to watch it.

Incidentally, Ketchup Entertainment released another Looney Tunes film in 2024, The Day The Earth Blew Up, which completely passed me by.

So is Coyote vs Acme worth seeing?

In a word, yes. I quite liked it, giving it 3 ½ stars on Letterboxd. It’s one of those films that works on multiple levels – kids will like the typical Looney Tunes slapstick humour and indeed our ten-year-old enjoyed it. My wife Christine, meanwhile, is a big Looney Tunes fan and understood more of the in-jokes, of which this film is full of. She therefore thought it was excellent.

Of course, Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner appear in this film, but there are cameos from almost every other Looney Tunes character too. And you can tell that the scriptwriters were very familiar with the source material as it feels like an extension of the existing Looney Tunes universe. It’s not a reboot – the characters that you probably remember from your childhood are here and are just as you would expect them to be.

Watching a Hollywood film that costs tens of millions of dollars to make shouldn’t feel like a charitable act. But it did feel good being able to watch a film that some studio bigwig decided wasn’t going to be released. And it’s worth noting that Coyote vs Acme was not the only film to fall victim – there’s also a completed Batgirl film out there that hasn’t been released, and a Scooby Doo film was cancelled part-way through production (ruh-roh). Maybe, if Coyote vs Acme does prove to be a box office hit, these two films might also see the light of day, rather than being written off for tax reasons.

RHS Garden Bridgewater

August 23, 2026 by Neil Turner

On our way back from our holiday in Wales, we stopped off at the RHS Garden Bridgewater to the north of Manchester. We’ve been several times before, as we had an RHS membership in 2023, but this was my parents’ first visit.

A quick history of Bridgewater

The RHS has a more detailed history of the Bridgewater garden on its web site, so I’ll keep this brief. It’s the newest of the five gardens that are permanently managed by the RHS, having come into their care in 2017 and opened to the public in 2021, and alongside Harlow Carr (visited in June), is their second in Northern England.

The site used to be home to a country house, Worsley New Hall, which was built in the mid 19th Century for Francis Egerton, the 1st Earl of Ellesmere. At the time, it cost around £100,000 – about £6.7 million adjusted for inflation, so not quite as much as Penrhyn Castle but still a big, expensive house. The house overlooked a lake, and further on, extensive walled gardens. Queen Victoria visited twice, in 1851 and 1857, arriving by the Bridgewater Canal which runs along the edge of the site. The Bridgewater Canal was built by a different member of the Egerton family, also called Francis Egerton, but his title was the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater.

The site saw use in both World Wars, as a British Red Cross hospital during the First World War and as a training ground for the Lancashire Fusiliers in the Second World War. The Egerton family left Worsley New Hall and after that the site declined, with the house falling into disrepair and later demolished in the 1940s. The site then returned to nature, with some use of the woods by the Scout movement as a campsite, and the walled garden as a plant nursery, until the early 2010s.

The Bridgewater Garden today

Broadly speaking, the RHS Garden at Bridgewater consists of five areas:

The original walled garden
New borders by the main entrance pavilion, known as the Worsley Welcome Garden
A Chinese stream-side garden
Middle Wood
Ellesmere Lake

The walled garden has been further sub-divided into different parts, including a kitchen garden, a learning space, space for community groups, and a Blue Peter garden transported from a previous Chelsea Flower Show. Middle Wood is the established wooded area which has been cleared of invasive buddleja to encourage more biodiversity, and it hosts a playground. Ellesmere Lake is the original lake that sat in front of where Worsley New Hall stood and has been partially restored.

The Chinese garden is new, and arguably the most interesting. Whilst it has been there since the garden opened in 2021, it is still under development, and a large pavilion is currently under construction. This has been built using traditional Chinese methods, and will hopefully be ready in the new year. The planting around the new pavilion includes lots of cherry trees, and I expect it’ll look fabulous come spring. It’s a good thing we’ve bought a year’s RHS membership as I’m sure we’ll be back.

Animals and wildlife

Beyond the walled garden there’s a chicken coop, with several heritage breeds of chicken on show. Also, beyond the play area, there used to be several Berkshire pigs which were used to help clear the ground whilst the garden was being established. However, they moved on to a new home elsewhere last year.

The increased biodiversity on site has encouraged more wildlife to move in. Every time we’ve visited, we’ve seen plenty of dragonflies, and on this visit, we saw a huge common hawker dragonfly which was several inches long. We also saw several caterpillars that will likely become cinnabar moths, along with plenty of bees and butterflies.

Accessibility

As befits an attraction opened in 2021, accessibility is good. The site is relatively flat, and where it isn’t, there are gentle slopes and paved paths. There are some steps and stepping stones, but there’s always an alternative accessible way round.

Disabled toilets are available in the welcome building, and in the potting sheds and garden cottage. The welcome building is also host to a Changing Places toilet. There are several cafés, including in the welcome building where this is also free Wi-Fi.

There’s a large car park which includes six standard-plus AC electric car chargers on the Raw Power network. It looks like additional rapid chargers are about to be made available too; these were covered up on our visit last month, but may be available by the time you read this.

If you arrive at Bridgewater by other means of transport, then there’s a 30% discount off tickets. The nearest railway station is Walkden, which is around an hour’s walk, but you can hire a bike until the 31st October. Walkden has regular services from Manchester Piccadilly station.

There’s also a direct bus, the number 33, from Shudehill interchange in Manchester city centre, which runs from the end of March to the end of August. It’s part of Manchester’s Bee Network, so you can catch a Bee Network bus to a flower garden.

RHS members get into Bridgewater for free. It’s usually cheaper to pre-book tickets online, and those in receipt of certain benefits can pre-book tickets for £1.

Events at Bridgewater

You may have noticed the heron in the top photo, made out of plastic bricks (which may or may not be Lego). This is part of the Brick Explorers event which runs until the end of the month. It takes place at other RHS gardens too, including Harlow Carr, with a different set of models to find. Our ten-year-old really enjoyed this.

There’s also a longer term Wind in the Willows trail on at present.

Nextbase 522GW Dashcam kit review

August 21, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of a front-facing Nextbase dashcam in our front windscreen

A couple of months ago, we got a Nextbase 522GW Dashcam (sponsored link) installed in our car. And today, I’m going to review it.

Why a dashcam?

By now, I think most people know what a dashcam is – the word is a portmanteau of ‘dashboard’ and ‘camera’, and is a camera that sits on your dashboard or front windscreen, and records video footage of the road ahead of you whilst driving. The key reason why people invest in a dashcam is usually because of car insurance claims; by having video footage of what happened during an incident, you can potentially protect yourself from being found liable for a claim if it is disputed by the other party.

As for why we specifically bought a dashcam, it comes down to some near misses that we’ve experienced, but also videos from Big Jobber on social media. For those unfamiliar with Big Jobber, he used to work as a claims handler for a car insurance firm, and has reviewed many hundreds of hours of dashcam footage when handling claims by the company’s customers and third parties. He now re-posts footage of car accidents and near misses, and explains how the claim would likely be settled.

More than once, there have been instances where the dashcam footage may have made a difference between a claim being settled on a split basis (e.g. 50/50) where both parties take a share of the liability, and one where the claim can be settled with the fault entirely on one driver. That should, in turn, result in lower car insurance premiums due to not having a fault claim in your driving history. And as our car insurance rocketed this year at renewal, getting a dashcam may well prove to be worth it.

The Nextbase Dashcam kit

Although I’ve linked to the Amazon listing in the opening paragraph, we instead bought ours as a kit from Halfords, including installation. Having the dashcam professionally installed offered a couple of key advantages:

No trailing wires inside the car.
It keeps your car’s 12 volt auxiliary power outlet socket (commonly known as a ‘cigarette lighter socket’) free for other things.

The kit comes with two cameras – a larger one to go in the front windscreen, and a smaller one that goes in the rear windscreen. That means you can record video looking both forwards and backwards. This underlines the first reason for having the dashcam kit installed professionally, as the wire leading to the rear dashcam is hidden away inside the car’s internal panels.

The kit also includes the windscreen mounts, cables, and a 32 GB micro-SD card, which goes in the front-facing camera.

Halfords stated that installation would take a couple of hours, but in our case it was done in just over an hour, and included a demonstration of how it works.

Using the Nextbase app

A dashcam is of limited use if you can’t get access to the footage. You can, of course, pop the micro-SD card out of the dashcam and use a card reader to access the files. Indeed, I’ve recently bought this multi-card reader (sponsored link) for that purpose. But there’s also a Nextbase app for iPhone and Android devices to allow you to connect to the dashcam directly.

The app works in the same way as my Canon SLR camera; it maintains a Bluetooth connection for basic communication, but when you need to download videos, it switches to Wi-Fi Direct. That does mean that, if your car has its own Wi-Fi network linked to a 4G/5G router (ours does but we don’t use it), you’ll need to disconnect from the car Wi-Fi temporarily to download the videos. These can then be saved to your phone’s camera roll.

The app is… okay. The design feels a bit dated and it can be a bit slow. But it works.

Unfortunately, you can’t connect the dashcam to your home Wi-Fi network (or the one in your car, if you have one). That means that it’s not possible to have the dashcam automatically transfer videos to a computer at home. Theoretically, you could rig something up with a Raspberry Pi that connects to your dashcam over Wi-Fi Direct, and then uses a separate Ethernet connection to save the videos somewhere, but I haven’t done this. Yet.

Video quality

So what’s the video quality like? Obviously, a dashcam with poor quality video isn’t as useful; you want it to be clear enough to identify car numberplates to identify other vehicles in the case of an incident – especially if they drive off without stopping.

The good news is that the video quality is pretty good. It records in High Definition, and seems to be okay even when driving into the sun. As it’s been the summer, we’ve not had the chance to test it at night yet. Within 48 hours of having the dashcam installed, we had a near miss, and the footage was clear enough to be able to read the other car’s numberplate.

Our Nextbase dashcam also burns in the date and time to the video footage, as well as the GPS co-ordinates and estimated speed that you are travelling.

However, it’s worth mentioning that you will likely fill up the included 32 GB micro-SD card quite quickly. We have to format ours every week; it’s easily done in the app, but if you’re often away from home, consider buying a bigger card.

Alexa built-in

The Nextbase 522GW model is one of those that has Alexa built-in. As it records audio from inside the car, it can listen out for the ‘Alexa’ wake word and then send commands to your phone by Bluetooth. At least, in theory; I found this to be temperamental and it wouldn’t always work. It’s a nice to have, but I wouldn’t buy this particular dashcam model just for the Alexa integration. Other voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant aren’t supported.

Other dashcams to consider

Big Jobber has a list of dashcams he recommends on his web site, which doesn’t include our Nextbase model. The dashcam he currently uses, as I write this, is this Vantrue N4 Pro S 4K dashcam (sponsored link), which is rather more expensive but records video in 4K.

We went for this model because Nextbase dashcams seem to be well-reviewed, but mainly because it could be professionally installed at Halfords. Whilst we could have bought a better one from Amazon and fitted it ourselves, it wouldn’t be as neat as a fitted dashcam.

Privacy implications of dashcams

If you are an individual and you are using a dashcam in your personal vehicle, then you can just go ahead and install one. The rules are different for business vehicles; you need to let people know they’re being recorded and register with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

According to the pressure group Big Brother Watch, Britain has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV cameras of any country after China. In some respects, the increased use of dashcams is just an extension of this, but primarily by individuals rather than business or government.

Whilst person use of dashcams isn’t heavily regulated, you probably should be mindful of what you do with the footage. Delete any un-needed footage regularly, and don’t post videos online without good reason.

Hopefully we won’t need to use our dashcam footage in an insurance claim, but if we were involved in an accident, the footage should protect us from claims against if we weren’t at fault.

Our 2026 holiday: Plas Cadnant Hidden Gardens

August 19, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of the formal part of the Hidden Gardens at Plas Cadnant

On our last full day in Wales, we crossed the Menai Strait (via the Menai Suspension Bridge which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year) to visit the Hidden Gardens at Plas Cadnant in Anglesey.

The Hidden Gardens at Plas Cadnant are not that well hidden – once you cross the bridges onto Anglesey, they’re quite well signposted. On arrival, you enter the formal walled garden, with topiary shrubs, lawns and a pond, but beyond there is a wooded area and a ravine with more informal planting. Here, the paths twist and turn, and so you’re never quite sure what you’ll see around the next bend. Our ten-year-old really liked this bit, and it felt a bit like a smaller version of Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire. A stream runs along the bottom of the ravine.

It’s a very peaceful place, that felt really lush just as the drought was starting to turn everywhere else a shade of brown. You can, apparently, see red squirrels in the trees, as grey squirrels were eradicated from Anglesey around 10 years ago, but we didn’t spot any.

We were mostly going at our ten-year-old’s pace and so spent just over an hour there, but it’s possible to spend longer – especially if you spend more time looking at the plants and flowers.

Accessibility

The formal garden at Plas Cadnant is mostly step-free, and there is a step-free route into the wooded area. However, there are steep slopes and steps down to the stream, so not all of the site is accessible to wheelchair users. Toilets are available; if you need a Changing Places toilet then there’s one that complies with older standards within a mile’s drive at Pili Palas Nature World (which we haven’t yet visited).

Car parking is on a grassy field next to the garden, which also doubles as sheep grazing. As such, there are no electric car charging facilities on site, but there is a rapid charger on Wood Street in the nearby town of Menai Bridge. The nearest railway station is at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (no really) but it’s about an hour’s walk; the walk from Bangor station is only a little further and it gets a more frequent service. There are also bus services from Bangor to Menai Bridge from where it’s a short walk.

There’s a café there, with free Wi-Fi available in the café. If you picked up the May issue of Gardeners’ World Magazine, you can get 2-for-1 entry to the garden.