I kicked off the year by going to Vienna and catching up with Susanna who had left earlier. The idea was to go hot air ballooning in the Alps in wintertime. It did not happen, so we are trying again, now.

We did manage to go to Gastein for skiing, both downhill and crosscountry, though Suz came down with a cold. On the way through, we stay in Salzburg and catch up with Willi and Roswita. I managed to get away for a weekend to the UK, meeting up with Paul Knight and Andie my brother in law for some Indian on the way from the airport to Bec's place. As always, it was good to catch with everyone.

Maritza from Norway flew down for a visit, lots of coffee and cake and art galleries. We took her to the Gloriette at the top of the hill at the summer palace, warming up in the Victorian era greenhouse glasshouse hothouse at the bottom.

On the way back from Europe, we flew together for a change and stayed a couple of nights in Singapore. I have been to Singapore many times but only as a stopover. I had booked a couple of nights at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, not just to break up the trip back to Perth but also to gain access to the amazing infinity pool. The hotel consists of three 57 storey blocks supporting a 200m 'sky deck'. One of the most spectacular buildings in the world. Interestingly, Suz and I were the only ones who actually swam, everybody else was taking photos and, well, paddling.

Suz on the roof of Singapore

Myself in front of the hotel and beside the iconic Lion of Singapore

We also explored the new Gardens on the coastal side where they had these amazing glasshouses. In contrast to the glasshouses in Vienna, they are designed to keep temperatures cool.

View from the skydeck and the glass houses

Back in Perth, we ride the Freeway Bike Hike, now almost a tradition. In April, there was a unique Senate re election in WA and we get Scott Ludlum safely back in, however the ALP dropped the ball and only an aging conservative unionist gets in.

We finally install some rooftop solar at Number 7. The large tree to the north east of the house casts a lot of shade, but we used micro invertors so each panel was independent and so free of any impact from shading of the other panels. We put three facing east on the garage and three facing north on the western side of the front roof. The idea being that while we lose a third from shading, because we work from home, we save at retail prices rather than export at wholesale prices. Retail are now three times the amount Synergy pays for any exported electricity.

East facing and west facing

We returned to Austria in June for a month with a lot of cycling. Details of the ride from Vienna to Salzburg and the training and participation in the Salzkammergut Tropy, are also below. Part of that training included a trip to Germany to a chlorine free public swimming pool, Naturbad Aschauerweiher in Bischofswiesen.

Watzmann Mountain in the distant background

Chris Raymond of Aurelis who does our solar work had a friend, Curly, who specialises in Sri Lankan pancake dishes. Friends of the both of us were invited for a big cook up in the middle of winter. Phil continues to drop by after work a few times week.

The garden continues to attract birds and we had a couple of bird boxes installed with Galahs and Twenty Eights breeding successfully in them. The bat box remains uninhabited. The bees continue to work hard and we harvest the honey twice, some 20kg a time. We also replant a grass tree out the front.

New neighbours

November was quite busy beginning with a drive to Cunderdin with dad and Susanna. It was his birthday present to be taken up in a glider. We all went up. I had been up before as part of my Aero Engineering course so was not too fussed that I was the only one to suffer badly from motion sickness.

Dad is the first to go up

The following weekend, Andrew from number 1 rode with me as part of Team SkyFarming in the 6hr mountain bike race in Northcliffe followed by the 12 hr Dusk to Dawn, a fortnight later. My brother in law joined the team on my old mountain bike for the Dusk to Dawn. There is no doubt that my new bike is considerably quicker.

Mid December finds us both back in Vienna, again chasing the hot air balloon ride. This time, we have both Maritza and Phil over for Christmas.

Neighours Rikky and Marina come over for Christmas Eve. Our two and a half metre Christmas tree with real candles.

Do I mention a 2 hour visit to Susanna's dentist? 4 fillings and a mouth 'wash' - drilling, grinding, polishing, flossing. Is this why it has been a decade (at least) since I last saw a dentist?

Maritza and I get a few laps in at the Amalien Bad, a wonderfully restored 100 year old Art Nouveau swimming pool complex with lots of tiling, timber and wrought iron everywhere.

SkyFarming

We continue to perform administration and technical support for both wind farm projects. In March, we drive down for the Denmark Sustainability Expo as I had a presentation to give. No one actually turns up. To see what they missed, Tale of Two Windfarms presentation, see below.

In May, on behalf of Sustainable Energy Now, we are invited to give a talk on renewable energy opportunities in Margaret River. They appear particularly enthusiastic and 5 months later, we return to give the Tale of Two Windfarms presentation.

Data from the pyranometers and budget prices for solar panels and other equipment suggest that the solar farm at Mt Barker should go ahead. I am hopeful it will be installed before this time next year.

In August, we had Shi Ting and Hui Min from Taiwan's Green Citizens Action Alliance (http://www.gcaa.org.tw) over for three nights, they were extremely surprised and impressed with Suz speaking fluent Manderin. In September, we caught up with Paul who came over for a lightning visit while Bec and Luke turned up in October. Izaak, the second biggest investor in Mt Barker Power Co stayed a night in early December. He enjoys a good spin on a bike so we lent him my old road bike and took him to Henderson along the coast. It was good to have him over.

Books and DVDs

The biggest book for me was the 'Almost Perfect People' by a journo who married a Dane and lived in Denmark with her. It is his sometimes quite humorous observations of the various nordic tribes; Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Fins and Icelanders. Particularly memorable is the response by one Danish academic . . . "what do you mean, 'almost'?"

I finally managed to get hold of a working copy of Borgen, series 3 and it was as enjoyable as the others. On loan from Ildako, we managed to knock off all five series of "Six Feet" over winter.

Links

Tale of Two Windfarms

The cycle tour to Salzburg

Training for the Salzkammergut Trophy

All the best for 2015,
Andrew
Vienna, 28th of December 2014