Memo to self - never eat mussels again

Well over twenty years ago, I went out for a meal with [Unknown site tag] and we had mussels and they were delicious and caused me no problems at all.

A couple of times since then, I've tried to repeat the experience and both times I was ill. I put it down to food poisoning, but also made a mental note that I might have a food intolerance of some kind.

Last night proved it conclusively. We both had mussles, but only I ended up vomiting everything up a few hours later. I now have a horribly sore throat (as you might expect from stomach acid passing that way) and feel pretty washed out as I wasn't well enough to get to bed until 1am.

I read somewhere (but have no idea where) that the first time you eat a particular food, you may be okay, but the body develops a reaction to it - so you only feel ill the second and subsequent times. Does anyone know more about this?

PS. If anyone was planning to phone me, this might not be the best day for it...

Xmas party in Swanage (Dorset)

Our local SF group is holding our Xmas party in Swanage this Saturday. If anyone who was with us at Winspit this summer would like to come along, let me know asap. You'd all be more than welcome. We'll be starting some time between 12 and 2, sleeping bag space is abvailable overnight.

It'll be a fairly small gathering and we'll probably eat, talk and watch DVDs.

Directions availabe on request.

Electricity bills

I just got my electricity bill. It's a lot less than the comparable bill for the same quarter last year. £30 less.

There's inevitably going to be some random variation depending on when they actually read the meter and when they've estimated and got it wrong, but I'm still pretty confident that the saving is real.

The usage was 686 kWh as opposed to 1201 kWh

That's a reduction of over 40%!

I'll wait and see what the bill is next quarter before I cheer too loudly, but it looks as though the measures I've taken to cut the electricity usage (without reducing our standard of living) may be having a real effect. That's a lot of carbon dioxide saved, as well as hard cash.

The gas bill is also well down, but the weather has been very mild, so I don't yet know how much of that saving is due to the double glazing and other insulation work.

plug in power and energy monitor

I've been asked where to get the monitor that I use to measure how much electricity my household appliances use.

This one costs all of £13.49 from Maplin and has already paid for itself several times over.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

According to the web site, the price will go up after Xmas, so now might be a good time to buy one - why not get another for someone else while you're stuck trying to find a different Xmas gift?