The Summer I Finally Learned to Stop Wasting Solar Power
For years I thought the difficult part of living with solar power would be generating enough…
I Nearly Talked Myself Out of a Home Cinema
One of the strange things about living out here is how quiet it gets at night….
Off-Grid Cooking Without Electricity (or Patience)
Some days the batteries are fine.Some days they aren’t. You don’t get a warning. You just…
Septic Tanks vs Compost Toilets in Rural Spain
The Off-Grid Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About When people talk about going off-grid in Spain,…
The Day the Power Went Out (and I Remembered Why I Moved Here)
The lights went off just after lunch. No warning, no storm, just silence and the faint…
Soft-start day: taming the borehole pump (interior Alicante, Tue 23 Sep 2025)
I’ve been putting this off because the water has “worked fine.” Fine until the kettle’s on,…
The Day the Air-Con Died (and the Cable I Nearly Tripped Over)
Heatwave, inland Alicante. The sort of afternoon where the cicadas sound cooked and the fridge hum…
The Pergola Build: 3 Days, 2 Splinters, and One Very Angry Tape Measure
I finally started the pergola. Not the sketchbook version, not the stand-around-holding-a-mug version. Actual tools. Actual…
The Day the Van Didn’t Stop
It’s a long stretch of country road between here and the place that sells screws, filter…
What It Really Costs to Go Off-Grid (and Where I Screwed Up)
When people ask me what it costs to go off-grid in Spain, I usually take a…