Scargill

I don’t update this blog that often as mentioned in the previous entry – but I’m here in Bellingham and the weather is surprisingly nice at the end of July.

Maureen has been working on the garden and I’ve been upgrading our home automation and working on heating system issues with some success. We’ve also had friends visit and been out visiting others. All in a busy few days.

Coming back to the UK has been an eye-opener – prices have rocketed far more I guess than permanent residents will likely see. Popped into the Cheviot local pub for dinner with friends – the meals were not cheap but more’s the point, the house wine was £22 a bottle and if that doesn’t stand out – you’re part of the problem, dear reader. That is ridiculous for a common-or-garden wine at a common-or-garden local rural pub in Northeast England.

Even the nearest Indian takeaway is at it, based in a nearby trading estate to keep costs down yet charging £80 for Chicken Tikka + rice takeaway * 4 + poppodums. I nearly collapsed as we’re used back in Southern Spain to half-decent wine at 3 Euros a bottle in the supermarket, maybe 10-12 Euros in a rural restaurant – less in a bar. None of this has done anything to change my view that we made the right decision moving to Spain after a lifetime of very fairly contributing to Britain tax-wise – something I now put down to my own ignorance.

I have to hand it to Northumberland – the weather is quite reasonable right now whereas much of Europe is having record high temperatures in July – but that’s nature, not rip-off retailers and pub-owners some of whom should be hung, drawn and quartered IMHO. You can tell I’m annoyed, the new UK labour government have just announced scrapping the winter heat allowance except for some disabled folk and a whole raft of people who’ve spent their lives NOT contributing to the system.

As some of you already know, we’re pretty much settled in Spain with the odd trip to the UK – and I maintain a pair of blogs – one for friends and others to se what we’re up to in our daily lives – I also maintain my very active tech-blog which is aimed at technical folk – between the two – they take up much of my spare time – so this blog which has in the past focussed on our UK experiences is becoming less relevant.

To save effort can I ask readers and friends to look into the Spanish blog for regular updates and the tech blog for anything geekish – thanks for looking in – historical info in this blog remains intact.

We recently noted an incoming email offering 1Gbps fibre broadband in our area (Bellingham, Northumberland, UK) from a company called WeFibre – and would we like to apply for the grant to make this possible? We duly filled in the government form – and went back to the company who were (grant-inclusive ) offering 1Gbps in both directions – for £20 per month – 18 month contract. How could we lose…

Well, for starters – the 1Gbps turned out to be advertised as minimum 500Mbps, later clarified (not in writing) to be nearer 900Mbps. At this point I don’t know which figure to believe as the guy from WeFibre seemed to think I would not know the difference between WiFi speeds and incoming fibre speeds. For reference, standard old 2.4Ghz WiFi in no way could achieve 1Gbps or anywhere remotely near it – but anyone wanting such speeds is likely to be using a router with WiFi6 – a recent standard or at the very least, a 5Ghz option and/or hardwired Ethernet.. I always go hardwired for TV and my PC.

But that wasn’t the worst of it, I said I might not be around in a couple of weeks, could they install before then? No. So then I said that a good time would be August (2024) bearing in mind I’m writing this early February – erm, probably not. On further enquiry, after all that, they could not guarantee IF or WHEN they’d be doing installations on our side of the bridge in Bellingham.

So what was the point of wasting my time with a non-existant service? Cowboys. If anyone in Bellingham goes with this company – don’t say you weren’t warned. I’ve been through all this kind of bull with a company in Spain (Habland – who recently became Excom) and eventually kicked them into touch – while slagging them off as widely as humanly possible for the trouble they caused me. I’m happy to repeat that with any company who insists on trying it on and wasting my time. If others did the same we’d all suffer a lot less cowboy nonsense.

Meanwhile I guess we’ll have to wait for a genuine company to come along. Remember the name – WeFibre. Timewasters.

I’d personally rather the telecoms companies concentrated on improving the 4G+ (and perhaps making possible 5G) mobile service between Bellingham and Hexham and then along the equally badly-serviced A69 motorway from Hexham to Newcastle. From experience in Southern Spain, I can say that given a decent 4G+ LTE signal, it is possible, with a 4G router like the TP-Link MR600 (v2 or v3) router and a SIM, to get decent, not very expensive broadband (depending on getting unlimited or near unlimited monthly data – difficult but possible in both Spain and the UK). In Bellingham, 4G+ signals are not that clever and routers tend to be less sensitive than modern phones.

There it is – my broadband experiences in Bellingham, UK. Previously when living in nearby Wark, I ended up with reliable, semi-decent-at-the-time (80Mbps down, 20Mbps up) broadband from Vodaphone (not mobile). I should say however that it took several months of fighting with incompetent staff (all of which unnecessarily cost Vodaphone several routers + compensation) to get there. No idea why it isn’t blogged in here. I recall several conversations with me blaming the telegraph pole and Voda ignoring me – it turned out eventually that the box under the pole was absolutely sopping wet and the wires only JUST holding together. After the OpenReach fellow was finished – perfection.

Meanwhile we’ve un-filled the grant form – a shame the governement chose not to allow freeform feedback.

Meanwhile, back in Spain in a town-edge area the telecoms companies could not be bothered to wire up, we’re happy with €20-a-month decent 4G+ based broadband until Starlink prices drop even further from the current €40 + €10 monthly equipment rental (no installation charge). That episode IS well documented here.

Not sure how but we seem to have missed out on the heatwave over in Northumberland. I was there for Christmas 2022 and New Year to help get our new place in Bellingham in shape. I manage to capture what little sun we’ve had in photos of the nearby church and equally dead local baker.

Closed until January 9, 2023 it seemed hardly the best way to recover from pandemic/recession. Anyway, our house is in good order and being checked on regularly by friends.

July 2023 update

In July 2023 we were back in Bellingham for a short while – it seems that there was a dire situation at the bakers over the new year but checking now all seems as normal at least for now – and CONSIDERABLY better value than Greggs (rip off) bakers. Weather in July as you’d expect – some sunshine and lots of drizzle.

Although we got off to the above bad start, on July 30 we had clear skies at night while visiting our friends up at Lemmington Hall near Alnwick (Northumberland).

For more regular updates on our general lives, check our Bedrock site https://spain.scargill.net and for REALLY regular updates our friends can catch us on Facebook etc.

I tend to use this site now just for UK-specific stuff. Maureen is back in the UK for a while, late August and part of September so no doubt we’ll have some updates in here.

Nothing in the way of outdoor photos I’m afraid as the weather here is abysmal.. I’ve spend much of the season (since arriving late December 17) working on broadband and bust PC issues while Maureen does her painting etc..

I was just thinking how the conversation of TV over broadband goes… for years I and others have been reeling off what kind of speed you need for decent TV.

Well, over the hols I’ve been struggling with the usual provider issues, I spent more time today messaging Lyca BOTS and getting nowhere, meanwhile we’ve been managing for TV on a SKY (O2) 4G signal that is particularly slow thanks, as it turns out, entirely due to the crappy 4G roof mounted modem we fitted months ago when we moved in.

Here’s the thing… the TV picture quality is just fine.. easily 1080p and often higher on our 4K 50″ TV. As an example in one sitting this week we watched 5 episodes end to end of the new Jack Ryan series… perfect and yet the speed never went above 4.6Mbps download. Crystal clear imagery at speeds I’d have said were too slow.

Once I can get someone to bring some scaffolding to pull the modem off the roof it will be much faster… I brought another router with me from Spain (TP-Link) that, sitting in the downstairs window easily achieves 30Mbps+ on O2. But it turns out that’s only needed for my PC, not the TV.

Next time I take a Boxing night photo I’ll use a tripod and NOT capture the telephone line. Still – lots of stars out… too cold to have another attempt and dinner’s ready…

Hmm. Took a trip to the MetroCentre on Christmas Eve to see the new Avatar 2 movie – looks like they’ve made some changes to some stores since I was last there…

Well, happy new year everyone, thanks for looking in..

December and Maureen is at our new(ish) place in Bellingham and by the look of it has been frantically unpacking and working on the place.

Hard to believe but here it is, December 3, 2022 and it’s sunny in Bellingham, UK with hardly any trace of the usual damp clouds.

Meamwhile the kitchen is looking absolutely spiffy.

And that’s all I have for now as I’m here in Southern Spain where it is even clearer! I was beginning to think after yesterday that the sun had shrivelled up – but no, it’s back. Good day for a festival.

But as most of them are happening over in Spain – I’ll direct you to the Spanish blog – meanwhile we expect to spend time over Christmas in our new UK base – I’ll update this blog at the time. Thanks for looking in.

It’s quiet in here as I’m not in the UK. Maureen is however, so I’m sure we’ll soon have some new photos of our cottage in Bellingham – I’ll just remind her. Meanwhile, I’m bored to death after eating something “off” last night and dare not leave the house.

I have no new photos and could not draw if my life depended on it so I thought I’d post something I’ve been playing with – art created by artificial intelligence. It seems appropriate at this time to mention the Queen, so I popped nothing more than the text below into one of the latest online toys. Out came this group of images – I hope they’re suitably respectful.

“Queen Elizabeth, light green dress and coat, with three corgie dogs in heaven, cinematic, 3D render, full body, 4k resolution, very detailed, photo realistic –ar 16:9”

Not sure where the background statues/people are coming from in the first 2 images – and I’m not even sure the BOT knew who Elizabeth is (was) but the general idea isn’t far off. That’s it for now.

If anyone wants to investicate this tool further – here’s a link. The tool is available on DISCORD. Enjoy.

It’s not the first time we’ve owned property in Bellingham (we’ve owned two cottages here in the past – Groom’s Bothy and Hollyberry Cottage) but the first time out of town – and really can’t gripe about the view. It’ll be some time before we’re ready for inside photography – so much to do, so little time – but here’s a quick view of the outside – front and back…

That’s the view from the back (Day of the Dead comes to mind but at least it’s peaceful and unlikely to end up as a housing estate for a long time!) and coming up, the view from the front..

Maureen has put lots of work into making this a reality and hopefully before the end of the year it’ll have a functioning workshop – right now everything is a bit dis-ordered – but we have a functioning living room and bedrooms – that’s important. Obviously, none of this would have been possible without the help of our friends.

More later.

It’s been quiet in here as we now spend far more time in Spain than the UK.

I’ve recently taken the somewhat unusual step of putting a MARGINALLY technical blog entry over at our Bedrock site (recently address-changed to https://spain.scargill.net) – because it seems that at long last we have better broadband in Galera, no thanks to the local broadband provider but a great opportunity to learn something new about 4G.

Do check out the link above if you’re interested in what we’re up to right now. Not much to write about on the English side of things other than our forthcoming visit to our new UK base.

More on that later as we’ll be replicating the Spanish broadband setup in the UK during our forthcoming visit.

Meanwhile we’ve had friends and relatives over to visit – over to the Spanish site for more on that.