Say you’ve been playing in the garden on a cool inflatable water slide only to discover somebody has been cutting the grass. This means as well as having grass stains on your knees you also have to risk the wrath of the lady of the house when you pad grass clippings through the kitchen. What you need is a shower outside and this is the coolest and hottest outdoor shower I’ve seen!

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There’s nothing that new about solar powered lights in the garden but I thought these ones were different enough to be worth a mention, they look like good old fashioned candle lanterns and even have a realistic looking flicker.

As you’d expect the lights are powered by LEDs, a days worth of sunlight will power the light at night for up to 10 hours (all automatic of course). I reckon the flicker will give the lantern a cool look and have your neighbours wondering how you light them every night (okay that might work that one out after the first day).

Available for $29.99 each from Smart Home
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This is a neat looking little ornament, it may look like a low tech wooden toy helicopter but it’s rotors are also solar panels. Leave the solar powered helicopter in sunlight and it’s rotors will spin around. They’ll never spin around fast enough for it to take off (shame) but it’s still pretty cool.

Available from Plastica (odd as it’s made of wood) found via Crib Candy.

Paving slabs and patios are generally pretty bland and boring (though they do provide an area for a computer case DIY BBQ). In order to literally brighten up a boring old patio you could go for these solar powered tile lights, they charge during the day and shine at night.

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This solar powered gadget looks a load more fun than the solar powered ventilator we wrote about earlier (though not as much fun as the Wego Kite Tube). The black Solar Airship is probably the most fun you can have in the park with your clothes on.

To use the sausage shaped Airship, simply fill with air which I assume is done by holding it open and running across the field with an insane grin on your face (so no puffing required though probably a bit of panting). Once filled with air the solar airship measures a whopping 8 metres long. Next you let the sun heat the airship and watch it rise into the air holding on for dear life. I’m not sure what sort of weight it can lift but it will be fun to find out.

You can get the Solar Airship from The Gadget Shop for £10 which is an absolute steal IMO.

You know when you come back to your car on a really hot day, you open the door and get blasted by hot stuffy air well this solar powered gadget solves half the problem, at least the hot air won’t be stuffy (and maybe a little cooler too).

The solar vent clips on the top of your window with the solar panel outside (and some air vent I assume) and a fan on the inside. It then sucks the hot stuffy stale air out of the car and replaces it with not quite so hot fresh air from outside. It’s certainly not a replacement for air con but a green and ecologically friendly addition.

Available from Sunshine Solar for under £30.

One of the great things about the iPod is you can carry it anywhere. One of the not so great things is that when the batteries run out you can’t charge it up anywhere (finding a power socket in a field in Glastonbury just ain’t going to happen). The answer may be at had with the Solio Charger.

The Solio looks like a solar powered popellor but it is in fact a solar powered charger for your iPod, so provided there is a bit of sun you can charge your iPod outside and be environmentally friendly at the same time.

You can get the Solio Charger from Firebox for just shy of 50 pounds (though was on pre-order last time we looked).

As the summer is right round the corner, we’ll all be gabbing a little more on our mobiles - avoid the dead phone scenario by picking up a Solar Mobile Phone Charger. This nifty little charger is equipped with adapters for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung phones.

The charger can recharge a battery in just 3 hours when exposed to bright sunlight. It’s ideal for the sun-worshipping holiday maker who wants to avoid buying a gazillion international power adapters for their mobile.

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