Quite a few on the steep descents on Exmoor, Porlock Hill and Contisbury Hill for two.

Blazing Saddles. Watched it with my daughters when they were early teens. Told them what a great film it was and that the campfire scene was hilarious. They sat stony faced the whole way through, while I had to admit to myself it hasn’t aged well. It’s now my daughters’ benchmark for a truly shite film.

Brilliant news! One of the best things on TV ever!

Had two hours free yesterday so got out for a blast round the Bristol trails, which were bone dry and dusty, as they have been for a couple of weeks. Pissing down today, but hopefully the trails will dry out again before Tuesday evening’s ride.
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95% of people. Annoying bastards tbh.

Not tipped as such, but when we had a large 3 storey extension built 8 years ago we made a point of chatting to the builders and checking they were ok every day, provided a cellar room for them to make tea and eat their lunch in, then when the (excellent) work was done bought them a few tubs of Roses. Also paid all staged bills on receipt.

Just had a new kitchen done. The plumber was a really nice guy and the quality of his work was superb (he pulled two 12 hour days as well) so when he told me the work was more onerous than he expected / quoted for (it was, some previous bodges being well hidden) and could he add £150 to the bill I agreed immediately. I also texted him after he’d finished thanking him for doing a really good job.

A mate of mine calls poppadums ‘pompadums’. Where he gets the M from I’ve no idea, drives me spare.

I don’t know if it’s a Bristolian thing, but >50% of people I know pronounce Wetherspoons as Witherspoons.

deadlydarcy
Free Member

Our next door neighbours have scaffolding with a top hat on that wasn’t sounding great during Dudley the other night. 😲

Also Bristol – house opposite is having a loft conversion and has the same set up. The polythene ‘hat’ was making a hell of a racket in the wind yesterday as I was trying to work from the study. Not fully expecting it to still be there this time tomorrow.

Ah Gateway! Worked in three different stores in Bristol stacking shelves when I was in my mid-late teens. Had to wear a fetching green jacket. Not a bad place to work at the time, paid me enough for my beer money which was fine with me.

We are on day 4 of a 5 week new kitchen install. It looks like this currently:
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We have a fridge and two camping stoves set up in the conservatory and a microwave, kettle, and food prep area on the dining room table. Washing machine and dryer have moved down to the cellar as part of the job. Me my wife, plus eldest daughter and her boyfriend living here.

Tbh I was fed up after the first evening, but though it’ll be a long 5 weeks, when we look back in future (hopefully with an amazing kitchen) it will only be a small window in our lives, so trying to remain positive.

Ok, so I had planned to get a quote from my house contents insurer but got waylaid looking into standalone cover.

Just phoned my house insurer – £88pa extra to cover the bike at home and when out, stipulation being that the bike must be locked with a D lock when away from home. Needless to say I went for it. 😁

I spend a lot of time filled with barely-supressed rage caused by the idiotic and damnright selfish behaviour of other people.

Just got back for a weekend away in South Devon with my wife. Every person we encountered (in the hotel, pool, pubs, cafes, walking around, driving) was pleasant, considerate, sensible; basically did nothing to raise my ire.

Christ it was nice. Like a peek into a rarely seen world.

Thanks for all the input – good stuff!

The quote is all in and includes VAT. All the work is done in-house, not subbed out, and under the supervision of the main guy who gave us the quote.

Following @TheDTs post we went into The Kitchen Partners on Whiteladies Rd today. Had a long chat with the woman in there and left with a good feeling – they are coming out to quote us in the week. We discussed ballpark figures and it seems their quote is likely to be around £30k too.

It’s a hell of a lot of money and if it were all my hard earned I’d baulk at paying that much, I’d buy stuff in myself and get someone to fit it as many have suggested. However I recently received an unexpected inheritance of £16k, which is why I’m considering this.

We will downsize and move elsewhere when adult kids have flown the nest, the house is too big for 2 people really, plus it’ll free up some cash to supplement the pension. I reckon we’ll be here about another 10 years though so we’ll get the use of the kitchen.

Thanks all – useful input, keep it coming!

@Doris5000 – no, JMI Kitchens & Bathrooms in Brislington.

Thing is, I can find the money if I need to from savings, but really hadn’t planned to. I do think the finished job will be top quality though from what I have seen / heard. Asking to look at some of their recent work is a good idea – we did that with the builders who did our extension – that was pretty much stress-free which is what I want here.

Write. My writing was always appalling, but these days using a keyboard all the time I struggle to write legibly at all.

People who talk the most generally have the least to say.

Spent the day razzing round Devon on the motorbike. Got back on the M5 at Taunton and it was a carpark all the way back to Bristol. Filtering for 40 miles: hideous! Tbh, everywhere I’ve been the last month or so has been horrendously busy, far worse than usual. Staying in the garden with a beer is becoming more and more appealing.

Assuming you’re not vegetarian eat at Baqueano, an Argentinian restaurant. The food is superb and great service too. It’s a must visit for us every time we go to Brighton in the future.

https://www.baqueano.co.uk/

Horner tea rooms near Porlock does superb cream teas (and other food obvs) in a big garden. Regular haunt of ours when down there.

The valley of rocks just outside Lynton is well worth a visit too.

Re: mortgage vs renting costs. My mortgage is £360 a month. I don’t know exactly what I could rent my house out for, but I’m confident it would be £2k+ a month. Great for me, crap for people who have / want to rent. My kids both want to live round here after uni, I think it very unlikely they’ll be able to, even if they live with us for a while to save some cash.

I’ll never, ever, understand the mentality of people that destroy stuff before chucking it so that no one else can have use of it. The only things I do that to are old motorbike helmets – I always cut the straps before binning, but that’s for safety reasons.

There really are some messed up people out there.

@djambo I’m lucky, I have quite a big cellar as well (and a loft) so I have plenty of space to store crap elsewhere and keep the garage fairly clear to use for bike storage and workshop. Oh, and gym as my daughter has her punchbag in there, plus toying with the idea of buying a rowing machine.

mashr
Full Member

What is everyone’s thoughts on how many lumens to go for these days? Don’t need full “brighter than the sun” and I need to sort a 8 x 3m garage…… so 4,000lm?

The two in my pic above in my garage which is slightly bigger than yours total 10,000lm. That is easily enough for close working on my bicycles and motorbikes, it really is very light in there without being annoyingly so.

Cheers to zk for starting this thread. Since one of the fluorescent tubes in my garage failed I’d debated for ages whether to change to LED. A 5ft and 4ft LAP baton from Screwfix later (£70) and my garage is brighter than it’s ever been. Dead easy to fit and daisy chain too.

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I could do with replacing the fluorescent lights in my garage with these. If I replace the whole fitting is it as simple as wiring into the existing connection?

I have no problem separating the person (not good, to put it mildly) and the music (good, to put it mildly).

Welshfarmer – totally agree. We stopped shopping at Morrisons as we had exactly the same experience. Can’t work out if it’s intentional or just ineptness.

55. Recently decided I wanted (actually wanted) some slippers. Spent ages scouring the net for a suitable pair- had them a few weeks and bloody love them. It gets worse, I’m considering getting an Oodie – tbf the rationale is to have the heating on less as my wife and I have been wfh since last March, but even so.

Had the unable to get into or out of a chair without grunting thing for years. Yesterday I bent down to pick something up off the kitchen floor and inadvertently emitted a grunt / shout / screech so loud I actually scared myself.

I used to work a girl who had absolutely no interest in food, saw it purely as a necessity to stay alive. To the extent of having cold water on her cornflakes!

Mboy – Fowlers? Very nice..

Love my 19 GT, seen here on Exmoor the last time I rode it at the end of November. Roll on Spring!

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Our younger daughter, 17, has a job at a Indy pizza place in town, 25 mins walk from home. She finishes at 10.30pm every Fri and Saturday night. I walk down and meet her half way, purely for my peace of mind, she insists quite vehemently that she is quite safe walking home on her own, and actually enjoys it.

I love the fact that she has such confidence, albeit with a bit of youthful naivety. It’s also very noticeable that about 80% of the people I pass, going into and back from town, at that time are young women on their own. Therefore I also love the fact that I live in a city where young women appear to be totally comfortable walking around on their own after dark. How common this is elsewhere I don’t know.

Re:Berthas pizza in Wapping Warf Bristol, our younger daughter works in there and often brings home a loaf of their sourdough when there is some left over. Is ver good 🙂

Ro5ey

Member

And saw them live supporting Oasis at Knebworth. For all the hype surrounding that gig for Oasis it was Prodigy, for me, who put on a far better show…. remember feeling somewhat disappointed with Oasis

I was also there and thought exactly the same.

Since I started going to gigs regularly again 6-7 years back as the kids got older I always went with my elder daughter. However she went off to uni in September so since then I generally go on my own. Quite enjoy it tbh, and it’s a lot cheaper as I always bought my daughter’s tickets and drinks.

She is coming home this weekend though as we’re going to see Stiff Little Fingers on Sunday. Fourth time we’ve seen them together, always down the front, always battered black and blue!

At the risk of sounding a bit of a saddo, that carb in Vortexracing’s post is bloody lovely. I do miss carbs.

Re: going into a corner too fast – force yourself to look where you want to go (i.e. the corner exit), really focus hard on it, and get used to using counter steering intuitively. I’ve been riding since 1981 but still get the odd corner wrong; looking intently where I want to go and giving the inside bar a good shove has always got me out of trouble. It really does work.

I was there 10 days ago. Cafall was closed due to forestry work, Twrch fully open (and riding well).

Yes, absolutely love it.

Love the city, Bristol, such a cool place, even the crappy areas aren’t *that* bad compared to some places I’ve been. Only real downside is the appalling traffic, but we walk pretty much everywhere so not too much of an issue.

Love the area, just over a mile from the city centre, so my wife and I walk to work, kids walk(ed) to school. Cars sit on the drive all week.  Plenty of good pubs and places to eat within a 10 minute walk, we rarely bother going into town.  And, possibly best of all, stacks of live music most nights of the week. Little boozer (rammed with 100 people) 10 mins walk away where i’ve seen Glen Tilbrook from Squeeze, Dr Feelgood, The Vibrators, as well as stacks of unheard of bands. Old jail 10 mins walk through the park the other way is much bigger – was there last week watching Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart.

Love our house. Pretty big since we extended it, room for teenagers and partners without actually having to interact unless we want to. Garage for the motorbikes,  cellar for the bicycles, drive for the cars. Garden plus balcony with far reaching views.

Nowhere I’d rather live.  Happy as a pig in the proverbial

The route snaps refers to above is great, far preferable to the A39.

Donation made. Hopefully there will be enough left over to take the kids on holiday.

If you get no joy here, you can use the West Somerset Railway (steam) to get from Minehead to Bishops Lydeard, just outside Taunton. I’m fairly sure they take bikes.

https://www.west-somerset-railway.co.uk