Home grown cherry tomato straight from the vine takes some beating.

+1 for the yellow plastic cape, did a 500 mile school cycling trip in 1970 on my sturmey archer 3 speed, it was compulsory to have a cape. We had energy gels, well a can of rice pudding at lunchtime did the trick.

There’s a fellow locally still using a cape on his bike

Worked with a guy who applied for a new driving licence and instead of Mr, he entered Lord. Licence came back from DVLA duly prefixed with Lord, it probably cost him £20, much cheaper than buying a real one.

personally have respect t for the ordinary people who earn an award and also those who quietly turn them down.

Completely retired from work in June after 49 years, it’s brilliant.

Our first house had an outside toilet with a high level cistern, about 8ft above ground with a chain pull. Nothing ever got stuck.

similar modern bogs (all brass fittings and very designer) are available and our next refurb will have one. All the comments about several flushes rings true in our ‘modern’ water saving facilities..

Have a look here https://abikething.com/ lots of fancy tech for high end bikes.

I used get it fixed.uk for a repair to my Arcam cd player, they did a good job, replaced the drive unit and replaced some capacitors,sound quality is great but… it took about 6 weeks, cost about £150. Wish I’d just bought a new one.

Oxfam  will take the lot, sort it, sell it and save you loads of time. If you didn’t listen to it you won’t miss it. (It’s what I did with my parents collection of vinyl.)

Married for 40 years, never had a ring, couldn’t afford it at the time. Don’t need a symbol to remind me. Also worked in a practical environment where a couple of work mates had injuries made worse by their ring.

Shit happens. Did he film it for his tik tok channel. It’s a life lesson, sure at 13 there will be plenty more to come. Kids are not made of glass and need exposure to the reality of life.You’ll be laughing about it sooner than you think.

Chill. (Says the father of 3 ‘adult’ children who have had many learning experiences)

I’ve had a 2l diesel golf since 2014 with DSG gearbox, ACC, winter kit, did a lot of driving for my job, it’s been very nice to drive, particularly after a long day at work, averaging 25k miles, all road types, per year.

Switch off the stop start and the ACC is then great in slow moving traffic.Good fuel efficiency but not ULEZ compliant.

Just don’t buy anything with GT or sport in its name as the ride is generally poor if you want quiet and comfort. (Yes I am over 50😀)

colleagues had the Skoda Octavia with the same spec and were very happy with them.

Just buy the kettle, plenty of other things to spend time being concerned about with a new baby. Best wishes to you both.

Really interesting programme on BBC Sounds – Sliced Bread did an episode on ‘Smart’ thermostats. Worth a listen. To get the best return on investment I am going to wait until I replace the boiler, current system is 14 years old.

Highly recommend Evolution, hired from them at least 5 times, nice people. Bikes are set up for Brit riders and they’ll offer a choice of pedals if you clip in. Ask them to do you a map for the “Rollercoaster” MTB route, a good day out. Go in on day one to check availability of MTBs.

Natural selection will take its course as it sadly did with motorcyclists before helmets became a legal requirement  The police can’t win on this one.

Found the solution to Monday blues, only took 49 years of Mon-Fri work though.

As many have said, just ask, not worth risking a career over an old PC.

Thanks folks

Looking at the Sustrans route from Whitehaven to Sunderland

Moped licence, some of you will have one already if you passed your car test before 2001. If you passed your car test after 2001 you only need to complete CBT. https://www.gov.uk/motorcycle-cbt/car-driving-licence

Everyone should have an apprenticeship. on a two wheeler before they get behind the wheel

VW Golf 2.0l diesel, DSG box been faultless, 10 years old, 140k miles, just make sure you have the oil changed as recommended.

I used to do long commutes in it, would not want a manual for that type of driving.

Try it free is a good suggestion, you could also try Komoot free. I occasionally use Komoot, it’s pretty good but will route you on to footpaths at times.

Just done ours with 170mm Knauf insulation from Wickes, didn’t need gloves etc not at all unpleasant to work with and £24 per pack, much better price than B+Q. Delivered free as I spent over £100.

What a total (insert expletive). If they catch the culprit a community order to plant 10,000 trees at their own expense would be too lenient.

A few may not like this but, my son and his girlfriend did 3 years at Nottingham University supported by their part time jobs at McDonalds, admittedly a few years ago. McDonalds were/are a pretty good employer with very flexible shifts which worked well for them. We did a little bit of adhoc support but not much.

Both graduated and have very good careers well away from fast food.

Best will in the world, students won’t be studying all day every day, a job gets young people ready for working after graduating.

In 4 years time I’ll be 70, doubt I’ll be able to afford an e-bike, and at 70 I’ll still be too young  for an electric bike anyway. Yes, I’ve  ridden an e mountain bike and fully appreciate what they can do. If I had £4-6k to spend on a two wheeler I’d probably buy a Honda CRF 300.

Virgin, been with them for 20+ years (originally diamond cable). Just had an email saying they are increasing the price and I have the option to cancel contract early. ‘Press button 4 if you are thinking of leaving’ after 20 minutes of loud awful rap noise it just hangs up.

may consider moving but it will be with a provider using the very old phone lines in our Road. Currently on 125gb and wife works from home, some interesting comments in this thread though about speed.

Safety pin! Works for me, low tech, simple, environmentally correct as there’s probably one in the house already and very inexpensive if not.

or spend £100+ on the latest ‘gravel’ specific jersey and be a consumer victim.

Hope you’ve looked at Autoreisen, always a good deal with them. Make sure you take your licence and not a bad idea to download and print your driving details, http://www.checkmy licence.gov.uk

Driving in the Canaries is easy, just stick to the limits. Have a great time.

My employer asked me what I would like upon retirement after 15 years, so £250 in Wiggle vouchers, thank you very much. The vouchers got round the tax problem it seems and our HR team are absolutely risk averse.

please ask them, I would have been very ungrateful for a watch which was the suggestion originally. You are very fortunate to have staff who have stayed with you for 25 years, well done for getting it right for them.

Are you on auto renew with your current insurer? If so you won’t have a break in insurance and without doubt you’ll be able two get the documents online.

If you really must have a dog get one from a rescue charity. Cats, just think about the wild bird population please.

the advice about dog sitters is valid, I have two grown up daughters with three dogs between them, they really get the hump when I decline to look after their pets. You may think the animal is adorable, it doesn’t mean anyone else does.

We do make a monthly contribution to Dogs Trust, who look after the dogs no one will give a home to.

<p>Thank you all, Plenty to consider, I did try the phone and OS maps with a Quadlock mount, power bank and will revisit this. I am fairly old school (read old) and take a paper map and compass as back up anyway. </p><p>The Garmin Montana looks great but maybe overkill for my level of adventure. a final point on phones, you don’t need the latest model and a pre owned iPhone or similar can be picked up for way less money add a £5 per month Lebara sim and you don’t need to worry too much about it.</p>

Try Boxt, I had a quote for a swap out last week around £2500. My daughter had them replace her system boiler earlier this year with a Combi and the quality of work was great.

If you’re in Loughborough area S Line are worth a try or Lion Garage. Second about clutchless changing, just do it when the roads are quiet, drove my wife’s Micra 10 miles to a garage to get a new clutch fitted, just don’t go very fast and hope you don’t need reverse.

I used some Soudal outdoor mastic from Screwfix, to glue a sole back on my k’d running shoes, so far so good. The mastic was left over from another job, good stuff, also used it to re fix the Velcro on some gloves, lasted all winter.

As the Americans say ‘there’s no substitute for cubes’ I had a Golf 1.6tdi frugal but scarily gutless when it came to A road overtaking. Have a 2 litre tdi now, 9 years 135k miles,  no dpf issues.

You could buy a nice bike for £2.5k and get some real reality. VR not for me thanks.

And when you are a member you still get adverts, for the ‘discount’ offers.

I worked for 15 years as a full time trainer all over the UK, always taking my own kit, laptop, projector, clicker, mouse speakers etc. The kit in hotels is usually dire and takes an age to set up and they don’t have IT support. Even delivered a course at the BBC in Manchester and after politely letting their tech guy fail to set me up a projector ended up using my own.
Delivering a presentation is always a bit of a challenge, having unnecessary IT stress only adds to it.