Thanks all – appreciated

Stihl battery powered one here. Slightly louder than hedge trimmer. I have two batteries which give 30-40mins of cutting time each which honestly is more than enough for me (occasional trip into woods for firewood and odd jobs around the garden) and I could probably survive with just one. Batteries fit into their range of other tools which generally are well reviewed.

W10 and chrome here. Deleted all STW cookies. Got the cookie message only once but am still getting ads.

Not sure if 7 Wonders has been mentioned yet. On the face of it the gameplay is complex but once learned, it is actually very simple. We are now at the stage of experimenting with different strategies to win…this is from someone who normally avoids board games…

Big shout out to everyone helping in the effort. My mum is being assisted by a volunteer group from her church at one of the big vax centres. Really appreciated as we are currently isolating so cannot give her a lift.

I have ET7700 – about a year old. TBH a bit of a PITA for me. Intermittent issues with network connection printing from PCs (and mobile devices) in the house. Print quality was good but have now had to refill the tanks (with OEM ink) and getting ink marks across the page. Of course just out of warranty now so will have to send off for repair. It sounded a great idea at the time but not sure I would go for same again in the future.

OK back home now. Second day at the Quiraing. Definitely more crowded and car park full by 8.30 am. Walk around was fairly busy and sad to see steep route up hill badly scarred. There were some absolute numpties on the road down to the East (eg overtaking whilst waiting in a passing place) and took some some time to get down. Sadly did not get up to the far north due to one of the group twisting ankle…the Trotternish Ridge though is beautiful.
Will defo go back – need at least a week or even two (we were actually pretty lucky with weather) but will not go in August next time. Final comment is that virtually every local we spoke to moaned about the number of camper vans – a combination of clogging up the roads/ “wild” camping/ and not spending whilst on the island.
Thanks for all the suggestions – @scotroutes thanks for the reply re Bad Step – that routes sounds perfect.

Well first day today – did the Hoe, Waterstein Head loop (thanks @rossw)- did not see one single person for the full 6 hours we were out. Fantastic views between the showers. Beautiful place…no problems driving so far too. Hoping to go up to North tomorrow to look at Quiraing and possibly Hunish if we have time. Thanks all!

Thanks all again. Looks like the Quiraing would be good to do. @scotroutes your suggested route to Sgurr na Stri – would that include the bad step? Or can you go to the top and down to Camasunary via the SE slope? Is fording the river at Camasunary troublesome?

Thanks for all the replies. No I definitely cannot change the timing – and determined not to regret it in advance…hence the request for out of the way places. Have dinner booked!

We will prob try one day out in the South around the ridge – thanks for the suggestions. But sounds like we will be better off keeping close to where we are staying or further North.

I said medium strenuous ;-). Had heard that Neist can get a bit grim… Thanks for the suggestions – more the merrier.

Great effort Poopscoop. I did it last week (not camping though). Much better to walk up the hills than over exert. As everyone says keep drinking – think about taking electrolytes too to hold off the cramp – seemed to work for me – but may have been placebo! Will keep following this and good luck!

@sadexpunk – to me it looks like the hydration of your loaf is v high – basically throughout you have equal amounts of water to flour so 100% hydration. For the sponge that’s fine but for the final loaf I would expect more like 70% (from memory – at work currently will check later).

Have to say that the last two times I tried to make a new rye starter, it went bad and I had to chuck it. Strange as most “gurus” say that rye is the flour with the most natural yeasts in so the starter should be easier to make. Having said that I still have an old rye starter that I seems to be able to resurrect every few weeks out of the fridge. I would try a couple of things
1. make the starter at room temperature (or even a bit lower) so stop some of the evil bugs taking over
2. just use the white starter you already have?
3. Use the white starter as a base and add a bit of rye and water over a few days – that may eventually get you to a full rye starter.

My rye starter is a bit more solid but when it really gets going it has more gas in than the white starter and trebles in size when fed.

Good luck

CamCard works well for me. Automatic scan from camera and fills in the fields in outlook. Reasonable accuracy – not so good with strange fonts…

Thanks all – looks like it will be the FS then. Now to just work off a bit of the Easter choc.

Thanks for all the comments. Sounds like the lack of suspension is as much of an issue as the lack of gears…alphine not even worth it? Seems like you can pick up an 11 spd on 26 rim for <£400 but that sounds a lot for sub optimal solution.

I have not suffered from a collar bone not knitting as my break happened in France and there the doctors seem to operate more frequently than here. From a personal point of view, once recovered from the surgery and following physio, I would say I have lost minimal movement in the shoulder and have little or no discomfort – of course this could change as I get older…

If you are not happy, I would push for a second opinion and/or a referral to a physio who specialises in shoulders.

Good luck!

All well at the moment – put them into a Bol sauce. Starting to feel a bit flushed …but that might be the wine. Whole family has had some, so may be another Oxfam headline tomorrow morning.

Thanks for all the comments. Malvern’s link seems to indicate they will taste OK ( and defo not poisonous). Will let you know (hopefully).

That is absolutely right – great link and thanks v much for the pointer. Have spread the spores so hopefully will get more.

UK has over 19,000 signatures. No other country more than 1,000. Not surprising since the others will effectively retain the right to free movement post Brexit I guess.

Worth trying the Fred Foundation for help / advice? http://www.thefredfoundation.org/about/

Revolut here. Excellent for holiday spending and no issues loading it up abroad. Love the fact you can put a stop on the card instantaneously and then take it off again for all the times I lose the card around the house. Also useful for giving to teenage children whilst abroad with a finite amount of cash loaded up…

Do not use it as a bank account – am perfectly happy with First Direct on that front. Nor do I use it for crypto trading.

I wonder if the business model will work long term in its current form though – Revolut has still not made money but seems to be able to raise equity at will.

I rather like the “average” AMs and have done for some time. Would even be interested in seeing them live but not at those prices.

Anyway – come on educate me – what’s “above average” these days – pls don’t mention some obscure live only bands, has to be stuff I can download.

I have the Sonos and in true STW fashion I will recommend it. I think it will play FLAC files but only up to 16 bit which is not an issue for my ears (but apparently son no2 can tell the difference). It also has a 65,000 track limit (again not an issue for me) but there are ways around that. Ends up so that I can play stuff from all sorts of sources – NAS, spotify, apple, radio etc etc and now just works…

Certainly easier to use someone else’s starter  – after a few refreshes it will be totally “yours” anyway.  I don’t experiment much these days but just make a white, white/wholemeal or granary which all come out just great – have recipes if you want. Also good to try is a 100% rye flour which is the best with cheese. The loaves all last for a week (if they are not eaten first) and the starters live in the fridge and will last for over a week before needing a refresh (you can put in freezer too for occasional use). It’s not difficult and most of the skill is in the shaping of the loaf which comes with practice – as stated above; even if the loaf is flat or split, it will still taste good.

Hmmm- that did not work so well

This is horrific….may have been mentioned earlier but can’t read anything with all the random massive quoted text everywhere. In my profile it used to show threads I had replied too, now just lists my posts which is useless and there’s no actual link to the threads either. Probably my own fault for cancelling my subscription a week ago but will be deleting my account at this rate as it’s almost unusable

@sweaman2 I will be skiing around Saint Sauveur Quebec – more hills than mountains but blinking cold nonetheless.

I should clarify – my hands were freezing whether I was skiing or biking last time. Ideally looking for one pair of gloves for both…pogies for skiing would look a bit odd!

Thanks for all the comments – interesting but there is a general consensus. Will take it easy for a few moths yet but does not seem to be any issue with short slow trips out to get her used to the bike.

Aware of the the over-exercise concern – we take her for two walks a day – each about 30-40 mins – that too much? For the biking, intention was only short ride in local woods (20 mins say) not an all day epic.

Interesting psychological thriller

Let them spec it up – my kids know more about computers than me – set a budget and they pay anything over that. I went down the road of buying a laptop for my son – he sent it back as was not what he wanted. I guess he is an adult after all…

Midnight on a Saturday is OK – have to say this as we had one this weekend…let the neighbours know and invite as many as possible. Having said that we had party two years ago and had the police round…at 10.00pm. Was it you Breatheeasy that complained ;-)??

+1 to the Isles of Scilly? Can go by plane or boat…

[/url]image by Blanklook[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Went there with a local rep a couple of months ago. Company arranged bullet proof car as standard but that is totally OTT. In the commercial centre it is just like any other major city and like any other major city, there are probably places you should not go…

Blimey – been over a week since I wrote this – really was just to get it down on paper as was on my mind. Anyway to answer questions, yes we did tell farmer who contacted the police who then phoned me. Still waiting for them to arrange a time to make a statement…