MapDec in Kendal had this policy, made a short video where they mentioned such, then seemingly got added to a “banned list” held by Madison when they refused to take said video down. This then lead to another, fairly humorous video/webcast being posted where they doubled down on their position and effectively gave Madison the finger.

I sympathise with them to be honest; their take is ‘if we examine a crank ourselves and declare it OK, and then it fails spectacularly, aren’t we in line for legal action? Best off sending them all off to Shimano then!’ Seems Shimano disagree…

I’ll be testing the refund waters imminently. Ordered a (very) reduced Garmin and HRM strap a few days ago, paid with PayPal and today received…an empty box. As in, completely empty! Parcel tape had clearly been cut then resealed so suspect someone at Parcelforce has had some light fingers.

Have spoken to Parcelforce, who passed me back to Wiggle.
Have emailed wiggle but received no reply (yet).
And have raised a dispute with Paypal, who had passed it on to Wiggle.

Will wait and see how this unfolds….

Ive not biked packed around Morocco but have been there for 3 driving/touring holidays and think its great!

As said above it will be chilly in the Atlas in Feb, but there’s plenty of uphill to keep you warm.

I’ve always flown into Marrakech (it’s the easiest place to get to with a direct flight) but as Tom-B said it’s not a nice cit. In fact I’ve found that the country, and people tend to improve the further from the urban centres you go. Get over the Atlas and the ethnically Berber population are a really friendly bunch and not so completely obsessed with selling you something as the city dwellers.

That said, the Ben Youssef Madrasa in Marrakech is one of the most stunning buildings I have ever seen. 

Once your over the Atlas there are large expanses of country with nothing in them. This comes with a vaguely Wild West/end of the world vibe which I quite like but I suspect bike packing east of the palmaries would be a fairly desolate experience. The passes over the Atlas would be great however. 

I like Fes, much better than Marrakech for hassle/scamming, but the hills around Chefchaouen in the north are stunning and a little greener than the rest of the country to the south. 

The public transport networks aren’t too bad (once you wrap our head around the language barrier) so you could ‘cheat’ and take a bus or a grand taxi out of Marrakech to the foot of the atlas to save some time. 

Having a basic grasp of French is helpful, but I got by with hand gestures in places where English isn’t spoken and my pigeon French failed me. 

Ive travelled alone (albeit as a male) twice and never had any trouble beyond the usual scammers who try their luck.

Costs wise it’s cheap, you can stay in perfectly suitable accommodation with breakfast/bottomless hot water for <£20/night, and a decent evening meal will be <£10. It’s a dry country though, or as good as, so an evening beer will be replaced with mint tea. 

Nads and Boris in a day…I think I could even tolerate Sir JRM for this!

Daveylad has it in one; half term week.
Why on earth there isn’t government enthusiasm for just banning disposable BBQ’s I really don’t know. Every year we go through the same nonsense. Every…sodding…year…
It’s not good enough for the Fire Service, notational park authorities and mountain rescue to keep banging the drum, they have no real authority…grumble…

Yep, Ambleside Cricket Club works really well as a daily parking spot, honesty box near the clubhouse door. Located on the left as you leave Ambleside towards Rydal.
I’ve used it a lot for walking the horseshoe or similar. It’s not too long a walk to get back into Ambleside either.
How it works as an overnight park up I don’t know, but as a local and member of several Lakes social media groups there is a growing resentment to the “‘converted transit’ camper types”; feels a bit like we’re developing the same animosity that many Scots have on the NC500 route.

It’s an unsolvable issue really.
LDNP is too popular, up from 8million visitors per year Pre-Covid to 12-15million now. Infrastructure is not keeping up, and is barely in existence is most places. Lay-bys have been closed, and estates have put parking meters into many established car parks too.
There has been talk, increasingly loudly, of making some roads/valleys Car-Free, or making the whole park area a permit parking zone or similar. Personally I can’t see that working.
The Welsh have tried forcing people to use the bus for Snowdon by making parking prohibitively expensive or just impossible, but this has just forced the parking issue (literally) further down the road.
We’ve got different tourists now as well, not just the climbing/walking/swimming/kayaking folk of yesteryear.

If you can find a lay-by then I’d crack on, if you’re not blocking a gateway or the road then no-one will key you! I’ve climbed with folk who have parked up for days in Langdale during nice weather, but there have been times when I’ve been trying to find a place to park at 0600 in the morning only to find all lay-by spaces in car-park less areas occupied by campers which is rather annoying to say the least.

It’s all well and good saying go to a campsite and pay, but you need to find a free campsite first, and one that’s in walking distance to the crag, otherwise you’ll be in exactly the same parking-space scrum as everyone else the next morning.

Sorry I’m not more help, but Welcome to Cumbria!

I swear by Hayter mowers. My current mower was my grandfathers so god knows how old it is. Still starts first pull and appears to be a case of “just add occasional oil and fuel” to keep it alive.
I’ve only got a postage stamp of grass at the current house but can’t bring myself to sell the old thing.

“When I had a dog my vet used to charge £10 for dealing with insurance claims directly. Given how effing usless PetPlan are and the inane and stupid questions they ask the vets I think thats a fair charge for the amount of work they have to do to claim!”

As an equine vet this comment hits the nail on the head. The insurance companies are becoming a complete nightmare to deal with.
Gone are the days of ‘do job, write notes, complete claim form, post’.
Now every form submitted generates a sometimes endless loop of emailed queries and absurd misinterpretation of the clinical records.
The time taken, normally at home, in the evenings, to reply to these try and stop claims being wriggled out of is a job which warrants a considerable amount more than £10.
We charge £15 for a new claim, for the time and irritation it’s takes per claim I’d be happier charging £50!

All I can offer is never, EVER buy own-brand Weetabix…baby food (and I’ve got one) doesn’t come close to that insta-mush!

Ive used both Nikwax and Grangers wash-in re-proofers and found them to be much of a muchness. The grangers stuff smells slightly better to me, but not sure that’s a dealbreaker! It’s more a case of what happens to be cheapest in Go Outdoors at the time I need some.

If you can (not sure what your label will say) giving some shells a 20min cool tumble dry helps to re-activate the DWR and definitely seems to help my mountain equipment goretex shell clothing. It feels completely wrong to tumble dry it, but seems to work.

Last word of advice, put a towel on the floor under the washing machine door when you take the clothing out, I always end up with a small lake as the re-proofer traps any water until you joyfully empty it all over the floor!

Watched that last night. Impressive, mad, and shows he’s absolutely dedicated to his craft.

Tom Cruise is doing a sterling job of single handedly keeping bonkers action stunt coordinators in work. Can you IMAGINE the insurance costs though.
“Sorry, Mr Cruise wants to do WHAT now?!”

I still cant believe he’s 60… there has to be a horrible Dorian Gray portrait somewhere doesn’t there?

To give Montane a bit of credit I’ve had two pairs of terra stretch trousers for years, abused them walking and climbing and travelling; never put a hole in them and they seem to see going and going…
Montane’s prism jacket is a classic too, mine seems as impossible to kill as the terra’s.
Maybe their quality has dropped more recently, but I cannot fault the clothing I have.

That sounds a similar setup to theirs. We’re frugal by comparison at home, stingy with the heating and only fires up for 1 hour twice a day for hot water. We do have insulation however, our friends….well, don’t!

Can I join the STW Oil family?
I feel the AGA pain, not personally mind, but we’ve got some friends who’ve just moved in down the road and have used >3000L of oil over the spring/summer as its their only form of cooking appliance.
Oddly they’ve just found some room in their kitchen for a freestanding oven/hob…

I’ve been out to Tenerife more times than I can remember so…..

If its open, the cable car up to the top of Teide is a good experience. Equally if you’re feeling more adventurous (and I thoroughly recommend the effort) you can walk up and cable car it back down. Just make sure the cable car IS running as I can speak from experience its a bloody long way up and back. Not a massively steep walk, but it kicks u towards the end, and you definitely notice the lack of oxygen if coming from sea level.
Its a fairly bizarre landscape up there so even if you don’t go all the way to the top make sure you pull over and have a walk on the surface of the moon. Also look out for the pine trees which deposits bigger-than-fist sized pine cones.

The road to Masca (brilliant drive), and the walk down the gorge is always well worth it. Logistics take a bit of care; drive to Los Gigantes, find tour operator or local bus to take you to Masca village, walk down the gorge and paddle in the sea before getting a boat back to Gigantes. When we’re taken friends out this is often billed as the ‘highlight’ of the trip.

If in Gigantes and you fancy a cheese-fest nautical experience, the boat trips out to see dolphins and whales are a good enough laugh, if slightly over touristy. Again, I’ve not been out to the island for years, but the Flipper Uno us a large mock pirate ship which (whilst playing Pirates of the Caribbean music) does some basic food and a chance to swim in the sea over lunch, its effectively a 2/3 day trip though. There are also more rapid boats (think speedboat) which do the run in a lot less time. Chance of seeing dolphins, good. Chance of being intensely annoyed by hoards of other tourists, also good!

Another walk, which I haven’t done in years due to the Spanish authorities making it virtually impossible, is Barranco Del Inferno. Its a nature reserve and they limit tickets per day, also the path has a habit of just being closed for no reason so don’t guarantee anything. But you walk along a vibrant, lush gorge up to an impressively high waterfall.

The main water park is a great day out, but try and get in early and avoid the height of the queues and sun.
Loro Parque (up near Santa Cruz) is a pretty good zoo-cum-seaworld place, but I’d not prioritise it personally.

Snorkelling, if you want to try and find turtles then El Purtito (on costa adeje) is the place to go. Sandy bottom bay, so visibility can be very variable/poor in the surf zone but once out over it normally clears well. They used to/may still release turtles caught in fishing nets in the bay so there always used to be a very good chance of seeing them.
Ive not snorkelled in Tenerife (apart from as a means to get out to a scuba dive site) but the whole coast is littered with little (normally stony) bays with an abundance of sea life. Multitudes of little fish (Bream, Trumpet Fish, Moray eels (evil looking buggers!) Wrasse, Damselfish etc are all common. Atlantic Rays are a common, but not inevitable, sight, as are Barracuda (but they tend to be a depth so more of a scuba sighting.

Garachico is another funny place, used to be a major sea port in the 16thC until the harbour and half the town were wiped out as lava rain down from an eruption, filling them both in. There is a natural swimming poor in the lava flow which the kids may like.

If you’ve not been out to Tenerife before, and get a bit bored of sunshine in the south, you can drive over the spine of the island and enter a considerably greener country.

If your self catering pop into the Mercadona supermarket just off the motorway at the Golf Del Sur junction (which will be between you and the junction for Christianos). Its SOOOOO much cheaper and better stocked than anything in Christianos itself.

Hope that helps, and have a good time.

My wife and I, and our 1yr old daughter are going out there too in November.

When we used to host the local ploughing match we’d always have to replough the field against their furrows to give anything like an even surface for proper seedbed preparation, so not even the benefit of saving diesel.
There’s been a fair drop off around us now that they are having to run their tractors on white diesel, makes ploughing half an acre seem a bit more expensive.
There IS an art form to it though, even more so when a chap turns up with a team of horses!

Yes, I had one. This much is safe.

I was double charged earlier this year, two payments, one through apple and another on my card.
I did manage to get my money back (well, half of it) but as mentioned above the process to do so is deliberately opaque and long winded.
I raised a ticket with them, generating a ticket number, and then waited…and waited…and waited some more.
Eventually came to messaging on social media (twitter and facebook) to get a response.
Had to send copies of my bank statements showing the double payment, and after a bit more waiting they did refund the excess.

And no, you cant ring them!

HTH

Evening, If your wife has previously eaten dairy and your baby has tolerated this then I would recommend that your wife continues to eat dairy and breastfeed. This will not cause your baby any harm as your baby has previously tolerated the milk proteins passing across the breast milk. In addition only a small amount of proteins pass across the breast milk and most infants can tolerate these. The recommendation would be to exclude dairy from your child’s diet for 4 weeks and then re-introduce. There is a milk ladder that you can use guide you through the process. I would recommend the IMAP milk ladder (this can be found on google)! I would recommend that your wife continues to breast feed for as long as she would like to, especially throughout the weaning process. Dairy alternatives such as Oat milk and soya milk can be used in food. Some infants can react to soya in a similar way to milk. I would recommend that you ask for a referral to a Paediatric Dietitian. Please let me know if I can be of any further help.

My wife is a specialist paediatric dietitian with an interest area in childhood allergies, CMPA is her bread and butter, I’ll ask her to pen a post in a minute!

Mine did this, tried battery, calibration…battery, calibration…battery calibration, then just sent it back for a warranty replacement.
Never did find out what the problem was as a new one arrived a few days later.
They used to have a terrible rep for this sort of thing but do seem to have improved with the latest generation of meters, and a new battery door seal .
Sorry I can’t help any further.

Bud……weis……
Bud……weis……er!

Can’t link to it (computer illiteracy!) but the Budweiser frogs and Louis the Lizard get my vote.
“Never get a ferret to do a weasel’s job”

We have a Netgear Orbi. Got the tri-band kit with a router and two satellites.
Was a bit spendy to buy, but to give it credit is has been FAULTLESS in the past 6 months.
Have the router one by the tv in the living room, fed that into a switch which then feeds Sonos, the TV, Xbox, Apple TV and some smart bulb gadget.
First satellite is in the office upstairs, connected via WiFi, this has the PC plugged into it which stills gets 350+mb/sec even though its not physically wired to the router.
Third one is in the kitchen but reaches to the garage (approx 10m away), but am considering moving the turbo and this satellite outside to free up living room space.

YES, leaf blowers! Have always struck me as a solution looking for a problem. What’s wrong with the good ol’ fashioned broom.
They just seem to encourage neighbours warring with each other; on Monday neighbour A blows leaves onto neighbour B’s drive. Tuesday, B blows onto A, Weds, repeat…..

Nah, dogs are fine….I don’t get Cats. No love for their owners, sleep and eat around the neighbourhood, paw prints on EVERY surface….
Yep, its Cats I don’t get!

We’ve got a simple human double sided one, for recycling and general waste. Honestly bought it on a bit of a whim as it was cheap in TKMaxx (sorry, I shouldn’t admit to shop there!).
I can honestly say the bin bags are phenomenal, as mentioned it is impossible to tear them.
As it goes, buy cheap buy twice. Even applies the bins..

We’ve got an Orbi. It’s fantastic really, nothing negative to say about it. Managed to pick one up around Black Friday and it took all of 15mins to set up. Gone from no WiFi in half the house to gigabit everywhere. Added bonus is hardwiring in the PC and printer without needing to channel Ethernet through the walls. The PC connection is virtually as fast as plugging it into the original router (Ookla Speedtest).
I’m really chuffed with it.
Not cheap, and other Mesh systems may work as well, but it came highly recommended to me, and I’m highly recommending it back!
HTH

Christians Against Poverty are another charity who get a mention on R4 quite often. Luckily never had need to call them personally, but they sound to be a very decent group of people who (contrary to their name) don’t sell religion. Best of luck, sounds like your having a tough time.

Yep, Liam has become a bit of a parody of himself!

£4.50 a pint! Damn, hadn’t been in to the fleece yet but it looked very tidy from the outside. Shame, was probably going to pop in for a meal at all stage.
The new Thai place opposite Nevisport looks ok too (but obviously for food not for a night out!!).

I’m still struggling to get over how iffy the last one was (not quite a horse-race or Luke enjoying green alien milk anyone?) but I’m sure the cinema will get my £5 when it comes out!

I’ll second an Anker charger (and leads for that matter). Similar to Phil above I’ve had a 4-USB multi charger for ages (>2yrs) and its not put a foot wrong.
Cheap and seemingly cheerful.
HTH

My guess would be broken neck from the way it looked like it was fitting on the ground, in which case there really is nothing you can do.
There will be a review at Aintree as there would be after any fatality on the course, but it’s the first fatality at the National for 6 years.
Sadly jump riding is inherently dangerous, but all the courses around the UK have made large efforts to improve both the turf and the jumps in recent years to minimise that risk. They’ve spent a fortune at Aintree putting in sprinklers on the course, reduced the height of the fences and they don’t pack the fences as tightly as they used to.
Euthanasing a horse on the course is a worst case scenario, and is never done without a very good reason. Once the vets have bypassed the fence they gain more time and will commonly have support from additional vets who can make a second opinion judgement on the case.
I know at Aintree that the veterinary hospital at Liverpool is the referral centre and I’m sure everyone would try to get any injured horse there for an assessment unless euthanasia is the only ethical option.
No one wants to see any horse die during racing, especially at a global event such as the National, but with that many people watching you can be sure that no decisions will be taken lightly.
My thoughts are with the owners/trainer/jockey, it must be a horrible thing.

Its certainly a “one of a kind” sort of frame isn’t it! About the only authentic bit on it is the original rocker unit. Also, welding to be proud of!

Not so much flying the stages flag, but I’ve got an R8000 stages single sided meter on my road bike and its been faultless for the last 18months with my Bolt.
Never used a 4iiii so cant post a comparison however.
Not sure I’d ever be able to justify going dual sided for the riding I do, but as above they are very handy things for pacing yourself.

Kendal Evans are only there for 11 more days.
They’ve been closed with the first swing of Sports Direct’s axe. Popped in over the weekend and it feels very low in store. I feel gutted for them, they were always very helpful for me.
The next nearest store is Preston, and while click and collect is free you now have to pay £5 flat fee for delivery from the web so I can’t see me using them that much any more.
Real shame…

Sketchup free would do that. Bit of a learning curve with it but very handy free software. It can only be used through a web browser though.
Don’t confuse it with the paid version, which while probably very fancy, is several hundred pounds!!

I’d second Lancashire Sports Repair. Sent my Rab and the other half’s Mountains Equipment jackets there in the past and they’ve come back good as new. They also re-stuff the down if you’ve lost a lot.

Bonus for us was that they hold fabric from both Rab and ME so could colour match accurately.

Give them a ring would be my advice, they’ve been very helpful to me.

I’d echo Julian, upgraded from an Xbox360 about 6 months ago and spent a while mulling over the X vs S debate.

Went for the X in the end as it just seemed to make more sense to buy the better machine.

Something else to bear in mind is that the X can be stacked as it vents out of the rear/sides, not out of the top like the S.

I’ve got mine in a TV cupboard, but when its on I have the doors open as it does seem to warm up a bit!

We recently walked away from a house purchase for similar reasons. Albeit a septic tank as well as shared access driveway.

From what our solicitor said the deeds are not legally enforceable, ie they can (and clearly have) refuse to pay. No amount of paperwork waving will make any difference, unless you take them to court, in which case the judge will almost immediately find in your favour due to common law principle. There is a fair cost in going to court though….

Our issue was that the septic tank would have been under our garden, was not that far off needing replacing with a clargester (EA wont allow septic tanks to be straight up replaced in our area) and we didn’t fancy asking each of the other properties to reach behind their sofas and find a spare £4-5000. Cost us about £2000 in fees and surveys to find this out though…grumble grumble…..