Disappointed. Was looking forward to glibly giving a Makita fan boye comment.

Orange county shooting range and fire off some rounds!

“only deal with kids”…. dealing with 2 is hard enough. Get 30 in a class and any teacher that can hold ringmaster to that and give engaging lessons deserves a flippin medal. No I am not a teacher, but I was a school parent governor and have immense respect for many teachers.

So much to do in that area. We had our best multi generational (and multi continental!) holiday ever there a few years ago. We stayed in Staithes (up the coast) in an ex pub cottage that slept 10. This was a great base. We did fishing with “All our sons Angling” in staithes, bringing home fresh mackerel. Then there is the NYMR railway. There is family friendly cycling from Whitby to Robinhoods bay (old railway line, goes further if you fancy). Best fish and chips are Silver Street fisheries. So many shops to look at and the Abbey. Nearby you have Cropton Brewery on the edge of Pickering, they do brewery tours and their North Yorks Moors beer is my fave. If nicer weather then Dalby Forest is nearby. Obviously MTB is an option, but there are picnic spots and things like go-ape and Segway rides. Phew…. that’s a taste. If you have any suggestions on the kind of things you enjoy then I am sure we can all make more suggestions.

The other thing I noticed when looking last night is that much of the gearing is now 29er centric. I plan on running this bike with slicks for local canal blasts, so with sub 2″ tyres the gearing is already on the short side with 26″ wheels. I could go for 2″ slicks or semi slicks.
The bars, stem etc are perfect, so won’t be getting changed. :-)

Lose by 130. Lots of Torys will wriggle and either abstain or flip. A few labour MP’s will do a Dianne Abbot and claim they had a dodgy pickled egg and be too “ill” to vote.

All the suggestions above are good. I use cheap silicone spray and it works just fine.

Am tempted by slim profile Alu. Are there just a handful of systems out there that everyone uses?

The car I really want next is the newish V90 Cross country. Now that’s a Volvo!!!!

I loved our D5 XC90, right up to the moment when it spat out its cambelt on the M62. Should have acted on that slight squeek from the Ford specced aux belt pulley! Now have a V40 D3 auto. Love the adaptive cruise, seats are just as nice and a genuine 52mpg is a big improvement on the XC90.

Synology NAS here. I use that as working drive and take occasional copies of key data (photos etc) to other devices. Synology NAS has been running for two years with a couple of WD 3tb red drives and it’s brilliant.

Row H in the Market has a lovely Asian fruit/veg and spice place that is actually called “Spice Corner”. Been there FOREVER and still brilliant. It’s also near the fabulous West Indian place mentioned above (we did goat curry a few months ago!). There are a load of great places on Harehills lane area for both meat, spices and veg, but in the centre there is not much other than the ones mentioned.

Check out Tesco too. Same carrier (O2), but different offers/deals. In our house I have all of us on Tesco mobile and find the orices and family discounts are pretty competitive.

It was OK, but the ending was poor. Felt unfinished.

Never mind curry. Try Jamie Olivers Asian style 5 spice turkey salad. The ingredient list sounds odd, but go with it as the flavour is amazing. We have done it each year for the past 5 and look forward to it almost as much as the Xmas dinner itself.

love that!

No. A BBQ is unlikely to ever get above 250-350C. Pizza stones are good to well over this temp (600C plus). We just got a £10-15 one from Amazon or a random outlet. I used it a lot this year. Ours is a gas BBQ (Fuego pedestal thing with a lid like a weber). One thing I am considering doing is fitting a baffle plate to the lid so that more heat is directed onto the top of the pizza. Get yourself some decent strong flour, some yeast and polenta and have a ball! Home made pizza is the best!

Any of the right diameter will do.

Carluccios do one of the best out of home brekkies.
But for a genuine English Breakfast, key ingredients for me are:
Bacon x n
Sausages x2
Fried egg with lace crispy bit
Fried tomato halves, one, maybe two.
or tinned tomato “dip”
Toast, buttered
Beans, a must have.
Mushrooms, not too greasy (Caluccios do awesome mushrooms).

Hash browns are a bonus and black pudding is ok if good, but normally poor quality.

Following…

Quick proud dad follow up to this thread. Daughter has interviews at Bristol and Birmingham this week, and just today got confirmation of an interview at Oxford!!! Chuffed. Edinburgh still to hear from, but they don’t offer till end feb.

As a small aside, her best friend at the same school also has an interview coming up to study Mech Eng at Oxford. She is desperate to get some interview practice with someone in the industry. Are there any Yorkshire based Mech Eng professionals that could help a second state school grafter get into Oxford?

My bet is different databases for the info. The default book is McCance and Widdowson. There was a new edition of the book out in 2014. I bet one source is from 6th Ed and one from 7th Ed. It’s either that, or the supermarkets have done lab analysis, which can have seasonal or batch variation. But most of the entire food industry uses McCance and Widdowson as reference.

We went through this two months ago. Looked at every brand going. We ended up buying a firm Hidrasund from IKEA. An amazingly comfy mattress. In hindsight I personally would have preferred the med/firm, but the firm is still very very comfy. In Kingsize with a new base is came to c£1000. The hidrasun is new in the IKEA range I think (in Leeds they don’t have a Damien Hirst cross section of one to view yet). But it is the thickest, heaviest thing ever. I also fitted an M&S thin mattress protector.

I recently bought a “traditional” Harris Tweed cap from the outdoor market in York. This is about as Yorkshire as you can possibly get…..until the stall holder (who is a big fan of Northern Soul) told me that they are all made in the last remaining flat cap factory in….. MANCHESTER!  Still at least it isn’t from south of Nottingham ;-)

Get well soon! LGI is awesome. If you need supplies of anything just post on here, between us Leeds lot we will get it to you (unless its coke and hookers, or a bike with discs). :-)

Great answers like this is why I love STW forum. :-)

Wow! My daughter did DofE Gold, finishing recently and the cost was <£100. Teachers gave their time FOC and the school did say it was subsided a bit, but I had no idea it was so expensive at other schools. DofE is a big commitment but very worthwhile.

Really depends on what kind of job she wants eventually. I would say that first and foremost the MOST important thing is A-level grades, so anything that distracts unhelpfully from that should be limited. That said, DofE took up a managable chunk of time for my daughter (nowYR13) and she has no paid work experience, but has done NCS and quite a few unpaid roles in charity shops etc. My advice would be not to get a job at A level unless she needs the cash or really wants to. Plenty of time to get a job when at Uni or over the summer holidays.

I spend more time in bed than on my bike :-)

OK, we went with IKEA and went with the HIDRASUND mattress with proper springs and enough weight to cause distortions in gravity. I think this is a new model as there are very few online reviews and it’s not yet in the IKEA Damien Hirst mattress bisection gallery. However it is very comfy, available and the rest of the IKEA mattress range seems to get good press, so hopefully this top end of their range should last us a good few years. Will report back after a few weeks/months. Now for mattress toppers!

OK I have harvested bodyparts (I knew we had kids for a reason). After a LOOOONG time of faithful service we have decided our ancient Millbrook mattress needs to be replaced. MrsHB wants to spend no more than £500, but I am happy to spend what ever is needed to get something that will last and be comfy for a decade or so. HerdySleep look good (made by local company Harrison Spinks), but also Hypnos, John Lewis, Millbrook and obviously IKEA (who do a great range and their top of the range is VERY heavy…this is good?). Not a fan of pure memory foam mattresses. Currently inclined to get a traditional pocket sprung and a separate mattress topper. So sorry to resurrect this thread, but what have folk got to recommend in the £500-1000 fairly firm double mattress range? Ta!

Sweepy +1

Good luck to everyone!

I like Wrightysons posts. Well observed and well written. Crack on lad!

Disappointed….lots of posts and not a single picture of said bikes yet :-)

random Abs faultnis likelynto be dry solder joints on the pcb. I had this on my xc90 and fixed it in january (dremel, reflow the main power joints, reseal with silicone). This fixed it, but then two months later the aux tensioner failed, taking out the belt, cambelt and engine =scrap xc90 and new (13 plate) V40 to replace.

you are doing fairly high mileage so any car you get will devalue faster than the volvo is costing you in repairs. So i say stick with the volvo and try to save a bit on top that either covers repairs OR builds a deposit for your next car.

Aldi everything is nearly always at least as good, and in many cases better than branded. Better distribution and they go straight to the factory so no expensive brand overheads to pay for. Brands that don’t offer something extra will be dead in the water in the next 10 years.

My first pet was a rabbit, and my mothers surname derives from the east yorkshire village she comes from. Not sure Floppy Wetwang cuts it as a porn star name.

jet26: With a consultant called Nigel in spinal. She has had an absolutely brilliant day and has a week of frontline experience ahead.