UPDATE

51 weeks after starting the process I have my decree absolute, my own place and for now.. primary carer of our kids.

It was a real tough journey, to say she took it badly was an understatement!

– She befriended my mum and sister and I was accused of coercive control
– She took more capital that I thought fair
– She constantly forced last minute changes on me relating to the kids
– although she mostly gave up the drink, we insisted none in house,there were a handful of occasions where she had clearly relapsed, which resulted in a few very damaging episodes with the kids
– Even now she is saying if I can get them to behave like little angels for her I can become a full time single dad
– The kids have been amazing resilient but wish I could have concluded a move quicker.

Glad to be out of her grasp and having a fresh start 😳

It’s a good solid climb that, but yeah a few steeper nearby. The full ascent from Hebden to Greenhow is glorious with a tailwind. It’s a notoriously dangerous descent, chap died last year when his disc brakes failed and there have been 2 fatal coach crashes there too, both involving brake failure.

I think what would work better than the OP is a £1,000 energy grant to every household.

Then they can decide how it is used – the individual knows more about their own circumstances than the state, those that can afford can then put towards energy saving, those that need can pay the bill.

But the problem is far worse than that £1,000 wont touch the sides come January when average bills hit 6 or 7,000

Had an ID3 for a year and did almost 19,000 miles in it. In general it was a pretty good car that saved me almost as much in petrol as it cost to lease it.

It was undriveable in snow, range was much poorer than advertised. I actually think that the carplay integration was pretty good and the native satnav, which included WeCharge, was reasonable on long journeys.

But biggest issue for EV drivers is access to and speed of DC journey charging. Been in a few queues this summer now…

I got the NHS app for the kids (twins,13) and it shows in there.

That would only happen on an analogue meter though, so rare these days! I am getting some seriously good export rates from octopus, average for today is 34p.

Hi, I was working in BG when we started rolling some of these meters out. at the time we thought the battery life would be about 10 years, some claimed 15, but it wasn’t certain by any means. 11 years seems like a good innings, but I dont remember anyone detecting this type of fault in testing. I know some of the guys at L+G well, so would be happy to pass details on directly, but unfortunately the argument over disputed consumption will need to be with your current supplier.

I would say generally smart meters are a good thing, I wouldnt be able to export solar to the grid or charge my EV cheaply without one, and hopefully we wont experience these faults with SMETS2, although I suspect the fault is down to the battery and metrology rather than the smets module.

911 996 C4S. Superb drive. Turbo body + light bar will make it classic

I am on my 3rd Mason frame, replaced twice under warranty. I know two other people with Masons and both replaced / fixed. One a catastrophic failure of the ti frame on the cable guide near the bottom bracket.

I know these look nice but the words barge and pole immediately spring to mind!

We started ‘family’ rides (the wife wouldnt go near a bike) when the kids were 7 or 8 at a disused railway. We chose this due to lack of hills! Had the ice cream etc at the end.. https://www.cyclesprog.co.uk/get-cycling/harrogate-to-ripley-cycleway-family-route/

It took a couple of years to graduate to rides from the door on actual roads, cumulating in 14 miles down the back lanes. Mainly traffic free, but with many rests for the inclines.

They lost interest at 13

I did a few 3 hour endurance rides on the smart trainer during lockdown. There are some great zwift events, but they do get a bit dull. I have also used RGT, creating a magic road with a loop I know, and then adding bots to it so I can use the draft. Sometimes prefer this now to braving the elements

Longstanton Spice Museum?

Our house had an extension over the garage, we had to pretty much re do it. Removed a dormer with the thermal properties of a static home.. It’s now sloping roofline with velux, but also extended behind. It’s a good space, but make sure you insulate the floor really really well. Ours is still the coldest room in the house

Our place has 40% attrition this year so far. Its like a revolving door. IT sector. fairly grim corporate culture was partly to blame as well as the great attrition. Plus all our vacancies seem to be well below market rate and FTC, so no wonder they can’t get people in.

I have just gone through this

Wow, thanks for sharing.

As an update I have asked my wife to agree to my proposed mediator by the end of the week to kick things into play. No going back for me now..

I’ve never had to put a tube in tubeless tyre in over 20,000 miles of riding. I have had one puncture that needed topping up.

Some rides I take nothing and would just call someone if disaster struck. If I am off into the hills for 70-100 miles then I will take a tube and tyre leavers.

on the 40 units per week, Drinkaware classifies me as “Increasing Risk” from a health perspective. I try an limit the volume and strength of the beer that I drink to fairly moderate levels. I did get drunk one this year, that was on a night out with some old friends. Typical night for me would be 3-4 330ml cans of 4% craft beer. I accept I drink more than is healthy sure.

I caught Covid from my kids as it ripped through the school. it took 6 days to feel well, 3 of those laying on the sofa. Just starting to get my taste back properly now after 18 days. Got off pretty lightly I think. Had my last AZ jab in June

I have the same solar set up as uponthedowns, but SSE facing. Cost 5k for 5.2kw and a 3.6kw inverter. I reckon I will get 4100 kWh from it in 12 months. Was installed 6 months ago and have 3100 over the summer. The clipping does impact it in April when it is cool and the panels are more efficient but I think the additional production on the shoulder outweighs that.

In Summer I can put over 30kWh into the car in a day and so can run for many weeks without charging the car from the grid for local journeys.

I calculated my payback to include money saved on diesel at year 5-6

Not sure what is driving her drinking, have been some wider mental health problems with one of my kids, but her heavy drinking pre-dates that. Mine generally corresponds with less commuting time, more drinking time I guess. I rarely get drunk, but like a couple of pints for sure and was probably drinking 20-30 units per week pre-lockdown.

Slight flaw in that plan is that I cannot afford to buy out her share of the equity of the house. we would need to sell and split the equity.

Two big questions – do you want to save the marriage? Is your wife ready to stop drinking?

I dont think she is fully ready to embrace being sober. She is saying things like I don’t drink now, definitely avoiding any future commitment or past ownership.

I am definitely ready to divorce her but my biggest fear is that a 50:50 split leaves the kids in a worse position.

How do they feel about her current attempt, genuine or otherwise, to stay dry? Have there been previous failed attempts?

After the NYE incident, which was very damaging, she promised to never get drunk again. Obviously this was not kept, the kid(twins btw) asking me to press for divorce is not in the space to grant a second chance and very eloquently confronted her mother last night about this saying she didnt deserve a second chance, she had had 1000 chances since NYE 2018/19 and not taken one of them. I was hoping this would hit home, but the best apology she could come up with followed with was “you really should have been in bed”

So no remorse really, or any real trust that this attempt will be successful. As others have said, and I am clear this is an intervention, and she has not hit rock bottom so has limited chance of success

If it’s true then I say unequivocally that is the action you must take. Divorce her and apply for 100% custody.

This is my sense, and thanks, some of you seem to think that would be possible. I have some evidence to support this outcome that the kids have written and videos I’ve made, but was really hoping that using them to lawyer up would be a last resort.

Man, thanks for all the quick replies – particularly thanks to willard for your contribution.

Couple of points, I have binned the booze for now. Kids are 13

Wife has no family support network, but despite the alcohol intake has not impacted her career and I feel certain that she would continue as a functioning alcoholic until it got the better of her health

Capital not labour.. They are targeting the wrong people, but it is not Westminster they should be blockading. They need to chain themselves to Shell & BP HQ car park entrances and similar.

Mass hydrogen generation is need for both transport (to compliment ev), plant and indeed heating.

Hydrogen boat has pretty much sailed for domestic heat and transport. The efficiency losses and infrastructure required to distribute it will be too prohibitive

The costs of ASHP can be mitigated further, to bring them below that of gas CH. The two other ingredients that are needed are a phase change material thermal store and a smart meter – so you can access a time of use tariff. This way you can use cheap overnight electricity (I currently pay 5.1p per kWh to charge my EV 12:30-4:30) and with the efficiency savings of the ASHP the cost to run should come down considerably. You can use your thermal store during the day and still ratchet up the ASHP if required during peak hours.

I am aware that this will increase the capital outlay somewhat, but it should half the running costs.

I have the model you are considering. It is very good, all the reviews criticising the infotainment and switchgear are just picky. It fantastic to drive in town and on motorway. My commute is 135mile round trip and costs £1.50 on octopus go.

It is vast in the cabin and very comfortable for passengers.

We’ve been on some long journeys in it and as long as you find good reliable ultra rapid charging- InstaVolt.. you’ll be good. But 95% of charging is at home.

I can’t really recommend it highly enough to be honest.

I have just set up a hifi with £500:

Rega P1 turntable, Wharfedale 12.1 speakers, old Wharfedale s-991 amp. Sounds amazing.

Only the turntable was new

Spare a thought for the staff. I know at least half a dozen people who were made redundant from one energy supplier already this year, to now be made redundant again from another.

They have kids to feed and mortgages.

I was contacted by a recruiter recently and I did have to say I wouldn’t work in an energy retailer for any money at the moment.

I had solar fitted in May this year. 5.2kw for £5k. I think of it like this: I will generate 4300 units a year for the next 15 years I intend to stay in the house. Thats 8p per unit forward purchased. What is the cost of elec today 19p? I am using 2/3 of my generation because we have an EV thats still 12p if I export the other third without income. As it is I am on Agile Octopus and the rates at the moment are about 16p..

I put the payback period at a bit less than a decade with EV

Mid June we produced over 30kwh on several days, and charged the car purely on solar for a lot of the month :-)

Will be interesting to see what happens with Bulb. They are clearly too big to fail and clearly not able to obtain credit to cover their costs over winter. No one will take their customers on via SoLR. We are now seeing market failure due to Tory Government implementing price caps. Mad times. Of course if we were still part of the IEM then thing would be a lot easier.

Its crazy that regulation has done this, in the mortgage market your standard variable rate is often the best over time, but you take more risk, and a fixed price is higher, but you get the certainty. Ofgem have created the exact opposite in energy where hedging prudently has resulted in new entrants being able to undercut.. and with Brexit to compound it is highly unsurprising we are where we are. I predicted part Nationalisation when I left npower 3 years ago after the implementation of the price cap and I feel I am about to be proved right.

My builder did this to my neighbours car a few years ago. He approached me and I paid the bill without question. Was £350. More than happy to spend that to keep good relations, esp in context of final bill from builders!

Does anyone here rely entirely on the public charging network? There seems to be enough of them around me to make that bit work, but will it work in the real world? Does it come down to me planning a bit more, picking the car with the most range, and just re-learning the way we do things, which I’m very happy to do, as keen to make this work. The price of public charging is another conversation which I need to work out with work also. Any ideas or thoughts much appreciated. Thanks!

Public charging will average 30-35p per kWh which equates to 7.5-9p per mile so will be cheaper than ICE.

Using only public, will the car need regular AC charging and is there anywhere you can leave it to do this. I recently visited London and Ubitricity had 5.2kW AC charging in the street which worked well and was 24p/kWh. Without a service like that locally could be a pain unless you can use a granny charger at home and 7.2kW regularly at work

If you don’t mind me asking a personal question, how big is your array djglover

5.2kw. If I hadnt been at work today the car would have had 14kwh charge from solar.

probably covered above, I’ve been in both camps, helped someone who had collapsed at York station a few years back, but equally if there are a few people on hand already what can you add?

Its a reoccurring problem for connected home businesses, fine whilst your growing exponentially but not so good when things tail off but you have big AWS monthly fees and marketing costs to pay! seen it time and again with things like British Gas HIVE trying and failing to implement monthly fees for connected heating products. My assumption is subscriptions will come..

Does the £680 include the myEnergi hub? You’ll need that to use the app and your account.

I have a Zappi, I have solar panels and Octopus Agile. The export rates for Agile make it worthwhile. Today I have a net export, so negative bill.

The Zappi is not without drawbacks, the backend system resilience is not what it needs to be and there can be times when the service is down.

I worry somewhat about the longevity of the service. Zappi only works as long as myEnergi stay in business and its a lot to pay for a dumb plug if they go bust. There is a lot of cost of operations to cover with new sales as there is no subscription.. so the business can never stand still with a portfolio of chargers unless they have monthly fees.

Overall in the last 2 weeks I’ve probably used 50% solar and 50% import to charge the car, netting off at 8p per kwh so 2.3p per mile :-)

I met John when I sat next to him at the Bob Graham award dinner a few years ago. I had no idea who he was at first and was pleased Id done a faster round. It was 15 mins into the conversation when he revealed hed done the Paddy Buckley the day before and cycled to the lakes 🤣