Thanks for the information all, confirms our already high opinion of islabikes.
mtbfix, will take you up on that offer if I may; I’m in Newbury so shouldn’t be too hard to arrange collection.

You’ve got the basics sorted, add enough time and it’ll work great. We had a fair while doing a lot of pushing, and then ours had a eureka moment and he was off. You can’t rush it. If you’re really short of a pressie then gloves are good if you can get them small enough; they’ll get plenty of crash testing!

The Green Tree pub, tiny and delightful, but as stated as above beware the seductive appeal of the local un-foamy beer.

I went for the first time a couple of months ago and absolutely loved it. Lots of variety, with some rocky sections, some sandy, quite a lot of swoopy through the trees stuff which was not unlike Swinley but with a fair bit more elevation change. Given the dedicatedly individualistic nature of folks on here I’m sure that by the end of the evening you’ll have all sorts of opinions; got to be worth a look I’d say, but I’m sure someone else wouldn’t.

my other half has opted for lying on the sofa with the dog embroidering something nice for granny for xmas while I wrestle with my one year old son for control of the laptop.

Can we see the dog’s attempt at embroidery when it’s finished?