If you get the chance, please support the Litton Community shop, which sells interesting, home made and hugely calorific cakes.

Up big hill
Dowm big hill
To next hill

Power of Attorney- get the paperwork in place now as suggested above. This doesn’t entitle you to do anything at this point but, when it becomes necessary, you can apply for the Power to be granted (by the Court of Protection if I recall) and then you can assume control of your parent’s affairs.

I don’t know who you’ll have as attorneys but if there will be more than one of you be careful of ‘joint’ POA because you’ll have to have all attorneys present to get stuff done. ‘Joint and several’ doesn’t require this.

Also, financial institutions are remarkably clueless about POA. The number who will unnecessarily require the original doc, not a certified copy (which should suffice), is frustratingly high, and we are on our third ‘original’ because the stupid sods keep losing them.

Got to where I want to be. Two road bikes, one set up for winter riding and one fancy summer one, and two MTBs, both 29er hardtails, one set up for foul weather and slop, and one for nicer days.

Along the way I’ve bought a road bike and sold it on after a year, and spent a fair bit on upgrading what’s now the foul weather MTB but started out as a fairly entry level bike (new wheels, fork, brakes, drivetrain)

I feel they suit me and my riding, which is unadventurous and all from the door, and I don’t see myself changing any of them until I break one.

Really quite windy in the Bleak Peak. Sleety snow above about 1000 feet and the novel sensation of changing down and pedalling hard just to keep going downhill. What’s that about??

Hmmm! 94 kph gusts for us this morning. I think staying below 1000 ft might be a good plan

A very snotty couple of hours round the Goyt this morning. Cool and the going was a bit wet, but pretty damned good for February

There’s a nice Italian. Can’t remember the name though. It has an upstairs that’s all dark and panelled

If you mean St Moritz then it had gone off quite badly last time we were there. It used to do really good food but had become a pretty generic Italian, much to my brother’s disappointment on his birthday

73 in 18 miles for me- straight down the A6 into central Manchester

I have an 18 mile each way commute from the Peak District down into Manchester, but only do it once or twice a week for a whole bunch of reasons. In the summer, I have an alternative scenic route in (35 miles x 2900 ft) which is quite enough thank you. I come home the short way though. I’d hate to do the scenic route home as well.

I had this. Even I could sort it all out through self-assessment. All you need is the P60 from each employer. If you have underpaid tax (say because second job has taxed you at standard rate rather than higher rate) then you can either get your next year’s tax code adjusted (for small amounts only I think) or they’ll want a payment. So squirrel away some cash if you think this might happen.

One odd thing I discovered from this is that there is a ceiling for NI in any given year so if, across the two jobs, you go over that ceiling, you get a letter from Newcastle, fill in a form, and a few weeks later a cheque arrives.

I have some professional knowledge of this stuff. Radon can percolate up from the subsurface so improved ventilation of the subfloor is one way of dealing with it. That can be passive (vents or similar) or active (powered fan).

Radon also dissolves very readily in groundwater so it is possible that your water supply is at least a contributing source. As you run the water it degasses and releases the radon but 980 Bq/m3 is a fair bit so I’d be looking more at improving underfloor ventilation than worrying about the water.

The PHE site deadkenny refers to is good advice

Lovely in the Goyt this morning…….

Ah, huggis, you could be me. I have quite a big leg length difference and ride with orthotics. I’m not sure they quite compensate exactly and I get chafing inside my right thigh sometimes. I can avoid this by ever-so-slightly turning the saddle away from a perfect straight line to the left.

It takes quite a lot to get on to my shit list but once on it, there’s no getting off. The list currently has three names, possibly four.

You might want to use a more cryptic email address in your profile, given what you’re saying about your current employer?

Viking sell small quantities

Ah, Mavic carbon road wheels, the ones I waited a year for then gave up on…. I have recently ordered a set of Mr Hope’s carbon road wheels instead, due in the next few weeks.

Ksyrium Pro are nice. They carry speed particularly well. I have had a set of the disc ones since Spring.

Yes- just passed 25 years on the teaching/research side of things. There are great things about the job, and also some crap ones. Much depends on the institutional culture. Individual institutions are very dfferent so, returning to the OP’s point, it is difficult to know if things would be better or worse elsewhere.

So today at about midday I came on to a roundabout in the car and saw a roadie about 50 m ahead, going round the roundabout. He had a clearly visible fluoro top. Next thing I know, some arse in a van comes tonking up to the roundabout, shoots straight over the give way line and almost takes the cyclist out. There was nothing more the rider could do- bright clothing, reasonable daylight for December, sensible road position. The cyclist only got away with it because he dived right into the next lane where he was fortunate there was no traffic. That’s just shit driving.

By mileage, Enigma Evoke; by riding time just about equal between the Evoke and a Whyte 29CS hardtail

Best supporting bike- heavily upgraded Whyte 529

Breakthrough bike- Enigma Etape set up for winter riding

Cletus- I have good connections in Manchester so I am happy to try and help, but maybe we should take this private? You should be able to see my email address in my profile

Just put some salt down

….and make sure you get plenty all over his car while you do it

I’m an academic and have seen this sort of thing quite a bit. As many have said, a certain amount of dabbling is pretty common but this sounds as if it could be a bit more than that.

What university is he at? Many universities have very good counselling/advisory services which are very experienced at picking up the pieces. He should also have a tutor or similar who should be monitoring progress (lots of ‘shoulds’ here- some tutors are much more diligent than others and some universities are better than others).

If your stepson is not coping academically there will already be indications- classes missed, work not handed in, quality of work- and a competent institution will be picking these signs up. Do you know anything about his academic progress, or do you have a tutor’s name? They are limited in what they can say, but it is not unprecedented for a worried parent to get in touch. Such concerns can be useful in building up a more complete picture of a student who’s not coping.

Does he have exams when he goes back in January? These give a a very clear indication of students who are struggling. We use them as a tripwire- people who fail come under the microscope and are monitored carefully, but the exams count very little towards final degree class so screwing up doesn’t have lasting consequences.

It is worth raising this with the university. It is not unknown for parents to think the student is attending university while the student has jacked the course in- that would clearly be difficult.

Hope this helps

Climb and Conquer jacket is the biz.

…which is good, because I haven’t yet done an MTB ride in longs this winter. I was out this afternoon in rather pleasant sunshine- shorts, T-shirt and reasonably warm long sleeved top were just fine.

Rock solid. Some condensation at this time of year though.

I like the Maloja Aruons Multisport, which is exactly as you describe, but it look a bit hard to track down now

Usual Goyt Valley circuit for me this afternoon, where I came across a herd of four fatties going over from Derbyshire Bridge to Buxton.

Rather pleased that the badly bruised thigh from Wednesday’s contender for ‘stupidest MTB injury ever’ has settled down enough to ride.

Done

Absolutely fine. Largely dry. Where water’s run on to the road there are icy patches but these are few and far between because it’s been dry for a while. Long Hill is gritted anyway

22 but only two in the last 23 years

Ah- finally! Blowing away the cobwebs above Buxton yesterday afternoon

Up above Buxton

Nothing- proud owner of a bloody horrible cold. Will crawl away in a bit and watch Sale Sharks getting stuffed by Saracens

I stay off roads and ride my mountain bike. Riding time is limited and I won’t let a chance go by

SPD winter boots for road riding- fed up faffing with overshoes

Academic here, with an interest in appeals because one of mine has recently managed to fail his PhD, so I am learning all about how it works, at least in our place.

It won’t be irretrievable at this stage. The important thing is to find out what the due process is and follow it to the letter. Grounds for appeal for us include extenuating circumstances which the markers would have taken into account had they been aware. It sounds like you’ve tried this but you can (and in my view should) challenge their rejection of the extenuating circumstances statement because it wasn’t submitted on the day the result was published. That’s pretty unreasonable unless they have made it very clear beforehand. It’s also stupid because it can take time to assemble such a statement and ours have to be supported by paperwork (eg doctors’ letters) which can take time to assemble. My lad has 20 working days to appeal his decision.

From what you have said, there may also be grounds around inadequate supervision/poor advice but be very careful about this one. It is very easy to get her tutor/mentor on the defensive but the tutor can and should be useful so you don’t want to alienate them unless you have to.

I would assemble all the arguments (write them down) and take them to the mentor as a first step. Ask the mentor if it needs to go higher up the food chain at this stage- course director, head of department…. Keep it civil and make notes of any meetings or phone calls, either at the time or immediately afterwards.

Also, do not involve lawyers at this stage. That will guarantee the university gets very defensive and sticks to the letter of the rules, whereas they can and ususally will be flexible if you give them the opportunity.

Good luck and get back to me if you need anything else

I use Plotaroute quite a bit for working out routes

That’s not a funny climb at all. Some pretty steep bits. Isn’t it in the 100 climbs book?