Before this job, have you worked since April? If this is the first job in this tax year, the fact that you’re paying tax at all on your first payslip suggests you are not on the right tax code/tax has not been calculated correctly. I think you need to establish whether this is correct first before anything else.

Not a soft fruit but the bl**dy squirrel ripped all my apples off the tree and ate them before they got a chance to ripen, grrrrr.

Netting managed to keep the blackbirds and squirrels away from the redcurrants and raspberries, and we have so many blackberries as for it not to matter, but they’ve stripped all the leaves from the brussel sprouts!

I was going to suggest this place.

http://www.campingrioaraordesa.com/en/

But just took a look at the map and it’s a long drive, although not far as the crow flies!

About 17 miles after the first bump start and then 7 after the second ime :-)

Speedos were banned at the water park we used to go to in the USA. Very odd as a lot of the women were wearing far more revealing items

I regret the degree I did (Biology), not sure I’d go as far as saying I regret going to university, although had my fees been more than 1k a year I probably would.

Having a degree has been useful, but only in terms of ticking a box. It don’t think it demonstrares anything in terms of aptitude that 3 A’s at Alevel wouldn’t.

Having the ‘wrong’ degree for the area I work in has almost certainly been a hindrance. Despite more than a decade of experience not having the correct qualification can still be a barrier.

I have a draper water butt pump that works reasonably well. Not had much use this year as the water butts have been empty for weeks but wanted to use the rainwater from the shed/workshop for watering the plants. Pressure is decent, better than the pressure from our hose which needs to be 30m long to reach the same area.

Without knowing how much energy it takes to treat water it’s hard to conclude that it’s not the environmentally friendly option. It’s certainly cheaper for us than using tap water and lots of plants do better with rain water than treated water so worthwhile.400 litres (combined capacity of my water butts) would cost about £1.50 if was running the hose. I could run the water pump for 10 minutes to deliver the same quantity. At 350W and a kwh of electricity costing about 13p it’s significantly cheaper to use the rainwater.

I think when we costed it up, compared to the petrol costs and the 6 or 7 ferries we had to take between Bergen and Stavanger plus the cost of the ferry back to Denmark the cost worked out quite reasonable.

The Copenhagen to Oslo ferry was definitely worthwhile for us, get on the ferry at 4pm, have some dinner, wake up at 8am in Oslo.

We are off to Norway in our Van a week on Saturday. Getting there via a drive to Denmark and Ferry across from Hirtshals. Then a drive/mooch past Bergen and then around as far north as Jostedalsbreen area and return via Oslo then Swedish West cost past Gothenburg to Copenhagen.

That’s a lot of driving. A couple of years ago we took the ferry across to Oslo from Copenhagen, up to Dovrefjell then across to Bergen and then Stavanger and then back along the coast to Hirtshals to get a ferry back to Denmark which was more driving then I would have liked. Originally we were getting a ferry from Bergen back to Denmark but it got cancelled so we had to change our plans massively.

£400 (with a 50% discount). TNF Bastion 4. Nice and roomy for 2 of us, our forays into family tents for car camping didn’t end well.

Porch for tea making

Wrong colour for sneaky wild camping though

Apparently, if you’re turning 7 Super Mario is a thing again, so by special request for my nephew

Carrots also don’t like too much nitrogen, were you feeding them?

Surprisingly the half century worth of paint on wallpaper on woodchip etc. wasn’t hiding any real DIY disasters. Most of the oddities appear to have been built with the house itself

– Next doors master fuse is in our house (the houses were built as semi-detached)

– 3 phase electric supply despite never being anything other than domestic dwelling

– electric routed across 3 neighbouring gardens to side street, not street in front of the house

All the above discovered when the electricity went out one snowy day. Took them about 4 hours to find the supply

– different height ceilings as different joist depths

– doors jammed into corners so no room for a door frame on one side

– wall between kitchen and pantry ends across a window

Do you still have rain in your water butts to keep this going?

Ridiculous that it’s being reported as “met office gives first thunderstorm warning in 164 year history”

Then when you read the the story, thunderstorm warnings were only introduced last month!

Presume you mean a concealed cistern rather than back to wall toilet. We have a back to wall toilet but no concealed cistern. We would have had to build a little fake wall to conceal the cistern in with our bathroom design so would have been pointless. There are ways to ensure access though.

We got a real mix of stuff, just going with a style we liked at a price we could afford/justify. Shower run off a combi (think it’s rated at 31kw for hot water) and it’s fine, there’s a very slight dip in pressure if someone turns a tap on but no temp change

V&B Bath and Toilet

Crosswater bath filler and plug

Matki mixer valve

Hansgrohe eco shower head

Ikea bargain basement vanity unit and basin ( the amount bathroom places wanted for some foil wrapped particle board was astronomical)

Bristan mixer tap

Most of it came from a local plumbing place who ended up being no more expensive than anywhere else and was glad I could just return to the showroom when it took us 3 attempts to get a non-faulty toilet.

So 1min 20sec/100m pace – that is pretty impressive for a 9 year old.

If he’s genuinely swimming those sorts of times he’d be better off concentrating on the swimming. Swimming is the worst thing to be good at for triathlon…

Have you tried one of the really big pull buoys, e.g. huub big buoy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Huub-Unisex-Buoy-Black-Orange/dp/B00TX57A9M/

Would have thought for anything larger any buoyancy advances would be negated by the drag?

Our campinggaz electric coolbox does 20 degrees below ambient and it works well. Ours is only ever plugged in in the car so we sometimes help it along with nalgene bottles filled with ice. Always try to keep it full too.

If you could plug it in on the campsite it would be more than sufficient I think. Although it would be audible at night.

Hawk moth caterpillars are great, but i like the iridescence of beetles too

Decathlon generally tends to be good for half-decent kit at sensible prices.

With the added bonus that they don’t quibble about replacing/refunding after the tent has ripped in the wind :-)

The ikea STUGVIK suction cups should be more than strong enough if you can adapt your blinds to use them – 5.50 for 4

I was quite impressed at Luton that they made boarding gate announcements. At Stansted there are no announcements and all screens are placed so that it’s not possible to sit anywhere and keep an eye on them. And 13 seconds between gate announcement and final call would be generous, they’re done simultaneously.

try to work out how I can get by without the 7 weeks worth of money owed  that I’ll be last in the queue to get.

I got a proportion of unpaid wages and pay in lieu of notice reasonably quickly via the insolvency service when the company I was working for was liquidated earlier this year. I wasn’t eligible but others got redundancy payment that way as well.

Where did the kit come from, if it’s not an impertinent question?

The log cabin came from Tuin, think the model we got is ‘Lukas’ –  4.5 x 3m. We added insulation beneath the floor and on the roof but it’s otherwise as standard.

Looks like this now

 OK so the communication wasn’t fantastic

Not fantastic would have been saying nothing at all, tweeting from an official account that the flypast was cancelled when it wasn’t is really poor.

We knew before we set off that the Lancaster wasn’t flying and had the flypast not happened due to the weather that’s life, but the misinformation is just piss poor.

Bit of a balls up, announced on twitter and by event stewards that typhoon was also cancelled only for one to go through 10 minutes later. Turned round just in time to see it

Just give it to your local pharmacy, they handle the whole thing, ordering the repeat automatically, collecting the prescription from your surgery.

All the surgeries in our town stopped allowing chemists to order repeat prescriptions earlier this year.

Facebook page is now reporting that a typhoon will fly as much of the route as possible instead

In theory it’s offered. In practice when I’ve looked there are never any appointments available.

Will be cancelled if wind speed is as forecast

Airshow at Waddington was cancelled a few years ago due to security risks. A replacement was held at Scampton last year but isn’t happening this year as they made a loss.

Should have refreshed my memory of season 3 before watching this

Outside UK school holidays? Or French? We’ll be in France from the 2nd to the 9th June which I think is the week after most UK school half term holidays

June: within school holidays: I wouldn’t bother booking and we live in France if that gives you any confidence.

That’s useful to know, thanks

Thanks, forgot to mention, need somewhere that’s open the first week in June. A lot of sites seem to be opening the following week

Some times lockers are full and sometimes certain items cannot be delivered to a locker.

I’ve accidentally slept in mine a few times and my eyes haven’t fallen out yet, but it’s obviously not recommended. Very bizarre waking up and being able to see.

It’s probably nearly two decades since I’ve worn contacts that you have to clean but that’s the only difference I can remember.

I’ve added nematodes to the arsenal this year, but also use beer traps, late night trips with the scissors and these sort of wool pellet things which seem to work well if you’are just trying to protect a few pots.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vitax-Slug-Natural-Barrier-Pellets/dp/B00AFSKZ