I used a courier bag for a while, then tried both of the osprey bags which we have…

But then I just gave up and went for a pannier instead… much happier now…

I guess it depends how far you need to carry it afterwards. The pannier is always a little awkward to carry, even with the shoulder strap, as one side is often absolutely filthy!

muddyjames speaks a lot of sense… and those approaches work with all kids, not just ones on the autistic spectrum, but are also especially useful for kids with traumatic early lives… it’s all about building a connection and a relationship with the child, and being there to help them.

To be honest, and thus is something we were told before we adopted, it’s not really your job to ‘fix’ him as such, but to provide him the best opportunity, with a loving caring secure base. That then allows the professionals to help him. Without that secure base the kids are really going to struggle to engage.

Also, don’t expect to ever get to the bottom of why any of the behaviour is happening, if you do get some insight that can only help, but as often as not the kids themselves don’t have any idea.

For a lot of these kids, they grew up in unstable families, with neglect/abuse and they needed to learn a set of ‘rules’ in order to survive… those rules would have started being laid down very young and have been ‘proved’ to work by the fact they are still alive… it will take time and patience for these rules to be overwritten, which they may never do.

It’s not easy… I struggle with this sort of thing pretty much every day with my son… it just doesn’t make sense to me, but I also know what he’s been through, and how amazing he is to still be alive, so I keep on trying… and that’s what this lad needs. Unfortunately it’s not going to be easy, and very few people outside the fostering/adoption world really get just how bloody hard it is. But it being hard won’t stop me trying…

Sorry… might have rambled there…

We’ve got that exact Tower one you are looking at Aus… and it gets used pretty much every day in place of the main oven.

We chose it over the type with drawers/baskets because it really is just a mini oven, and we use it as such. Do pastries, roast sausages, chickens, and even did a very nice apple crumble in there the other day… and it can be proper size as you’ll fit a decent sized casserole dish in there.

It’s just so much quicker and easier than using the oven.

That said, I wouldn’t be using it for bread, it’s just not big enough for a proper loaf. It’s also going to struggle a bit on cooking big meals for a family of 4… but one of the reasons we initially got it was so that we could easily cook our son something from the freezer before dashing him out to running/rugby/etc without having to use the main oven just for some fish fingers or something…

I know they are slightly over 100, but Paramo trousers are have always worked well for me for winter activities… they also have other options, not just there full on waterproofs.

That’s excellent… fingers crossed it can help, just make sure you go in with an open mind and don’t expect miracles!

For example, we are coming up to 3 years working with a child psychologist for our son… plus loads of support from other professionals and our amazing post-adoption workers, but it’s still a challenge pretty much every day, and we know it will be for years to come… but with their help things are generally improving… usually!!!

Unfortunately, these kids have really complex needs and it can take years to help them cope, but with love, care and empathy it’s helping them along that path.

So… good luck with it… and feel free to DM if you need to have a chat about it all, or a good old moan… and don’t underestimate the effect it will have on you, or your wife, so make sure you look after yourselves in all this too

Firstly, as he’s fostered then talk to his social worker… they might be able to give you some insight into this, and whether it’s happened in other placements etc. Also, it’s the best avenue for accessing professional help in the fastest manner.

Next, these rules that he lives by are essentially the things that he has learnt as he grows up to keep himself alive. They will most likely have developed over a number of years to differing scenarios, so there won’t be any single reason behind them at all… and they certainly won’t be logical. Your best bet is really to work with him for now, try to accommodate his rules as best you can, and try not to make a fuss about them. As he starts to trust you, and form an attachment to you as foster carers, then they may be something that reduces over time as he starts to feel safe.

Finally, have you done any training on therapeutic parenting, or PACE, or DDP? If not, get onto your social worker and get some help with those… the social worker should know exactly what you are talking about, if you don’t know.

Another, really bad at skateboarding, adoptive dad here too… and it was very dusty earlier when I watched that ad…

And as others have said, we can’t thank the foster carers enough as me lad wouldn’t be with us without them… so big thumbs up johndoh…

Cannock… just pick a direction and explore, that’s half the fun!

Or take up the offer above if you don’t want to chance getting lost

Ukclimbing for well, climbing…

Once you’ve made the dal, fry some whole cumin in a reasonable amount of oil.. once that’s browning nicely then lob in some chopped garlic, fry for a short whole then lob in some whole dried chilli…

Cook until the garlic is nicely brown, but not burnt… then stir into the dal…

Hmmmm…

I just went to the local independant agri suppliers to get some… as if they sell them to farmers then they should be at least half decent. If you are in North Wales there must be somewhere like that near you…

Got some Dunlop Acrifort for about £30 which seem pretty good so far for dog walks and the like…

If it’s something informal, and just you with your kids and some friends kids, then that’s what most of us have been doing for years in the woods behind the building society…

However, it will probably get a little more involved if you are wanting to organise something a litle more like a club. It might be worth looking at what Little Rippers do, and how they organise, but am not really sure how they run things.

I’m a mtb coach for the kids (Go
Ride) section of the local bike club… the adults part of the club has pretty much nothing to do with us, but it helps us by them being BC affiliated etc. That then means we can operate as an official BC Go-Ride club under their umbrella, but that does mean playing by their rules, so all of the coaches need to be appropriately qualified etc…

So, it might be worth talking to your local club to see if you can piggyback with them…

If I remember correctly, the Cannock one met up in the Barleymow at Milford…

I seem to remember it being organised for after a bike jumble which occurred somewhere locally, which was where I bought a secondhand 5 Spot frame from Sideways Cycles… which I’ve still got, and use occasionally too!

No idea who else was on the ride though… or what year it was…

It would be worth looking at edX as well, they feature free and paid for courses by loads of universities. On lots of courses they let you audit the course for free, which means you do the course bit can’t then get the qualification… they charge you to get that bit. But if you are just wanting to learn they are great.

I did a load of python/data science courses when I was recovering from a neck op, and they certainly kept me entertained for a good number of weeks…

The braking bumps disappeared on the renovated sections… but are big enough to swallow a small child on some of the older sections…

As dirk said, we do have a new blue trail, which made up a good chunk of the course even if they did ride some of it backwards… but it has been incredibly popular with kids and families, and ebikers by the number who blast through it at warp speed!

I’d say it’s probably a really good legacy in getting people out riding, but I’ll agree that it would be nice to have a few more of the features left…

I can kinda understand reason for some of it… the race route ran the ‘wrong’ way on that section of trail, and the rock garden would be essentially impossible to ride up!

Plus Deers Leap just drops on a fire road and doesn’t link into anything else really.

It would be nice if they did leave some of the other bits, but again, it’s not really the character of the place as the Chase isn’t really a rocky area, it’s more of a twisty turny rooty place when you get away from the built trails.

Had a great day out with some of the kids, parents and other coaches from my Go-Ride club…

The atmosphere was ace, with so many people packed in all cheering and encouraging all the riders, although most people were a little disappointed by the lack of riders in the women’s field. But seeing Evie racing was brilliant… she certainly knows how to ride a bike!

Oh, and have to say, the rock garden was definitely not as tame on the flesh as it looked on TV… and was way harder to ride slower by the looks of it as well. The big drop was also impressively big, although did look easier than the rock garden when you got up close.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any chance of follow up events on the same course… Deers Leap has already gone, as I presume has the rock garden before it. And as I understand it, all the other additional features are being or have already been removed.

The one I linked to above will do a 5hp motor on a single phase 230V supply…

Unfortunately you don’t tend to get many single phase contractors rated for use with motors compared with 3-phase ones…

But you are right, the contactor does need to be spec’d properly.

As you are driving a pump then you need to make sure any contactor you buy is rated for driving pump loads, so something like this…

https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/282498-32a-contactor-3-pole-3-n-o-contacts-230v-ac-coil

You’ll also need a time switch to control it.

Good luck to all of you, and it’s brilliant what you are doing. I’ve got nothing but respect for people who put themselves forward like that. Foster carers make such a difference to kids lives, the ones who looked after our lad before we adopted him where just amazing, and they’d fostered 150+ kids, and adopted some too!!

Are you doing emergency placements? Or long term? Respite?

Have you not seen Forrest Gump?

Just to clarify… I wasn’t suggesting that it’s a good idea to remove the isolators, just that as they are not ‘required’ then there can be no requirements about illumination.

I’d always want some local isolation, we keep our cooker/oven etc turned off unless we are actually using it, just to stop little fingers playing, or my wife’s bum from turning the hobs on!!

I’m not sure the wiring regs require isolators anymore… so from that, any you do choose to fit wouldn’t require any form of lighting, and just need to be rated for the cable/current.

My guess would be similar to the above… not kneaded enough, or wrong flour/water mix

We’ve got four piggies which we keep in some woodland… although they aren’t pets… they’ll get rather big and expensive to feed after about 6 months… and they are also darned tasty!

Anyway, for us to keep them we have to have a County holding number which you get from your local council, then you need to get a herd number (I think it was in that order). Once you have that then you are all set to keep a pig.

Oh, you’ll also need to sign up with Defra as you need to register all pig movements onto and off your property, but it’s dead easy through the website now.

Also, pig wee and poo really stinks… but makes great manure for the garden… you just need to let it rot down a while before using.

twrch and igm… looks like you are coming at it from two slightly different positions, both of which are correct, but aren’t quite the same thing. Bare with me here…

For domestic consumption, most of the large loads are essentially dumb, the amount of power they take will be based in the input voltage. So for cooking, showers, kettles and the like a slightly lower input voltage will lead to lower power consumption on those items, however there is a flip side… things also take longer to do, so a kettle takes longer to boil etc.

However there are also loads which don’t perform like this and will draw constant power regardless of the input voltage, up to the point where they just stop working.

In general the constant power loads tend to be the small items like TV’s, computers etc. However this is changing as more complex large loads are added to domestic supplies. EV’s being the obvious one as they’ll charge at constant power…

So, reducing the network voltage works in reducing both demand and losses, but only with ‘traditional’ loads, or complex power electronics loads designed to mimic those. Any constant power loads will just draw more current as the voltage drops.

Dropping all the way down to a low voltage DC domestic system does have all the problems with losses as all the ‘large’ loads would need power electronics to generate enough voltage to operate, and would then likely operate as constant power loads. This would lead to the scenario twrch was talking about.

Anyway, enough blether…

For the TLDR crowd… they are both right, but about slightly different things…

A while ago I got a secondhand Edge Touring for about £60 or so… it’s been pretty decent so far although it doesn’t connect to a phone or anything fancy like that, but does have a reasonable screen with maps etc…

Still supported by Garmin too as I’ve just updated it to the latest 2021 maps.

Just thinking… it your daughter is playing about with micros, then unless you are only doing something analogue then you might be better off with something that also includes a logic analyser as it’ll give you more channels when looking at digital signals.

It’s that sort of functionality which the Bitscope is really good at.

Serves me right for not updating before responding… it’s already been mentioned!

Bitscope is an alternative to the Pico USB scopes, and a little cheaper as well. I think it also comes with bits to allow you to write your own software for it too…

Saw Binky in the flesh this afternoon, although didn’t see it running, but while ear-wigging it sounded like they might have had a few issues anyway.

But blimey, it’s a bit crowded in that engine bay!!!

Definitely cinnabar moth caterpillars, and they only eat ragwort, which is that plant they are on. I believe they contain a small amount of cyanide(or some other poison) which they get from eating the plant.

The moths are ace… They look almost totally black until they fly where you see the vivid red from there wings.

They certainly won’t eat up the whole garden…

I’ve got an old OMM waist pack which is really comfy to run with, it sits nicely in the small of my back. It’s a reasonable size, but has bungee and hooks which mean you can cinch it down small, or have enough space for a drink and a windproof. Even with a drink in there I find it stays nicely in place and doesn’t move around too much.

It looks like they have changed the design, but the new ones still look good.

I think it means the compost might be too dry… which would also mean it will be taking a long time to actually compost anything.

Adding more green waste than brown should help balance out the moisture, or in true Bob Flowerdew style you could always pee on it!!

*waves* several times over the years…

Quite happy to talk about adoption stuff… just ask away, or just drop me an email or message it you’d feel better about that.

Normally (is there ever a normal in adoption?), it takes a good number of months to be approved to become an adopter… it’s a lot of work as the SW needs to know lots about you to ensure you are suitable, and so that they can find a good match. I’m not sure how much of that process you’ll need to go through being part of the family, but it is the usual first steps for the SW to see if any family members are willing to take on the child. But I do know that even if you are family, it’s not a certainty that you will be allowed to adopt them… it is decided in the child’s best interest, but being family is a really big plus.

If SGOs are mentioned, make sure you read up on the pros and cons… they are simpler to sort out, but often don’t have the same levels of support etc…

On that note, there is good support out there for adopted kids and their families, but you might need to work to get it sometimes, and post-adoption support are your friends there. I think you are adopting out of area though, so might be worth sounding out your local adoption team to find out if they can help. Our post adoption workers are fantastic…

Anyway, hopefully the little’un will be relatively unaffected through the whole process.

Something that just came to mind, as the child is fostered, I am assuming that is in local authority care, then after adoption they will qualify as a post looked after child. This means they qualify for pupil premium and preferential entry into schools.

Finally, try not to be too harsh on the SW… it’s a very hard job, the amount of cases they have is usually enormous, and they have to deal with some truly horrible and heartbreaking situations. Every single one of the SW we encountered, and we still see some of them from time to time, were brilliant, and doing it for the kids.

Anyway… enough waffling… as I said earlier, just ask away…

I’d imagine that this is such a specialist area that it’s only going to be people who have gone through a very similar scenario, or who are SW professionals, will know how this might work…

We adopted just over 4 years ago and try to keep abreast of adoption issues, and have only a vague, and probably incorrect, idea about this.

Lords of Midnight for me please…

I’ve been looking for some of these to upgrade my son’s bike, but am finding it quite odd that even though these brakes were announced over a year ago but the only places that appear to be selling them is a couple of folks on eBay and some random person on Amazon… and it’s not like they are just out of stock at different places, they don’t appear to even exist on those sites.