Thanks, the posts above are the motivation I need to log in and then delete my accounts rather than re-engage!  Gave it up in early COVID.

Wasting Lunch (not likely round here!)

Can’t help falling in lunch with you

Our lunch must die (from the album Infernal Lunch)

This Lunch

Crazy little thing called lunch

Rollercoaster of lunch

Genuine question, before card payment was the norm, how much of your time did cash handling take? Cashing up, taking it to be deposited, getting change etc. what would that be in terms of an hourly rate over a year?

If you do it properly and assuming you’re not a sole trader with no staff.

Cash count and reconcile to till/EPOS output.

Sort money into bundles for banking

Check till float especially coins is adequate

Record bankings in accounting system

Take cash to bank,

Obtain additional cash float coins etc if required.

Then factor in if it is not the owner cashing up there should be two people present at all times to reduce theft and fraud risk.

What’s your cash in transit insurance limit for taking it to the bank? Do you need to send two people? Can you even take it yourself or do you need a secure carrier?

What’s the risk to your staff from being mugged for £5k in cash?  How does that sit with your h&s obligations?

How much can you hold on site and what are the requirements for the safe?

Card fees are probably quite good value in comparison, lower risk of fraud and theft and less options for evading tax.

I really wanted an EV at my recent car change but couldn’t quite get the right thing but did do quite a lot of reading on the EV thread on here about charging.

22kW is I think described as “fast” but is a throwback to the earlier generation of cars and chargers where the only other common options were 3 pin plug type things.

Fast in current terms therefore seems to mean “faster than a 3 pin plug/domestic wall charger but still takes several hours to put meaningful mileage on your car”.

AIUI What you need for a quick useful top-up is “rapid” charging in current speak.

That assumes your car can make use of that speed of electricity delivery.

Hyundai and Kia have some properly fast charging stuff.  An old Leaf by contrast it’s (for all practical purposes) wasted on.

In defence of EVs I think you’d get the hang of it quickly if it was your daily and you’d probably have read up in advance of delivery/buying (certainly I did a lot around how we might charge on some critical/regular trips).

It does strike me as annoying that I might have to register with multiple providers to do a longer trip / have good flexibility of charging.  That’s a real shortcoming of private ownership of the charging network and limited regulation of how that’s delivered.

The risk here is that the other driver realises they’ve scratched their car worse and goes to their insurer and claims your son was the one who drove off or just that he was at fault.

Even if he can prove that he stopped he may get issues from failing to disclose the incident to the insurer if the other party claims and has his details (e.g. reg no).

There’s also a specific requirement under the road traffic act about not being able to exchange details at the scene of a collision iirc.

I’ll not labour the moral argument here but next time it might not just be a car that they scrape before driving away.

As a middle aged bloke with sensibly priced insurance I’d report it as I’d think the hassle / premium tweak outweighed the downsides.

Moral of the story is don’t forget to lubricate your nuts.

And if you have the screw down vertically type of roof fitting also buy the relevant blind tap set and chase the threads out a couple of times a year.  Saves lots of swearing and squeaking bolts.  ?

Coniston much nicer than Windermere for a paddle imo, although possibly easier to rent on Windermere.

There’s the island from Swallows and Amazon’s too.

If I could post pictures….[grumpy smiley]

There is always a combination of the following in 1-2 portion sized pots from home cooking leftovers.

Chicken dhansak

Veg or chickpea curry

Chilli

Chorizo pasta

Plus some nice meat from local butcher, oven chips for lazy nights and peas.

It’s P11d season so it’s not an adjustment for that is it?

Couldn’t see a link but here’s a generic one from BBC on the operation for context

BBC News – How bodies of frozen climbers were finally recovered from Everest ‘death zone’

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9r31g50xqdo

Grammer pendants ensemble

This deserted for moor reconnoitring.

Clearly two halves of the whole is one quick link.

A packet of two quick links would have four bits in it.

A “pair” of quick links is just the kind of thing that makes my inner pedant twitch.

I believe HMRC is doing nudge letters to persons with significant control if they’re not filing personal tax returns or HMRC thinks they might have under declared.

Don’t know if that is helpful to you.

The link I posted seems to not work properly but Google HMRC persons significant control and you should get a few recent articles.

North Harbour / Port Solent (Portsmouth) is smaller footprint on the ground but on two floors.

It’s really not far from the motorway at all. Maybe 5 minutes or so.

If coming from the West overshoot and come off at J12 and turn left at the big cross roads.

If coming from the East come off just before the M275 (signed Port Solent) past the Porsche dealer / Village Inn.

If you catch the traffic lights wrong at the Marriott that’ll make the most difference to your journey (it’s about 4 minutes a cycle of the lights).

If you are going to the Port Solent one and then going to Hedge End go out via J12 of the M27 – don’t be tempted to head to J11.

The drag through Portchester can be slow, there are some roadworks on the A27 that way and quite a few of the locals have yet to grasp merge in turn.

Given the way Star Wars has been going I expect this will be the next baddie in a Disney+ series.

Park Sidious?

If someone handed me something as badly worded as that I’d be asking them very politely to take it away and sort it out.

Take the layout away and read the text sequentially it could break in a number of places but this is really the only one that seems to work to my mind.

Disabled badge holders only Mon-Fri 8am – 6pm

This is very clear during that time the disabled badge restrictions apply

3 hours at any other time

this second bit needs to belong to something and since there’s no earlier restrictions on length of stay it has to either mean:

Disabled badge holders can only park for 3 hours outside the working day – that seems an odd rule to me without some specific factor to drive a need for that restriction.

OR

Demand for disabled spaces is lower at that time and the intention is others can then make use of the spaces but not for more than 3 hours.

Even that seems a bit odd unless it’s trying to prevent overnight parking.  IMO the second one is the right one.

Thanks all….

It appears this is a case of PICNIC

Problem Is Cyclist Not ‘is Cycle Rack aka operator error.

Tow ball taken to shed went straight in and clamped up perfectly.

No way I was trying that on the actual car as the rain is coming down in a manner that relatively speaking makes the North Sea look like the Gobi desert.

@masterdabber thanks –  It’s been used on at least one (and I think it might actually be two) previous cars and it’s never been this much of a pain to get on.

Mine is the old non tilting four bike one.  It’s great.  Lighter than a tilter, very little to go wrong but it just didn’t want to play nicely this evening despite my best efforts. It is also a somewhat awkward shape.

I’m going to have another play with it after work tomorrow.  I’ll update here once I’ve done that (probably about 9/930ish).

I’ve got a Westphalia vertically detachable (A40V) and a Buzzrack E-Hornet rack. All fits fine and very securely.

That’s reassuring.  I’ve always liked the buzz rack’s lack of complexity/mechanical simplicity.

Do you get the pyramid bits sitting inside by a mm or 2?  That’s how they sat on the Tow Trust one.  Just a small lip.  On this the best I’ve had so far is flush but it didn’t seem to really be tight laterally when I did the pinch bolt up like that.

Maybe I just need to tinker with angle it goes on or something.

@sharkattack just tagging you so you might see the above post as it might just be me having a bad day. I’ve just pm’d you – if I get a chance I’ll have another look after work tomorrow.

It would seem odd to me if it didn’t fit.

Can you wind the clamp mechanism in without the tow bar in place?

Thanks.

Yes, everything closes up fine when it’s off.  It was only about 4 weeks ago I used it on the old car without trouble. Just the odd juggle and wobble on that and it’d clunk in place.  I suspect the leverage and bulk of the 4 makes it a bit more prone to the pyramid bits binding but never had this much agro with it.

I might try putting the tow bar in it without it being on the car next weekend.  Maybe I’ll be able to see what the issue is then.

Ride got canned as it was getting a bit tight for travel + twilight bash round the local trail centre with my son. Now face the prospect of watching England instead…

Might end up digging the roof carriers out if I can’t crack this next week.

I certainly wouldn’t wing it.  There was a Welsh charity bike ride that got a van full of bikes impounded by the Spanish authorities iirc.

This was the original story

BBC News – Welsh charity cyclists in Spain get £7k bike customs charge

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62799594

I’m pretty sure there was a follow up and it was to do with carnets/paperwork.   Basically van + big load of bikes was a red flag.

I know with people taking regatta trailers (multiple racing dinghies) to Europe there’s been some advice about ownership paperwork and also letters of authority to bringing friends boats etc while they flew.

Spares in retail packaging also were a red flag (the top sailors often carry spare major components if they’re not easy to source at the event).

I think we’ve already had most of the driving threads ….

The Fast and the Furious.

Some people go fast while all the others get furious.

Talk to me about rowing a caravan.

Can’t fault our Anker ones. Just checked and the 20,000mah ones we bought in the spring are £27 on Amazon at the moment.

Vanilla or Float?

The vanilla is super easy to service if you can get seals still.  I’ve got a 2007 one that’s still going.

The tricky bit is getting the top caps out as they’ve got quite shallow flats for the spanner/socket.  They need care.

Motorbike suspension oil from Halfords in my damper.  10wt not 7.5wt in my case as I’m heavier and it was easier to get. 😉

Sort yourself out a nice stew, top it off with a slice of puff pastry 😜

Or have a pie

Nice, enjoy it and don’t worry about the little marks.   I also joined the STW Skoda owners this week but with a Superb and also missed a number of small imperfections in the pouring rain.  I figure some donkey will open a door on it soon enough so maybe it’s better not to start from too close to perfection (so long as it passes the 4ft test).

If you go detachable I have a Westfalia on my new car (that may be the factory fit brand).    I had a TowTrust on the last car.  Initial impression is that the TowTrust unit was easier to engage.  Familiarity will no doubt solve that.

HL-L2350DW

Yes one of these.  We have the same model.

More critically why does my Airshot not do Schrader connectivity?

Brilliant device, glaring omission?

Sitting next to and downwind of a seasick and atrociously hungover sailor on the side of a yacht in bad weather is to be avoided.

Ground cumin and ground coriander we also go heavy-ish on bay, oregano and basil and a well heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder. Authentic, almost certainly not, rich and spicy yes.

Plenty of mild chilli powder is better than a small amount of hot in my experience.  It just seems to spread the flavour.

Chipotle or habanero sauce also good as a depth/heat additive.  We used to have a fairly ridiculous chocolate habanero sauce and just a half teaspoon added to a normal mix added a welcome depth and kick.

Have you considered moving house? Because I’d be gone if we were being targeted so persistently by such motivated, violent criminals

Massive cost/cashflow and would likely need to be disclosed in pre contract enquiries.

A lot easier said than done I fear.

A backpack…why would you use anything else.to carry it?

And

Is it a fashion thing not to carry rucksack on a drop bar bake?

Because your weight distribution is more forward and weighted on your wrists and hands.

Rucksacks make your back more sweaty too/give less space to dissipate heat. Some better than others.

This question is perhaps better asked the other way round…

Why do mountain bikers use rucksacks?

The answer to that is primarily a combination of weight/weight distribution and the resulting bulk of the bike for technical riding.

Also frame design.

A garden trug, builders bucket or IKEA type bag for riding kit depending on time of year/extent of hideous muddy horror I’m likely to be bringing back to the car.

None at all, although I’ve not needed any reasonably priced spares for a bit…

Far too easy to browse and buy excess because it’s there and arrives 2 days later.

I currently run 13 pin but don’t do caravans.

As well as caravan stuff 13 pin supports reversing lights..

Atera and Thule bike racks come with 13 pin electrics and I think both also have reversing lights.  7 pin connector+adapter will lose you that function.

IMO though the best thing about 13 pin is the bayonet fitting means it seems to connect more reliably as you’re not wiggling and tugging at the connector plug and I think it puts less strain on the cables.

https://www.witter-towbars.co.uk/help-and-faqs/towbar-electrics-the-definitive-guide

One thing we noticed – Phil Taylor towbars is REALLY busy! Getting a towbar fitted is rather popular.

It was possibly me who recommended them previously.

They’re always great to deal with, efficient and they’ve been on that site over 20 years.  They’re also handily close to Queen Elizabeth Country Park for a half day ride while they fit.

You’re probably on about going rate at those numbers.

Think my SMax was about £800 (4+ years ago) removable with dedicated electrics, ECU update and 13pin.

I’ve priced various cars lately in my hunt for a replacement for our main family car and all come in around that number fully fitted.

One thing to check on Fords is whether a fixed ball clashes with the reverse sensors. SMax and Galaxy are known for it. That aside I’d happily have a fixed ball but I’m using it near weekly over summer.

Top tip if you get a removable then have a small rubber mat in the boot to kneel on when installing / removing on wet and horrible days.

Good luck and thank you Amanda for many fabulous contributions.

Welcome James. 🙂