You drop a K-E-R-B, not a curb. You can curb the use of that word.

The council will have a list of approved contractors so ask them for it. They’ll be a bit more expensive.

Or, find a neighbour that’s had a recent new driveway built and ask what they did.

Absolutely pay her £200 or so for it, this will be a serious stress in the person’s life right now, one which is merely an inconvenience for you.

I just used my roomster to bring back 10x 2x4x2.4m planks, I guess around 10kg each, so 115kg or so all in inc. the rack (which still had two thule bike racks clamped to it). I didn’t die.

I wouldn’t worry about keeping under the weight limit. You know what litigation fear does to common sense these days.

Surely this might be a better idea

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MOTORCYCLE-CARRIER-TRAILER-DOLLY-1-/302286216217?_trksid=p2385738.m2548.l4275

The fuhrer

With the issue of retirement that scotroutes mentions (well done retiring early sir!), it’s worth countering with the idea that part time work can give you that same free time, just in small chunks every week! Aside from it getting harder to retire if you’re in your 20s and 30s now, I think it’s a bit of a risk to bust a gut now to retire later, as you can’t guarantee health and you don’t get to enjoy that time so much when you’re fitter and younger. I just wish I could work part-time and then retire early!

My thinking too…I want time off to be with my kids more while they’re growing up. Once they’re 20 and fleeing the nest I can work all the hours if I want (I doubt I’ll want!).

May look to downsize to a modern house near the coast, with very low bills and lovely views. Just now even once we pay off the mortgage we’ll have to pay 250 a month council tax and 150 a month leccy/gas.

As nobeer says, it’s not the content of the flag that’d make me not want to take a chance living next to this chap. It’s the fact he’s put the pole up! What else would a person like this try and shove in your face over time?

scotroutes – Member
shermer75 » Number of people who regret not working more: 0
Well…..

I was able to retire aged 50 having always worked full time. You could argue that was only possible as I’d managed my work/finances accordingly and if I’d been part time then I might still be working.

I actually work part time now but that’s out of choice.

A lot of timing/luck due to your age i suspect. How many current 30-somethings do you think will be able to retire at 50 from working full time? Living is more expensive in relative terms than 20 years ago and retirement packages a fraction of what they used to be.

Chavtastic… It would definitely put me off

I was made redundant in 2009 at 28 and started my own gardening business 1 month later. It was September, we’d just bought a house and signed up to a mortgage in May, and I didn’t have any real experience, but I got a few jobs to see me through the winter. My wife worked in a job with slightly above average salary.

Come April and the business was in full swing, full(ish) time of 4 days one week and 4.5 days the next, fortnightly cycle. From then to 2014 I worked pretty much the same hours, with various staff here and there. I was gaining good contracts and the turbo’s had just been fired up ready to launch (into a bigger business, full time staff, the beginning of an expansion that would end up seeing me off the tools, into office premises etc etc etc). We paid off the mortgage and got pregnant then I just shut everything down, cut out 30k contracts and went down to 3 days a week working solo again.

And I’m so glad I did.

I now have two little sprogs, we’ve bought a bigger house but should be paying it off in 7-8 years and the mortgage payments are pretty small anyway. Wed-Fri I work for a variety of customers, pretty much all friendly decent people, I have a zero stress work life. 8-3 or 4, 3 days a week. I get to put up with the kids a lot, enjoy my evenings without that horrid feeling of going to work that I hate the next day. I don’t get much biking done just now as the kids are hectic, but we ride bikes as a family and I can still get out once a week if I want.

The lightbulb moment was realising that earning lots of money doesn’t matter. That I can work more when the kids are older IF i really want to, that no amount of money can buy memories, that seeing my wee boy and having time to take him a casual walk to the park on a Monday morning mattered. Basically, realising that making money to have a happy life doesn’t exist!

I appreciate my position. My wife works 4 days a week and between us we only need to put the kid in to a child minder 2 days a week. The baby is 3 months old and has been sleeping right through the night since about 7-8 weeks old!

I can’t see me ever having an employer again, it’s too stressful and I’m too bull-headed to be told how to do something when I know I’M always right anyway! :) If any customers bother me, I get rid of them in a heartbeat. I’m getting too many requests for new work to keep the rubbish ones. And the fact that my business services recurring jobs means that I don’t have to chase work either.

It’s scary stuff when you’re in a full time job wondering, but once you’re underway it’s the only way I can imagine living.

The IKEA ones are really good at blocking light and they’re very lightweight too.

You could stump grinder it all, but it’ll still be hard and slow work. You need to basically chop away the ground inch by inch, hoiking out roots as you go. You can leave any roots that are more than 6 inches down if you’re happy they look well chopped up/damaged.

The manual method won’t be much harder and involves chopping away the ground inch by inch with a sharp mattock. I’d have left 4ft of trunk on the stumps to lever them out with but it’s too late for that.

Photobucket has ad spammed itself to death

vickypea – Member
In a way, it also discriminates against women. It’s bloody exhausting looking after a new baby. Some days it’s a struggle to even make a cup of tea or get dressed. Fifteen minutes to have a shower is a luxury! If I’d had the father of my kids at home to help it would have been so much easier

It shouldn’t be considered a woman’s job to do this. Personally, i do more childcare than my wife, but being self employed I’ve had to go part time as i get zilch handouts!

That’s exactly what it’s for. There’s already a security bolt attached and I want a second floor plate so I can keep the door in the open position without the toddler closing it!

lucky7500 – Member
Going from the picture, are you after this sort of thing?

http://www.screwfix.com/p/yale-door-security-bolts-polished-brass-76mm-2-pack/74618

POSTED 28 MINUTES AGO

Yes the one we stayed at had a field to the right for tents as you go in. Did the job, no holiday resort!

We’re getting a large windows down replaced next week, £115 fitted, toughened glass as the window ledge is quite low. This is after we found a stone-sized hole in the outside pane, courtesy of our 3 year old boy.

We stayed at one just a wee bit before the village. I can’t remember much more than that! We had a car plus a boat on the trailer, and arrived late/vanished before 7am the next morning so sadly didn’t get a chance to pay :)

Nationwide/Halifax do a house value guide for any point in the last few decades, however accurate you think that may be. Right move sold prices of similar houses would be better.

What’s it for?

petec – Member
Broad leaf herbicides depend on surface area of the leaf. Grass ha a a thin leaf so absorbs less. One spray won’t affect it
selective herbicides don’t work on the size of the leaf. They work on the differences between monocotyledons (grass etc) and dicotyledons (weeds)

here

POSTED 3 HOURS AGO #

You’ll know then that any overspray will kill grass!

I can’t believe people actually hand weed their lawns. You’ll never get all the small things out. And they’ll just bounce back.

The KEY thing is not to overdose. If you over spray an area, even once, the grass is likely to die off. Broad leaf herbicides depend on surface area of the leaf. Grass ha a a thin leaf so absorbs less. One spray won’t affect it. Two will.

I have been using Relay turf the past few years. A single spray kills all the weeds for the season pretty much. Granular complete products depend on a granule happening to land on a leaf and staying there until it gets wet and dissolved, so obviously they miss a lot of the smaller ones. And the bags of evergreen are only 13kg from memory?

If you don’t want to buy a proper sprayer, just get someone in (NOT greenthumb!). I’d typically charge £30-40 for a 100m2 lawn, weed free for a year. Very few weeds year 2.

Personally, I’m going the other way and trying to create a rich and interesting garden for my kids, which will have clover, dandelions, moss and daisies!

Yes, not sure if I was clear enough. The potty does go in his room. He does a pee 2-3x during the bedtime routine, before and after bath. And he’s not getting up to pee in his sleep… he’s deliberately waiting until daddy closes the bedroom door, then jumping out of bed, pulling down his nappy and peeing in the room somewhere on purpose. Just a little one, like a dog marking a tree! It’s nothing but cheek!

I heard a friend once comment that she loved going back to see her parents as the garden is so nice and full of life/flowers/colour/scent/insects etc. That’s what I hope for my kids, so ours is going to get stuffed full of nice looking things and will be kept nice!

wilburt – Member
When I’ve made enough money from the rat race rats I’ll shall idle away my days mowing lawns and trimming bushes.

Bliss.

POSTED 39 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

I already do, and recommend doing it sooner rather than later. I was only in the rat race a few short years, and make more money on lawns and hedges than I, and my colleagues, ever did.

myti – Member
I do pretty much everything in the garden but I am a gardener by trade and the other half wouldn’t do it right if I let him anyway. He’s quite good at watering though! I don’t mind though as we tend to divy up the tasks and stick to our strengths so all my bike maintenance gets done for me

I’m the same, been a gardener for 8 years now. I work 3 days a week so you’d think I’d manage to spend some time, unabused, in my own garden, but somehow every second I toil to make the outside space beautiful is time I should be watching the kids or doing work inside the house. Being on holiday for 9 months (some people call it maternity leave) doesn’t mean she’s going to spend any time watching both kids on her own. Drives me nuts!

The hard thing is that I am recreating a lot of areas and want them to look amazing for years to come. But I don’t quite have the vision for it all and would love ideas to bounce around.

Anyway, glad to hear it’s not just me. We can continue to cast our jealous little eyes on those happy loving couples out planting begonias together praying quietly that they have other problems we don’t know about.

PS Who weeds? That’s what glyphosate is for.

PPS Might take up weeding just so I can use a Golden Gark. I already use an oscillating hoe every day for work (the only hoe I use as it’s amazing). But the gark…that looks tidy! GOLDEN GARK

We already use a reward chart.
We do put on nappies at night as he’s not dry overnight.
How can we do rewards when he’s pee’d somewhere every single night? Not a single morning has passed where we could say “well done for not peeing”.

OK, I typed the OP in the middle of a red mist moment. But I have utterly NO idea what to do! I know he’ll grow out of it eventually, but are we going to have to get new underlay and carpets when he does? It’s RANK!

I found him crawling into the bottom drawer of his wardrobe unit and went a bit mad, grabbed him by the scruff and lobbed him into bed. He changed after that and whimpered and cried until I brought his blanket/pillow/teddy in and settled him to bed. But I don’t want to have to break him emotionally every night to get him to sleep!

Oh, and we suddenly thought how f***ing dangerous him climbing into that drawer is! The unit’s not bolted to the wall, although it is a very heavy unit and I can’t see it tipping, but we’re going to sort this out tomorrow. Feel sick thinking about the fact I didn’t spot this danger sooner :(

There’s not too much weight in the gate at all actually, the hinges should last but easily changed if not. We’ve a kid’s party coming up in 4 weeks and I had to make the back garden secure. The gate took under an hr, the posts about the same to cut into the drive. I went with metal supports for obvious reasons, though now I think about it I really should have gone for concrete posts cemented into the ground.

slackalice – Member
Nice gate glasgowdan. Hinges look a little small though, rule of thumb for tee-hinge and ride hinge length to be at least 1/3rd of the width of the door or gate.

POSTED 9 HOURS AGO #

Making things most days just now!

Desperate Dan would be laughing at that

What’s a quick and free way to watermark images?

I honestly don’t think the execs at the top of councils do a good job at all. They don’t understand how to use money wisely, and almost EVERY move they make is politically motivated and self serving.

What can we do as humble citizens? Pay the £400 council tax rise or else, that’s what!

A climbing totem pole in the garden for when the kids are big enough.

I’ve tried them all and use loop handle strimmers and harness brushcutter everyday.

I wouldn’t buy a Stihl or a Husqvarna.

Echo, Tanaka, Kawasaki. They’re more refined than Stihl/Husq. Durable, low vibes, well made. Start more easily, use less fuel. Generally better.

Too many serious answers on here!

My email’s in my profile.

3hrs mowing would drive me insane!

This is a before and after, around 2 years apart, from mowing it weekly with the ferris. A lot of the unevenness flattened out in this time. Takes about 45mins to mow an acre with this.

I wonder if i could be of assistance actually! I’ve looked after two very similar ex-field garden lawns and have used a Ferris zero turn, agricultural tyres and cut and drop. Both gardens improved a lot over a couple of years. I’ve got before and after photos.

I no longer look after these this year and am selling the machine cheaply…! £450, a 36″ Ferris hydrowalk in good working order, used only by me for 6 years or so.

??

Domestic pressure washers really are quite rubbish; cleaning slabs takes a year and you still end up with lines all over them.

They also don’t clean cars very well… I always use a hose brush attachment then a sponge (well, once every 6 months when I do it).

For your patio I’d be tempted to just use an algaecide from a watering can.

It really doesn’t matter what knot you use to tie a rope to a tree! Just make sure you protect the tree. I’d also suggest you rework the soil to straighten it from the ground as it’ll end up with all sorts of funky bends otherwise.

You watched sheep roam around your garden for a week without chasing them out?

I wouldn’t roll topsoil. Just use it to fill hollows.

OR, get a farmer with a harrow or whatever they call it to just level it and then reseed the lot.