I found myself surprisingly fond of this chap when I reluctantly watched Disney’s Bolt:

EDIT: also, if you like dogs don’t watch Marley and Me, it’s a shit film about a dog that dies!

Depending on the door design it can be more secure as the hinges are not on the outside.

samuri, hurry up and get filling it with wood before the local smokers start using it to shelter from the rain!!

I’ve only skim read through this thread, but you said that you’ve been there 17 years so you must have enjoyed it once, have you been promoted into a role you no longer like, could you ask to go back to a role you did like and which didn’t have all the stress attached?

I did this a few years ago and it was great, I had a stress free job for a couple of months while I looked for a new job!

Binners:

A narrower or shorter bottle might allow you to get more product and less air onto a truck

I doubt this by looking at the bottle shapes:

Bump!

It looks to be a tent trying to be a caravan or a caravan trying to be a tent, so neither one thing or another. I’d have thought you either want the mod cons so get a caravan or you want light weight and compact so get a tent!

I too have now moved onto the rum and I’ve narrowed my non bike buying to a nice looking trek on eBay, luckily the auction doesn’t end till Sunday so no point bidding till then, which leaves me a couple of days to convince my wife that a road bike is a good idea!

Sat on the sofa with the dog and a beer trying to resist the urge to buy a road bike, neither the dog or the beer are helping me avoid explaining to the wife why there’s another bike in the garage!!

Last time I checked my daughters inanimate Ken was a male and her inanimate Barbie was a female

I don’t want to know how you ‘checked’ 😯

Lovely, although personally I think it looks better like this:

😉

I picked one up from Maplin and have no complaints.

ir_bandito, that was unfair and you deserve to have your favourite slippers pissed in!

Make your own wood chips?

(I’m not yet sure if this a sensible suggestion or not!)

Is there anything to update following the long weekend?

You can keep your pictures of fancy planes, all I need is one or two of these:

I happened to watch The Worlds Weirdest Weather on C4 last night and they showed how Epecuen was flooded (from 18:06 for anyone interested)!

How about something like this?

I’m in Oxfordshire, but might be oop north soon(ish) to visit my Mum!

Nobeerinthefridge +1

The potential loss of a beautiful building is bad, but I really feel for the students who’ve lost years worth of work 🙁

Thanks funkrodent, where are you based?

At least you’ve come out of the roadie closet.

I wouldn’t go that far, I think I’m still in the ‘just experimenting’ stage!

Cheers, there are one or two 62cm ish within my budget, but not much. Where else should I look? Thanks

Forget beer, having somewhere to hang your banana is more important:

Thanks easygirl, but carbon sounds likes its out of my price range (I’m hoping to spend less than £400)!

It doesn’t help with your decision, but couldn’t you buy something much cheaper in Thailand, especially as anything you do buy will probably have been built much closer to there than the UK?

The website says:

We are just outside Cheltenham in Gloucestershire England. Just off the J11A of the M5 and the A417 from Oxford/London

Same here, especially as it’s less than an hour from my home 😆

I’m loving this tread, it’s up there with rate my brickie and the McMoonter builds 😀

+1 for the roof box and towbar mounted bike rack!

You posted it on a bike forum, I (and several others I suspect) have watched it and a few more people now know that Taylors of Harrogate make coffee, I think that means the advert is a success!

How about the Guy Martin Autobiography?

That’s tragic though Jengle

Very true, but as he says it’s better than nothing 🙁

what if 12 months down the line I’m not over this and I’ve got to go and collect my girls from her house and all those awkward awful things that happen to separated parents (new partners etc) I’m just not sure what to do to help deal with it.

A friend of mine has issues with his ex (he’s lost several wing mirrors etc) so she drops his boy at his grandma’s and my mate either has tea at his mum’s with the boy or picks him up and takes him home from there, this arrangement means he never has to see his ex (and so the boy doesn’t see them argue etc) and the boy sees his Grandma twice a week (one weekday evening and one weekend day).

I’ve used SportsCover Direct? for Alps trips, but never had to claim so cannot comment on that side of things.

bradley, where abouts in Oxfordshire are you? I’m in Witney(but can drive) if you want someone different to go for a ride with?

As I understood it the engagement ring still ‘belongs’ to the giver even when being worn! Therefore at the end of a relationship the ring should be returned to it’s owner, so not at all odd that you want it back.

Regardless of children etc I’d want it back, but I’d also pick my battles carefully as women tend to be much better at this stuff than I am!