Young Kip has just received her first phone pre secondary school (and to stay in contact with friends during lockdown). We bought the handset outright and went for a Virgin SIM advertised on Money Saving Expert (the Martin Lewis site) as it was the best deal out there, even better than direct with Virgin.

I have locked it the heck down using the Google Family Link set up as it’s android, which means I can lock any or all apps if required as well as set/extend time limits, set permissions for downloading apps and accessing websites. It works really well but it took forever to set everything up (done over a few days when YK was at school and didn’t know the phone had arrived which I highly recommend doing).

Virgin do family deals but as I’m on O2 and Mr Kip’s Virgin account didn’t give us anything extra there was no point. May be worth a look just to see.

Like many I am still deeply saddened by Brexit mainly because I know that there is no fast reversal on it. I was born in 73 and have only ever known my life as a European, which I was very proud to call myself. Knowing that part of my identity is gone for the very long forseeable future saddens me immensely.

However, I also know from years studying sport psychology that controlling the controllables and avoiding the rest is the way forward.

The way you do that is up to you, there’s loads of different practices in various mental health support methods but what I do is to focus on the things I can do and do them.

The things I can’t control I just have to ignore, either by avoiding them completely or using avoidance methods such as retasking (doing something else useful), self talk (“Ignore it, it’s ok, breathe”), visualisation (of the things we will get to do again), etc.

Good luck, and oh one last thing. Do something nice for someone else without being asked. Apparently it will give you a massive feel good boost.

Check out Simon Sinek on Ted talks etc. He speaks a lot of good stuff in particularly engaging way.
Might not be what you’re after, but it might also give you a different way to look at managing your team.

I got a pair of Barbour Tempest for Xmas and love them to bits! Neoprene lined, thick insulated sole, nicely fitted and so comfy and warm.
Worn them loads since getting them for 2-4hrs and they are just lovely.
I can’t speak for longevity but for the price (£79.99 in the sale) I hope they last a while.

I had 2007 26″ anthem and rode it everywhere including reds and blacks at Welsh and Scottish trail centres and the Alps (may have minced down them with my arse over the back wheel, pre-dropper). It was my first full suss and every bike since has to meet that standard. None have quite done it.

My bro had a 1200, he’s 6′ and it looked like a toy bike under him, whereasas it near dwarfed 5’4″ Mr Kip. However Mr Kip’s 600 Bandit was great fun and he only swapped it up for a 1999 CBR600F which he still has 12 years later. It’s a speed demon and he can find no reason to upgrade it, much to his chagrin.

Contact these guys directly: Pacenti

Devon based and if you tell them  your time issues they may be able to help you out. Depends how much you want to spend though.

Jesus @alpin you really are a pillock aren’t you!

Went to the Ice Cream farm in Tattenhall last week. You need to book and pay for a slot before you go and it’s mental busy with people at the moment. Check it out well n advance although may be quieter once schools are back.

We didn’t do any of the indoor paid things (extra £4.90 a pop for each one) but did go on the little electric quads which are £1 each for a lap. The outdoor play area is free and entertained us quite nicely for an hour (we got a last minute slot). If the Eat out to help out continues into Sept then any ice cream bought in the parlour on site is half price. One scoop is actually two and our ice cream fan couldn’t eat a tub of two scoops (4 in actuality!).

If you can travel further away check out this: https://www.britishironworkcentre.co.uk/ there’s a sculpture trail for free which is highly recommended but we didn’t get a chance to go (torrential rain).

I earn £24k (FTE, I’m actually 0.8PT), it’s classed as a graduate level job where I am (HE sector), but I also get awesome holidays and a great renumeration package, I made the choice to earn “less” to get the benefits.

I left a similar job to this one in the bike industry, on lower wages and statutory benefits, such as 28 days leave inc BH, statutory sick pay (funnily enough no-one was ever off sick, even the feller who broke his leg came in to do paperwork in the stores!) and Govt pension scheme through Nest.

If I’d stayed in teaching I’d be doing better now but I didn’t. Thankfully Mr Kip has so we can pay our mortgage, bills, eat and live pretty well albeit not as nicely as others. Thems the choices we make, wouldn’t change it (for the most part!).

Which year is the V2 @robgclarkson? Just trying to work it out from the colour scheme!

We are based in a major Devon city and decided to stay local in our holidaying last week. We stayed on tiny caravan sites around N. Devon with the exception of one commercial one that was rammed with very little social distancing going on. Most were not using the hand sanitisers and there was only a modicum of mask use in shops (not that we went into many).

We were in Bude for part of one day and it was heaving, as were the canal walks in and the SW path out. The beach wasn’t rammed like it could be, but busier than I’d like so we didn’t stay.

We walked into Blackchurch Rock beach one day and was surprised  there were others there, but it was really spaced out so no issues.

Only visited local beaches such as Exmouth and Dawlish Warren recently and have seen a massive increase in local kids meeting there late into the evening, however my favourite beach is big enough to have space when we head along later in the day, plus we back the van right up to the walkway so we don’t need to access anything else.

As for out and about, there just seems to be more people about, but generally if you are prepared to walk and avoid hotspots it’s not too bad from what I’ve seen.

What we have noticed is people camping who are on first ever trips and have no idea of the general etiquette. Large groups sat together late into the night, music blaring until the “quiet hours” of 11pm-8am, effing and cuffing and generally not appreciating there is an unspoken conduct code in campsites. Never so glad for the recent caravan purchase!!

We’re heading oop north to visit family next week and wonder what that will be like.

This thread is useful for realising that you know who some of the people are though, yes you @andy_sweet!

To be honest @duncancallum, I’d go for the refund, unless you absolutely know you want to travel to that place at that time, and you’ll be able to, or your travel insurance will cover ALL reasons for not being able to travel. (Barring the FOC advising against travel there – that should be an automatic refund reason).

However, I’d imagine if they can the route then that’s cancelled flights so you’d be entitled to a refund on the booking.

Also, if you swap I believe there’s no charges but you have to pay the difference. What would that be? I remember looking when this all first kicked off and it was cheaper to buy new flights and lose the cost of the initial flights as the “rebook” price was so much higher than just buying them.

However, IANATAOER (I am not a travel agent or easyJet rep!) so what do I know…skips off to spend refund on ferry to Santander!

Rebumping this give an update, maybe for your interest @goslow?

As I was still receiving emails from easyJet relating to my outbound flight (only the return flight in the booking was cancelled) I decided to call the 0161 774 9861 number this morning at 8am.

I was on hold for 2 minutes then straight through to a very helpful person who confirmed the following:

My return flight was cancelled and I had requested an online refund.

I would not be using the outbound flight.

I did not want vouchers, I wanted a refund.

The outbound flight was not currently being refunded as part of the online refund request.

Apparently if you put in a request to refund for your booking but only one leg has been cancelled, although they are duty bound to refund the whole booking, they will only refund the non-cancelled leg if you call them up to request it. 

Both legs have now been refunded and will be back on my card in 7 days, full price of both flights and extras. When I check my bookings I can see there are no bookings to view.

Winner!!

PS. If you got both your flights refunded even though only one was cancelled just by applying online then that’s great. I’m juts telling you what happened with my booking.

PPS. My daughter pointed out that all their hold music involved the word human! Rag’n’Bone Man – Human, The Killers – Human, Not so subliminal messaging perhaps?

Soooo, just to show my total lack of knowledge on this, why is everyone up in arms about 5G, health wise, not China wise?

I could Google but feel the Singletrack massive’s interpretation could me more fun/accurate!

@goslow, yep, that’s what I am thinking about the refund. It should be the full thing, it’s just concerning that the Return flight is cancelled but outbound is waiting for me to check in!

Ah well, we’ll see what happens. Will drop them am email about the card details though and keep fingers crossed!

@mehr what was the customer services email you used?

So only one flight was cancelled but both were refunded when you filled out the form?

Now you mention it, my card has also expired, damn, I’d forgotten that. It’s going to need a call isn’t it?

Bumping this one to see anyone can help.

Just had an email from easyJet to say our return flight from Italy is cancelled. However the outbound is not (yet).

I’ve requested a refund by filling out the form online. It only asked for booking number, email and am I the lead booker. I’m not expecting it any time soon, but all consumer advice says we are due a refund for both flights.

Has anyone received a full refund for their booking when there was just one cancelled flight?

Oh thank you all, what lovely pictures of lovely dogs wherever they came from.

Also discovered today that the swear filter filters out not quite swear words too, interesting!

I also expected a pic of a doberman looking over a wall at me, but still a great looking dog. I’d have one, or a mutt like our dog when I was a kid.

Aren’t dogs ace!?

I think you have confused my excitement with boasting, I didn’t know how else to say, yay, we’re getting a dog, people here love dogs, be happy for us, it’s a dog, whoo-hoo!!

The use of the term breeder was purely because I didn’t what else to call him. I suppose I should’ve said owner but I really didn’t expect negative stuff, it’s dogs FFS!

Nowt more than that was intended, hence asking to keep it positive, but as usual someone here had to “make a point” that wasn’t asked for. I’ve written it in bold cos i just learnt I could!! that’s how easily excited i get.

We’ve been waiting years for the perfect storm of being able to get a dog and now we can.

FFS, this is meant to be a nice posts about dogs, cos they are ace. I didn’t ask for moralising, in fact I stated positive only stuff. z1ppy, why did you have to bring it down you miserable ****!! No need for it…

However, because apparently I must justify my position, rescue centres, we tried, we didn’t want a dog that they had. There are over 10 centres within a 1 hour drive of us, we didn’t want a staffie, lurcher, sharpei or one with behaviour issues that we couldn’t walk near other dogs, or off the lead, or with children, or die fairy soon.

We also want a pup so we can train it how we want from as early as possible. Also wanted a pup to grow with the child, plus less likely to cause a large allergic reaction as anecdotal evidence suggest you become tolerant to your own dog if from pup.

As for costs, proper breeders (actually lets call the what they are, owners) who don’t advertise on Gumyou, Pet4Trees and all those ones don’t charge the extortionate prices being asked. They are horrified that those prices are being asked, so they don’t advertise because they are concerned the litter will be stolen or resold.

What they do is get recommended by word of mouth because they are proper working homes, who own their dogs  and work them. They may have a litter once every couple of years, or have a stud dog who covers other dogs in working homes. The owner vets you properly and answer all the questions you have. They let you come and visit the place where the pups are, meet both parents and generally get a feel for the place.

But what do I know, we couldn’t get a dog from a rescue centre so clearly we need to rethink why we are getting a dog.

+1 for smashing the non-existent LIKE button

As an ex-PE teacher with specialism in trampolining I hate them! Well, I don’t, I hate that people don’t learn to jump on them properly, learn poor habits then rock up to PE lessons and go, “Look miss, I can do a front flip.”

They then proceed to do an approximation of a front somersault with their arms at their sides and leading with their head downwards straight onto the bed. It’s quite hard to stop a kid who wants to “front flip” when they’re taking their turn and are mid way through the bounce!

We had a list of skills they HAD to have ticked off before they could do any somersaults because they were they “boring” skills that helped to ensure they don’t break their neck, back, arm, legs other body parts. The good kids flew through them, the kids who didn’t listen – didn’t.

However, used properly they are awesome.

Get a net around it and make sure you actually close the door bit as I’ve seen kids go through that too!

I’m waiting to hear what will happen about our August flights to Italy. Accommodation has been cancelled and we aren’t going. We have travel insurance that covers COVID related stuff but not sure if they’ll cover the costs if the flights don’t get cancelled.

I’m just going to wait to see what happens. Money has been spent so if we lose it we lose it, be a bit rubbish but you never know.

I’m also calling humblebrag.

I aim to get 25km average for a 100km solo ride, though that would include a decent number of hills.

Just like to say I wasn’t calling humblebrag. I’m a 5’2″ 50kg 47 year old female (who clearly loves to mix units!) and I’m just not that quick. I have fitter male friends who regularly average 16-20mph on a ride and they aren’t killing it.

It’s also quite hard to keep the lumps below 1000m in 100km (again had to convert that to compare to my rides!) around here but it is doable.

Did you mean to link to another article? Kip the one posted doesn’t really corroborate with your post

Ah, sort of, I did a very quick look for info about fuelling riding to back up my first link about his mood, the Torq one came up and it had a bit in about glycogen stores and the time they take to replenish. I chose this quote to support my bit about depleting stores from his brain = hangry. I then linked it to the amount of calories he had eaten pre and during his ride and suggested he may not be eating enough to fuel his ride.

I may not have written as eloquently as I could have done, but that was the basis of it.

I had to search what TL and HL meant!
TL = ‘training low’ or ‘fasted training’

TH = Training with high carb availability!

Link to articles about why Intermittent fasting is good for weight loss in particular the 16/8 method.

Plus a nice review of literature on other benefits.

OK, sounds like you’ve just not fuelled enough and you’ve had a major blood sugar deficit. In my usual style, here is a reference for you to read that basically says what you just did!

Plus this one from Torq here. I think the bit that relates to you most is this:

There are some significant benefits to be gained from fuelling during training, because empty glycogen stores take a long time to top back up. Even on a high-carbohydrate diet, research suggests it’s about 48 hours for full replenishment, so if you can spare your glycogen by fuelling properly during exercise it stands to reason that you’ll recover your endogenous stores more quickly afterwards.

If you deplete your glycogen stores you also deplete them from your brain, which needs them to function properly. By not topping up properly during the ride you are basically making your brain “hangry” for the next near 48 hours.

Two slices of toast with spread and honey are approximately 400 kcals dependent on bread, spread and amount of honey. Banana = approx 100kcals

You rode for what 4 hours? I’ve burnt nearly 2000 kcals on a ride of that length before riding at 23.5kph/14.5mph. Your easy speed of 26kph/16mph for me is my top end solo speed and would burn way more.

If you don’t already have one I’d get a heart rate monitor as you get a much more accurate idea of calories burnt, a one hour potter with the child will burn 1/4 of the kcals a 1 hour fast ride will do.

You’ll still lose weight, just a bit more slowly. Oh and if you don’t already, try the MyFitnessPal app and list everything (and I mean everything) you eat. You’ll suddenly see how much you are actually eating which can be an eye opener.

StuF, thanks, really interesting read. I’ve read similar but the piece that said:

I also have to alter headlines constantly to 1) include a person’s name and not have it just be “Black Man Wins Settlement” or “Carnegie Hall Gets 1st Black Board Member,” or 2) rephrase it from a subtle subjugator like “ABC taps Viola Davis as Series Lead” to “Viola Davis Lands Lead on ABC Show” as is done for, say, Jennifer Aniston or Steven Spielberg.

I found especially enlightening. I got the bit about using colour not name to describe the subject but not the subtle subjugator bit. That is much clearer and makes this sort of comment or headline much easier to recognise for the racist language it is.

Bravo that man (my unconscious bias is assuming you to be a man, hopefully correctly).

P.S. I do love a good reference!

And I repeat Wow!

My concern is that, as with the loose usage of words yesterday, you undermine your credibility and valid points by inserting statements like the above, which to a lot of people seem slightly absurd.

This response to me saying I shouldn’t ask a BAME person for information but look for it myself was a little surprising. I was quoting something I’d read about how I get my information about racism and the experiences of BAME people.

I also like to speak to people with experiences I haven’t had to further my knowledge and understanding, however in this case, it was suggested my first port of call should be the amazing resources that are already out there.

Yes, by all means chat with friends and colleagues if they are open to the conversation, but don’t assume they want to be the person who answers all your questions. It’s hard work and suggests we can’t be arsed to so it ourselves.

Reni Eddo-Lodge’s book Why I’m no longer talking to White people about race is brilliant and explains that very point.

I included a link to the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre (a Canadian site) which has a wealth of well referenced articles. This one from the Goodmenproject.com<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> is referenced in the article about white privilege and is an interesting read about why talking to White people about racism is so hard.</span>

By the way, I use the term BAME because that’s what the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity team where I work use. Others use POC (People of colour) and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) is also used. And coincidentally I did my EDI refresher today, so I too have “done a course.” Can I abuse TJ for no reason at all now?

I think you have come to a conclusion but here’s my two bit anyway…

DO NOT GET A BIKE WITH A WHITE PAINT JOB. They are an absolute pain to keep clean. My Spesh Ruby is white and I wish it wasn’t.

As for the rest of it, try the bike go from there. I ride a 5010 which is the same geometry as the Juliana Furtado. Test rode both, got the SC due to resaleability.

Oh my word, some of the views and downright rudeness coupled with the refusal to accept that held views may be incorrect is quite scary.

How do you challenge racism, first up educate yourself…

I was reading a lot of stuff last night wondering how best to do this and thought “I know, my mate does loads of work with kids about race and racism, he’s always great to talk to about this kind of stuff. I’ll ask him.” Before doing so I then read something else, don’t ask a BAME (Black and Minority Ethnic) person for information about what you should do. Yes, my mate is BAME. I have to mention this because it pertains to my story.

I wanted to ask him for his knowledge because he is BAME and I initially thought that’s a good thing to do because I am very white, middle class, straight and have no concept of the microagressions and bias that he faces in his everyday life. I am female so have a tiny understanding of some of it, but it’s different. However, I learn that I shouldn’t, because in doing I would be asking him to do the work for me. Instead I need to use my own time and energy to find resources to educate myself.

There’s loads of stuff out there, when Krpton57 said:

If you don’t know you can google it and on the assumption you aren’t racist will see a long list quite clearly, I’m not here to respond to your ignorance.”

he was right, look for it yourself, don’t be so lazy and assume that other people will provide the evidence for you. Your opinions have been challenged, if you believe yourself to be so high and mighty that you are incapable of being wrong you are very much part of the problem not the cure.

Having said that, I recognise there are people on here who won’t look, or will go to the easiest first source, so here’s one on white privilege to get you started: http://www.aclrc.com/white-privilege

A search for information on “unconscious bias” may also be helpful for some people.

In the words of Rachel Cargle (https://www.instagram.com/rachel.cargle/)

I implore you to remember — the point of AntiRacism work isn’t to make white people feel they are “doing better” in their positions of privilege and power within this immoral system— it is for them to hold themselves and their white community accountable for addressing and attacking the very system that needs to be destroyed in order for black people to stay alive and to be well.

And now I set you free to look, learn and educate yourself to be better, off you trot and don’t come back until you’ve learnt something and have references to back it up.

This thread is great. We have a decent sized roof space (not loft or attic in this house) but the roof joists are so warped it’s not funny. There’s an ever widening distancing on the ceiling above our bed where the two pieces of wallpaper meet and then go around the plaster ceiling rose. However our ceilings are all lathe and plaster so are probably just a bit dried out…I hope!!

It is also full of stuff that must not be thrown out, ever, as decreed by the child who loves to go up there and “find” things I have tried to hide.

Would love a roof space like Munrobiker’s unfortunately the extra struts mean we don’t have a clear run of floor space.

From experience working with a distributor I would say everything that Andrewreay says is pretty much bang on.

It’s rare the computer system matches the actual shelf which sounds ridiculous unless you’ve seen how this stuff goes.

Anything could’ve affected stock and whilst you were told it has been reserved for you it may have turned out that they thought they had 2 of what you wanted but the boxes were stickered up wrong and someone had ordered one before you with the same promise.

It’s rubbish but it happens and to be honest, there’s worse things happening out there right now so, in the words of someone wiser than me “Put on your big boy pants and suck it up.”

As has been said, Strava took away functionality so you have to record on your phone via a third party app and sync to Strava.

I had a world of trouble with this using Tickr HRM, S9 and the Wahoo app. It would record may bother until the screen was locked, then stopped recording. I knew it was a permission issue somewhere but took ages to fix. Basically you have to have location set to on at all times, not just when app is in use. I queried this with Wahoo and they said, oh, sorry, we’ll fix that at some point, keep checking the app store!

However, now the settings are all correct, it records a treat and uploads straight away.

I’ve just read this thread with interest (yup, all 6 pages of it) as we have two holidays planned this year, one week in Italy in August and Xmas break in Finland. These were meant to be our first abroad holidays with all three of us.

The Summer one is flights with EasyJet who are cancelling on a rolling 7 day basis, accommodation is a small independent owner. Flights paid by CC, accommodation by BACS (we know the owners). We do have pre-COVID insurance but only because I kept an eye on the news and bought it just before the situation got bad.

Speaking to an Italian yesterday she said that talk is that Italy will have internal holidaying only this Summer. We have to pay the remainder by July 4th but we are covered if the owner cancels. If the airline cancels we have to claim it all back through them.

I do not fancy sitting on a plane this Summer to go anywhere to be honest!

As for Winter, I really hope that goes ahead and that everything is sorted out by then. It should be covered by the insurance but who knows what state the travel industry will be in then? Unfortunately the deposit was paid for by debit card not credit, but it’s not really that much in the overall general scheme of things. I’d be happy to move it to the following Xmas, even though we’ll have waited a year for it if we went this year. We’ve already had two things moved to next year.

Found out a biking friend took their life over the weekend, which means I’m viewing my lack of a family foreign holiday a bit differently today.

Hi jak0,

Aha, I see your conundrum! As for the “do you secretly hate her” jibe, that was just a morning joke not to be taken as anything more or indeed a dig at your intentions to mansplain biking to her (I don’t think you’re trying to do that btw).

You definitely need to talk her out of a Carrera as she won’t enjoy riding at all but you are in a tricky position as it sounds like she doesn’t really know quite what she’d like because she doesn’t now enough about bikes yet.

If she’s happily riding the red at Haldon on a hire bike then she has potential to be a decent rider (I’m guessing).

I asked what bike you are on as I have seen (up at Haldon no less) many a man riding a lovely full suss with a lass trailing behind on a rubbish hardtail. She is struggling and hating it, he doesn’t understand why she doesn’t love bikes like he does! I don’t think that’s going to be an issue here.

Finally, how big is she? Could you get away with a medium frame in something? I’m 5’2″ with short arms and have to ride a small (or XS depending on the brand) but if she’s a bit bigger then you may be able to find a Medium in something that’s a better spec. My feet don’t reach the ground when I’m on either the XS HT or Small FS so if that’s what she’s looking for you may have your work cut out convincing her to go a bit bigger.

Good luck with this, it’s not a great time to be buying new as she can’t test out the bike and you can’t even borrow one from local riders to try (you know, like friendly sorts such as me!).

The best bike you can afford, says token wife/female!

Oh and what bike do you currently ride?
Are you anticipating you and your wife riding together?
Do you secretly hate her?

I picked up an XS 650b Genesis Core 30 HT on ebay for £150 a bit back which I needed to do a fair bit of tidying up on, but the Suntour Raidon forks are so easily self-servicable I’m not changing them yet. It’s great as a winter/chuck it in the shed after riding bike that I don’t have to worry much about. I’m not a massive fan of the 2 x 10 set up as I don’t ever seem to be in the right gear, but that’s coming from 1×11 which I love the simplicity of.

I’d look at Genesis again, but consider spending more to get something a bit lighter and higher spec if it was my only bike.

PS. The full suss is a Santa Cruz 5010 CC which I love, but is overkill for current COVID riding situations. The Genesis is actually pretty near perfect.

PPS. Hels is right, listen to her!!

Thanks all. They were grown from conkers from the tree on the local Cathedral green so have a bit of history.

I’d love to be able to plant them out somewhere at some point but that’s a bit further on in time I reckon.

They’ll stay in pots for a bit longer but do need potting on for sure.

Mattarb: Thanks for the info, didn’t realise there was so much out there could do them damage until I started googling! I’ll check out Arbtalk and go from there.

I work at a Russell Group University and we have been told Zoom does not meet GDPR criteria so we are not to use it for University business at all. Bearing in mind they rolled out Teams at short notice they are pushing us all to use that. I have issues with Teams, mainly down to the UI as I like to have lots of tabs open and I can’t so that in Teams (AFAIK, I’m no expert!). Other than that, it’s fine.
At home we use Skype or WhatsApp to chat. Can’t be bothered with another messaging app to be honest.