I’m not sure what your age/£££ criteria are but….

– if you want something relatively new why not the Golf R estate. Seem to be loads of em around due to some very competitive PCH deals, so that should filter through to used prices at some point

– if age less important, how about the VXR8. You want yobbery – just listen to one of those beasts! £20k seems to get you a decent one.

Just back from a trip over Christmas with 2 teenagers (13 and 15), visiting my sister and Dad who both live there.

My kids were very happy for hours on the beaches – the big (ish) surf kept them entertained without need to shell out for surf lessons etc. Grab breakfast at Bill Granger’s place if you’re at Bondi (book well in advance).

If you’re exploring the city on foot it’s worth taking in the Sydney Fish Market in Blackwattle Bay – great place to grab something interesting for the BBQ too if you’re self catering!

We did the bridge climb – it’s bloody expensive but not many things impress teenagers and they both enjoyed it, so money well spent

If you’re in the Annandale/Leichart areas (SW city) & in need of refreshment there’s a fab little micro brewery called The Wayward Brewing Company – right opposite is a great indoor climbing place. Enough to entertain both adults and kids for a couple of hours!

In similar area is the new Tramsheds bar/restaurant complex – it’s the old Sydney tram depot. Nice place for a drink or bite to eat.

As others have said, be prepared for it to be expensive – we spent a fortune without being extravagent. The only bargain was our hire car: for about $50 we upgraded from a regular Holden Commodore to an SSV Redline model – basically an Insignia with a 6.2L V8 engine. That kept me & my son well entertained for a whole week!!

Hollands Wood near Brockenhurst used to be our favourite.

Walk or ride to pubs in Brockenhurst (or stop at Balmer Lawn hotel if you fancy something a bit upmarket)

Nice free-style campsite (no marked pitches) with huge open spaces adjacent for walking/riding/family cricket, rounders, football etc

This has left me wondering what kind of person thinks that suing a charitable organisation, staffed by volunteers, for the sole benefit of children, is a good idea?

I’ve no doubt they were wronged, but was this really the best course of action.

Having had first hand experience of the difficulties scout groups have finding leaders or even just parent helpers, as someone said above, I’d be surprised if that group is still running in 6 months time.

I’ve been getting the same on my wife’s 2010 XC90 – does anyone know what functions it’s disabling when it say’s ‘temporarily turned off’?

Is it the ABS (in which case I need to get it fixed pronto), or something else related to traction control etc?

Cheers

I share their pain fifeandy – my turbo trainer is right next to them!

seems to revert to ambient temp, meaning the stuff in the freezer starts to defrost.
Once the external temp picks up a bit it’s fine again.

Literally the last thing I did before opening this thread was book a MH collection for tomorrow. I’m kinda wishing I’d ticked the insurance option now…

In other news… this has got to be a late contender for Thread of the Year!

I was in a similar situation a fews years ago – wife’s car was rear-ended (an old Vectra) but had been in the family from new, full service history etc and worth far more to us than the actual value.

Insurance company wrote it off & settled with us (you should gather evidence of similar vehicles for sale & use that to challenge their first low offer), we then bought it back for about 10% of the settlement value.
It was Cat D and we needed to have a Vehicle Identity Check done (cost £40 I think) but never had it repaired as it was driveable. We used it for another 3 years – no problems with insurance etc. In fact as it was pretty much worthless we saved money by only insuring it 3rd party.

You don’t mention whether yours is still driveable – I think that’s the key here. If you’ve got to have it repaired it might not be worth the cost & hassle.

Any Chicksands regulars on here will recognise him as the guy you often buy your day tickets from.

He’s a great guy, always keen for a chat and full of good advice. Had no idea he was into BMX tho! Well played sir!

WT actual F!

I seem to have stumbled onto some surreal parallel universe during my, otherwise uneventful, lunch break…

Yeah, they sound like a right bunch of ars…
WAIT – FREE STICKERS!! count me in.

DDC is verrrrry relaxed! It’s a wierd kind of bar/club/venue/outdoor street food mash-up.
Shame you won’t be drinking though!

I’d highly recommend the Digbeth Dining Club – amazing street food.
I won’t do it justice if I try to describe it, so will leave you in the capable hands of Google.

If you haven’t I’d try and find a showroom to compare 600m and 800mm from your chosen manufacturer – I’ve just downgraded my order to 600mm after doing a side-by-side comparison.

The difference was c. £200 and although there was a difference:
1) it wasn’t worth £200
2) both felt signifcantly more substantial than my current one

Merlyn brand if that helps

We moved from Sky to BT. Both as bad as each other but BT was cheaper.

One thing which caught us out… the BT TV box isn’t wireless (maybe they’ve updated this now?), so needs a cable to connect to the BT router. To facilitate this we needed the router in the same room as the TV Box so had to move the phone line from an upstairs bedroom to the lounge, which BT charged us £100+ and royally f*cked up.

tragically1969:
Is this you trying to apportion blame for somebody fitting tyres the wrong way round by any chance ?

Nope – it’s me trying to understand why it happened, so I can reduce the risk of it happening again – that’s not a difficult concept if you stop & think about it for a moment. Anyway I never said someone else fitted it wrongly, did I?

Thanks for the more constructive responses.

Not sure which end went first, felt like both together.
Not much chance of inspecting the road surface – it’s too busy, but I’ll have a look at my ruined Castelli bibs and see if there’s any sign of oil or diesel.

I guess just chalk it up to experience and take it a bit slower!

That’s my fear Andy – if I can’t figure out what caused it, I can’t prevent it happening again.

On the positive side, whilst I was waiting to be rescued (bent rear mech meant no riding home), several riders stopped to ask if I needed help. Good to know we’re all looking out for each other.

yeah, I wondered that too.

My usual bike is a Cannondale Supersix. Would the geo be that different that it needs riding in a totally different way?

Other option is a spot of oil in the road, but it was too busy (and I was too hurty) to go and check

Cheers, that’s what I thought.
Would it be possible to do a straight swap over of the two freehubs (both mavic 11-speed)?

We’ve had several of these incidents, none of which have ended particularly well for the phone…

– daughter’s iphone 5s went through the wash: dried it out but it was never the same again. Buttons not working, poor touchscreen sensitivity. Eventually stopped working all together.
– wife’s 5s got heavily splashed – screen went a bit funny (sort of dimmed and difficult to see). Never improved.
– wife’s 2 month old iphone 6 (2 days ago) dropped in toilet (don’t put phones in your back pockets ladies!). Immediately fished out, turned off and dried, but seems to be totally dead.

Good luck with yours – hope you have better luck!

I’m with NFU – about £90 a year for my 1973 Fiat 500 with an agreed value of £10k.

I’ve been with them for years, but the main reason I joined them initially was free breakdown cover (regardless of vehicle’s age).

Jekkyl – which route do you mean? We’re not fixed on Whitehaven-Scarborough if there’s a more interesting option.

Boxelder – thanks for bike advice, might gave saved me a few quid! I’ll ditch the Hans Dampfs for the weekend.

I’m still using Finish Line Dry, but it’s pretty rubbish

Really? What makes you say that?

It’s always been my preferred choice.

If you want real pro-level anti-cycling bile, check out ‘Aussies over cyclists’ on facebook. They’ve got stickers and everything!

Try ReservoirLogs or TheLogMan online… or just Google decorative logs. There’s quite a few online places selling this kind of thing…. pricey though!

Another one for Germany v England 5-1 in Munich. Great match and after-party, journey home the following day with a massive hangover and 2 hours sleep… not so good!

Also seeing Mansell clinch the 1992 F1 driver’s title at the Hungaroring.

It worked out more-or-less like that for us when my wife’s car was written off a few years ago. Had to fight with the insurance co. for the car’s value though.

Good luck with it.

No, me nether so I just emailed him directly. Not confirmed it yet but will probably go for it if we can sort a date over the summer.

Cheers Bagstard, just found it.
Pretty glowing review actually, so very useful too!

If the car is still driveable (sounds like it is), I’d let the insurance company write it off then buy it back as salvage and continue to use it without repairing.

You think it’s worth £2.5k, so let’s assume the insurance will offer you £1750. They’ll probably sell it back to you for 10% of the settlement, meaning you get £1575 and get to keep the car (and you’ll save on future insurance costs as it will be recorded as a Cat C or D write-off, so it’s only worth insuring 3rd party now).

If you were planning to run it into the ground anyway, then you’ve made yourself £1575. If you were planning to sell it next week for £2500 then you’re out of pocket.

Is there a way to see which companies you’ve had credit with in the distant past?

I’ve successfully reclaimmed PPI from Barlcays but I’ve no idea who my first mortage was with and I bought a motorbike on finance in 2000, again, no clue who the finance was with.

Just a thought, but did you have bikes on the roof?

I set one off last year – clear double flash and was the only car in range but I was definitley not speeding. Cruise set at 130 kmh on a dry autoroute.

Never heard anything, but I did wonder if the 4 bikes on the roof made the camera think I was a bigger vehicle with a lower speed restriction.

I’m impressed with the Bose SoundTouch as it has Bluetooth and Wifi and you can program radio stations to the buttons on the device.

We’ve got a pair of SoundTouch’s – as said above, the presets are great if you just want to stick it on without having to track down a phone/ipad & open up the app.
Sound quality is great, but if I’m honest we’ve been a bit frustrated by the Bluetooth connectivity sometimes – that might just be me though!

Worth sticking a fiver in your pocket – if the ranger is about you’ll be asked to buy a day ticket for the bike park bit (not so much for the XC stuff though I think).

agree with comment above – the church side is best.

I like WS on the whole but I’ve found it a bit difficult to string together a longish decent ride – seems to be lots of short good bits which are linked by dull bits. Loads of ‘no cycling’ signs dotted about in the woods too – I guess to try and segregate bikes from walkers a bit.

Anyone else having problems with their units dropping satellite connections every few minutes?

Mines been doing this since the last software update

Facebook selling groups are worth a bash, especially if you’re willing to post.
Search for ‘MTB Bay’ for MTB related stuff or ‘Cycling Buy, Sell, Swop’ for more roadie kit.

Thanks BigDummy – I’ve only used Garmin Connect on my iPad so I’ll have to try this on the laptop later.

Cheers for all the replies – my first thought too was if planning was possible they’d have already done it.

It’s ‘offers in excess of £60k’ for about an acre, but around here (south east), that’s probably cheap enough to suggest planning is unlikely.

It’s not in agricultural use (don’t know if that means it’s not designated as agricultural land though?), its more scrub/wasteland and is on the outskirts of the village, adjacent to one large property.

Yeah, go on then I’m in. Anything to help keep the miles up.