Have stayed in Ostend a few years ago, did day trips to Ypres and Bruges while we were there. There is also the coastal tram line which runs from De Panne to Knokke-Heist to help you get along the coast.
And most places have several cafes like Cafe Botteltje – where they have a menu of 2-400 different beers available (all with their own glass)

As said – winfields… tho they do mainly stock Vango/Outwell/sunncamp/coleman.

If you want different – Obelink. Tis a bit of a trek tho, they are in Winterswijk, Holland!
Worth it tho. The tent display building is bigger than some Ikea stores! even the shed for camp chairs was massive.

Series one has “a quiet night in,” if you like the rest of it then this is a must see episode!

^^ This.

I’ve generally preferred Bauer ice skates to others that i’ve tried. Rebook and CCM have a different blade mounting style

Am gonna be selling my old pair of size 7EE Nexus 6000 at some point when i get round to listing them on either the Hockeygear facebook page or on eBay.
(i tried some 7.5EE Nexus skates that just fitted far better and bought those, having previously started on Vapour X600)

Best thing to do is try them on: most ice rinks have a shop attached – tho they’ll mostly stock the Bauer Vapours, as they are the most popular: they just dont fit my foot shape being very narrow (even in the Extra Wide EE fitting), but the Supreme’s is a little wider, the Nexus has the widest footbed, but fits a little shorter than the vapour – so where i was a 7EE in the Vapour, I’m more comfortable in the 7.5EE Nexus.

if you can skate already – then look at the skates 1 or 2 levels up form the base model – the base models flex a lot to be more forgiving to beginner skaters… me being carrying a party barrel, they were just too soft shelled.

tjagain: we know they can’t “legally”

The majority of the office isn’t signing the letter and looking for new jobs. Problem is several of us have been here less than 2 years, so we wouldn’t be able to claim constructive dismissal… all we could do is sue for our missing wages

got made redundant 18 months ago. (got told of redundancies on the Monday, had a new job by the Thursday when they told me i was one of those going – i.e. one of those who had been with the company less than 2 years) New job was far better until… this month

new company just now = they’ve told us from 1st december they are reducing our wages by 20%, you can sign this letter to agree to it, or not… but we are still reducing your wages.

a bunch of the old regulars from when i was going to the Napier 20 years ago have got together and bought the Napier and reopened the place.
It was open and rocking when I went to see the Lancashire Hotpots last month, and parked opposite the Napier.

Love Delain – so gonna add another vid to those already posted.

and with the mention of Merel who joined Delain as second guitar recently, one of her other bands (other than MaYan and Purest of Pain) The Gentle Storm with Anneke van Giersbergen

and while Eluetie was posted earlier: Anna Murphy left them to form a new band with a couple of her band mates: Cellar Darling

little bit generic “female fronted metal band”

Good for a bit of a cheesy laugh

Absolutely love these guys: The Dolmen

these folks where excellent live:

as are – Sky Valley Mistress

After Forever

Blues Pills

For those that like their rock in Hailstorm kinda way:

So what’s involved in marshaling – are you committed to X number of events per year or are they fairly flexible with that sort of thing?

Just to answer this one more clearly than the ramble above.

you can do as many or as few meetings as you want per year.
Some folk will be out at every meeting going, other might only make 1 meeting 1 year, a couple the next. It really doesnt matter.

the MSA ask that you attend at least 1 training day every two years. but you wont be banned from marshalling if you dont. You can also start marshalling without having attended an offical training day – much of the “training” is on the job – every day on the bank is a school day 🙂

Most folk will volunteer for meetings for the year when the dates come out at the start of the season, but if plans change and you can’t make a meeting that you have volunteered for – all you need to do is send apologies to the chief marshal. equally if you fancy doing a meeting later in the year you can pop a volunteer application in – so long as the chief marshal has enough time to post tickets to you, or at some cases they can leave tickets on the gate with your name on them. Also these days its a lot easier for late volunteers as many circuits have gone to issuing e-tickets.

I’ve been marshalling for about 12 years now. Love it! Really enjoyable thing to do. I specialise as a Flag marshal.

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The British marshal’s club organises lots of taster days at different circuits, like you have found at Donnington. September/October is getting towards the end of the season for circuit racing – so there might not be an opportunity this season to join a taster day, just depends how many have applied and on how many dates they are running a taster day. I know the Taster Days at Oulton Park can fill up, but it might be only 1 or 2 meetings in the month that they’ll run a taster day out of the available meetings.

Taster days (at least at oulton – as that’s my local circuit) are a tour of the circuits marshal posts in the morning, while the qualifying sessions are happening with someone explaining about the history of the circuit, and whats going on on post (ie. the story of how Knicker Brook got its name 😉 tho i’m not sure Nadine tells it as well as Blaster Bates) plus a tour of assembly, park ferme, scutineering bay, race control and the pits. Then at lunch time you’ll be assigned to a post and you’ll be partnered with some experienced marshals and help out for the races. Then end of the day its back to Race Control for a drink and debrief.

If you join the British Marshals club then you can get discounted overalls (the discount more than covers your membership for the year) plus there is a volunteering website for members through which you can apply to marshal at pretty much any 4 wheel based motorsport in the country.

Also if you are around the midlands and can get to Silverstone frequently, then it is worth joining their own Marshal’s club – so long as you do a min of 4 meetings you’ll get a free set of overalls, and a new set every 3 years

You dont have to be a member of the Marshal’s club to marshal and anyone can volunteer for any meeting, if they have the contact details of the chief marshal of the meeting. (the chief marshal is responsible for sending out the tickets to volunteers) There is a website called http://marshals.org.uk that means you can volunteer directly.

If you are considering it, then go to the MSA website and register your details, as you get a little gift pack from the MSA for people who register this year. (little flask, hi-vis rally tabbard and some other goodies)
MSA Marshal registration
if you do a taster day, you’ll be probably given this form too.

There are training days that are arranged around the country in Feb/March time ahead of the new season, and they always have a session for brand new marshals – usually with a live fire training session where you’ll get to put out a fire

As i said, you can pretty much marshal any event in the uk, and later on, you can also marshal at oversea’s events – usually all it takes is to get a letter from the MSA to say your registered with them and apply to the meeting organiser.
Such as there are a group from Oulton Park that go over to the Nurburgring for the 24hr race in May. or there are several posts manned by British Marshals at Le Mans for the 24hrs. We’ll also occasionaly get an invite to go train up and marshal at some of the new grand prixs – ie about 40 marshal’s went out (flights and accommodation paid for) for the first 2 abu dhabi GPs.

For the British GP – this is the only meeting in which there is a qualifying criteria. You have to have marshalled a minimum of 12 days the year before the GP, and you need to not be a trainee marshal (your a trainee for a min of 10 events) This year was my 8th GP i’ve flagged at.

Any more questions – ask away.

Remember – stay safe – Motorsport is dangerous and you are as close to the action as anyone can get, without sitting in a car. Those around you on the bank will have lots of experience and stories to tell.

I absolutely love flagging – following a race and getting the blue flag out to the right car so the leaders aren’t held up is great. Others love the incident side – going out to deal with crashed cars.

or there is http://www.beechwoodparkleisure.co.uk/camping.html near derby.

we used to go there as a group of about 20-30 people – there was a “rally” paddock that they’d let us use that was away from the main campsite, but still close to the toilet block.

Shell Island is probably your best bet. its a vast site, and you can head off into the dunes and keep away from others: the site is about 300 acres for camping.

What does the stereotypical Saab driver buy now?

as having owned 5 Saab 9-5s over the last 10 years… 4 estates and 1 saloon.

we currently have 1 9-5 saloon, that’s just had the engine and gearbox out of an estate we had at the time (saloon has 190,000 on the clock and had an issue with the autobox, the estate had rusted around the spare wheel well) hopfully the saloon is good to go for another 100,000 miles.

but to replace the estate we’ve gone for a Jag XF sportbrake.

Saab was sold to Spyker, and much of the dealer network tied with Vauxhall disappeared. the new 9-5 based on the same floorpan as the insignia didnt really sell… The last generation 9-5s where a real tour-de-force of what SAAB could do. would love one: 2.8 v6 turbo… 300Bhp, AWD with lots of toys as standard on the Aero model. But they couldnt be diagnosed by a Tech2 (like the previous cars) so my Saab indy said he wasnt gonna go to the expense of getting in a reader.

i’d drive round spray painting “Alive in Tuscon” then wait for people to turn up…then no doubt they’d kick me out of the group that formed cos they hated me.

its a hard feeling. talk to your colleagues.

One of the admin team in a place i worked died after she slipped and fell down stairs at home one weekend,
and a fella at the missus’ was killed while riding home on his motorbike.

its a strange feeling afterwards. Hard to deal with. but talking is good.

Joe Burt

These vids always puts me in the mood to skate

Binners: My missus another old Warrington Roller Rink regular.

We are very lucky for rinks around Manchester: Wigan Roller Rink & Atherton Rink (same people run both rinks), Roller City in Rochdale, Warrington Skate Academy and the Bury Rink.

currently have a 2.5 sat outside – failed MOT on rusty sills. had a clean MOT when we bought it last year.

otherwise – other than a service (oil & spark plugs) its not needed anything.
seats are leather bolsters with cloth, half electric seats (electric seat back, but manual reach)
the surprise was that cruise was and option (and not fitted to our 04plate)

would do about 28mpg… but tiny tank, would get about 270-290 out of a tank.

ok cruiser – seats and driving position nowhere near as good as our saab 9-5s. auto box little lazy to kickdown, but once the revs go over 4k, it picks up quickly. (i’d use the J gate to force it to kick down a gear or two rather than having to floor the accelerator sometimes when i didnt need all the power – like say speeding up after a 50mph zone)

yeah, luxury i guess 😆 Had some furnished chairs (sofas in the room for second weekers!) dunno about heating, but no air con (or opening windows)

The Jury Co-ordinator would arrive for 10am, take a register… then disappear. they’d pop their head round the door again later to say if we could go home or just go for lunch.

i was on jury duty this time last year.
first day – after the introduction bit, told that there was a case that was entering it’s third week (and the jurors had been selected from those that hadnt minded if it went on for an extra week) and there was 2 other ongoing cases from the previous week… the building only contained 4 courts – there was a case due to start that day, but there was some work going on in court 4 – so we could relax til the afternoon. They let us go at 3pm when it became obv that nothing was gonna happen that day.

Tuesday – defendant didnt turn up – sent home at lunchtime
Wednesday – defendant pleaded guilty – sent home at lunch
Thursday – wasnt selected out of the pool of available jurors for the case starting that day. Told to come back on monday.
Monday – wasnt selected from the available jurors for the 2 cases that started that day – remaining 2nd weekers told they wouldnt be needed for the planned cases that week…

So never ended up on a jury – but did nearly complete the jigsaw of sorrento that was for our amusment while waiting in the jury holding room.

the-muffin-man: i remember Willam Toet when he used to campaign his 2.8 turbo Gould single seater in the british hillclimb champs – used to fly back from switzerland to compete when there was a F1 race on.

Kryton57 – Member
Don’t worry Flashy, it was first on after the 60’s, you won’t have seen it.

😆

+another for bloodstock. Much smaller scale (10kish compared to 70k) but very friendly.

Tho Euro festivals are a completely different animal.
we’ve been up to Wacken a couple of times in ’13 and ’15 – both years was a sell out well in advance, similar sort of size to download with 75-78k people there.

big difference is you camp with your car, you can arrive the monday before the festival starts (festival starts on Thursday) so arrival is more spread out.. less queues for the wristband exchange. Beer is fairly reasonable on site… 3euros for small beer. 7euros for a litre stein. and 3.50euro for MET (mead)(you pay a deposit for a the tough plastic cup or stein but they are all wacken branded so make a nice souvenir, so you dont mind losing the euro deposit.) food is also reasonable.. no ‘gourmet burger’ ‘gourmet noodles’ chains like the UK festivals.

Biggest thing tho is the local village embraces the festival – a huge part of the wacken experience is leaving the festival grounds and wondering down to hte village, or getting the shuttle bus to the local open air pool. each time we have been villages have set up bars in their front garden… the garden across from the pedestrian entrance/exit had a huge bar and selling beer for 1euro for 500ml bottles. the local kids will cart you and your shopping in their pedal go-kart trailers from the supermarket to the festival entrance for a small fee.

Also been over for Rockavaria at Munich’s olympic park this year.

once you’ve been to a euro festival, you wont want to go back to Download

Had 9-5s for years.
currently have 2 Aeros – a 52 aero estate and 03 aero saloon (picked up for £500 as it had 186,000 miles on the clock to replace an MOT failure jag)

from the 03 reg they had the uprated oil breather system. Aeros should always have been run on fully synth (the main issues where with the 2.0t low pressure turbo engines where they where originally specced to run on semi synth)

both of ours are Auto – the 03 has the better gearbox of the two – as it has 5sp drive & manual override with paddles on the steering wheel (gear selector goes D(M)L. the 52plate has the earlier 5sp auto box where the gear selector goes D,4,3,L. it also feels slightly longer in its gearing, its slightly slower than the later car.

both cars we are averaging 30mpg (approx 400-420 from a tankful) tho long journeys we get closer to 500 miles out of a tank (thats with the air-con on and cruise set to 70.)

as for bikes in the back – the estate will comfortably take 2 bikes without taking the wheels off.

seats are the best for long journeys = so very comfortable.

ps. Hora – i’ll go with the car’s choice on highly reving 2nd or mid range 3rd – the engine gives peak tourque about 2250rpm – anything over 4500rpm and the power is tailing off. the only time it’ll tend to deny you dropping down is when it’s likely to just be too high in the rev range to do anything.

its the 24hr 2CV race at Anglesey circuit this weekend. so i shall be out marshalling from 9am saturday through to 10am Sunday

There was also some storms that rolled through lancashire over the weekend, so may have stayed away if they thought they were gonnna get caught in a system enroute, even if the weather at Blackpool was ok.

and the gyrocopter isnt one of only 2 flying examples left in the world…and isnt 71 years old. 😉

Used to use Opera mainly, but switched to Chrome for the last few years.

Keep firefox for watching NowTV – it’s still using Microsoft Silverlight, and all the browsers bar Firefox no longer support the plug in.

I disagree, we have quite a large card to play.

no, we have one card… and it ain’t a high card, and those holding the aces know we dont have a high card.

i love the one i got from Obelink: https://www.obelink.co.uk/nomad-allround-xw-10.0.html after my alpkit dozer sprung a leak at the valve.

non slip top cover, mine is the XL version – 193x76x10cm. but does come in a slightly narrower version 63cm. just open the valves and it does self inflate.
missus has similar, but branded Hypercamp, also from obelink which she’s had for several seasons

well, i did my part 1 – but moved more into the Technician side.

I recently got the panasonic 40″ CS520 – HDTV/ really nice picture, good viewing angles – currently £320 at john lewis.
has netflix (dedicated button to launch on the remote) and the amazon app preloaded along with iplayer, all4, itv and C5 apps.
Doesnt have a fancy interface but it works just fine, if slightly slow

Did look at the panasonic 40″ CX680 4K tv but decided the £500 price tag was too much for our viewing habits with a lot of SD tv as we dont have full compliment of freeview and HD channels in the valley.

in my old MX5 – yep. engine cam came on song at 4K rpm, shifting at the red line popped you back to 4250. heck, the gearbox was so sweet that barely a dap of clutch was needed on the pull between 3rd and 4th, just a lift on the throttle.

the Jag is the same in that it starts to pull at 3.5k, and the autobox hangs onto the gear til the red line.

the autobox in the saab will shift about 500 below the redline when the throttle is wide open.

in the lounge we still have a sony 32″ CRT that we got free from a member of another forum who lived local and had upgraded his telly with a christmas bonus.
Only just swapped the 10 year old crt in the home office for a LCD in the last couple of weeks. in the bedroom have a plasma we got cheap off ebay when the 15 year old CRT packed up last year.

I have the ePrance camera in both of my cars. Having one brought down the insurance premium by more than the cost of the camera.

It turns on and starts recording when the car starts running and i just forget about it. It records in 5min chunks as a loop, so when the card is full it overwrites the oldest file. Each video file is 500mb.

glad of it went somone bumped into us on the motorway – he was claiming we stopped suddenly. the video has us all coming to a gentle stop in slow moving traffic, then 5 secs later the bump when, basically, his foot slipped off the clutch and the car jumped forward.

and captured this the other day:

sent it onto the police.

I did a year of communting 40miles each way across the north pennines from Burnley to north Leeds – bit of motorway, bit of main A roads, and B roads, and crawling through town traffic. Was great in the 5 – especially on sunny days.

Ok stuck in middle town in a traffic queue under a hot summers sun wasnt great, but flip the roof back up and zip down the rear window took seconds.

Kept the ‘5 for 8 years, running alongside our other car, as the wife and i have shared the commute for a number of years now, before it died with 180k on the clock (mk1, ’94 car – base model 1.8i no power steering or air con, wind up windows.)

As you found – the engine does need to be worked, it loves to rev all the way to the red line, flick of the gear lever and your back at 4250rpm bearly needs to dip the clutch. Does get a little bit noisy on the motorway cruise at about 3 to 3500rpm with the roof up, but roof down no probs.

Remember taking ours on a trip to see friends that lived near Le Mans – roof down through france all we could hear was the crickets in the grass as we flew down the autoroutes.

So far had a 2000 9-5 2.0t – took that upto 180k miles before we sold it on because we had got a 2004 9-5 Aero (bought with 135k miles) ran it for 3 years when we sold for scrap this Christmas to the local saab indy in Edenfield as it had got to 234k miles and the engine had reach the end of its life (wouldn’t rev comfortably over 4k)

Now have a 2002 9-5 Aero, with relatively low miles for us: 110k.

Going around the Red light district in the afternoon was probably your best decision: it really changes from “blackpool seedy” to something very seedy/not friendly when the sun goes down and the hard-drug dealers trying to get your attention at every alleyway.