I found Selectspecs to be slow.
Specs were excellent quality when I got them though.

Anaemia can’t strike in 2 weeks. A period slightly low in iron is very normal for a pregnant woman, the fetus gets what it wants. And also it won’t give her lifelong bowel problems!

Its also mostly an invented Western “disease” anyway. And excess iron is incredibly toxic.

20 years ago the blood donor folks stopped me from giving blood unless I took iron tablets. What a load of rubbish! Sadly for them, I had to tell them where to put that advice, and have unfortunately not given blood since.

Keepinng her happy is one thing, but a couple of words which I hope will help. During our pregnancy Mrs Mc suffered bowel problems later on. – slight frame, huge baby – and then there was the GP.

Whatever you do, don’t let your GP give her iron tablets! Mrs Mc, when about 2 weeks from due was struggling with bowel constriction, despite a lifetime veggie/ wholefood/ natural/ unprocessed diet. In our naivety we said yes to iron tablets. – That was the final straw. It was about two weeks later after the birth that she moved her bowel, and as a consequence she has suffered from the internal stretching and damage ever since. She still needs to take special care many years later as a result.

I mostly blame the GP.

So tackle it early. No iron tablets, exercise, make sure she has a very unprocessed diet, take additional ground flax seed, figs, whatever it takes, because it will get worse before it gets better.

And enjoy the rest!

Water and grit mostly for the last 4 months. Stays on, doesn’t wash off, easy to re-apply.

I got a Flymo Woodshark 2200 and have used it to chop ALL the wood for ALL of my house space heating for the last 2 years. Needs usual basic maintenance, but it’s a very good tool.
Compared to the Bosch and cheapo brands etc which look pretty flimsy, it’s well ahead. It’s actually a Husqvarna anyway. All the manuals are Husky.

I think one key point is not whether it could ever be a practical way of making a bike..But the mention of BIKES in a positive way on a prime time slot.
The more mentions, the more bikes become acceptable to the moronic masses. It’s got to be a good thing, bring it on.

Yep, freezing cold, flat grey, direct headwind, high pressure dense air. Like riding in treacle. Not a good run.

I’m not an architect, just opinionated..
Generally IMO it’s the unfit majority (particularly the secretaries.. 😐 ) who have such a slow metabolism having spent too long sitting on their bums without excersise, and growing up in centrally heated houses. They get cold below about 25C and complain to management.

Those of us who for ecological reasons or personal comfort prefer much more modest coditions get our regular arguments to facilities drowned out, till we give up trying. I do find shorts are helpful, particularly when it snows which seems to be the worst conditions for our building.

From engineering standpoint, our big building has the usual central air supplies in addition to radiators along the windows. The radiators are “owned” by those who have the benefit of sitting there (mostly in aforementioned categories.. I’m not prejudiced..). The only way to turn them off is to crawl beneath the “owners” desks. This gets a little tricky in an office. Hence they win.

I’ve burnt a lot of crack willow, and it seems to go OK in a stove without problems. I think most willow growing for coppice is straighter varieties which are better for other uses also. – Perhaps they are the “explosive” ones.
Ash is probably the best stuff for burning. Ash will also coppice OK but probably wouldn’t be as prolific as willow.

Swadey,
Perhaps it’s too easy to say. My little girl (now eight) worked out that if she was reasonable then we could be too. Importantly, she realizes the power of compromize.
Working on that, we’d always give her a fair bit more veg than we knew she’s ever eat, even when it was something she wouldn’t touch.

After the usual cajoling and threats, we then allow her to proceed to “puddding” IF she eats 1 or 2 (etc) piece(s), and we finish off the rest. She knows if she allows a compromize, then we’ll always hold our side of the bargain, no question, and she gets “pudding” without further tantrums.

Doing that regularly has got all sorts of veg in. The standard view is that it’s the repetition which causes the body to accept new flavours. Quantity doesn’t matter, but they don’t understand that, so it remains a useful bargaining tool.

So “little and often” has sneaked up on here without her realizing, and she has come round to eating lots of unusual stuff in proper portions this way.

My Morph was good while it lasted, but it packed up after about three years. Internal pump seals failed, then the non return valve failed. latter is in the base of the pump and fundamental to the design so not repairable.

I’d rate most cheapo DIY axle stands as crappy, they are too narrow at the bottom for stability. I once had the rear wheels (brake on) slide sideways on a road camber, and the front came off the stands. I don’t even like doing it with rear wheel chocks.

These days I’ll only go under with two socking great tree-trunk logs, one each side, packed with boards.

– Sorry Neil, you could of course change the filter. In the interests of speed I didn’t on that occasion, and on my car it’s a pain to get at.

I used one once when I had an “emergency” oil change in a hurry before a European trip. It worked, but would have left sludge and obviously you don’t get to change the filter. I’d definitely not do it normally, and every other time I’ve done the job properly.

Oh, I drive a Ford TDCI, and the tube was too thick to go down the dipstick hole. I heated it with an air gun and stretched it out thinner – worked a treat!

You mostly chose at some point where to live. It’s been obvious for many years that fuel prices would escalate steeply.
It’s also clear that fuel economy is still very low on the list of most drivers priorities, yet they still feel it’s OK to whinge.
Almost everyone with a car could have bought a more ecomonical one than they did, or could drive more carefully than they do, but they decide not to. – It’s their choice.

I’d object strongly if the Chancellor intervenes, that just subsidises car drivers with the taxes of the frugal.

I decided to buy a house with 1/2 hour cycle to work about 8 years ago just for that reason.

what about the appendix .
The appendix is a repository for important gut microrgansisms. Especially useful in children who may flush them out with more regular bouts of diarrhoea, and the appendix can then help re-population. It shrinks in adults and is less useful, probably a result of them suffering said problems less readily. It’s only modern Western medicine which incorrectly sees it as useless.

Roper
“I think my weakness will be sea food.”. Then what you need is to go seaweed collecting! Believe me, get some Atlantic Dulse (the red frondy stuff), and drop that in a stir fry. The closest thing I could place it to is shrimps (I used to eat creatures ~35 years ago and I loved Suffolk shrimps). I’m quite addicted, and can’t wait for my next Devon holiday to stock up again.
Who says veggies have a boring diet? Many meat eaters visiting our kitchen can’t even identify what we have stored up in half the jars!

Well I’d be inclined to take that “nearly all people should in reality aim to eat a lot more meat than they do now. ” with a large pinch of salt. (But they like their salt in Spain.)

But Spain an veggie? I’d certainly do it, but it pretty much puts paid to eating out. (But that’s a bonus in Spain he says..taking cover.). But you should be able to buy beans and nuts by the sackload in many places. What you won’t find are convenience food type veggie things. (If convenience food’s your thing), personally it isn’t mine.
So you’ll ned to work harder, but if you find good markets, they will be a mecca for proper hard-grown salads and gnarly vegetables.

And there are probably almond orchards on your doorstep. – A goldmine. You could hardly be better placed for some good things in life..

It gets to be abit of a game. More interesting than speeding tickets. -I’ve done with those.
I’d vouch for the lorry tracking. Only on quiet motorway in bone dry conditions mind. If you are sensitive to it, you can feel the draft from about three lorry lengths behind. I averaged 73MPG on a 350 mile round trip last year. Used about 1/3 of a tank full. Moderate gap, about “one chevron”, so I wasn’t being too loony.

Old Focus 1.9 TDCI with 150K miles.

Sadly, along with their other buddies:

Nonsense, you don’t need to drain the hot tank. That’s also very wasteful. The water comes out of the top! Isolate the cold feed to the hot tank. Then open all the hot taps in the house. Ten seconds later the dribble will stop and you’re done.

If you have no tap in the feed from the cold water header tank, (the plastic or galv steel one in your loft). You might be able to put a cork in the output which is at the bottom.

Once you get it, make a cross-section with a cut-out bit of card. It’s the most important bit of the shape. You can use it in the shops to compare saddles with what you know works.
After wasting money on several, I worked out that my best ever saddle was the el-cheapo standard factory job from my 1990 GT. Rock hard and leaking, but I took the cross-section, and arrived at Fizik Gobi, which has been perfect ever since.
Don’t get taken in by too many fancy cut-outs. IMO you need some pressure in the middle to spread the load out properly, or you’ll just end up with boils in your sit bones, and they REALLY hurt..

Pretend you have no brake pedal, and a brick underneath the accelerator. Keep the revs as low as possible always. Just avoid it vibrating rough.

Annoy drivers behind you by taking ages to accelerate, and by coasting into roundabouts from half a mile.

Pump the tyres hard, and use something like Michelin Energy. (££ but they do make a difference – you know from cycling how much effort it takes to push the wrong tyres).

Team up with a 55MPH lorry on the motorways.

Not long ago, all the dog walkers were having a nice chat, right underneath this particular tree. Utterly oblivious to the scene at their feet.

I wandered up, and took said photos right in front of them all. I got asked “What are you going to do with those?”. I said something like “I don’t know yet..”.

Anyway, a couple of days later it was mysteriously cleared up.

Needless to say the little collection is growing again as we speak, both here and hanging about delicately in the nearby bushes.

East Anglia? Well there’s the GogMagogs at Cambridge then 😆

More seriously second Tryfan, you can’t far wrong, nice and scrambly, not too high, lots of fun.

Brecon Beacons would be closer for you, but that’s more hill walking. Lovely, but not quite the same.

They came snooping round my place some years ago when I had no TV. – then they ask to come in and look!
I told them to go away and they didn’t return.

Scaffold boards can be hard to get. We had some three years ago, but when we wanted some more, spent 6 months phoning round on and off, and none of our locals had any. Bought 2″ thick timber in the end ££.

Untreated wood is sensible for veggies. Thin 1″ stuff will probably last 4 years, thick stuff 6 or 8.

A mate of mine regularly used just a bungee + rope when his son (about 4) was not very strong. He managed some very long rides (firetrack stuff). I dabbled once with the same with my daughter was about five, but only once or twice. It worked, but like you say, does have it’s drawbacks. The going slack thing mostly.
One which reels back in like this would be a lot better. Hey, think out of the box a bit!

Holding up traffic wouldn’t concern me at all.

What would concern me is that a fingertip movement by just one driver out of thousands, and I’m dead. What’s the difference between that and someone holding a gun to my head and sayig they won’t shoot?
They won’t of course – mostly.

That pic is a plant in Spain. Nothing to do with satellites..

HVDC is what will happen. It’s already going in for many undersea cable links. Doesn’t need any fancy stuff. The only reason for the power grid we have today at 50Hz is historical becauase of wirewound transformers. Modern electronics makes DC/DC step-up possible and the losses are massively lower than AC grids.

With high voltage DC cables

ooOoo: “Are you familiar with the concept of ‘current solar income’?” Not put that way, but if you mean available energy the it’s utterly enormous.
Ways of getting at it will still improve somewhat, but many exist already, and mostly it’s political will which is lacking. Very sadly many governments are also firmly in the pockets of the coal, oil and auto industry.
Desert insallations are already being set up though. When the Saudi’s have finished making a mint from their oil they’ll sure as hell make a mint from their humumgous solar capacity.

Back to OP, it didn’t take Wikileaks really to tell us, it’s been know for years, and published, that the Saudi’s have been egging up their reserves.

At least now more people will get the point, so that’s good.

I’ve used Glassesdirect a few times. I only bought the el cheapo £17 frames so quality not great and I can’t complain. I’m sure their better ones would be ..well, better.

Last time I used SelectSpecs. Very nice pair of “proper” specs for £50. All the coatings, nice box, qood frames. Only flaw is they took a few weeks. I’d use them again though.

The second one I had was Park tools before the plastic snapped.

Try the twist test..
My chains always go crunch when twisted, (it’s gritty here).
After running them through the (late Park Tools R.I.P) machine with various expensive cleaners – which always ended up black. Guess what? -The chains still went crunch when twisted. (Grit stays in the joints).

The outside was always nice and shiny though, so at least the impression of a clean chain was good..

Fleeces work out cheaper.

Old storage heaters are poorly insulated so they leak a lot of heat when you don’t need it (ie night time), and will often be cold before the next recharge.

Bu do check the timers on them are charging them only during the night. (The hours of cheaper electricity are very short)

Any sort of plug-in rads of blowers will cost exactly the same (pro rata), & potentially a lot more if you already use economy 7 for the storage heaters. Don’t be fooled by the adverts which tell you they are cheap to run. – They can be cheap because they use little electricity and give out little heat commensurate with that. A couple of old 100W lightbulbs would be about the same as the small ones.

Remember all electric heaters are more or less 100% efficient. There is no free lunch.

They don’t work very well and get shitty to clean up and they break.

Our work showers smell like urinals. Nasty habit.

£14 a month on a meter. Includes taxes and sewerage. Three of us. We are fairly careful though.