Had something similar on my T5 a few years back.
Luckily the locking wheelnut was the only one that was not loose, leading to conclusion that someone had a go at it

+1, on a Golf many moons ago. Wouldn’t have made 500 yds let alone 500 miles. Just one wheel too, so could take a bolt off each of the rears to get to the garage for some spares.

The classic/manx is a bit more relaxed and it’ll be easier to find places as the main TT can get booked up months in advance.

Was there working for a while during and after the ’94 Grand Prix which was great fun to watch and the island wasn’t as crowded as during the TT. Still sociable in the hotels and bars. Also did many laps of the circuit in a variety of cars which only added to the respect for the riders.

Don’t forget the psychology of being mortgage free

+1

And the ability to weather things like a cost of living crisis. Long term investments are great if you can, but making the month to month a bit easier counts for a lot. 30 years of effort, but right now, so glad we finally got there last year.

Another Alpkit user – carbon marathons – which are something like £80/pair and a decent balance of light and robust. They’ve taken more abuse than my wife’s previous Leki poles that I tried briefly.

Went back to flats on MTB after 25ish years because of an ankle injury which made unclipping from SPDs painful. Wish I’d done it years ago.

The surprise was when I stuck them on the cross bike to do a route I thought would have a bit of hike-a-bike in it and got up something I’d never got up using SPDs. Something about confidence to cope with tenuous balance I’m sure rather than the pedals themselves but it worked so I’m going to stick with it.

Having a couple of (maybe more) pairs is good. But why not two pairs of the same things at different states of wear so the fit is always the same? My newer Mutants are for the grassy wet stuff where grip matters more and the part worn ones do the rest.

Buy your gas in roubles
Interesting to see if this forces the hand of countries deliberating the EU response as this would be a big escape from sanctions if buyers did it.

It just had to be him, didn’t it

Grayling changed the law all on his own

I believe crews en-route to their vessel are largely exempt from the visa system. So fly in, bussed to ship.

Sorry – should have been more specific with the Q. I believe that’s the case for vessels which go between UK and non UK destinations. It is the Irish Sea ones I don’t understand as I thought you needed a work permit to operate on vessels running entirely in UK waters.

One thing I’ve been wondering here given the mention of Indian crews – how do they get here and embark / disembark? Do they need visas that the UK Govt could deny and scupper P&O plans?

One of the speakers yesterday mentioned that when even the DUP are onboard it shows just how widespread support for P&O employees is.

P&O operate from Larne. Sammy Wilson is the MP. DUP had to support it.

Because she has paid half the mortgage so is entitled to half the increase in value. Simple as that.

Well, no. There will have to be an attribution of the increase in value between the equity put in by the OP and the mortgage. If he put in £200k and her £0 and they each funded half a £150k mortgage, he’s funded 275/350 and she’s funded 75/350 of the property. That would work out at roughly the £30k she’s asked for, so it might be that she’s been advised to be reasonable and has been.

Is there some kind of contract you can both get drawn up and sign at the moving in (or partner moving in) point? Does having a documented rental agreement help?

Referring to out of marriage partnerships

I’m not a solicitor, but I did this when in a similar situation to the OP. Moving in with girlfriend who used most of her flat sale equity to pay off debts so that it was something like 90% me / 10% her funding the new place. It just governed how anything would be shared if we split and the agreement ended if we got married. Never needed to see how it worked as we married a couple of years later.

Haas to remove Russian colours and Uralkali branding from car

Have I picked up right that Mazepin Snr was one of those at Putin’s Oligarch meeting the other day? Likely to end up with personal and professional sanctions from US. Wonder if Mazepin Jnr will remain as driver if Daddy’s cash dries up.

Sea paddling (and big inland lochs) is ace, a real antidote to speedy modern life

I started on the sea >40 years ago and the above is how I persuaded my wife to give it a go. And paddling to beaches which would be grim to access any other way. Like hillwalking without carrying the weight on your back and being able to camp on an island and pull a bottle of wine out of the boat to go with dinner.

Another vote for join a club. And to avoid the inflatable boat unless you want to restrict yourself with distance and sea conditions. Finding a place to store the right boat for what you want to do will be more rewarding than compromising on it for space.

Or they are just using this one as a primer for a bigger drop tomorrow. I hope so.

I wonder if it is to put pressure on Simon Case and the Met to investigate the parties properly. How can they conclude nothing to see when the papers are showing that there was.

I’d have penalised Max at least one point to clean up next week’s final race.

Would have been my preferred position – winner takes all and the one more likely to cause a crash can’t risk DNF.

Looking forward to a braw midnight paddleboarding at Portie beach

So was it you or the storm which undermined and knocked over part of one of the groynes then? The sea wall must have been busy last night.

Sneaky Pete’s had issues

That’s one way of putting it. I lived almost opposite it for a year in the late 80s. It wasn’t the venue noise which was the issue and more the closing time fights. Came home one night to find a guy outside the front door stabbed and being tended to by an ambulance crew.

From my experience doing the same thing with kids football a few years ago – no point in trying to do this.

Kids will need to be subbed. Can’t make subs until break in play. Others won’t turn up when expected to or will appear because they forgot it wasn’t their week. Some will want off for some random reason and others will be keen to play every minute.

In the end we just said to the kids we’d try and make it as equal as we could and they accepted that.

Make the most of it, but only after you have the written confirmation of your last day and that you are not required to come to work between now and then.

Perfectly reasonable for them to do it in many roles, just also perfectly reasonable of you to expect it to be documented properly.

“Strawberry, daddy!”, he said, brandishing the worn-down nub of the latest artistic endeavour

Reminds me of another. “Don’t let the kids eat or drink in the front seats” say I to my wife as I head for the supermarket leaving them in the car park. Return to find them in the front seats having poured orange juice into the ignition. Car won’t start. In rural France. That was a nice holiday.

Someone carved pictures into wallpaper when they were about 4/6 – still never found out if one of them or a friend.
Playing darts without anything around the dartboard or on the (wooden) floor.

It doesn’t even get better in the teens. Just redecorated a bedroom. He wanted to practice his baseball pitching and, fair enough, he used my old bouldering mat to save damage to the walls. Only he’s not that accurate. This weekend I’ll be teaching about plastering.

Do you still?
If so, how long have you been doing so?

Started on the sea in 1980, done slalom K1 & C1, polo, river running, surf. It was kids which stopped most of it until they got big enough to paddle too. Still paddle rivers, but most of my miles are now at sea again.

Tragic event and no doubt the full story will emerge in time.

Weirs come in all shapes and sizes, often with local issues to take into account too. And then each one changes nature with different water levels. You need ability and knowledge to go near them, let alone play on them.

Reminds me of when I first got my driving licence and headed up to the orchy with a mate and a rubber dinghy

Sorry, off topic, but similarly, went up with a mate who decided not to run it. At the time I was poor and wasn’t going to waste the petrol. So ran it solo. In a diolen polo kayak.

OMM cancelled now too. Was supposed to be Langdale this weekend.

I always mix up Kingussie and Newtonmore, but hasn’t one of them already got a bike shop…

Kingussie has the Wee Bike Hub, which opened this year where the less good chippy was.

Downhill running race seems like a recipe for broken bones though.

No worse than the downhill part of a race up and down. Fell racers aren’t exactly known for cautious and considered descents.

Also, are there downhill running races?

Yes. Carnethy do a downhill race from the top of Caerketton to the Ski Centre bottom car park- 1.8km, 300m descent. There will be others

For me this makes me reconsider wearing all black on the road in the daytime

NC500 route, dreich weather last week, the ones in dark colours without lights were so much harder to see as they just disappear into the background. And that’s me as a cyclist looking for bikes. Now imagine the tourist in a hired camper who can’t even stay the correct side of the white line because they’re looking at the view.

Are you looking for the Vertical Kilometre type of thing which has a race series across the world? There’s a Mamores one as part of the Glencoe Skyline weekend.

Has anyone ever been about 30% slower after an injury and made it back faster and stronger?

Too often. Upped the walking mileage when I couldn’t run, which really helped the time on feet capability as I built up to running again. First time back running a normal 50 minute circuit took 70. Got back to 50 minutes over a month without really trying too hard other than making sure i carried on with a 3+ mile walk every day i didn’t run.

Been running one outside for 4 years now. The frost protection does kick in more than the boiler would run to heat the house or water tank, but it still uses less oil than the old internal boiler it replaced.

Anyone taking bets on how she’ll escape from the torpedo tube?

The Bobby Ewing solution – it’ll be a dream she wakes up from like the car sinking flashbacks.

Read elsewhere that Nicolas Soames is the Trust’s Chair and approves – so Boris Johnson thinks he knows better than Churchill’s family.

Also Scotland with a pole on property. Got somewhere by refusing them access to do work they wanted until they provided me with a copy of the wayleave and a named contact with which to discuss it. That wasn’t just being grumpy – what they wanted would have made a bit of a mess of the garden and I wanted to check the limit of their entitlement.

Then it turned out that the wayleave was granted after the area became a conservation area, which means it shouldn’t have been granted. And of c. 3 dozen lines only 6 are live. And that I have a right to terminate the wayleave but so far they can’t point me to anything which requires me to pay any compensation to them for doing so.

They’ve gone quiet but it won’t be long before they’d had long enough to make the case and I’ll be terminating the wayleave.

I’d really like to learn how to swim properly but not sure how feasible that is at the moment, has anyone had lessons recently as an adult?

I can swim in the sense that I wouldn’t drown if you threw me in but I’d like to try triathlon and so it would be cool to be able to actually swim even just to a very mediocre standard

I did similar for a triathlon several years ago. Couldn’t be reliable enough for coaching sessions so had to do it from what i could find and copy.

There are some stroke videos on the speedo website – swim tips. I just watched them and put that technique into play doing maybe 1km in a session once a week. Made a major improvement over the few months i did it.

My team has got quite happy working from home now and want to carry on doing so, with the odd day in the office. So that’s what we’ll do. Looking more to reducing office space than putting people back in it. We’ll meet up from time to time, but that’s likely to be the long term solution.

We are not doing any events at present, despite the Festival and Fringe running and really wanting to get back to it. Because schools.

My wife is a teacher and has so many +ve cases in her class that only 1/3 of them came in yesterday. >1% of our kids’ High School has tested +ve in the first week back.