agree how you look seems important as whether you are deemed a ‘proper’ cyclist, I rode to the shops on Saturday on my (decent) road bike in jeans/t-shirt and passed loads of roadies going the other way, most just ignore you, not that I get that upset about it

warsaw and stiff kittens before that, and my question, what Northern Soul song was the riff from Joy Divison’s Interzone song nicked from?

Burley stoves came recommended to me and very impressed with ours, dead easy to light and more efficient than most:
http://www.burley.co.uk/wood_burnerdetail.php?cid=4&wid=47

Sopley camp near Bransgore – http://merryfieldpark.co.uk/ old RAF base (now called Merryfield Park), some units are used but loads are derelict, some weird buildings there including a huge underground bunker but I think this is off-limits though see http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/s/sopley/index4.html, a woman called Sue runs it all, I’m sure she’d let you have a look around, cheers

ahem, Avon Tyrrell

no pros, plenty of cons

I lost ours for a tx model about that age and bought another off ebay for a tenner (just put model number in search)

sorry to hijack – Madjack is your C50 for sale? My son wants one

Big Bike Bash on the August bank holiday weekend in the New Forest; bikes bands and beer family friendly event – loads of references on this forum or google, cheers

can someone get rid of the awful Shaun Keavney though, have to listen to radio 4 till he’s gone at 10am

Mrs spoke to claims bloke today who said they will pursue it and ask for full details of medical examination, damage to van, the companies details, the driver & their records of incident etc etc plus take photo evidence of van and our wing mirror and ask for an explanation on how the young lad sustained whiplash traveling in same direction and a light side impact knocking off a wing mirror. It will certainly drop his mate the driver in it at his work. The only thing he said was that the lad was using some NWNF firm up in Liverpool who are notorious for these type of claims and have a high success rate (wouldn’t say who). Will leave it to our insurers for now and see what happens I guess, the lad may or may not drop it but ultimately they’ll make the call

Direct Line, will update later once spoken to them. Thanks for some useful advice here

thanks for the other links, very common it seems. Weird they they were going in the same direction and saying he got whiplash, a big van vs a little polo. Just been looking at Honest John, loads of similar stories and insurance companies just agreeing to settle to save the hassle, saying that it’s their decision, so why bother ringing asking if she wants to go to court. HJ says you should insist on court and remind the other party that lying in court is perjury and someone recently got 9 months inside for a dodgy whiplash claim.

I just sit on the fence and have one wheel of each on my ride to work bike:
[/url]
diamondback2[/url] by Avon Tyrrell[/url], on Flickr

[/url]
diamondback[/url] by Avon Tyrrell[/url], on Flickr

Don’t have decking, very 90’s groundforce… actually we still have some in places and it always ends up slippy after a winter no matter what you put on it. The stuff we’ve used most recently is clear paint on stuff with gritty material in it, also used on sections of northshore. 2 years so far and not too bad. I’ll try and find the tin with name of it, cheers

ditto, we tried a calor one for a (very) short while in our cabin but the smell and condensation was toomuch, electric convector heater now, much better

ditto paperwhite, worth it, don’t skimp

burial ground – there’s one near us that started a few years ago that seems to be doing very well, http://www.woodlandburialground.co.uk/Our-Burial-Grounds/Hinton-Park/ could be because the area has about the highest proportion of old people in the country though, particularly popular for non-religious folks too

Salvage yard – depends where you live (ours is in a national park and has a pretty strict local plan) I’m guessing you’d need some kind of change of use permission (from agricultural/pasture/forestry) if running a business like this from it. I wouldn’t risk just doing it without checking first, neighbours /passers-by would probably report anyway if it was very obvious and people coming and going etc If you ask the question to local authority you can guess what they’d say but I suppose it varies from place to place. I’d love to do it though

I grow 3 varieties of Xmas trees, have done for 20 + years, needs to be well hiddden though else people nick them as you approach the festive season. You can get Forestry Commission or Natural England grants I think for planting native broadleaves and higher proportion for orchards etc (not for Xmas trees though, but 30cm saplings can be had for a £1, you’ll have big enough ones to sell in about 4-6 years). Planting for Coppicing worth looking at for supplying poles (not the nation) and charcoal burners. All depends on the land and what might grow best there – look what does best surrounding it.

Renting it out to horsey types can be an earner but to pay a fair whack they’ll want good access, water supply and decent stock fence / hedges. And then still probably moan about something.

Use for camping/events for up to 28 days a year, you don’t need planning permission /licence.

Cameron’s mate Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall used to do that land share thing where you let people grow stuff on it (take some produce in return).

I want to do this on our land: http://www.history.co.uk/shows/seeking-salvage but Mrs won’t allow.

Otherwise don’t do anything and just use as an escape to camp on yourself & enjoy

Used one as a hire van for a bit, thought it very plasticky and built to a price, just didn’t feel good quality but did what it was supposed to in terms of getting from A to B and carrying some stuff. Worth a look is a VW Caddy Maxi which is fairly narrow and about the same space inside (Life one has extra seats), or slightly bigger look at one of the last Toyota Hiace’s – will never let you down, cheers

Agree with others, has to be a Honda mower, also use Honda generator, boat engine, motorbike, always start and minimal maintenance. The only down side of more budget Honda mowers is the steel decks rust through eventually if you don’t keep the underside cleaned off regularly and smeared with oil.

Thanks very much, some top tips. Being a (not so) soft southerner it’s ‘Barf’ I reckon

The binging when you leave the key in the ignition after turning it off in my Toyota, yes I know I need to take it out when I go.
Had a Megane hire car a few years back with the most stupid starting method which involved holding what looked like a credit card over a panel, depressing the clutch and pressing some other start button

Complain to council/highways authority and get them to repair them if their speed bump caused it, and ask to remove bump so no more damage. Similar questions of shock damage caused to properties come up quite a bit with Honest John on his site

you could use that weird orange tool to dig a new hole!

just looking for something to view outside garage and onto our entrance drive, could be wired directly, one that perhaps comes only when detecting movement both day and night and/or perhaps records direct onto sd card. Be quite interested to see what animals appear too, bit like winterwatch. I’m not naive about the limitations and costs incidentally, and do take other measures to minimise risks e.g decent locks, alarms and not leaving all kit in one place

agree, try and shift job lot to a shop/dealer or car boot it in the summer. Trouble with selling on ebay individually is they never go for much unless really rare and good nick, and the cost of record packaging and posting makes it uneconomic and puts people off

There’s lots of ticks in the New Forest, everyone gets them, sometimes in quite unusual places. We warn our guests about precaustions, have info leaflets and are quite adept at spotting and removing the litle buggers. In 20+ years I have only known one person confirmed with the disease and he was pretty bad with it, took a long time to recover. Weils disease from rats piss in water courses is the other one we have to warn about although someone told me you are more likely to catch this from swigging from a can of drink that has previously been sat in a warehouse for ages with our furry friends running over it (who naturally dribble piss all the time). There are lots of other nice things we have to warn people about like toxocariaris, giant hogweed, brown tailed moth caterpillar, bracken in spore, parvovirus from feral cats etc etc You’d never go outside…just stay indoors and die from not having a smoke alarm or something similar

In my youth I used to buy, use, fix and flog Renaults, at various stages had a 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16TX, 17 Gordini, 18 Turbo, 21’s . Just bought at the time because they were always really cheap (for good reason). My favourite was probably the most basic, a 4 van. I always wanted (and still do if I had the money) a Citroen DS or Traction Avant. Stuck with jap or german stuff as I got older and more sensible.

On the French theme I have a lovely rusty old 1960’s Velosolex bike with an engine on the front if anyone wants it to restore, make us an offer:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/109756768@N03/

yep, all proceeds to UK Youth charity that runs Avon Tyrrell – send a message to us first bigbikebash at ukyouth dot org and will give details, cheers

Be glad if someone can actually use this weird implement

A £5 donation gets it, can’t see it being used at our place, weighs 4kg so say 5kg packed which could send by Hermes for about £8 unless you want to pick it up (Avon Tyrrell in New Forest home of the Big Bike Bash), ta

Well I just took off the lagging and stuck another picture up:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/109756768@N03/
not extendable, a t-bar, says ‘Garden Buddy made in Redditch by Steelesmith’ on it . Can’t really see it being man enough to dig into the very stony ground here. Anyone want it?

Not quite the same but I got my van ticketed by a certain company who use all official looking letters and threats, advice I got was unless it was the police or local council after you, just ignore, so I did, not heard anything since. Thread here: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/parking-ticket-worth-disputing-or-rolling-over

It used to be Citroen Xsara Picasso’s with those fishy god things stuck on the back and a certain type of driver, the Roomster now seems to be taking over this role around our way, each to their own. How about a black VW caddy maxi life?

Toyota Hiace SWB with D4D engine (post 2002), will go on forever and keep value when you come to flog it on. Go for minibus ones with removeable rear seats if you are taking more people/bikes etc

thought it was about something else too – wasteful packaging and contents taste the same and pretty much free out of taps..

£250 a year fully comp for my Toyota Hiace through Direct line, though I am an older git with full NCB and live in a lower risk postcode area I think