Not a fan of the old facial fur I must say. Onzadog decided to grow a beard once just to annoy his stupid ex-boss and I didn’t enjoy living with it evenings and weekends!

To my dismay there’s also a lot of beardery going on where I work – one guy especially loves his hideous unkempt straggly chinmonstrosity and wears it like some kind of badge of masculinity. Even if he does sometimes get random bits of food stuck in it. Yeurch.

Don’t like them for aforementioned food velcro reasons but they also just seem to me to be a bit tatty and sweaty and aging (no offence to beardies, just IMHO)

Lovely to see everyones doglets.

This is our once-awesome little trail dog Bailey, now retired and has to stay at home due to arthur-ritis :(

Isn’t this the one where you get the ferry back at the bottom?

I’ll be interested to know what results people get from haggling – the very cheapest I can find with roughly the same tariff is £26pcm for a free One S with Orange (400mins, unlimited texts, 250mb data) with £35 cashback (woopdydoo) which is about a fiver more than I pay a month now but with only half the data allowance I’ve currently got.

To keep my current 500MB data allowance and have either a One-X or a One-S I seem to be looking at nearer £31pcm.

Like you Freddy I’d rather pay a bit for the phone than be looking at paying an extra couple hundred quid in line rental over two years.

Urgh. I hate phone renewal time almost as much as car insurance renewal. I think if contracts were still only 12 months in duration (ah, the good old days) then I wouldn’t be so fussed but being stuck with the thing for 2 years, I really don’t want to end up with a dud.

Onzadog and me will come along for a bit of modullin! We’ve managed to find some more colourful cycling attire to wear too (well, tops at least). I’ll be in lovely red and OD will be in green.

Have you been into a shop and physically held a One-X in your hand Munqe-chick? There’s seemingly a lot of bright and shiny nice bells and whistles attached to the One-X but ultimately I still want my phone to be phone-sized and not some almost-a-tablet-sized monstrosity. Mostly it’ll be in a handbag but there’s also many times (walking the dog over muddy fields on a daily basis) when I’ll just want to stick it in my pocket.

So although I initially dismissed it (hey I’m a girl, we change our minds) I’m kind of coming back to the idea of a One S.
The 16GB SD card I’ve currently got on my Desire still has just over 7GB free on it, so shouldn’t find the 16GB memory with the S too problematic, even after taking into consideration its probably only nearer about 9GB, once you’ve accounted for all the on-board software and apps etc pinching some of that.

So in answer to your poll – out of those three, personally I think I’d be leaning towards the S. Whether I can negotiate a reasonable deal with Vodafone for it remains to be seen though – I think it has a lot to do with how long you hold out…

But if size weren’t an issue then I guess the X would be the forerunner.

….or get someone else to wash your bike for you (blows a kiss to Onzadog).

Bunnyhop that cake sounds fabulously virtuous. Bet it tastes exactly the opposite!

I was looking at the One S (as I’m not really sure I want anything as humungous as the One X or Galaxy III) but given the low memory issues I’ve had with the Desire, the small amount of GB that comes with the S makes me very wary.

But I’m not sure what that leaves me with, options wise?!

Interesting thread – I can upgrade my Desire in 3 weeks time and was wondering what would be comparably good and still cheap (currently only pay £20 a month with Voda, unlimited texts, 500mb data and the phone was originally free). The only thing I haven’t loved about the Desire is the almost constant low memory warnings.

Definately a very pleasant surprise this whole pootle lark! Even though I was initially a bit nervous at the concept of riding in such a humungazoid group, I thoroughly enjoyed it and how fantastic was the weather?! Big thumbs up to Pook for organising and leading it – top banana :-) (edited to add: and Jules too!!)

HOW many?!?!

I’d actually tweeted Easyjet asking if they’d recently changed their T&Cs regarding bikes and they replied with ‘here’s the information about taking bikes on board’ and added that link.

They do seem to like to make it ambiguous and confusing don’t they.

Yet the same statement about bicycles found through the FAQ on their website and updated in April this year has the magic line about ‘The bicycles are exempt from additional excess baggage charges.‘

Thanks for the replies – sounds like BA might be a good bet then. Actually I do remember now that we flew with them once before to Geneva (Onzadog and his hungry belly persuaded the stewardesses to donate him all and any unused packs of sarnies on the return flight!) back in the day before they started charging for bikes and they were good then.

If its an android phone you’ve got, check out the AnMoney app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zvasvari.anmoneyp&hl=en

There’s a free version or you can cough up a few £s for the full version. I find it invaluable and helps me keep track of all our finances.

If it’s an iphone you’ve got, have a look at Account Tracker. I used it before and found it worked similarly well.
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/account-tracker/id325834957?mt=8&affId=1398846&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

Both are UK friendly and have the facility to make pretty bar charts to show where you’re haemorrhaging money from.

Thanks for sharing your the B&Q experience. We had our kitchen supplied and installed by them a few years back and I can honestly say it was one of the worst experiences of our life (almost made it to the small claims court!) and we swore never to have anything to do with them again.
However the years have passed and our memories have faded (!) and I’m ashamed to say we’ve been toying with the idea of getting our stuff from B&Q this time round as they’re currently having a sale and of course their prices are so much cheaper than everything else we’ve looked at. We were thinking that perhaps just getting them to supply the stuff we wouldn’t have so much of a headache, but you’ve just confirmed that it would be no different whatsoever (we had nightmare delivery problems too) so balls to that, frankly.

:D

Oooh wwaswas, where did you get your showerbath from?

That looks to be the exact same one me and ‘im have our eyes on. And just out of interest, how well do you find that shower screen for keeping the splashes contained? Onzadog was concerned that it didn’t really looked like it gave much coverage and we’d need to put in some sort of additional screen…

It’s tempting to remove the tub completely (especially after being forced to have nothing but baths for the last 3 weeks since the shower had to be taken out of commission … the shower weeing into the wall is the reason we’re having to redo the bathroom in the first place) but I know it could be a make or break thing when it comes to selling, so it’s staying (and Onzadog won’t be taking dirty bike bits anywhere near it!)

Dimensions are 2.4m by 1.7m and 2.4m tall, so pretty titchy.

Thanks for the photo matzzz. That shaker style of unit is what we’re looking at having ourselves so useful to see it in situ with tiles and stuff.

Some kind of middleground between that one and the likes of this nonsense would be good.

Another vote for McBoots (fries with that?)

I’ve got these uns although it pays to shop around as I think I got them a little cheaper than this.

They are super comfy and in the cold weather very much like wearing a pair of cosy all-weather slippers out. I wear them with orthotic insoles for a bit of extra support and find them pretty comparable with wearing my Karrimor walking boots to be honest. The Tay’s are a bit heavier and clompier than the Muckboots I had before I think that’s because the sole and heel are a bit chunkier and I’ve got used to them pretty quickly.

For what it’s worth they’ve had daily use for dog walks of about an hour at a time on muddy tracks up and down hills and they’ve been brilliant.

I can testify that fat is not the issue here, being built like a brick plophouse, is. Onzadogs legs are so solid you could crack rocks on them.

I think the Hammerpants are a good comedic option, but I’m not sure how seriously his employer would take him on his first day in a new job.

(Mrs Onzadog)

Mrs Onzadog here.

Just as a point of reference, our current car (and the one I’ll be using back home while Onzadog is off swanning round the north of england in the shiny new whateveritis) is a 1997 Toyota Corolla 1.3gs. I bought it 10 years ago and the thing has been the most fantastic little reliable workhorse of a car. We plan to keep it until it doesn’t go anymore or works out to be uneconomic to repair it (currently has 106,000 miles on the clock and is still going strong)

Ideally we’ll be looking to do the same with this ‘new’ car, so not interested in resale value – just longevity, reliability and economical to tax, insurance and fuel.

I’ve been reading Honest John and Parkers for reviews and all three on the shortlist (Kia, Toyota and Ford) all seem very well reviewed by owners and industry alike. My only reservation with the Kia at the moment is whether the boot space will be capacious enough for our bikes, as I’ve never actually seen one in the ‘flesh’. The Corolla and the Ford Focus hatchback we already know works fine.

Onzadog: your head is frazzled enough as it is with the current three options we have without inviting further makes and models into the mix :P

Not with you looking like you’ve been anally-violated I won’t.

What can you afford? :P

nbt – Member

http://lilybankfarmcottage.co.uk/

Owned by a STW regular, she even does skills courses. The riding and walking round here is great

Thought I’d resurrect this thread, as me and Onzadog have just come back from the most amazing weekend staying at Lily Bank Farm B&B with Emmy and John. Would totally recommend it to anyone looking for somewhere a bit special and uber bike-friendly.

Emmy’s local biking and trail knowledge really is something else and enabled us to ride hours and miles of fabulous deserted rocky, technical singletrack (were out for 10 hours in total on Saturday!) and come back in time for a superb roast dinner.

She even very kindly gave me a little half-hour FOC introduction to the concept of getting my tyres leaving the ground, which I’ll hopefully build upon over the next few months and go back for a proper full day course.

Big thumbs up!

As soon as I saw this I knew Onzadog would be in here :lol:

(Mrs Onzadog)

You’re all mean (especially you Onzadog… you’re always the ‘component’ that attaches handlebars to my bike) :P