The main thing is drops (that can’t be rolled). If she’s OK with those then Vicious Valley gives a bit more rock/root chunkiness but some people struggle with the wood drop up at the top – it’s really mellow but looks quite intimidating. Nothing too bad after that and usually quiet so you can break it up and check out some sections before riding properly.

I’ve got a friend who’s been helping a relative find a new car. Acting like he’s got no choice but to spend £15k on a new car because his non-compliant one leaves the drive once a week. He could just keep it and use the saved money to pay for 20 years worth of ULEZ charges.

Yep, neighbours have a euro5 motorhome. For the half a dozen trips a year they do it makes far more sense to pay £150pa to cover it than a 5-figure sum to get something similar that’s euro6.

Not used them (but might later this year), near me in SE London: https://www.campervantastic.com/ – they have both Beach and Ocean available to hire.

Is it a Honda stepwagon?

It’s funny quite how much DNA of the Japanese MPVs there is in this, but there’s not a lot of competition any more in the euro market.

I quite want one, but then my £6k worth of old Stepwgn does it almost as well and they figured out how to make windows retract into sliding doors.

Those of you with primary-age kids, how often do you use it? Every school holiday?

Our camping kit has ballooned to 65kg of tent and an MPV+roofbox of other gubbins and even then it’s realistically only May-August, been wondering if a caravan is the right move so we can do Easter, Feb/Oct half terms as well as the summer holiday and the odd weekend. We’ve got enough driveway space for one as long as it’s not enormous.

I like my Reolink cameras and doorbell. They do wifi/battery/etc ones but I just have PoE ones – one cable for reliable network and power, then we have a PoE switch, router and other gubbins under the stairs.

No need to subscribe to anything, they have a MicroSD slot for some local storage (so you can go in the app and see recent events), I have mine also send an image/video to FTP server running on my NAS but you can do “proper” recording with something like Synology Surveillance Station or Blue Iris, or even one of Reolink’s own NVRs.

Main draw was the person/vehicle detection, we live by a road so anything with simple motion detection gets triggered all the time. I mask the pavement in the software and now I get alerted as soon as someone steps on our driveway.

Used them a while ago, had no serious interest selling privately, declared all minor issues on the web and they decided a couple weren’t worth adding so it went up a little. Money in bank next day, all very easy.

These are probably closest: https://www.plasticboxshop.co.uk/home-storage-c1/pack-of-5-30-litre-stack-and-store-plastic-storage-boxes-p301

(plasticboxshop lets you filter on external dimensions)

Euro containers are nice, bigdug do them with lids. Square sides so they don’t nest but do stack nicely. You’d need to either build up with smaller ones or make some internal trays/dividers though.

Dewalt tstak is a decent system too, they do boxes with drawers which would be ideal for the smaller bits.

Anyone used a hydroshot with Makita batteries and a chineseum adaptor?

No but I’ve got an aliexpress hydroshot-a-like that natively takes Makita batteries. Was £25 or so and works fine for getting mud off a couple of bikes.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005581058865.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.16.83451802pYCVeR

Series 4 onwards Apple Watch are fine and still get current software. You get refurbished one for not a lot over £100 these days.

Else most of the fitbit range (the “tracker” line, they do full smartwatches too) will show calls/text/calendar stuff, they’re smaller, battery lasts longer that a typical smartwatch. Support list here: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1979.htm

All LEAF except the very earliest (2013 on, so for here it’s the UK built ones) will do bidirectional charging – it’s been in the CHAdeMO spec for very long time. It’s just been very slow for the electricity network operators to get on board for trials.

As for 100% – it’s absolutely fine to go to 100% if you’re going to use the car again soon and bring it back down. It’s just kinder to the battery to not leave it at very low or high states of charge for a long time.

I really like the Rockbros ones – saddle rail mount is nice and secure (zip tied), high up and out of the mud. Quarter-turn mounting so easy to take off to charge without faffing with rubber bands, although it lasts ages anyway. USB-C charging, and 4 tiny LEDs around the power button to show how much charge it has.

They do fancier ones that do brake-lighting etc but the basic one is great. Only thing I don’t like is a couple of pointless modes (like flashing multi-colour) that you have to go through to get to steady red.

Mine was pretty quick on the NHS too, about 3 months from GP referral to procedure. Could probably have been a month sooner, they kept texting me earlier appointments but it was easier to keep the booked date. Didn’t take long at all, no issues past initial recovery.

^ this. And you’ll make your life much, much easier in future to give everyone their own Apple ID and set up as a family.

Modern turbo petrols can deliver pretty decent mpg these days, and all the pollution control stuff on a euro6+ diesel seem prone to issues.

As said, worth looking at hybrids, or PHEVs if you can plug in at home – your usage profile would suit it. Used to have a Golf GTE that was good for the general running about, could get 20 miles out of a charge but for something like the 100 mile round trip to the office it would do it on £1 of electric then about 70mpg equivalent (all the slow traffic that’s usually bad for MPG you use the battery). Absolute worst case, long motorway trip starting on empty battery it would still do 42mpg.

Ours doesn’t like any larger quantities of wood as they’ll classify it as building waste. You can get on the weighbridge and pay the commercial rate, else it’s skip / hippobag.

I got a 530 in the last amazon sale, think it was £160. Wasn’t worth mucking around with used at that price. Happy with it, not touchscreen but it works much better with gloves.

I had an old Edge Explore, it wasn’t bad for loading up a gpx and following it but very slow if you wanted to scroll around maps.

First up, work out what your “**** you” money amount is – ie enough that you don’t feel financially tied to the job, and you can quit if it gets too much. Get it saved, don’t earmark for a new bike or anything like that. I found it much easier to deal with work knowing that I could just quit at any time and be ok.

Secondly if you’re 8 years into a career then there are a lot of people above you earning considerably more to deal with some of the problems.

I was terrible at that stage with assuming I needed to take ownership of everything and it could all be fixed if I just put in the hours. Or giving estimates of time to do things assuming perfect conditions. Get better at escalating issues – doesn’t have to be “this is on fire” ones but can be the “if we don’t get x in the next month then y will happen / deadline will be missed / contract will be lost”. If it’s not in your control, it’s not your problem, do as good a job as you can within the constraints you have.

Ultimately if the layers of management above you are useless, can’t prioritise, can’t resource the work they have, can’t deal with problems fed up to them, then you probably can do a lot better in the same sector. Don’t work silly hours routinely just because other people do – even if it means making stuff up about why you can’t. Let some things fail but push the risk and responsibility upwards in good time. Keep your hours, take your holidays, don’t take it personally.

No, it just uses a little of the power buffer after shutdown to perform the transaction then shut down. Needs to be a card designated as an Express Mode one. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212171

Have a minimalist Bando wallet with various cards in but unless I know I’ll need one (English Heritage, Selco, etc) it tends to stay at home.

Have a slim MagSafe wallet that attaches to the back of my phone and has two
cards (our joint debit card, plus a credit card) and an emergency tenner.

Even then I leave that at home a lot, every payment card I have, Tesco, Nectar, Costco, ikea, etc cards I have on my phone. And I’ve even tested the “pay when your phone is dead” a couple of times on TfL late at night, it works fine.

Stepladder and a pressure sprayer with a longer lance. Or lay it out on the ground and tackle in sections.

Some good deals on tents now and plenty secondhand as the one-time campers get rid.

Got £74 for a 16” Carrera Cosmos the other week. I think I’d paid only a little more than that before Covid. The market for decent kids bikes is a lot wider now and most of the Isla/Frog strong used values were because they got ever more expensive new.

I’d always bought secondhand but for a 24” for the eldest I went new for the first time as the CRC Vitus offers were too good to ignore.

A current shape S or V90 is a rare sight but I see no end of current XC90s. Same for the *60s. I don’t think the Geely era saloons and estates appeal much to traditional Volvo buyers and those shapes of car are in steep decline anyway.

+1 for the Keter. As far as I can see the Macallister version is identical just rebadged.

The WBAC values seem to be going up so buy your cheap secondhand EVs now if you can.

Unfortunately car transporter ship fires are not that rare. Felicity Ace last year was initially blamed on an EV fire but no evidence of that – they do keep on going once they’re on fire though.

Sounds like something racevan-style, high roof with a big garage area, main bed above. Highest roof Ducato/Sprinter etc has enough space to do bikes (front wheel off, dropper down) plus a bed you can sit up in above. Sleep lengthways and you’ve got a bit of storage space at the front end of the garage too.

You need rear seats anyway, so rock & roll bed. Cab bunk as an option if two kids won’t share a narrow R&R bed. Front seats on swivels, option for a table between swiveled fronts and the rear seats. Put whatever else in the rest of the space depending on how long a van you go for – a longer van probably would have plenty of space for a basic toilet/shower room. Underslung LPG tank, portable cooker on a shelf on the unit inside but on quick release connectors so it can be moved outside and plugged in an external BBQ point.

(I’ve spent too long thinking about something similar)

I spent much of my early teens mucking about with Estes model rockets, had a couple of mates into it too. Had a big sports pitch outside the village that was surrounded by open fields and still managed to lose most of our rockets. My Commanche 3 was supposed to do 2000ft+, first flight with all three stages I lost sight of it halfway up and never saw it again.

My kids are also 8 and 6, they have fun with the stomp rocket my youngest got for his birthday, going to try them on bottle rockets then maybe pick up a proper rocket kit in a couple of years. Stick to the A/B engines unless you have absolutely loads of space and very calm weather.

Exploria actually have their demo van for sale in just that config – obviously theirs is OTT but shows how it can work.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195901745750?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=HdYFJlbCQHy&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=WPHET-GYRIW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

I thought seatbelts were a fairly generic thing. If you do need the one from the states though I’ve used https://www.nissanpartsdeal.com/ before for a weird Nissan part I couldn’t get in Europe for my Leaf, they ship internationally and the service took import duties etc upfront. Came in a week or so.

Same for the 35/38mm forks, but different whether it’s solo or dual air.

https://www.sram.com/globalassets/document-hierarchy/service-manuals/rockshox/bottomless-tokens-english.pdf

On the 40kWh Leaf, only the Visia (very basic, and rare) and late 2021 onwards Acenta lack a heat pump. Everything else should have one.

I lived without one for 2 years in the egolf, it was definitely worse in winter but it didn’t really bother me much day to day. Either you’re tootling around well within the range, or you’re doing a long trip and need to rapid charge regardless.

I’m also in Bromley but spent quite a few years living in Uxbridge in the 00s. It was a solidly safe tory seat going back to 1885 except for a bit of post-war Labour, even in the landslide 1997 GE they had a bigger majority than now.

Where I am there’s endless FUD thrown around about ULEZ. If you’ve got a petrol car that’s under 17 years old or a diesel under 8 (and some older than that) you’re fine. The vast majority you see driving about will be compliant. For those that aren’t, suitable cars are abundant and cheap for people that need to drive about.

There’s not a lot that goes wrong with them. It’s rare for 2018 on to lose a “bar” of capacity (you can find it by scrolling through the dash menus, left-most icon) but you can get much more detailed info with a cheap OBD dongle and an app called Leafspy. Probably most common mechanical thing – if it makes a noticeable “click” when you come on/off the throttle then it’s driveshafts – either a warranty job or a straightforward strip/grease/retorque if not in warranty. If it’s for sale at a dealer just get them to resolve.

Else it’s just the usual car buying checks. Plenty used as taxis but that should come up on a check. They’re good cars, boot is huge.

If you want a warranty then Nissan’s “good to go” scheme is pretty good, extended warranty, servicing, MOT and breakdown cover wrapped up for £34 a month. https://www.nissan.co.uk/owners/nissan-services/good-to-go.html You can stay on it until 10 years or 100k miles.

A lot of my friends that run have Shokz (bone conducting) ones. They obviously let you hear your surroundings better and nothing to fall out as they don’t go in your ears.

Lino off a 5m roll is quite expensive assuming you want a single piece. Cheap click LVT might be worth a go, it’s easy to fit, pretty forgiving of movement and imperfections, very hardwearing and waterproof.

I’ve got a portable 13″ monitor, comes in a stand case a bit like an ipad, just needs a single USB-C cable from the laptop for power and signal (or you can plug in HDMI and use separate power). It’s really handy if I’m away from home or just fancy working from the dining table instead, most of the stuff I do needs a couple of windows open at least and it gets a bit cramped on a single laptop display.

Mine is this one but there’s endless choice of similar ones out there. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08CHF1DXX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I’d probably park at Theobalds Grove ( https://goo.gl/maps/Q4tEFdTdJePv19PP6 ), it’s just off M25 J25. 12 mins on the Overground to White Hart Lane, trains every half hour, last one back is just after midnight.

We upgraded our Instant Pot to one that does air frying too, wouldn’t give up yet more counter space to separates.

It does decent chips (tried a triple-cook recipe last night that was great if faffy), it’s good for quickly doing veg nuggets or waffles or whatever for the kids tea, it’s a bit too small for whole-family cooking. I can see the appeal of the Ninja Max if you use it a lot for family stuff. Not tried too much else in there but I do need to try Charlie’s balls.

Admiral have been good for me, but worth calling rather than trying to quote online – I was put through to someone who could do more than look it up from their list on the computer. They even did the cover for my Stepwgn on the chassis number when it first arrived and didn’t have a reg number yet.

The usual ones recommended on the Stepwgn group are Adrian Flux, Greenlight, Japcover (who are Mark Richards), LV, Lifesure.

Insurance has got more expensive, apparently 16% up on average in the last year – everything from power to paint has gone up.