Canaries – lanzarote. costa teguise.  decnet town, near the sea.  defo some decent villas.

https://odeonhotel.fr/en/

stayed here a while ago, was excellent.

Does a modern automatic (i drive a Skoda 1.5L DSG Auto) wear out the clutch quicker or slower than a manual car of the same model?  does driver/driving style make a difference either way?

if anyone wants to give their guide dog a day off, i’d be willing to walk them round the shops etc.  (the person, not the dog, dog should be down the pub on its day off)

its a shame theres no portal in Scotland – made a 101 report of a left hook, followed by a confrontation and two further ‘punishment’ passes by the same bloke.  It took 2 officers and at least 2 hours of their shift to deal with it, visit to me, visit to the perp, follow up visit to me.

The visit to me included two watch throughs of the helmetcam footage and a statement.  Could have all been dealt with much quicker (IMO) online.

Fife here…

First crop of the forced rhubarb crown, 2 others (forced in annual rotation) not ready to crop but doing nicely

tatties and onions going in the ground today, leeks on indoors, tomatoes about to be planted in an unheated greenhouse along with cucumbers/peas/beans/courgettes.  carrots and parsnips will be sown in the raised bed this week.

bees laden with pollen on sunny days but still too cold really to open them up to do anything practical with them.  we did manage to get a wee bit of honey filled comb where they had built it into the fondant bag at the last changeover.   mmmmmmm.

ignore the above regarding fill pressures of 1bar – thats a nonesense.   theres only one correct fill pressure and thats the same pressure as indicated on the pressure reducing valve.  theres no need to ‘add water’ as it is live to your hot water cylinder.  I’m the techie guy for a manufacturer of unvented cylinders.

if you wanted to check (and it’ll be a ball ache as your vessel is mounted upside down) you should..

1.   turn off the cold mains supply to the cylinder.
2.   open a hot tap on the same floor as the cylinder and wait for the water to stop flowing.
3.  unscrew the black cap at the bottom of your vessel and put a schrader gauge on the valve.  check the   pressure.  if it is less than that on the PRV then pump it up.  If higher, release some pressure.
4.   close the hot tap, open the cold mains then repopen the same tap to get rid of any airlocks.

if the safety valves arent dripping when the unit is heating up, then the chances are the pressure is fine.

Thanks for the replies.

I honestly think the issue is user error but given that I dont want WW3 to start at home, I cant fix the user errors.  I was looking for a better quality of hose and nozzle/handset to mitigate the issues caused by pulling the hose out using the handset, pulling around corners, reeling it in with twists and kinks – you can see my problem.

I’ll try a heavier duty hose – that should at least help stop the hose being pulled off the handset, and the Claber looks like a kore realistic option than the Gardena!

I wind my Gaelic speaking Nat mate up by reminding him that Alba rhymes with Whalloper.

Can’t remember which bank but some of them were sufficiently similar to English £5 notes that I’d occasionally get away with paying for stuff with them as if they were fivers when I went back down south for my uni holidays.

Been there – paid for a round in a pub once with a ten and two £1 notes, got 3 £1 coins back.  couldnt work it out at the time.

what Flaperon said…

Theres a hop on/off bus tour that does a 48hour ticket – pretty good way to get around the city hitting the ‘hot spots’.  I got tickets for the colloseum on the day by booking an hour ahead on the website, although that was december.

Dont do the vatican (if thats on the radar) on a sunday morning.  Duh!

Just been into the local Skoda dealer today (Kamiq needed battery looked at) and the sales guy just quoted me approx 14-16 weeks current lead time for an Enyaq.

was just about to post that Multi – good bit of kit, we’ve used them ina few projects with one of our mains connected units.

CougarFull MemberSomething that uses actual blades.

I was looking at the latest cartridge thing from Gillette the other day. They’re like five quid a pop, that’s insane. Twenty quid’s worth of razor blades, I’ll be dead before they run out.

as per Cougar – I bought wilkinson sword blades, 25 packs of five off amazon back in 2016 for £19.99.  dont shave every day so a single blade lasts 2-3 weeks (8-10 shaves ymmv).

opened pack 20 last week so on that basis ive got another 2-3 years before I have to scrounge up another £20 or so – not quite dead by then, hopefully, but you cant beat that £/shave.

funnily enough Kramer (1st reply) my issues have only started in the last two months (22plate Kamiq MC) and the battery is the likely culprit.  I was away for a week and the guys at edinburgh airpoirt had to jump start it to get it to the pickup point, and i had to jump it twice in the next week.  since then, infotainmenmt is playing silly buggers – no issues previous.

first available service slot is 21 december so i’ll have to live with it till then.

Back in my Biomass days, a forester once told me sycamores are the ‘weeds’ of the forestry industry.  It’ll coppice and be back, different but the same sycamore.

edit – same as what longdog said actually.

ive just googled images of the cricket club – you’ll know from what perspective you are painting it, so you could get an idea from those photos if theres any more players that could be added.

if you are ‘aiming’ down the wicket you could add a couple or more slips (https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/38278/positions-on-a-cricket-field), depends on how much room/big a field of view you have.

I have one that my daughter (10yrs old at the time) grew from an orange pip in class.  Planted it in the garden and this orange tree grew to about 8ft tall over 7-8 years but didnt flower or anything.  Assumed it was too cold for oranges in Fife and i cut it down to ground level.  It coppiced and is again 7-8 feet tall and it actually blossomed this year.

Anyway, ate a pear from it last night!

Finally I get to vent….

Old fellow next door gets the hose out and washes his driveway (about 20′ of monoblock) almost immediately after it stops raining.   sometimes it can be 3/4 times a week.  We’re pretty arms length neighbours so i’ve never felt comfortable asking him why.

opposite end of the country so not sure if its relevant to you  – manufacturer in the industry here….a few less new build sites from the usual players in Scotland at least, but no let up in the retrofit market.  Plenty of heat pump cylinders being made/sold and large scale projects for that type of kit.

Commercial projects are noticably shifting away from new build office type builds to refurb/retrofit to flats of city centre properties.

almost every end customer of mine is recruiting – from Consultants through to the installers.

still busy as overall.

had one for about 7/8 yrs – saved me a ton of hassle when i got sideswiped/spun last december – proof from the start that i wasnt at fault and made dealing with all insurance stuff easy as there was an acceptance from the other parties insurer that they were 100% at fault a day after the accident.

Got a better one for the replacement car and fitted the old one in the wifes car.

My dad was an environmental health officer and he had powers of entry to pretty much anywhere.  A quick google says ‘at reasonable hours’.   He had tales of refusals that were very quickly reversed with police presence.

I’m not sure if any of those powers have been transferred to the ‘bin police’ but you shouldnt have an issue if you are paying a licenced waste disposal company surely.

is cooking menial?  I love it but i’d suggest it takes some skill to do it well.

anyways…..weeding – quite relaxing and rewarding, car washing – nothing like a shiny new car just before it rains!

Get a move on if you are thinking about this – Gold disappears in september and you’ll be automatically switched to a ‘Core’ version of gamepass – access to a selection of 25 games.  dont know if any of the ‘hacks’ will work thereafter.

I tend to play PUBG mostly which is free to play online, so have let my Gold lapse.  been looking forward to Starfield and am tempted to hit gamepass for a month and try it before paying almost £70 for the standard version.

Humblebundle are doing BG, NWN, and three others for £9.79.  you pay them and get a load of Steam codes to redeem.

from memeory (i bought it a week or so ago) you could get BG on its own for £3.49.

Lawn bowls here – we have a wide age range in the club as well.   18 months in and its a fantastic way to simultaneously destress and get frustrated.

When converting to the unvented, try and get the pipework miodified so that the cold supply to the house ius taken from the PRV or immediately afterwards to ensure balanced hot and cold.  that will help even a cheap TMS to operate well – some have a max pressure differential that they can deal with.

other than that, i second the Mira brand.

three days if its what I had.  positive test on return from holiday in majorca after losing three days to it a week earlier.  have to say, if you’re gonna be ill with flu-like symptoms, do it in the middle of a heat wave.

chesty cough continued a week after we got home.

get well soon.

Quest 2 here – 2 years now.

Am a parent but the ‘kids’ are 25 n 26 so not really comparable.  I’d be happy with supervised short bursts as you describe though.

RE4 is awesome – some real tense moments.

Walkabout Golf – fantastic game.  the haptics are spot on for hoitting the ball, the courses are fun and the 2player multiplayer room is really good fun.  dont lean on the railing on the desert course to watch the sunset like I did – my only experience of the VR/Reality fall!

Onwards is ok, expect to get hosed as a noob though.  I found holding a two handed weapon awkward till i invested in a stock that keeps the controllers fixed relative to each other and makes weilding the weapon more intuitive.

warplanes – stunning WW1 fighter game, much like Red baron from the 90’s(i think)

Wander – google street view in VR – awesome!

Puzzling Places – 3d jigsaws in VR (bear with me!!) – very ‘Zen’, quite satisfying and a great way to lose 4 hours without noticing.

:)

dive in.

just seen the OP is 5 mopnths ago.

drayton wiser is good – I fitted my own (kit 2) but I already had a wiring centre so it was plug n play onto the old wiring harness.

I can recommend the kit, but dont know how easy it is to wire into that partivcular combi.

not much help really :(

just gone throuigh this with daughter in Edinburgh.

move in was all fine – we (and letting agency) took photos on moving in.  no damge during so no queries re-deposit.  the LA was determined to get something so made something up abaout damage to a cupboiard but couldnt prove it from move in photos so when we went to the ombudsman (after disputing it) they were forced to return that porion of the deposit they’d held on to.

they were awarded £35 for a ‘sparkle clean’ which is complete bollocks as me and the daughter spent a day cleaning it from top to toe, however iut wasnbt worth fighting for £35.

as folk have said, photgraph everything, make sure deposit is in the correct place and them make sure its clean on exit.

good luck!

Also, ventilate – get windows open at opposite sides of the house (if possible) to get some crossflow going. if you have an upstairs, get opposite windows open.

if you have a lot of exposed brick/comncrete internally, make sure the windows are open overnight for as much free cooling as possible next day. security concerns aside, its one of the best things you can do to get passive cooling.

depends where in rome you are staying but…..

evening classy seafood? https://www.bajaroma.it
lunchtime pizza by the colosseum? https://la-biga-ristoracaffe-wine-food.business.site/

didnt find anywhere cheap but these were both excellent.

just had to deal with this — sort of.

Skoda Kamiq 1.5 DSG SE L written off in december, 18 months old, 27k miles. cost of similar spec/age/mileage replacements at dealers/autotrader etc (when i could find one) – approx £22500. insurers offered £20750 as they found ONE similarly priced somewhere like cinch or someplace, AND that was the book value. i checked and there was one on sale at that price with a slightly highr mileage.

WBAC were still offering £19500 so pretty much had to accept that £20750 was the best offer i’d get.

2nd hand prices are crazy right now, new cars on long lead times, nearly new depreciating a lot slower than previously.

Thought this might help…..Coredrill

Z5 here. got it second hand 8 years ago. had it serviced twice since getting it (about £150-200) and its never missed a beat.

I like the solid build quality, good quality brew, simple to operate. it needs emptied weekly and cleaned about once every 8 weeks. dead easy to look after.

stayed here last year – really good standard of accomodation if you dont mind self catering. not sure its walakable to the coast though.

recently discovered Wogan Coffee

wogan coffee

reasonable prices, really good cofee – they have a couple of decaf whole bean ranges that are excellent.

work out the fees for non-F&F PayPal and offer them on top of the agreed sale price. if he bites its legit, if he doesn’t, its a scam.

Singletrackmind – £400 – not a chance. the tank to prefeed your combi needs to be unvented and compliant with building regs. your insurance will be void if you are found to have installed a non-compliant unvented cylinder and there’s an issue.

This is what happens if you mess with hot water. There used to be a wall between the cylinder and the rest of the flat!

edit – not sure why the photo’s not there but its nasty. trust me :)