hmm, ok how about Bridgnorth, timber-framed buildings, ruined castle, nice walks aling the river, and steam trains and beer on your doorstep, what’s not to like :-)

sort of en route from Chester to Oxford too!

Also describes Dudley(ish)

Canals are just relaxed rivers anyway, right?

Microhobbies help me cope with the lack of time for “proper” hobbies due to parenting (woodworking is once in a blue moon now the boys have coopted my garage workshop to be their gym)

I keep one ukulele in the car and one in my bedroom so whenever I’m sitting around waiting to pick a child up, running a bath etc I can practic. I’m still cack at it, but it’s relaxing. Learning hindi via duolingo makes walking the dog less of a time black hole, and it’s another thing I can do whenever I’m waiting around (or modeling good homework behaviours for the kids)

Sunday morning is my one piece of absolute Me time – I do a couple of hours of martial arts (do the food shop on the way home) and then go for a pint to write up my notes.

Just about keeps me sane, though I still dream of a time when the kids have grown up and I can spend weekends making sawdust.

Yes. Then they turn into teenagers, who are ****.

Still waiting for the non bell-endy butterflies to emerge from the chrysalis

midlifecrashes

I have Bosch but on price and range wish I had started with Makita. 18v LXT is the goto range.

+1

I’ve got bosch blue at home and a mix of bosch and milwaukee at work.

The bosch stuff is great but expensive outside of the drills (and as above, one of the chucks is playing up) and now that I’ve drills, driver, jigsaw and circular saw there’s not much else worth buying when I have unexpected pocket money.

That’s why I ideally wanted makita, loads of toys and by all accounts there’s plenty of cheap knockoffs that work on their batteries. Bosch just had a better deal on drills at the time.

Bosch customer service has been good though, I left a drill out in the rain overnight and they didn’t quibble, just exchanged it for a new one

Potato waffles and chicken nuggets. Child fuel.

For Christ’s sake who let the sheff weds band in? It’s been so nice this tournament not having them droning on.

Klunk

Free Member

oh ffs not shearer as the in match pundit again he’s **** dreadful ? #prayforITV #thankgodformute

There’s the option of 5Live’s professional football describers on the iplayer. It’s much better/less awful

reeksy

You have to reset preferences in your account since the update

Thanks! That’s been frustrating me for ages.

Ah, so I got the spelling *and* the industry wrong? Shame on me. Glad to hear they’re still going though

#edit – is there a tutorial on here for quoting, adding photos and suchlike? I remember a time when there were clicky buttons by this text box. Good times.

S.T.D. Bed & Carpet Superstore in Brierley Hill used to always get a laugh from us teenagers when we went past on the bus.
They’ve moved with the times though and are now just selling S.T.D. carpets.

There used to be a solicitors in Kidderminster called Dolittle & Dally, dunno if they’re still going.

Weston Shore, Southampton 🏝️

Oh yeah, good point

I’ve just sat down after replacing our kitchen tap, though nowhere near as awkward a job as that looks. Can confirm the new tap came with replacement flexible pipes, so I’d be minded to cut off and try to rip out the copper pipes then get to the nut. If push comes to shove and you’re replacing the tap anyway, I’ve had to widen the hole to accommodate the big shaft(!) of the new one so maybe you could cut through the seating ring thing and go in from the top..
Good luck

After the clusterflup of my wife’s car’s mot last week (see **** Citroen Engine thread) I spent the week getting increasingly stressed about whether I could get a replacement lambda sensor, and figure out how to fit it, ready for mine this weekend.
Driving home on Thursday night to work on the drive in the pissing rain I noticed the engine light had gone off – the half-can of wd40 I drenched the sensor with at lunchtime to loosen it cleaned the thing and got it working! Roll on Saturday morning and the ten year old i20 sailed through with no advisories.
South Korea remains my favourite place that I’ve never been to.
Beat that for a miniscule win!

😇

A lifetime as a saints fan means that at 91 minutes in I still expect us to lose

Bump for saints edging it so far. It’s a strange feeling wanting your team to win so they can lose most of their games next season. Plenty more goals in this game I reckon, for both sides. Here’s hoping the “Loch Ness Drogba” (🙄) gets to do the fairytale ending thing..

We’ve just had exactly what’s described in that video up there ^
Our 6 year old, 60k mile C3 failed the MOT miserably on emissions. Main dealers reckoned 6-8 weeks before they could have a look at it, but thankfully a local engine specialist recommended by our garage has coaxed it through. They say the engine and catalytic converter are both on the way out though, so time to get rid.
It was alright as far as a car goes, not very refined but lots more acceleration than my i20. The list of advisories in addition to the shagged engine doesn’t say much for build quality though. First and last citroen for us.

Sertraline, a beer after the kids are in bed, exhaustion from family life.
Sunday morning martial arts class helps loads more than I could’ve imagined, and since I inherited one of the kids’ ukulele just lying on the bed trying to make nice noises blanks out my self-talk for a while.

I meant the low rise blocks round by brownsover medical centre, but yes I agree: there’s nowhere in this town I’d be particularly bothered about walking around at night. That’s why we moved out here from cov, we can let the kids go out at night without worrying *too* much.

Agree with above that brownsover makes sense for close to the station and right side of town. The bit with the flats looks the most shifty part of rugby but it’s nicer further out. Prices are fairly high because of access to London commuting, but comparatively when we bought our new build five years ago the developer was selling exactly the same house in Kenilworth for 30% more.
I like it here, it’s a lot like the Black Country town I grew up in (lots of Black Country Breweries pubs too) though my city-raised wife has struggled with the lack of multiculturalism and there’s an NF-type mob around that have caused our kids some trouble in school. It’s got noticeably more mixed in the time we’ve been here though, so things are looking up.
One side note: getting back from brum after a night out is a real pig. Whilst you can get back to cov until 2am ish it’s then a thirty quid taxi at least as the buses don’t run late. Last time I went to a gig at the Hare and Hounds (kings heath) I had to leave just as the main band was setting up so I didn’t miss the last train and still didn’t get home till half twelve, so now I drive in and have to stay sober 😢

“Don’t push too far
Your Dreams are china in your hand
Don’t wish too hard
Because they may come true”

*deep* 🙂

^

Tried watching it,  felt too much like watching the bitter ukippers that spoil good pubs.

The guardian hated it,  https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/oct/20/old-dads-movie-review-bill-burr-netflix-comedy

If cartoons for adults (not “Adult” cartoons 🫢) are anyone’s thing, then Pluto on Netflix is riveting – a robot detective story with lots of asimov

The standard sweet centre down in foleshill makes the best samosas you could ask for, and you can eat in, but it’s not particularly restauranty.  The Greyhound in Longford would be my choice, it’s walkable from the Ricoh along the canal and does very good food. https://www.thegreyhoundlongford.co.uk/

Sat reading this thread after an utterly shit weekend and trying to think of a positive. Looked up and the sky above the carpark I’m sulking in is full of mummerating/mummering/dancing birds! It’s awesome – I’ve never been so close to one before!

Cheese savouries
Lidl Steam Brew craft ale stuff (tastes like any other craft beer)
Pkew Pkew Pkew for dumb fun after a cack day at work

I can’t be arsed figuring out how you embed a video these days
#Edit# oh, just paste the link eh? You win this round STW

I watched and thoroughly enjoyed Blinded By The Light on Amazon last night. It doesn’t develop the characters much outside of the central one, but the story is good. It’s a shame though, I’m not sure my wife would be able to enjoy it as the racism bits will ring so familiar to her childhood.

The Battleship Island (also on prime) is just bloody fantastic. How Korean cinema manages to make films so bleak and harrowing and yet still put enough humour in to make you giggle occasionally astounds me. Someone mentioned The Chaser further up the thread, that’s another fine example.

We were about to watch a Bollywood film on Netflix the other night called The Body until we saw the poor imdb reviews. Turned out the Spanish original is on Amazon prime so we watched that instead. A really gripping thriller, we’re going to give one of the director’s other films (the invisible guest) a go tonight.

Thanks folks. There’s been a lot of tears down phonelines this morning. I wish I could give my mum a hug.
Stay safe everyone.

My stepdad’s just died of it. 63 and with underlying complaints. He and my mum have both had a heavy cold for a few days, he’s been coughing a lot since the start of the week, eventually bad enough for mum to ring 999 yesterday lunchtime. In-between needing 02 he was by all accounts laughing and flirting with the nurses until they found him dead tonight. My mum’s in pieces, a county away from any family and now has to quarantine for a week. She’s got a lock of his hair in a bag she can’t open for a week either.

My wife was horribly ill with all the symptoms last week, and I isolated the week before as I had what felt like a dose of the lurgy (nowhere near as brutal as my wife’s version) so I’m going over to stay with my mum as soon as my current isolation’s done, as if she shouldn’t be alone whether she gets it or not.

This virus is horrible, it’s killing people I love and I can’t go on a drinking binge to soften it.

And tomorrow I get to break the news to my stepsons.

(Long time lurker, hi everyone)

Imagine I’ve posted a picture of Pugwall here. Because I’ve bloody tried! (I miss the preview button)

I bought a fair trade ruby from http://www.rubyfair.com and had it mounted in a ring of recycled silver by http://www.annafinejewellery.co.uk – the (now) wife was/is very chuffed and both companies were great to communicate with

Harrison Reed from Southampton’s bench unless he goes out on loan again. By the by, I saw Jack Colback playing on telly last night – my word that’s a pureblood ginge!

I just look here whenever I get to change time:

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/the-hotukdeals-sim-only-deals-thread-all-of-the-cheapest-sim-only-deals-and-free-sim-offers-2481975

Whoop whoop whoop Saints! It’ll be a shame if Swansea go down though (no slight on Huddersfield intended, I’ve not seen them play this season) as they set the swashbuckling mid-table standard that we followed when we came up. It’s a crying shame that the prem turned us both into dogshit just-try-not-to-lose teams like the rest of the also rans.

As an aside – what in the name of Dion Dublin happened to popping down the local to watch the footy? I bollocked out the housework to get down for the second half and ended up walking a couple of miles around the neighbourhood as the first two locals were shut. And the one I found open is showing aussie rules and playing Phil Collins at full blast. **** you Coventry,  this is why no one likes you…

It saddens me that in the near future there’ll be a generation of people who can move a large object from point A to point B without invoking the Chuckle Brothers
:cry:

Jakeman’s throat sweets.
The dregs of a bottle of squash I found in the back of the car.
Sleaford Mods’ English Tapas.

Sat in Tesco carpark :cry: having just done the food shop. If I go home now the kids’ll go into a food frenzy before bedtime, so killing time til they’re asleep. Yay parenting.

Definitely “Into the Badlands”

I’ve just finished hate-watching the second series. So insultingly bad that I couldn’t stop. It’s like they just cherry picked films popular for various demographics and hammered them all together, then filled it with over-actors, under-actors and Nick Frost as the unfunny comic relief. It seems to have good reviews though, so quite possibly it’s just me being a curmudgeon.

Mr Robot is ace, Sneaky Pete was watchable without being amazing, man in the high castle and preacher both dragged a bit but were good. The Original and new versions of The Tick are on there too, and well worth a look.

It mystifies me why King Prawn thought it was a good idea to put The Postman Song on their Surrender To The Blender album. Let alone twice!

Dunno about the arena itself sorry, but if you have trouble then I tend to park in the little private carpark outside the Misha lounge at the top of broad street ( 3 Bishopsgate St, Birmingham B15 1ET ) – a pound an hour or four pounds for the day iirc. Near the pubs for food, and never seems to fill up even during busy periods.