She’s setting you up for a fall. Throw her out now & move her sister in.

Ride in a full divers dry suit. :-)

Unless of course, it’s a HP printer that stubbornly sits “offline” even when it’s 3ft from the router, has full bars of WiFi goodness & can easily see both the router & my laptop from it lofty perch in the office. Never had much luck with WiFi printers. Never had much luck with printers full stop.
I took great pleasure in launching the last one 20ft into the air & watching it disembowel itself on the patio.

Cars. Running a new car is my acceptance of how far we have come. Much as I love older cars, I have to say that once you get past the (for some) psychological barrier of accepting that running a new car is going to always cost £xxx a month, the benefits of knowing that any eventuality is covered by a warranty, it’s just one less thing to worry about.

On the other hand, as good as they are, my lads On-One doesn’t ride as nice as my Puffin. Hence he’s always pinching it.

Second the Collective C1. My lad has one. Rides really well. If they’re good enough for Ryan Taylor. :-)

So if I live 2 miles from an airport I can’t fly a drone up & down my garden ? 😂

Tioga Psycho’s.

Serious question, is heating single rooms not a false economy? Ie: unless each room is well insulated on its own, wouldn’t the heat just leech out to the adjacent unheated rooms ? Surely your better just heating the whole house if the outside walls are where the heat stops escaping…

It’s probably just had a very high polish before anodising, followed be a coloured dye afterwards. Perhaps a further polish & clear lacquer coat.
It could even be just a high polish & dark tinted lacquer coat.

Nickel isn’t great on alloy, it’s more for brass, or steel.

Any plating process is only as good as the surface condition it’s presented with. With anodising they do a light sulphuric etch, to key & clean the surface, & it will clean up the surface to a degree; but it’s better done on a nice surface.

Niner SIR.9.

Case closed.

(Or Niner MCR if you can find one).

Not a clue about your fault but we have a 64 plate Focus, base model 1.0 with the 105hp engine. It drives perfectly, but an odd thing I noticed, it won’t rev beyond 4k when stationary, but will do whilst actually driving. Not sure if it’s some kind of rev limiter.
It’s a fab little car though.

Working no, but I’m somewhat foolishly in a caravan, in Blackpool.

I think you’ll find that trumps anything this side of wiping Satan’s backside after curry night.

We use 3 small Dimplex branded ones in the Scout hut if running a sleepover. (It has radiant bar heaters on the ceiling, which you could cook meat under, so too much for sleeping under).
The huts got zero insulation, it’s a 1960’s asbestos type affair, but these keep it a comfortable temp.

Niner SIR.9 here. I’d never sell it. It’s super light for a steel frame & the ride is sublime. It doesn’t do a lot these days. My 2nd gen Puffin isn’t far off it in terms of being fun to ride, but I think that’s just down to the stupidity of riding a fatty.

I always said that, if I won the lottery, I’d have my SIR.9 replicated in 953 or Ti.

I honestly don’t know what I’d replace either with these days. I’d probably scour the forums etc.

All the while your own family is growing up &, hopefully, not being compromised by this…
These are grown ups. At some point you need to step away & focus on you & yours. Sorry if that’s harsh but that’s how it is. If they don’t want you to help then step back. You sound like your being torn in two by this. You & yours need you.

Ghetto them with a smaller dia tube…?

Always loved those stretch tents. Not cheap but would create a cracking semi-permanent sheltered area.

Brilliant.

We bid goodbye to my Dad recently.
We walked his coffin in to the Steptoe tune. :-)
He would have found it hilarious.
His exit song was Monty Python’s Bright Side of Life.

Tin of Fabsil Gold & a paint brush, & paint it liberally.
ANd a drysac.

Volunteer at a local Scout Group.

The path north out of town goes under Spaghetti junction. You’ll turn right. It then goes under a big factory!!! Towards Fazeley will be muddy in parts, once you’ve left Birmingham, towards Kingsbury. Me & my lad did it at about this time of year, a few years ago. Its hard going in part, because your riding on long grass for long stretches. It’s fast enough coming out of Brum, its just all the anti-motorbike gates that are a pain. There are a good few miles of nothing out that way till you get to Fazely, so a stop at McD’s at Tyburn Island is your last food stop.
There have been folk mugged of bikes along the stretch past Castle Vale also…

From Fazeley its all good paths then till you get to Whittington. There is a rough stretch before you get to Fradley Junction. There is a decent pub & Cafe. You’ll turn left & its good paths again right up until south of Stafford, where it turns left towards Penkridge. Pubs every few miles, so all good. I’ve only ever gone as far as Penkridge, but it looks it meanders a lot from there till Wolverhampton. But your back in to built up areas then, so chances are the path will be good.

On paper, its easy. Its a canal…it should be flat. But it is hard going, with some long stretches that will test your resolve. But if you sack it off your only a mile or two from a station (Tamworth/Lichfield/Rugeley/Stafford), so can be back in town in no time..

Love this behemoth. Anywhere & everywhere is just a laugh on it.

IMG_1759[1] by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

I bought a pack of those Powerline extenders, that send the router signal through the electrical ring main, re-broadcasting the WiFi & giving an Ethernet port wherever they are plugged in. They work really well & were a doddle to set-up..

We bought my lad a Lenovo model, i3 chip & 8gb RAM. Not an SSD but he’s been happily running stuff like Minecraft. Lots of homework, & lately designing roller coasters on Plant Coaster.
I have to say, in use it’s no different to the £2k Dell Precision i7 I have for work.

Salad_dodger, I’m so very sorry to hear that mate.

We lost Mum on Sunday morning at 11:15.
Both Parents gone, 2 weeks apart.

Mum had a couple of episodes with her Potassium levels going up towards the end of the week. On Friday the Specialist took us to one side & told us the treatment wasn’t working. On Saturday we sat & talked & made the difficult decision to withdraw treatment. No more painful blood samples. No more drips or monitoring of this & that. The hope was that Mum would see out her last few days in a local hospice. On Saturday we spoke to Mum for what would be the last time. On Sunday we were all on our way in anyway when the hospital called to say she had taken a turn for the worse. She was awake but couldn’t speak, heavily dosed on morphine.

We sat with her as a family. We cried & laughed & held her as she grew weaker & fainter. We all kissed her gently & then she was gone. She slipped peacefully away. The moment we realised she had gone was a mix of heartbreak & relief. The heartbreak of seeing my Sisters in so much pain, calling out for Mum in desperation. My youngest sister collapsed on the floor. But relief that she was no longer in pain. I was numb, dumbfounded & in shock & I felt I couldn’t breathe. I had to get outside right away & I sat on a bench to gather my thoughts.

We have spent a lot of time together as a family this week, culminating in Dads funeral yesterday. It was exactly as he would have wanted. Non religious, led by a celebrant. We led Dad’s coffin in to the Steptoe theme tune, “Old Ned”. He would have loved that. I managed to compose myself enough to stand & read a letter that my youngest Sister had written for Dad. It was just a simple service with a family get together to follow, which is exactly what Dad would have wanted. He had long ago chosen the Monty Python song, “The bright side of life” as his final funeral song & we didn’t let him down.

Today I’ve been quite thoughtful, busying myself with this & that. My cousins in Australia are having a get together tomorrow, so we have arranged a BBQ breakfast at mine so we can FaceTime & see our Aunt (Mum’s sister).

Next week we will start the preperations for Mum’s funeral. She had already chosen a burial &, being a Catholic”, it will be somewhat different to Dad’s. What I’m not looking forward to is that crescendo of stress that builds & builds until the service is over. We are a long, long way from through this but we have sworn to stick tightly together as brothers & sisters to get us through this.

Right now I desperately, desperately want to just hear Mum’s voice again.
To pop round, have a cuppa, catch up on the family gossip.

Currently sat with Mum as she sees out her last few hours. I know, shouldn’t be writing on here but sharing it helps…
She’s suffered enough. Family have decided, no more treatment. Heart will stop at some point, just keeping her comfortable.
God bless you Mum.

Losing both parents within 2 weeks.
Holy crap guys, this is the hardest time.

Higher rise stem & Mary Bars here.
Looks truly, truly ghastly, but very comfy.

IMAG3386 by pten2106[/url], on Flickr

We are on a new estate & their have been 3 break ins in the last few weeks. Every time they’ve ignored the house & it’s contents & taken newish Audi’s. One house they’d even put biscuits down for the dog. Usual method, snapping the lock to get in.
I copped two chaps on my drive trying doors during one of the the nights last week, so had to do something. They scarpered once I’d challenged them (from the bedroom window… ;-) ). To be fair, the Police were round in minutes & have been driving round during the night.

So after weighing up the differeosystems I put a 3 camera Blink XT2 system up last night. Was a doddle to do. Check WiFi strength with your phone at your proposed camera locations first. The cameras have an indicator on their settings page anyway, but even on just one bar they still work perfectly. I’ve ordered a Powerline WiFi extender fit the garage so should be fine once installed.
They work perfectly. Picture quality is excellent. Even infra red mode works well. Lots of settings you can twiddle with. The field of vision isn’t as wide as I’d hoped, but I might change their locations. I get a notification & can switch to a live feed if I need. They have a microphone so you can talk over them. No cloud fees either.
Overall, I’m happy. Was £200 from Amazon.

My lad is a Scout (13). I had him on the circular saw last week.
Get em on these tools but teach them to respect them.

You’d never get a circular saw through a Scouting risk assessment though. :-)

Start em on something easy, bird boxes are good.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/for-families/family-wild-challenge/activities/build-a-birdbox/

I’m doing the above with my Beaver Colony.

My lad (then 9) is short for his age, & the excellent advice on here was to get him a 16” wheel BMX. It sounded tiny but even I could ride it. It’s size meant he could handle & manipulate it easier than an 18” model.

It’s still in the garage if your interested. It’s a Diamond Back. Was £200 new. It’s a full on model, not a toy one. He’s just gone up to a 20”.

Fab stuff. Just what I need. Thanks Op.

We have had a 64′ plate bargain basement base model now for 4 years. I was skeptical about the 105hp, 1 litre, 3 cylinder engine but I cannot fault it, its a fabulous car.
Honestly, it is better built than the brand new Tiguan we bought last year. No bumps, rattles or squeaks & it handles lovely. The interior materials are way better than the Tiguan, which shocked me given VW’s supposed high quality.
Done 33k now. Feels solid on the road. MPG isnt great, it’s my Wife’s car (she’s a Community Nurse so it genuinely is the worst kind of stop start driving all day), & it does about 35mpg. On a run, 45+ with no issues. On the motorway its fine, we’ve done plenty of 3hr runs in it.
Other drivers might have noticed this but off the line it has an initial surge from the turbo that belies its low power. As said, ours is the lowly 105hp model so its not going to blow anyone away, but hand on heart, its perfectly drivable.

Negatives, I do struggle to get comfortable in it, but as said, it is a base model. Nothing wrong with its ergonomics & driving position, just the seat padding. Rear vision is woeful, its awful to reverse. If the seats were harder it would be near on perfect. A higher spec model would probably be excellent. I can see us keeping ours for many years, we both love it. The Tiguan will hopefully be going next year…

Salad Dodger, truly sorry to hear that mate. I can imagine where your heads at &, if its any comfort, your in everyone’s thoughts, especially mine mate.
I hope folks don’t mind if I add a few words here each day. Seeing it written seems to help.

Yesterday was pretty tough, kept finding myself panicking that it was all getting too much. I had a short bout of depression many years ago, & I picked up some of the little negative feelings & triggers that brought that on. Managed to snap out of it by keeping busy & focusing on things. Late at night is worst but managed to sleep well enough. Waking up is crap. For a split moment its all ok, then I remember. And the mood drops. Getting up & out with the dog helped this morning. He’s never had so many walks.

Awoke in a more positive mood today. Spent the morning ringing round notifying various places, DWP, Council, Bank etc. They offer a “Tell Us Once” service now, which would have done it all in one hit, but cant register for it till the Death Certificate is issued. It just felt better to have made some progress on the official stuff whilst in a positive mindset. My brother spent the morning cleaning out Dad’s mobility car, which upset him, but he felt it was something he had to do for our Dad. It’s being collected next week. Busying myself with a bit of DIY this afternoon.
Thanks for now everyone.
Some fantastic advice on here from you folks, I honestly feel a lot better for just sharing, so thanks to you all.

Did a week at Whitemead, as part of our Summer hols. Fab place. Short ride to the Trail Centre, all off road. Spent the morning riding, back for jacuzzi, dip in the pool & pint of Doom Bar in the sun. What could be better.

Thanks all.
Reading some of your experiences & accounts has been a lot of help, so I thank each & every one of you. Gnusmas, thank you mate.

Coroner has asked for a Post Mortem on Dad. Hoping it doesn’t delay things too much. We spent an emotional hour at his house yesterday, luckily he’d already marked up & left his Will, Life Policy etc, exactly where he said they’d be.

To compound things we took Mum to see her Specialist today. They can’t operate on her bowel cancer because of her heart failure. Don’t know how long she’s got. If it’s the cancer he thinks a year to eighteen months. But my Wife, as a Community Nurse, spends her days treating palliative patients & sat me down tonight to tell me she thinks she’s not got long.

I fear the worst. Getting my two Sisters through losing them both so close together is going to be hard.

No you don’t.
Buy a caravan instead.
You know it makes sense. ;-)

I feel your pain mate.
Struggling here too.

Both my parents terminally ill.
“Get everyone to the hospital ASAP” call for both in the last week or two.
DNAR discussions for both recently, tough, very tough.

Several times I’ve written it all out on here but not posted it for fearing it doesn’t read well.

I’d echo TJ’s words & say let others help, talk if you need.
And ride bikes if your up to it.

Just effing horrible. So sorry to hear it

Couple of things – when you look at the whole situation it all appears insurmountable and overwhelming. Look at things in small bits instead and concentrate on what you can do do not dwell on what you cannot alter – far easier to say than do but a very valuable tool .

The other is look after yourself as well. You have already seen what happens when you do not. You need to be in top shape / form to help the rest of the family. Even if that means sometimes saying no or sometimes taking time out for you.

In The Gambia they have a non-alcoholic drink called Malta. Comes in s bottle, like a craft beer.
Quite dark with a very malty taste.
Most tourists who try it hate it but I couldn’t get enough of it. :-)

Wait till y’all try singlespeed…
;-)

Just come back from 2 weeks away in our caravan. First week was in London, at Crystal Palace so we could do museums, shows, sights etc. Week was in the Forest of Dean, lots of biking, long walks with the dog etc.

Double dinette layout has served us well for the last 8/9 years that we’ve had it. It’s 1500kg so needs a heavy(ish) tow car. Used a TDi Galaxy for a long time but changed it last year for a new 1.4 Petrol Tiguan that does an excellent job of pulling it. MPG is horrific though, low 20’s at best, but it rarely gets abound 33 solo. :-(

Caravanning has a lot of bad press but my boys still love it. Younger kids love camping, the make friends the instant we pitch up & have had some truly memorable holidays throughout the year. The boys have their jobs to help set up, we timed it recently & within 15 mins the caravan & awning was all set up & tea made. :-)

We wouldn’t go back to tent camping for a main family holiday.
Summer is fine but weekends away between Sept – Apr are better in the caravan. We have two boys, 12 & 13, the eldest now prefers to sleep in the annexe we bought for the awning.