Gordon the cat will do anything to avoid sleeping on the awful rug 😉

I did Cambridge to Blackfriars every day for a year – 15min walk to station, 50mins train, 20mins bus.

I actually enjoyed the train ride in as I got a seat and some space. The train ride home was tedious but doable. I read lots of books and got some work done.

The downsides were:
– Never, ever getting home before 8pm and the feeling that I’d just eat, sleep and do it all over again
– I was usually the first to leave work and I rarely went out for post-work drinks (I worked for a ‘sociable’ employer) This meant that I wasn’t really seen as part of the team.
– It cost a fortune!

A year was plenty and I now work much closer to home.

I have a 1.4tsi Octavia estate. It’s great – quickish, quiet and surprisingly refined.

I get 42-45mpg normally and over 50 occasionally on longer A-road runs (A65 to the Lakes, stuck behind the traffic). Wife gets 38-40 on the school run.

This has really shaken me up. I was there 24 hours before, marvelling at the constant stream of cyclists going past.

Nobody deserves to go like that – he just went for a bike ride on a beautiful day.

Get the accounts for £1 from Companies House:
https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company

DezB – Member
I don’t need a Van Der Graph Generator!

Actually, I think I might need that.

I don’t need a tennis ball launcher

I don’t need a tennis ball launcher

http://assets.eddisons.com/LotDetails.aspx?lotid=97662&saleid=883

Feel a bit sorry for the kids being canned just before christmas and having to move schools at short notice.

Agreed. I didn’t go there but still found the lots of old trophies and honours boards a bit sad.

Quite like the idea of a John Deere lawnmower though.

Army surplus gore tex

Screwfix safety glasses

Nearly-empty bottle of white spirit to drop chains into and shake instead of expensive, messy chain cleaners.

Check your dates – we went Harwich > Esbjerg last August and I think they closed that route in September as it wasn’t profitable.

I think the nearest you can get to Scandinavia now is Hull > Amsterdam.

Let me know if I’m wrong – it’s scuppering our summer hol plans for this year!

edit: here – http://www.dfdsseaways.co.uk/ferry-routes/harwich-esbjerg-route-closure/

I’ve started it but it takes a bit of getting though and I resent being told that ‘it’s science and it’s too complicated for you so I’ve dumbed it down’.

My 5 year old asked what I was reading so I gave him a bit of a summary. Now whenever he’s being naughty and gets told off he says “it’s not me – it’s my inner chimp”. Cheeky scamp.

My kids ask about my mum a lot. We just say that she’s not alive any more. When they ask where she is, we say something along the lines of ‘she has turned back into the stuff that all the earth is made of’.

In my experience 10k would be a lot for a 12 year old. I’d concentrate on getting faster for 5k through a fun training programme run by a local club. Lots of the bigger running clubs have great junior sections, eg:

Juniors

I was reading this earlier and quite liked some of it:

http://www.williepietersen.com/pdf/nov-dec2010translatingyourstrategyintoaleadershipmessage.pdf

When I had it I found that nuun tabs or similar for rehydration and replenishment seemed to work.

The steaks and gin cocktails at the bar and grill at the Waterhead are amazing:
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186319-d730698-Reviews-Bar_Grill_at_Waterhead-Ambleside_Lake_District_Cumbria_England.html

Is she really the best a man can get?

Mr Woppit – Member
I took a detour into Bishopsgate because I wanted to take a look at “The Gherkin” up close, out of interest.

Were you in a car?

Examples of suspicious behaviour include:
• Occupants of stationary vehicles watching a building or structure, for no apparent reason.

<Dials 999>

I have Roclite 295s and x-Talon 212s. All the same size as my adidas road shoes. The Roclites feel slightly bigger than the x-Talons (though that may be because they have more cushioning so are a bit clumpier)

Another vote for MOSI and the T-Rex in the Manchester Museum is good.

The Chew Valley is great for a kid-friendly bike ride (but has a very keen parking warden)

A fancy Range Rover near me has IOLO

On the one hand, I think it’s ridiculous. On the other, fair enough!

Can I join too?

My boy had lunch involving peas. A single pea rolled off his fork, bounced off the table and rolled across the kitchen floor.

I pointed and said ‘an esca-pea’ (escapee – it really didn’t work when written!)

A friend had a brilliant job in the cafe at the Live Theatre when I lived up there. Decent pay, good hours, good group of people and lots of free events.

It’s interesting – cheating in cycling and athletics really irritates me.

I see most of football as corrupt anyway so finding out that the cheating is rife at all levels isn’t so much of a surprise. Just a shame that the ‘greats’ are all so heavily implicated.

We were driving home on a foggy day and saw something brown lying in the middle of the road. Mrs wanted to go and see if the poor thing was alive/ move it off the road to somewhere it wouldn’t get hit (again).

Turned out that it was a dead sandbag.

…and Brian Robinson in Mirfield

My money’s on Leeds > Brid, Scarboro > York, Selby > Wakefield…

What do you get if you cross a snowman with a shark? Frostbite

Tesco value baby wipes are infused with some sort of magical qualities.

A Campag Chorus carbon chainset – my legs aren’t strong enough for it in the Dales so I bought a compact 😳

Last year I crashed on ice in a shady patch on a warm sunny February day and broke my scaphoid.

Now, I’m a nervous wreck.

Company hires out (most of) a local hotel and we have about 200 people to what’s usually a fairly good-natured do.

Last year people from another party in the hotel tried to gatecrash ours, ending up with a big fight and a champagne bottle launched through a window.

Hoping for a calmer evening this time!

John Lewis are doing loads of promotional price-matching online – today only apparently.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/black-friday-5-ways-retailers-trick-you-into-buying-stuff-you-probably-dont-need-9886208.html

We laid parallel to the longest wall, across the doorway.

Secret nails directly into floor joists (on the first floor)

We went recently. I got some rails to fix to walls for hanging stuff on.

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/50072645/
and
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/70271093/

£2.50 per set well spent!

And meatballs, obviously.

Just exchanged on a new house so this is in the fridge:

I’ve run and ridden with one of these for 4 years:
http://www.magicshineuk.co.uk/head-torches/mj-838-junior-magicshine-front-light-set-includes-helmet-mount-and-extension-lead.html

It’s ace and still going strong. Battery life is way longer than advertised.

On Aldi at the moment but Tanqueray is my usual. Hendricks as a treat.

A tip I learned from someone who owns a fancy restaurant is to freeze slices of lime (or cucumber) before dropping them in – 1: it means you’ve always got a ready supply in, 2: it helps the ice out and 3: freezing ruptures the cells so more flavour gets out (may well be dodgy science. I haven’t looked into it)

In a stressed, sleep-deprived state where you have no time to yourself, no freedom, no interaction from your daughter and no obvious function it’s tough.

Understanding that it’s stressful for dads, it’s also stressful, scary and relentless for mums. I found that my job for the first few weeks was basically supporting mum and working as a team to make it as easy as possible for both of us.

Newborn stage isn’t much fun, but it doesn’t last long.

If you get a Toblerone for Christmas don’t eat it halfway through a long snowy walk.

It will have chilled into a pyramid-shaped mouth slicer.