The chip shop in bridge of Allan is pretty good. Has proper tables as well which might be good for the kids.

Very jealous of those of you who got to sit in the tractor whilst doing farmwork. Many summers spent harvesting market garden produce (lettuce, cabbage, leek and Chinese leaf). Long days of backbreaking work in fields in all weathers on piece rate of 17p per box lettuce / Chinese leaf, £10/tonne cabbage, 50p/box leeks (mid-late 90’s)

Over the past 4 years I’ve had 8ish (group CBT) through the NHS, 6 through an employers OH (CBT), 3 (useless)sessions with a university counselling dept whilst a student and for the last 18months have been seeing a private therapist weekly-fortnightly (transactional). (Expensive but worth it)This is now reducing down to an ad hoc session as and when I need it.

Also been taking citalopram and propranolol for a lot of that time.

Ethiopian famine, bits of the miners strike.

And the replacement for my 24 year old delaminating ultralite long Thermarest is a brand new Prolite mat. Very happy with Thermarests warranty and customer service.

Change the food. It’s nothing to do with cost or dry / wet. Just a reaction between something in the food and his gut. Chappie has worked well for dogs I’ve known.

Sanctions did work with Iran. That’s why they eventually came back to the negotiating table and signed the nuclear deal. The sanctions against Iran were far tougher than the sanctions against North Korea.

You don’t need a receipt with Thermarest. Just pop it in the post to them – they’re in Kendal and you should have a new one (maybe a cosmetic second) within a month. I do know people who’ve had 15-20 year old thermarests replaced under their lifetime warranty. I’m currently hoping they’re going to replace my delaminated 24 year old mat (sent it off last week).

If you buy a “proper” Aquapac it will be fine underwater.

I’m starting to lose count of the number of people who tell me they’ve bought an Aquapac off Amazon for £2.99 then wonder why their phone is wet and broken after a paddling trip. Only to discover that they haven’t bought an Aquapac at all but a party bag / corporate giveaway no brand name “waterproof phone case” which isn’t waterproof at all.

If you’ve got a non waterproof point and shoot / compact camera already just buy an Aquapac waterproof case for it for £20-£30.

Camping 5 vallees in Briancon. Pool, variety of directions to head off in on the road bike, different lifts a short walk or drive away depending on where you want to walk. Or drive up to Ailefroide and walk from there.

There’s definitely lots of factors that affect how people vote whether it’s Dementia tax, tuition fees, austerity, NHS privatisation, liking your mp, not liking Theresa, liking Jeremy

But there’s a not insignificant number of people who voted tactically in the vain hope that we would end up with a coalition involving parties who’s asking price would be a referendum on the final Brexit deal with the hope that Brexit gets cancelled.

That’s the problem with following the advice of a very close advisory referendum (aka opinion poll). It doesn’t take many people to move their vote for a completely different result and you’ve got enough pissed off losers to cause a lot of problems.

It helped me a lot initially but caused me problems further down the line. Have you identified the source / cause of your depression / anxiety?

I hadn’t at the time but have now (emotionally abusive relationship) so what happened was that as I recovered due to the CBT the emotional abuse ramped up to overcome the positive effects of the CBT putting me back down where I was but without the hope that CBT was helping / could help.

Ultimately I believe that you can’t recover until you’ve removed / dealt with the cause which may require actions / therapies other than CBT.

There’s a bike park in Chantemerle (Guisanne valley) which is fun for a day. The red routes are very variable in their difficulty so if you do an easy red first you might find your 2nd red to be challenging.

Montgenevre bike park is also good for a day. The high stuff is good for the big mountain feel but the best riding is mid station down.

The local tourist info offices have a leaflet / map with natural rides of varying lengths and difficulties which are signposted as well (although critical signposts may be missing which may lead to some exploration biking before you find the correct route).I’d recommend taking the French equivalent of an OS map to help reduce the chance of exploration biking and avoid routes that cycle up red pistes (they’re steep and very hard work to push up at 30°C+).

Head to the docs and tell them what you told us.

Depending what the queue for NHS counselling is like you could maybe consider private counselling. Some will do a first session for free which may help you identify things to work on and whether you will benefit from counselling and be able to work with that particular counsellor.

Do a boat trip to the puffins on the treshnish islands. Usually includes that famous cave on Staffa too!

Wait for the day you meet someone called Siobhan but pronounced Sigh-o-ban or a Sian pronounced Cyan!!

100% markup at each step in the supply chain is pretty normal I would have thought. Buy something for x and sell for 2x is about right to cover all your costs and make some profit.

The only thing that matters though is the total cost of the service.

It’s entirely up to the garage business where they apply mark ups overheads and profit to the prices they charge. They could charge low labour rates and high parts prices or low parts prices and high labour rates. It’s entirely up to them.

What’s the £70 as a percentage? And what’s the labour rate? Only if you know those can you start to make accusations of profiteering.

How long did you spend sat on the computer searching for and ordering the parts? Did you include this time in your cost calculation?

You don’t need to tell them now but you will need to let them know at renewal time.

I know the area where you are OP and did a lot of cycle commuting around there. 125miles per week over 5 days at my peak. It’s surprisingly difficult to vary your route in that area without making it significantly longer. What I’d say helped me was make sure you look and listen around you. Notice the trees, leaves, birdsong, animals, sunrise / sunset (mindfulness). Notice how they change. Make sure you’re not in a head down, stare at the front wheel mindset.

Treat yourself to a train ride occasionally. Do Dalmeny – Inverkeithing on the train. Appreciate the view from the forth rail bridge. Go for a play on the Dalmeny estate on your way home. Depending where you are in town drop down to the coast from Cramond Brig and cycle along the coast to Granton. Can be beautiful and peaceful with loads of wildlife if there’s not many people around. Can you use some of the old railway cycletracks in Edinburgh?

What’s wrong with the luxury thermarests you currently have?

Have a look at direct2florist.

I’d suggest going to pepipoo. They’ll be able to give the best advice.

As I understand it you have to do the deal to drop the S172 to speeding in the court building on the day of your court case but not actually when you’re in your court. Quite how / if this will work if they’re out of time to prosecute you for speeding I’m not sure. Whatever happens you really don’t want an S172 conviction as insurers really don’t like it.

Use your local florist shop. Most will offer nationwide delivery for little more than a local delivery. Florist I work in is £4 for local delivery and £8.50 nationwide. Uses STW’s favourite courier as well (DPD).

You’ll get more flowers for your money as you’re not paying interflora’s commission.

I find it varies depending on cost. Normal supermarket own brand I have no problems with. Supermarket “value” range is useless and splits all the time.

Being anti-Zionist is not anti-Semitic

Yes it is.

I think this is the root of the problem. Different people have slightly different beliefs / understandings / definitions of Semitism and Zionism and where your personal definitions are determines whether you think Ken was being anti-semitic or not.

I find it quite intriguing that the reputation of A-level Psychology hasn’t changed in the 20+ years since I chose my A-levels.

Different counsellors have different styles and will have trained in different methodologies. You need to find the combo that works for you. I’ve had a few different ones over recent years.

CBT I found gives you tools to cope but doesn’t necessarily fix the underlying issue(s) but can improve things relatively quickly.

I don’t know what the 2nd type of counselling I had was. I just found it weird and didn’t get on with it at all. Counsellor would just sit in silence and wait for me to talk. Very rarely asked questions to trigger me to talk so there could be some very long silences.

3rd type I’ve had is transactional which is helping me resolve the deeper issues that CBT didn’t reach. Much more about how you perceive other people you interact with and how you perceive their perception of you.

Although it sounds like yours is starting to work so stick with it. It can take a while to see results so patience.

I found that my brain would do a lot of processing of what had happened in counselling sessions in the background and I would feel things aren’t improving as I wasn’t conscious of them. However if I consciously thought about it I could then start identifying improvements and changes that had happened without me realising.

How many cars can you fit on 210m2? Sounds big. Is it cheaper if you grass some of it?

Got to my end of January target 6 weeks late. Not doing much exercise so if I can get some exercise in things might speed up a bit. Just slightly smaller portions and fewer doughnuts and crisps seems to have got things going.

Really hope the 4lbs lost isn’t all water. Trousers do feel a bit looser so that must be a good sign.

Whats wrong with your council food waste bin?

, the only thing I’d back in that is the assertion that you “should have gone to Player Protection Officer first.” Yes, you should.

I agree with this too.

TBH The big lesson from all of this is don’t post on Facebook when angry as then everyone’s defences go up, it all gets emotional and you end up with fewer options and no way to get at the hard evidence that you would need to really change things.

Hiya – sorry about the slow reply. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to stop the emotional angry nuclear 1am Facebook post so things have progressed less than ideally.

Understandably the club have denied everything and defended the coach as respected, highly regarded, honourable etc.

As all the allegations are based on the contents of a couple of phone calls it’s all gone a bit he said / she said.

So here is what we know

Phone call 1
Coach to parent 1 (my girlfriend)
Your son is no longer welcome at the club due to his disruptive behaviour. These 3 other Polish kids are also no longer welcome due to their behaviour. Coach is questioned about why only Polish kids are being excluded, denies any racist motivation – it’s due to their behaviour.

Phone call 2
Coach to parent 2
Your son is no longer welcome at the club as he’s not good enough. These 3 other Polish kids are also not good enough either. Coach is asked how many Scottish kids are being excluded and responds with F off it’s none of your business.

Angry FB post happens

Coach responds that only 2 boys are being excluded due to poor behaviour. (Parents of children 3 & 4 were never phoned). This misunderstanding is apparently due to my girlfriend’s poor English. Will not correspond any more due to the allegation.

Club responds
Boys excluded due to repeated poor behaviour. Coaches have spoken to boys about behaviour multiple times and there has been no improvement. Couldn’t continue to accept negative affect on group of x kids. Club has other young players of different nationalities who behave acceptably therefore club cannot be racist. Coach is highly regarded etc. Unacceptable to post allegations on Facebook. Should have gone to Player Protection Officer first.

Local newspaper get in touch for a chat.

So that is where we’re up to. Where next?

Still trying to work out how the disruptive behaviour can go from minor enough to be dealt with by a coach / player chat to club expulsion without any prior warning to the parent?

Did the coach realise how overt his racism was during parental phone calls then abandon his plan? Or did 2 parents somehow end up with the same misunderstanding from their phone calls.

Is this just a really badly executed / communicated plan to reduce numbers of kids which looks racist but wasn’t intended to be (maybe there is some subconscious racism where behaviour is judged differently depending on kids nationality).

On a good note the lad went to a different club, loved it (says the coaches are better) and his effort and enthusiasm was commented on positively by another parent.

For the honed athletes who don’t understand this stuff 120g is approximate to four or five gels

Which is approximately what finely honed athletes consume on a 1.5-2hour ride.

A physics / science version of Russell Brand.

There’s already quite a few beaver populations in Scotland. They’ve expanded from the trial areas and set up new communities so would be great if we could get lynx and wolves reintroduced as well

Cycling on a turbo

Why take something that was designed to take you places then use it to go nowhere?

If you want to save yourself a drive to hull think of driving to newcastle and catching the ferry to ijmuiden.