I got a Logitech K545 and an M510 mouse set from Currys at the start of lockdown. Feels nice to use to me.

Bought a 3 year old car in Jan from a main dealer. Absolutely no difference in price for taking finance, couldn’t even get a full tank or new mats. APR on the finance was phenomenal so luckily was able to pay cash.

Fill the gap with bits of screwed up paper then silicon on top was the technique used by the previous owner of my old house. Paper was still dry when I ripped it out so must have worked.

Been wearing disposable contacts for whitewater kayaking for 20 years or so. Maybe lost 2 in all that time. I don’t usually open my eyes underwater but when I have I’ve never had an issue. Only issue I have is that splashes can get in the eye and make vision very blurry but this usually clears after a few blinks or moving your eyes around until the lens settles in the right place again.

Just reading your post spudulike shows the common interplay between facts and feelings and how feelings become converted to facts by the brain.

You say you’ve rarely been on top of your job which is a feeling / emotion that your brain has converted to a fact. If you speak with your colleagues/ boss they likely don’t recognise this fact you have about yourself. They wouldn’t have kept you for 20+ years if this was the case.

Not convinced you’re nearing imminent breakdown but you have identified that something isn’t right so you have time to explore options to improve your situation.

I’d second many others advice of speaking with your GP and accessing any help work can give either through your boss or through any Employee Assistance program which may be in place or through your union if you’re in a union.

The other thing to look for is to see if you can find a local “Stress control” course. They’re usually run by your local NHS and are free (maybe online at the moment). I found it really useful as a CBT lite introduction and gave me hope that there was light at the end of the tunnel (I was in quite a dark place at the time and did need lots of other therapy but it was a useful start).

If you want a go yourself head to the La Plage track. Cheapest option is 4 of you in an extra tall padded bobsleigh which gets pushed off from the top and gravity takes you to the bottom. You can pay more for a proper bobsleigh with a proper pilot or have a go at luge with a big cage over you in case you flip. Cage has a live feed camera on so everyone in the waiting area can see you scream your way down the track.

Use a dog guard from guardsman or travall (can be found 2nd hand as people change cars more often than dogs). Can be the car that affects how travel sick a dog is. Our dog doesn’t like the boot of a Passat estate and is nearly always sick even if we haven’t fed him for 12 hours and will always travel looking out of the rear window or pressed against the dog guard. Put him in the Sportage and he lies down on his bed and goes to sleep and has only been sick once.

Had a van drive into the back of my Passat estate which creased boot floor and had a tow bar fitted. Other party’s insurer admitted fault same day I reported it. Was given an Insignia hatch from Enterprise for the 2 weeks while they fixed my car. Towbar replaced no problem. They refused to replace the bumper boot sill protector as that wasn’t a VW part so was an uninsured loss so has to be added onto the injury claim through Scottish solicitor which my insurer referred me to.

Apart from the whiplash and insurance co referring me to English solicitor initially it was a painless process.

Things may have changed in 20 years but top of the list was administrators, HMRC and secured creditors and staff were considered unsecured creditors. Whether there were different categories of unsecured creditors or not I can’t remember but my final payment was less than 1p per £1 of money owed as there’s not much left once HMRC, administrator and secured creditors have been paid.

Oh yes – forgot about the helpful job suggestions from the dole office. You’re a molecular biologist with 2 years experience we think you should apply to be a logistics officer with the RAF – it’s 3x your last salary. It was the only job on their system that wasn’t minimum wage which I was in no way qualified for but got to apply to keep getting your money (which you are refusing to pay me as you think companies don’t go bust). Closely followed by having my IT skills assessed by someone who only used 1 finger to type and had to hunt the key for every letter. And when they ask for a copy of your CV to offer advice they failed to notice I’d given them 2 copies of page 1.

Happened to me about 20 years ago. I think I got some owed wages on normal pay day. You’ll get a letter at some point from the administrators which will say you’re at the bottom of the list for money so you may or may not get something in 2 years time. If you’ve been there more than 2 years you’ll get some redundancy money from the government in 6 months or so then in 2 years time when administration is over you’ll get a cheque for £1.25 as final payment for the wages they owe you.

The job centre won’t believe that companies go bust so will take ages (months) to start paying you dole money by which time you’ll hopefully have found a new job.

Been using thermarest for 25 years. See no reason to change. They sent me a new one for free when the 15 year old one delaminated.

On the survey when you bought the house there’s usually a rebuild /insurance value which can put through online calculators to reach today’s value. Lots of insurers now have a flat buildings insurance value of upto £1M so you don’t need to worry unless yours is worth more by which time you’re probably using a broker rather than price comparison sites which will also estimate your rebuild cost based on size and location.

Kia Sportage. Love ours.

Think it expired on 31Jan.

The other thing to think about is do you like facing where you’re going (skiing) or do you like travelling sideways (snowboarding). I’ve snowboarded badly for years and have reached the conclusion that I should really be a skier. I just feel far more relaxed when I’m facing where I’m going and feel I have far more control.

Also snowboards feel amazing in powder but have more drawbacks when doing lift assisted piste skiing. Your chance of finding powder on your 1 week per year trip is slim.

Not sure if it’s still the case but when I was signing on 5-6 years ago all your job applications had to be done through the job centre job listings website which did seem fairly effective at pulling listings from other websites but did miss some. Sign on if you enjoy being treated as a number, looked down on and given useless advice and assessed for IT competency by someone who single finger types and has to look for every key on the keyboard.

Don’t get the metal one from Next with the wooden lid. Whatever they’ve treated the lid with makes all your bread smell of petrol.

I’m trying to work out how big that room is to be able to fit 30 socially distanced people in it. All our room capacities were massively reduced during COVID and any sharing of food was prohibited so no home baking, cakes for birthdays, leaving do’s, no shared takeaways etc. I think as restrictions eased we’re now allowed some shared food but everything must be individually wrapped so there’s been the odd box of celebrations /heroes/mini rolls made an appearance.

Your daughter is in year 1. She will not miss out or end up behind by missing 3 days of school. Don’t take any schoolwork away with you. Keep school and home/family/holiday separate. The most academic thing she should do is write a postcard to Granny.

Just write to school and say daughter won’t be in school on those dates. I wouldn’t even give a reason. If the school want one make them ask for it.

You’ll receive a grumpy letter to file in the recycling.

Have heard of cages for fruit to protect from birds but not on vegetables. Other option is to repurpose old CDs and hang them from sticks and strings above the plants the birds like.

How have you filled 15GB with email?

Previous employer used Giroflex G64 which were good once adjusted correctly. Was issued with a Orangbox Do for homeworking which is also great and accidentally forgot to give back when I left. Current employer uses Humanscale Freedoms which are brilliant and the teams using these have less than 2% of people requiring a different chair bought for them. Conversely my team buys the cheapest office chairs it can find and then has to buy special chairs for approx 40% of its members who end up with back trouble from the cheap chairs. It’s like a chair jumble sale in our room as every desk has a standard chair then half the desks have a 2nd decent chair which may be used by an assigned person only or can be used by anyone but not adjusted. I’ve given up and steal a freedom chair from the sensible teams.

What’s your budget? And where does she go SUPing (sea,surf, lake, river, whitewater??) and what does she do? Yoga, potter around or journeys or surf?

I used Neilsons who have a few branches around Edinburgh. Would use them again.

Strange how some people have a perception that some people in lowland /4×4 rescue are slightly eccentric and like wearing uniforms and are to be laughed at but this doesn’t get attributed to mountain / coastguard / RNLI team members.

They all willingly donate huge amounts of time for free and there would be many people much worse off without them.

Even in the lowlands people have accidents a long way from roads and easily accessed places. Thousands of people go missing each year and lowland rescue are used to search woodlands, moors, riverbanks, fields and anywhere else where additional manpower and resources are required over and above what the paid emergency services can provide.

Bit difficult as the energy bill is in her name. My point wasn’t really about us but the thousands of other people who do the same thing. – don’t take/submit meter readings, sign up for cheap energy deal based on value of DD then get in a mess when the catch-up bills come in.

Smart meters would be great for my partner who absolutely refuses to read meters, signs up for tariffs at £10 month then wonders why suppliers increase monthly bills significantly to pay off the debt she’s built up and gives a load of totally unnecessary grief to whichever poor victim she gets in the call centre. Would save a lot of stress and aggro all round if we had a smart meter that enabled the energy supplier to set the DD at the correct value.

Pharma companies are also spending an absolute bucket ton of cash on developing treatments and vaccines for Covid. There has to be a return on that investment risk otherwise it won’t be made. Also don’t forget that their supply chain costs are increasing just as much as everybody else’s which is going to drive up their prices as well.

In my old work some kids turned up in joggie bottoms and tops and tried to argue that as the trousers and top matched they were in a suit and therefore complying with the company dress code. This didn’t go well for them although the dress code was changed to make it explicit that sportswear was not acceptable.

If you log onto your online tax account there will be an explanation of what they’ve done. If that doesn’t make sense then phone them up and they’ll correct it if necessary.

Report to your council dog warden as well. Generally dog on dog attacks are the responsibility of the council unless it’s an assistance dog and dog on human attacks are the responsibility of the police.

They’re brilliant if you’re constrained by space or weight when backpacking, bike packing or any camping without a car. If you’ve got a car with you then take a proper chair of some sort.

If you’re falling back you probably need to adjust the straps or change the position of your legs.

Where did my career in life science go wrong? Never seen these roles with a £38K starting salary. Always found life sciences had a massive oversupply of graduates and hence low salarys. Plenty of adverts around here for life science graduates at sub £25K.

If you’re not able to repair it yourself then contact FeetFirst in Chesterfield

https://www.resoles.co.uk/

It’s 20 years since I was a student there but the cathedral will be as impressive as it has been for several hundred years, climb the cathedral tower for the views, walk along the river for as long as you want and see the iconic views and if you’re willing to walk a little way head out to the Botanic gardens. City is small so easy to walk everywhere.

Pub and restaurant knowledge is likely too out of date to be useful although the Court Inn and Wennels cafe were still the same a couple of years ago.

Have a look for the Tefal Travel mug. Stays hot for ages. The Grande is 500ml and £20, fits in a bottle cage, doesn’t leak as long as you’ve closed the button!! Mines used pretty much every day for the last 4-5 years and still going strong.

My partner manages to destroy chilly bottles within a year and that’s for office use – no idea what she does to them.

Speaking as an ex supermarket home delivery van driver in a city centre -think of all the places you go to use facilities when there’s no council facilities and how many are not available if you’re in a supermarket uniform – can’t go in Wetherspoons or any other pub, can’t go in any other supermarket so your options are McD’s, Burger King or KFC where parking a large van is likely difficult / impossible or using a cafe and buying something in the cafe you don’t need.