Nute

At least you have proper seasons, we just get 11 months of grey with the drizzle being slightly colder Oct to April.

Too close to my mother in law!! ...oh, and Trump...

Been doing some tree work with the help of my youngest lad. The HSE would have had a fit but no one injured or dead and nothing broken. I'll call that a win but need to go clear up tomorrow. Im getting to old for this physical crap, everything aches.

It’s long been an ambition of mine to go to the speed weekend at Arsunda lake in Sweden. There is another one at Orsa, or there used to be. It’s a frozen lake and you can race what you want including this mental snowmobile built around an Argus type pulse jet. There used to be a channel on YT for the team that built this and I think they eventually got to 300kph on the thing but I can’t find it now. In early development ( I.e. beers around a bbq running the thing up) they had a noise complaint from 7km away. I have a small collection of these ( much smaller) pulse jets, they are unbelievably noisy. I can’t run mine here, the whole village would complain. Edit to add, should have read the thread more carefully, didn’t see @Pedro had posted the same link

Out of interest how big are the panels?

Guildford isn’t far from me but I never knew they existed …

Good luck with it. Don’t forget to add “world famous bike, as seen on bike of the month” to your ad …

@YamaHead that looks wonderful, you are lucky to have that on your doorstep ( well almost). We don’t have that opportunity, except maybe if you live in Scotland but even there the snow is hit and miss. We can drive to the Alps but it’s a day of traveling and time wise you might as well fly. The snow is always good here, it’s like skiing on talcum powder and they have it 6-7 months of the year, although it’s often below -20 and sometime -30 (C) so you need good clothing. There are wooden huts dotted about the place which look like a Teepee with a hole right at the top. They have an open fire in the middle, the smoke goes out the top and there is always firewood stacked around the edge. You can go in and warm up or cook something over the fire. Ive been skiing on and off for 50 years, it’s the only sport I’m good at and I can go as fast as I like here, although I’m getting older and slowing down a bit. I’m crap on wet snow and I don’t like it. Always feel I’m going to twist my knee or otherwise damage something.

@YamaHead yeah is that this place is not busy, as you can see from the photos. There are beginners on some slopes but if you avoid those you can really shift along perfectly safely. It gets dark around 4 and all the locals get off work or out of school around then and they rocket along. It’s also so cold the snow is perfect. I’ve never tried the US but I will one day. You guys a spoilt for choice there, it must be wonderful to be able to drive to winter sports places.

He said he’d end the Ukraine war in the first 24 hrs of his term…. He also said he’d get rid of the US national debt in two terms, I’m not holding my breath on that one. And yes Starmer is a total wanker too, but then so are the other lot, we can’t win. I wish we had the ability to write in a candidate like the US do.

Weather today was absolutely beautiful. I could just stand there for hours looking at the views, much to the annoyance of my kids. Reindeer burger for lunch and some local beer to round the day off. Poxy GoPro didn’t like the cold and just picked up its ball and went home, shutting off after 30 secs even after being stored on my pocket with a hand warmer. Heated bike gloves work pretty well though, just annoying I didn’t think to bring a second set of batteries as they crap out after about 4 hrs on max. Temp was between 0 and -12 and hands nice and warm most of the time, although after taking gloves off to try to get the bloody GoPro to work they took a while to unfreeze once regloved.

I dislike Starmer intensely but he’s Einstein compared to Trump. I’d put money on my dog having a higher IQ than both of them combined. It seems a common theme that the names on the ballot paper are shit choices whichever one you pick. The fact that you want to be elected to a position of power should bar you from ever holding office.

I ain’t going to be at the front of the queue to get in with him running the show. On the basis that he managed to get himself elected it could well be Kaley Cuoco or Taylor Swift next …

My wife is from the US so I’d likely get a green card with out to much trouble, and the property looks great , but I’d be a bit to close to my mother in law. I prefer the Atlantic between us.

I’m in the way north of Finland, town is called Sirkka or Levi, depending on which maps prog you use.

Modern condensing boilers are in part more efficient because the output temp ( to your rads) is lower than with the non condensing type, so you are absolutely right that the rads prob don’t get as hot as with an older boiler. You can alter the output temp yourself, at least you can on mine, but the higher you make it the less efficient the thing will be.

I’m sitting in front of a log fire with my feet up in the log cabin in the right of the picture as I type this. No northern lights outside at the moment though.

This was today’s weather. It’s 68 degrees north, roughly the same as the north of Alaska. For me it’s the most stunningly beautiful place I’ve ever been, and I’ve probably been here 20 times. Also northern lights a while back and the stunning views.

This was last year, caught by the boss. Not been yet this visit.

Well the fifth horseman of the apocalypse has gone home, should be landing in about an hour. Haven’t seen anything on the BBC news about a Virgin Atlantic plane being forced to divert by a passenger overloading all the toilets so looks like all is good. Meanwhile I have escaped to north of the artic circle for some skiing, snow mobiling, possibly ice fishing, and to single handedly eat an entire reindeer within 6 days. I absolutely love this place.

That better not be real, why the fuck am I paying taxes for a one person population explosion. A condition of whoever it is receiving those benefits should be sterilisation.

Get a chinky diesel heater, run it on red diesel. They are about £100 and even come with a remote control. I can fire the thing up an hour before I go out there and it’s lovely and toasty. I’m contemplating getting a used steel rad on Facebook marketplace and running the exhaust through it. Just waiting for rip out a tall thin one locally that I can get cheap.

I’ve not ridden a bike for a month. Just haven’t had time with relative care, not even been to work much. The good news is …. Shes booked on a flight back to the US next week

I grew up in West Sussex, never thought of Horsham as anything other than middle class daily mail reading Tory land.

I had a warning lite pop up on my dash a couple of weeks ago, took it in to the dealer today and they say “it needs a new battery management thingy. We need the car for 3 days to do it. “. It’s 4 years old and out of manufacturer warranty ( I have an after market warranty from honest johns car sales which probably isn’t worth the paper it’s written on). Sigh, ok, when can you do it. We have to order the part from Sweden sir, it’s covered under warranty and we will give you a loaner car for the three days. Can’t remember the last time I was so pleasantly surprised by a car dealership.