Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

SingleSue

My old commute was about 25 minutes there (one night it was 2 hours due to an accident) and 7 minutes back......traffic was always bad on the way there but everyone would be snuggled up in bed on the way home.

misskool

ooo...my old commute was 1h30mins each way.

It's now a 20-25 minute drive.

michaels

Does that mean you have a working car at the moment

When I am based in the office the commute is 5-10 mins drive and I come home for lunch But that only makes it worse when (normally 95% of the time) I am onsite when the shortest commute I have ever had was 40 mins and often up to 1hr 45 mins (docklands and LHR I love you not). Currently it is about 70 mins, recently it iwas made easier but not quicker by the reopening of Blackfriars tube.

The good thing is that i only pay commuting costs over and above what it costs me to get to the office (ie none) bt the downside is I defiinitely don't make the sort of salary that yo would expect with the type of lifestyle.

misskool wrote: »

ooo...my old commute was 1h30mins each way.

It's now a 20-25 minute drive.

zagubov

misskool wrote: »

ooo...my old commute was 1h30mins each way.

It's now a 20-25 minute drive.

Very similar to me then and my last change. Instead of commuting into London, commuting out to the country. Listen to talking books, ipod through my stereo, much nicer journey than my old commute.

Used to spend all my time waiting for traffic lights to change. Now there aren't any.

Mind you I'm the kind of driver who would take a long detour to avoid a short traffic jam, just so as I can keep moving, so I'm probably not best-placed to give advice on travelling.

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've been intrested/intrigued by these for about 35 years - never actually seen one though. There used to always be a Zetek advertised in the Sunday papers decades ago.

I used to be interested in a rumour that I heard that in France you could ride an electric bike from age 14 or something - and over there you had a normal bike and a simple mechanism that attached to it and you could get it to be electric, or normal, simply by making the motor mechanism roller touch the wheel or not.... seemed a lot easier, to me, than having a whole dedicated bike.

PN, just found this wikipedia article which may be more up-to-date than my dodgy memory. Looks like they were petrol bikes and now need loads of red tape, especially in this country, where they're regarded as mopeds I think. And this one about electric bikes suggests there's less red tape for electric ones.

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

Mind you I'm the kind of driver who would take a long detour to avoid a short traffic jam, just so as I can keep moving, so I'm probably not best-placed to give advice on travelling.

So it's not just me that does that, then?

PasturesNew

chewmylegoff wrote: »

My commute is 50 minutes each way. Get a seat though, and it's a good opportunity to read. Don't think I would ever read if I didn't commute by train.

I couldn't read. I get travel sick within one minute. I read somewhere it's to do with being long-sighted.

I was on a bus about 4 years ago, I was on my way to meet people in a pub and I received a text saying "We're in the pub", I replied "I'm on the bus, be there soon" - and nearly passed out. The time it'd taken me to type that, while looking down, meant I was lightheaded and sick at the same time. Awful it was, I didn't know if I was going to pass out or be sick .... and had to decide whether to stay on the bus or get off immediately.

PasturesNew

LydiaJ wrote: »

So it's not just me that does that, then?

No. Me too, even if the end journey is a bit longer, I have to keep moving. If you're moving you're in control, if you're sitting in traffic you have no control.

silvercar

The Hoover, which is an electrolux upright, has packed in.

Any ideas on replacement? I'm tempted to buy a Henry.

michaels

We have a henry, sucks well but doesn't have a brush head that cleans in to carpets and I think it lets quite a lot of fine dust/odour through the filters. But generally not bad, quite heavy to lift upstairs.

Normally they are cheapest to buy at Homebase when they have a 20% off weekend.

silvercar wrote: »

The Hoover, which is an electrolux upright, has packed in.

Any ideas on replacement? I'm tempted to buy a Henry.

John_Pierpoint

PasturesNew wrote: »

The trouble we had was getting the old to realise that even though these things are for old people, at nearly 90, that's exactly what they are

MIL in effect killed herself by refusing to use a Zimmer frame.
Fell over by trying to steady herself against a door, which was not in fact latched shut.
Broke hip.
Contacted bug in rehabilitary nursing/care home, which her immune system could no longer fight off.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

May depend on the council?

Protected tree in my parents old house back garden was not tagged. My dad used to prune it at 2am for some strange reason;).

I've added the wink for you.

I have know a vindictive council to put a Tree Preservation Order on every stick in someone's garden in an attempt to deny then the possibility of developing the corner plot. Not sure why the plans, for one extra house, were so controversial - the worst thing was that they thought I was the stirrer that had put the council up to it; when my name appeared in the list of people who had commented on the application. [I had actually written a letter saying there are two TPO's in the road (for venerable oaks) and now the Council is proposing to put a dozen into a 1.5 acre plot, and it was an abuse of power.]

zagubov wrote: »

I think the were technically legal here but seeing as how Glasgow was all slopes and hills and had 90% of the UKs rainfall, we hardly saw any bikes anyway.

At one stage I used to "commute" through the Gorbals area of Glasgow (There is Glasgow Green on the other bank of the Clyde )
I had this sensation that I owned the only bike in Glasgow but that was in the 1960's.:eek:

http://www.glasgowgreencycleclub.co.uk/location/default.aspx?

Times they are a changing - ever since the London tube bombings there has been a boom in cycles her in London - City Boys can afford to spend a fortune - Ceramic bearings anyone - seems to turn the wheel into a perpetual motion machine.

Lydia here is a link to a "mine is bigger than yours" thread about solar PV panels. Actually it is looking like yours is bigger than mine because mine faces SE at a 30 degree slope and is only a 3.6 kWp installation.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/51178451#Comment_51178451

This link also discussed chopping down trees to let the sun shine in.

My advice is to leave a pole and grow a creeper up it. If you want to kill it drill a few holes and fill them with a proprietary stump killer or copper sulphate crystals.