Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

vivatifosi

One of my cousin's friends was a Vic volunteer firie. He died in the really bad fires about 4-5 years ago. They are incredibly brave people and the number of people who give up their time, and sometimes lives, to do it is staggering.

They did a bike ride along the Great Ocean Road to help raise money for his family as he left behind a wife and kids. Tragic.

Exceptionally brave people with a huge pioneering spirit.

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

One of my cousin's friends was a Vic volunteer firie. He died in the really bad fires about 4-5 years ago. They are incredibly brave people and the number of people who give up their time, and sometimes lives, to do it is staggering.

They did a bike ride along the Great Ocean Road to help raise money for his family as he left behind a wife and kids. Tragic.

Exceptionally brave people with a huge pioneering spirit.

The RFS is one of the truly great things about Australia. People put out fires of people that don't volunteer or even give anything much at all back to society while their own homes burn. It seems like every time there's a bad fire season there's a story where someone in the RFS/CFS (names differ according to state/territory) has their own house burn down while saving others'.

In more prosaic news, the weather has broken. Il pleut comme la vache qui p155e. It's been sooooo humid today...not that hot but hot enough given the humidity. The cool change is here. Unfortunately I now have two loads of washing that will need to be re-dried.

CKhalvashi

michaels wrote: »

550 miles on 40l is mega - anything over 10 miles per litre (45mpg) is pretty unbelievable in real world driving

I've managed to get 614 miles from 53 litres between my last refill (8912 to 9526mi)

That's from a Jag XE, although admittedly it's been about 90% A10 and A406, at times where there's been no real traffic.....It cruises perfectly happily in 8th most of the time at about 1400rpm.

ivyleaf

Sue What a lovely trip to the concert And I expect you were able to get even more enjoyment out of it because you hadn't ended up struggling and in pain to get there. So glad James is okay.

viva Sounds as if you had a brilliant day, and I loved the story about the burly blokes and the baby

What brave people in the RFS. Is there an Australian equivalent of the RNLI as well?

bugslet

Generali wrote: »

I've just been reading about the bushfires in VIC yesterday. A bunch of RFS firefighters got caught out by a change in wind direction. They took shelter in their fire truck when the wind changed direction, something that is an absolute last resort as it's often fatal. Their lives were saved by a new sprinkler system that is now used in the fire trucks.

It's amazing to think that all of those guys are volunteers. It's quite humbling.

Death by fire has to be one of the worst ways to go. Very brave.

If the wind's in the right direction, the gods of fuel consumption are benevolent and it's going downhill, can achieve 11 mpg from an artic.;)

Generali

ivyleaf wrote: »

Sue What a lovely trip to the concert And I expect you were able to get even more enjoyment out of it because you hadn't ended up struggling and in pain to get there. So glad James is okay.

viva Sounds as if you had a brilliant day, and I loved the story about the burly blokes and the baby

What brave people in the RFS. Is there an Australian equivalent of the RNLI as well?

The closest would be the Surf Life Savers. Beyond that we use the Navy.

There is quite a difference between looking for someone in the English Channel and the Pacific Ocean. I have a huge amount of respect for the RNLI volunteers but it wouldn't be possible or desirable to replicate them in Aus.

SingleSue

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Finnish by any chance?

They certainly were!

SingleSue

ivyleaf wrote: »

Sue What a lovely trip to the concert And I expect you were able to get even more enjoyment out of it because you hadn't ended up struggling and in pain to get there. So glad James is okay.

viva Sounds as if you had a brilliant day, and I loved the story about the burly blokes and the baby

What brave people in the RFS. Is there an Australian equivalent of the RNLI as well?

It certainly did, it made a huge difference to my energy and pain levels for the night itself. It has also provided a solution for Josh and coming home/going back to uni via train due to his confusion/stress/processing problems over the underground. Instead of having to take a weird route with multiple changes in trains, he can go direct to London and then just use Uber to get over to Liverpool Street.

We had thought of the (normal) taxi option before but it worked out far too expensive for him, especially if traffic was not great. He can do it now for less than a tenner (in fact, his next one will cost almost nothing or nothing depending on traffic as he has a voucher from our trip yesterday!)

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

Whereas I trekked through appalling traffic to a dry cleaner who I don't normally use who first said a coat didn't qualify for 4 items for 10.99 then said that no I couldn't just take out the coat and do 3 items for 10.99 (the 3 items were 17.xx?) and finally said that despite the small shops app naming them as participating they didn't take Amex and never had

I would most certainly have removed an item of clothing to make up the four needed.

CKhalvashi

SingleSue wrote: »

It certainly did, it made a huge difference to my energy and pain levels for the night itself. It has also provided a solution for Josh and coming home/going back to uni via train due to his confusion/stress/processing problems over the underground. Instead of having to take a weird route with multiple changes in trains, he can go direct to London and then just use Uber to get over to Liverpool Street.

We had thought of the (normal) taxi option before but it worked out far too expensive for him, especially if traffic was not great. He can do it now for less than a tenner (in fact, his next one will cost almost nothing or nothing depending on traffic as he has a voucher from our trip yesterday!)

Warn him to watch the Surge.

That £10 trip can cost £30 if they decide to rip off the public, or £10 if they decide to rip off the drivers. Most companies would charge £20 flat rate.

Not using any 2 destinations, but just warning you