Why is it that I have to stop my car on a blind corner for can-toting jay-walking piss-heads who can't be arsed to wait for the pedestrian crossing's green man?
Next time, I might give natural selection a helping hand by removing them from the gene-pool.
There's not much here for the technical-gear addicts, but we did try out a few bits of bargain kit to see how they fared during our week in the LDNP.
Fleece jacket: It's a Quechua Men's Hiking Warm Fleece Jacket SH500 X-Warm from Decathlon. I picked up a petrol blue / carbon grey and a black / carbon grey in the sale early last year. Each has waterproof bits, venting bits, breathable bits, stretchy bits, simple yet effective cuffs, a good pocket arrangement and a good zip-into-collar hood. Bargains at less than £30 a pop, with free Click & Collect at the local Asda thrown in.
Trousers: MOD-issue MTP PCS, I have a selection of sizes (mainly 80-96-112) in either temperate or warm fabrics to suit most conditions. Superb pocket arrangement, lightweight, quick-drying, fairly windproof, and tough as old boots. Prices and availability variable.
Baselayer: Good old Aldi merino long-sleeved tops. Always a bargain. I don't need to spend a fortune on anything more technical.
Headgear: In the fine weather there was no real need for tech-hats, but in order to keep the consultants happy I kept the UV off my sparsely-thatched bonce with super-cheap zandanas from eBay. They take about 20 minutes to wash and air-dry, and keeping a couple of spares in my pocket, along with a few face-coverings for pestilence-defence, is hardly a huge weight-penalty. I now have a fine selection of patterns to suit most occasions.
Footwear: I took the trusty Scarpa SLs but didn't wear them at all, opting for my Trezeta Incas. Had minor issues with them when they were new, the laces were stretching too much, replaced them with proper Scarpa laces and they've been fine ever since. Waterproof, grippy, and comfy. Nice to see that they're still using lasts nearly the same as Scarpa.
Headgear - jacket - trousers - boots - headgear - baselayer - trousers - boots
Pack: I used my trusty LA Alpine Attack 40 so no news there, but Chris was toting her new Forclaz Women’s trekking backpack 50+10L, another nice bit of kit from Decathlon. OK, so 50 litres is over-kill for a day-walk, but I'm not going to argue with her, she knows what she likes and she has to carry it so it's none of my business.
Comms: Not something that I use a lot on the hill, but when my previous handset died I opted for an outdoorsy waterproof replacement. I went for the Ulefone Armor X6 - it's MIL-STD 810G, IP68-rated and covered in all sorts of impact-resistant bits, so dropping it into water or onto rocks isn't too much of a worry. It's still passable as an everyday phone and it is way cheaper than any iThing.
Finally, there's Olga. Not sure if she qualifies as "kit" but she was a lock-down bargain and we wouldn't have enjoyed the holiday as much without her. She's built for comfort and for speed, and she has more in-built tech than I can shake a stick at, but I do wish that I could change the satnav's voice. I also wish that I could turn off the stupid alarm that tells me that the driver's door is open even when I'm sitting in the driver's seat right next to the door that I've left open on purpose.
One unnerving thing about her is that her warranty is longer than mine.
Why "Olga"? Well, here's a clue...
I couldn't bring myself to call it Bolg
We woke to a glorious morning - clear skies with that late-season feel in the air, and the promise of a day of fine weather.
The garden was a busy place - a couple of pairs of braces of pheasant at last count. Of course, by the time I'd grabbed my camera they'd all buggered off.
Anyway, here's one last pic from the window:
Binsey... again
Packing the car is so much easier now that we use Really Useful Boxes for the majority of our stuff.
Talking of cars, here's the latest addition to our family:
Olga sitting pretty on the driveway at Owl's Roost
Soon we'd finished packing away our gear and were on our way, but I couldn't resist stopping for just one more pic:
Blue skies over Skiddaw and Dodd
And that was that. The end of a fine and much-overdue week away.
We're already planning another 🙂
The first time we met we were stuck in traffic on the Aylestone Road. The pedestrilist*, unable to overtake or undertake the pulled-over bus obstructing the cycle-lane, and unable to nip onto the pavement due to there being safety-railings, was leaning on my car's roof-rail, apparently incapable of unclipping his Tour de Leicester cycling clogs from his pedals in order to use his own feet to keep himself upright. I wound down the window and asked him to desist but he didn't. Luckily, the traffic started to move on so there was no further set-to.
About a mile or so further on the traffic had stopped again. I looked in the door-mirror and again there was a Lycra-clad someone leaning on, or about to lean on, my roof-rail. I was fairly sure that it was the same miscreant.
The car in front of mine had pulled forward a bit and had left a car's-length of space in front of mine, so I duly moved into the gap. Sir Isaac Newton and stupidity did the rest. In the rear-view mirror I saw a perfect arc of toppling torso, through the open windows I heard a crumpling noise.
From the sounds being emitted from the patch of sun-kissed tarmac behind my car, I surmised the following:
YouTube has a similar version:
*Pedestrilist: A cyclist who believes that it's OK to chop and change between using the road or the pavement according to whatever obstructions are encountered, such as prams, red lights and buses. No prior indication, life-saver look behind or consideration for others is required in order to execute such random, unpredictable and dangerous manoeuvres.
I should point out now that I have great respect for law-abiding cyclists. I just don't like selfish twats.
I've been asked to sort out motor insurance for a relative who's not computer-savvy.
For yonks this relative has been brand-loyal to one insurance company, I won't tell you which one but I can tell you that it's well-known, palindromic and based in East Angular. The renewal letter says that the premium for the next year is a shade over £430 for a car that's valued at only £250, and that a £20 discount can be had for renewal online. That means we're working on beating a figure of about £410. See, I knew that my A-Level in Pure & Applied Maths would come in handy one day.
Anyway, back on the 'puter we plugged my relative's details into a well-known insurance-comparison site, and sat back to wait for the flood of results.
Premiums ranged from a paltry £274.77 to a whopping £1946.17!!!
Figuring that my relative would prefer to be insured through a reputable "heard of" company, and wouldn't want an online-only service, we looked at the cheapest quote supplied by a well-known company. The best suitable deal turned out to be with a popular breakdown recovery organisation. Their verified like-for-like premium would be a shade over £330. Not bad - a saving of over 80 quid.
Because we'd saved the quote on their website, they sent an email confirming the terms. In that email they kindly provided the name of the company with which they arrange the cover... yep, you've guessed it, it's the current insurer.
Now I'm no business guru but I'll wager that the popular breakdown recovery organisation isn't acting as a go-between for free, so let's assume that they're on something like 10% commission, say £30 for the sake of easy maths. That makes the premium differential a tidy £110, well over 25% of the current renewal.
Or, to put it another way, the current insurer is hiking the premium by about 33% when dealing direct.
Which begs the question... why didn't the current insurer offer such a good deal as the popular breakdown recovery organisation, for what is, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same service? That failure to do so may well cost the company some business - I suspect that when I tell my relative about how the current insurer's premiums vary so much depending on the supplier, brand-loyalty may well go out of the window.
No Meerkats were harmed in the production of this post.
Seven straight passes.
No, it's not what England need to start stringing together to win the Six Nations next year.
It's what Rab achieved today at the MOT test station.
I didn't expect a pass, I thought he'd be failed on the brake pads (he's still on the originals) but he only got an advisory for the rears.
Preventative maintenance... shelled out £275.94 for the supply and fitting of a new cambelt kit. Ouch!
But then again I did get 54k miles and 9 years out of the one that he had when new.
I can't really complain - so far he's been a great car and he owes me nothing.
And he still goes like 5h!t-off-a-stick when the need arises 😈
