What made you UNHAPPY today!

[rocket63]

Why so G man?

[theelanman]

9 miles in 2 years...............now that's embarrassing at an MoT station

its not going anywhere....as in me driving it.......

cant get all 4 of us in it.......

so it need s to go Im afraid.......not fair on the car.......needs to be driven

[andydclements]

Good call. The engine probably did more revolutions while warming for and during the MOT test, then driving along the road.

[johnpwalsh]

Lovely looking car. Pity it wasn't Blue as I have someone  looking for a top of the range S2

[chipp]

Gareth, know how you feel after letting mine go a couple of months ago. Having had three M100s you can get to like them a lot.

 

chipp 

[Kimbers]

Wow Gareth. It was that car that I first met you in! Do you mind me asking how much? It looks lovely but I know they don't get huge amounts?

[Dave Eds]

Don't be fooled by the S2 wheels and the seats.....

16 hours ago, johnpwalsh said:

Lovely looking car. Pity it wasn't Blue as I have someone  looking for a top of the range S2

 

[march]

Another nail in the coffin for our small organic farm. I am trying to fill in the Natural England mid tier grant application form, or should I say forms. We get a small grant traditionally to be certified organic and manage our land in an animal friendly manner but the restrictions and bureaucracy is getting beyond me (and I don't think I am stupid). The manual is 137 pages long and the supplement's manual is 315 pages. Looking on farming forums I am not the only one struggling. These grants are a lifeline to our farm.

A good example of how bad these documents are - the explanation for completing one supplement, a paper form, is to click on the form and fill in the highlighted fields - it's paper FFS! just lost for words! 

Another is that hedges can only be trimmed every 2 years (that's OK) but only if they are cut after the start of January (normally you cut after September) - if we cut after January our fields will be just mud. A lot of the restrictions seem to assume the British weather will just play ball. Another - Hay is to be cut after August 1 - YOU CUT HAY WHEN IT IS READY AND THE WEATHER LETS YOU! - If we had tried cutting hay after August 1st this year out fields would be full of mouldering rotting grass.

The poor old traditional farmers really don't stand a chance. It's just becoming a job creation activity for Natural England.

[pete]

Cyclists?

[tim_marra]

On ‎05‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 12:42, march said:

Another is that hedges can only be trimmed every 2 years (that's OK) but only if they are cut after the start of January (normally you cut after September) - if we cut after January our fields will be just mud. A lot of the restrictions seem to assume the British weather will just play ball. Another - Hay is to be cut after August 1 - YOU CUT HAY WHEN IT IS READY AND THE WEATHER LETS YOU! - If we had tried cutting hay after August 1st this year out fields would be full of mouldering rotting grass.

September IS after the start of January, or have I missed something? As for the rest, just agree to everything and then do as you always do to manage your farm, or will you be followed daily by clipboard wielding civil servants with a degree in art (or similar)?

[march]

10 hours ago, tim_marra said:

September IS after the start of January, or have I missed something?

The current restrictions are the start of September to the end of March iirc. It is very rare the fields are fit to run a tractor around hedge trimming between Jan and the end of March, they are just to boggy and the tractor does too much damage - and we live at the top of a hill  - so hedge trimming is realistically limited from September until the wet weather sets in - Late October if we are lucky. This means under this new system we can only cut every 3rd year so the hedges go wild and then are battered to death in the third year - not really ideal.

 

10 hours ago, tim_marra said:

just agree to everything and then do as you always do to manage your farm

The problem with this is that there are financial penalties if caught, and they can be sizeable - all it takes is for some rambler (and our local bunch are pretty militant) or other to notice and complain...

Edited September 10, 2017 by march

[Barrykearley]

Years ago I looked at getting our land registered for payments. We have no entitlements on it as someone missed the boat before us.

I saw the forms - and frankly lobbed them straight in the bin. The only benefit to having a registered farm holding number is you can stuff it up the planners now and again...

[andydclements]

20 hours ago, pete said:

Cyclists?

Care to elaborate? I'm guessing you've had an incident rather than it just being a long-lingering thing.

[pete]

Went for a Sunday morning drive on the country roads and had lycra clad cyclists all across the road refusing to move over

[silverfrost]

Yes they can sometimes take the piss when they double up and think they are on the tour de france,  They seem to think they own the road.

Sadly the goverment has not helped by some introducing the law that states you have to give a cyclist at  1.5 metres of space when overtaking iirc ?  Which is crazy given the widths of the roads in the UK, it near enough puts you on the other pavement ! 

 

[johnpwalsh]

Cyclist seem to have preference. The other day I came across 5 abreast on  B class road busy having  a chat while on the move. Great to be friendly but, why cant they have some consideration for car's. If I were to drive alongside another car going in the same direction there would be hell to pay. Cyclists have every right to be on the road, but like us car owner's, They don't bloody own it.

 

[theelanman]

I live in the Peak District and we're plagued by them.........they all come coz it like being King of the Mountain..........and 99% of them ride for Team Sky it would seem..........

the peleton is usually about 8 wide and doing 3mph up hills and crossing the white lines on the opposite side of the road......and head down and don't look where they're going as they pedal as fast as they can on the way down the other side.......

I have run out of patience with them and find them exceptionally abusive to all motorists.........

they appear to now have right of way everywhere and refuse to obey any of the rule in the highway code......

in particular the part about traffic lights not being applicable to anyone in Lycra.......

[comem47]

Man that is a pain!!! Around these parts the only way you get that kind of width is when they close off the road they are riding on for a big course event. Other times things seem more low key and spread out and mostly single file, except passing. (maybe these are timed release??)

[chipp]

After 50k miles it has finally developed the dreaded HGF.

Ho hum, didn't expect to get away with it for ever.... Of to Gerald again.

 

chipp

[PaulCP]

On 11/09/2017 at 10:49, silverfrost said:

Sadly the goverment has not helped by some introducing the law that states you have to give a cyclist at  1.5 metres of space when overtaking iirc ? 

Exactly, motorists have to give them 1.5m room when overtaking but they can go down the inside of traffic giving inches of clearance pedalling away and then complaining if someone opens a door

Double standards at play again

[Kimbers]

There's a road here fromm Norwich to Wymindham called the B1172. It has a really wide footpath clearly marked up as a Cycle and pedestrian lane. Do they use it? Do they bugger! Instead they block traffic and only cross to the cycle path when theres a junction coming up they can't get across. And egen then they don't use the lights or obey road signs!

[C8RKH]

Reading a news report today on Disabled Parking in Scotland that stated there are 1m registered disabled people in Scotland. Given the population size, that is 1 in every 5.5 people.  FFS, no wonder the spend per capita up here is higher than anywhere else in the UK.

[comem47]

3 hours ago, Kimbers said:

There's a road here fromm Norwich to Wymindham called the B1172. It has a really wide footpath clearly marked up as a Cycle and pedestrian lane. Do they use it? Do they bugger! Instead they block traffic and only cross to the cycle path when theres a junction coming up they can't get across. And egen then they don't use the lights or obey road signs!

We have nice sidewalks (that are plowed in the winter BTW) around my village, but do runners and walkers use them???  My favorite was the time I was driving through the next neighborhood and this woman in her 30's was rollerblading with traffic in my lane bordering on the middle of the road,  listening to her tunes with earbuds. She had no clue !!!!  I was behind her approaching and how I resisted leaning on my horn amazes me to this day. Runners seem to run with traffic and wear white in a blizzard and black at night !!!  I pity the poor driver that can't see them and has the misfortune to run into them.  Runners argue the sidewalk surface (concrete) is too hard vs the asphalt in the road. The only people using the sidewalks it seems are people walking their dogs that don't pick up the poop   Grrrrrr  

[Inkyfingers]

Part of the issue is that cycle lanes are so poorly designed and usually full of dim pedestrians and covered in junk/glass/dog poo, so even when they are there, most cyclists (myself included) are much better off cycling on the road. In the Netherlands you can quite happily ride between most towns and make quite good progress on cycle paths which are well designed and usually clear of obstructions.

Without wanting to appear too high and mighty, cyclists have just as much right to be on the road as a car. It's a shame that so many cyclists (particularly some local clubs) abuse this privilege and give us all a bad name.

Anyway, my own rant for today.... RIDICULOUSLY HIGH/STEEP SPEED BUMPS

Went to pick up my daughter from pre-school, and thought she'd like to be picked up in the Evora. However, I forgot the the narrow lane to the pre-school, which nobody speeds down anyway, has ridiculously oversized speed bumps, which are totally unnecessary.

[Bibs]

This bike lane is round the corner from where I used to live.