Ty Korrigan

Mrs Lee wears the same. Not a great image or position but she tries! Stuart

Well I plumped for the Notch at €100 Not tried it in anger yet but with no sharp teeth it seems to release far easier than the CT. Fresh rope too! Stuart

Could you do me a favour and run your fingers over the teeth at the back and tell me if they feel very sharp. Mine must just be faulty. Stuart

I've a CT bought new. Just how sharp should the teeth be? The front ones are fairly smooth whilst the rear deep inside are really very sharp. Now I have a problem in getting the CT to open. I've been trapped several times, one painfully with cramp, totally unable to free the rope. I've had to remove it instead. I had also plucked my rope in a few places. I'll not attack it with a file or paper for fear of making burrs. So tonight I'm looking to find the smoothest and easiest ascender to use and open. Stuart

I've read that my first choice is no longer available in France. Suzuki Jimny being phased out due to emissions and France's 'eco tax' Stuart

There is a new version, the 'Rifter' It is around 25k I'd love one but I'd need to grow more cannabis and sell more meth to afford one at French tax rates... peugeot.fr/gamme/nos-vehicules/rifter.html?msclkid=1d9fb64201391d158e60e874c825d7e0&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ap_fr_rifter-generic_vn_rifter_1pk9_ongoing_sea-sdf_p_ld&utm_term=rifter&utm_content=rifter%20-%20exact&gclid=CIiV9LP3sucCFdg-GwodDlMAkA&gclsrc=ds Stuart

Update, my new subby climber (French lad) tells me that 'reductions' as we know them are no longer taught as part of the French 'certificate de specialisation' for arboriculture. I showed him many images of U.K reductions, my own work and that of others where the tendance is to prune to a downward sloping growth point. In France, this groups philosophy is to leave vertical growth points and never reduce the height. A great influence in this movement appears to a British man, William Moore. Biographie de William Moore WWW.ARBRE.NET Nous effectuons des expertises phytosanitaires et dangerosité sur les arbres d'ornement ou remarquables, et dispensons des formations sur toutes les techniques de gestion durable du...

Jimny is soon to be withdrawn from sale in France due to an emissions tax which will be around half the price of the new car. Stuart

You can still work here as self employed. Difficulty is finding employment when your NPTC are not 'au norm' with the French system. This is a strange contradiction in that you may not be easily employed yet work for yourself and even employ. No official bodies seem interested in 'controling' the trade. Even my insurance company cannot issue a certificate with anything more concrete of detailed than 'pruning' Very few foreign qualifications are recognised in France. This is most obvious in the number of foreigners working in medicine, something I notice on every hospital visit. My wife has 2 diplomas, one from a Swiss international business school. Here, the French board who approves foreign qualifications wrote back to tell her neither where valid to obtain France. So again for her self employment (running an arb business) is the way forward (and mine too!) #sleepingwithaccountants #alifeinthemerde Stuart

I've replied on your other thread. Stuart

Now then... Faulty high pressure fuel pump. Mine would start fine warm but very difficult cold and never when hot. We quickly figured out turning over the engine to be a fruitless excercise so just left it to cool. @Pete B who diagnosed the fault remotely. Lack of pressure in pump. A simple pressure test can confirm this. Doesn't require a loss of many psi for the starting to be effected. Sadly GM could neither send me tbe part under warranty or sell me the part. I had to go through the official Briggs dealer network. None of those in the North West of France had recieved training/approval to work on the engine. Meanwhile we soldiered on, sometimes waiting 20min with the bonnet open and blower running for it to cool sufficiently before an ambient starting temperature was reached. Eventually Briggs put me in touch with a dealer 90kms away in Normandy who had recieved Briggs approval. I won't go too deeply into the farce which followed. It was as I had previously predicted in an frustrated email to GM in which I exprimed my reluctance to leave my chipper with a dealer having what seemed at the start to be an intermittant fault. I would have a fight on my hands to get it repaired. In the end I was 4 weeks without a chipper for a part I could have bought for £150 from Briggs bits and fit myself. GM's hands tied, the engines are covered by a separate warranty but Briggs France dealers have been glacial in reacting to these new engines so aftersales is thin on the ground. Couple this with Briggs France convoluted supply change and the French national character trait 'arrogance', a mornings work turned into 4 expensive and inconvenient chipperless weeks and 5 x 180km round trips. Sorry but fuck dealers (apart from GA Groundcare) and fuck your fucking hollow no quibble warranties. People did what they could, PeteB, Jason in service and support and Spencer in parts offering to repair it at GM if I brought it back to the UK (a tempting but very expensive option) and surprisingly helpfull was one of the 2 guys who run the Briggs Paris office who I suspect not to be of French origin which is why he wasn't an unreactive twunt. The other guy is written in my little black book of 'indifferent bastards I have known' I'd have more chance trying to obtain parts for a home build V2 rocket and probably obtain them quicker too. Anyway... Good luck with it. Stuart

Netflix 'Ottoman'

I rarely walk away because I want to buy a new truck at some point and the $$$ must come from somewhere. No all of us are smart enough to be able to grow enough weed to buy trucks with...lol! Stuart

Oh, Lion's tailing was another acceptable method for these Arb extremists. A result of over thinning and crown lifting. We are guilty of that too having been forced into it on council jobs here. Stuart

I've just spent 2 days cutting 20 odd oaks back to a boundary line, hairy great pollards, 'shreds' I've heard them referred too in the U.K. Previously fecked over by others so I had little room for improving their fortunes. Strange thing is, they are actually an alignment which is protected... only from felling, not what has passed for pruning. No competance or permissions required. In France, the limit of a property is often the place where trees lose their good looks. When one neighbour writes a stern letter to the owner. Regardless of age, character, amenity value, trees get sided up to conform with the law. Stuart