nepia

Looks great Mark. Love it. What are we looking at? 😂

Winter Banana may be another contender. I'm not an expert but just have knowledge of one of those

Not here! The forecast has Monday night into Tuesday morning as the only time in the next week when the temperature's expected to drop into single figures (8-9C)!

Looked into solar at the last house for hot water but was told it was technically very difficult with a sealed system. We have one here too so maybe one day. That day may come sooner than I thought actually. The estimates for the small extensions we wanted and applied for were so ridiculous we've withdrawn the application; even the prices for a Sussex barn are silly so perhaps solar could happen...

Like many I constantly face the turning up the heating vs putting on a fleece battle. Hundreds of millions for the govt to hand out thermal vests? Not that much surely; I've already got mine! Unless I've misunderstood there are many homes simply not suitable for heat pumps - ours for example. It's a 100-year old timber framed house so our underfloors need ventilation, not insulation - that alone is a fail n the heat pump front. Then I'd have to double the size of our rads; where the heck would I find the space? It's a 2-bed house! But I don't feel too bad; the walls are well insulated, we have decent x2 glazing, a blue flame oil-fired boiler outside the house and the thermostat sits at 17.5C. There's a logburner in the lounge that's a dinosaur of a horrible Charnley - nominal 8kW, capable of 11kW 🤪 but it sure warms that room. And it's fuelled by softwood arb arisings that from next year will have 0 carbon miles as I'll start scrapping all the horrible macrocarpa on the place. And all the countless thousands of flats - how on Earth do you heat them with heat pumps! Boris, you're making the usual amount of sense - at least you're consistent

Similarly I was actually paid to use two tanks of fuel in a 'day' cleaning up larger branches ready for the chipper that had come off a big Turkey Oak in Bromley. The grapple saw took its time and had the tree down to a 25' stump in 2.5 hours. Timber lorry then arrived, loaded the big stuff and we left site at 2pm after a 10am start (M25 closure had delayed the grapple saw). Almost felt like cheating but not quite. My back was heard to say 'I love that machine'

Absolutely. The fruit I've retrieved have gone in the household waste bin (for incineration)

If they're anything like the very similar 5-year old Husky Brushcutter trousers I'm wearing now they're barely light proof yet alone thorn proof so I'd say an emphatic no. The most padded part, the shin, is about half the thickness of the lightest chainsaw trouser I've ever worn; it would take the sting out of a strimmer line but Blackthorn would go straight through it - and that's just the shin remember. I actually wear these as summer non-chainsaw trousers for their light weight and coolness

When I was growing veg properly on an allotment some years ago it was always the understood wisdom to either net carrots or grow them with alternate rows of onions.

Had it in both apples' fruits, both pears' and the gage; all fruit rotted on the tree. You need to pick it when it first appears mouldy and deeply bury it or remove it from site apparently.

For hiking just get out walking to condition the legs. I've done it recently myself and there is no substitute for getting miles under your belt. I guess climbing could be the same but there are countless members on here who will have better to say on that one

Stunning; great tree

Had a Replacement Order from Epsom a few years ago that provided a selection of five species to choose from for the replacement, none of which were that of the outgoing tree! I don't think you can grumble at that

No

You've been trying to kill them from the outset! Olives want heat and sun, sun, sun in well drained ground. The conditions you describe would suit willow better

Why are you persisting with the idea of growing a round peg in a square hole? Give it up and grow something that will take the chalk - like yew!

Yes guv'nor!

Foreign cherished plate? Many moons ago I used to see RR2 floating round central London - on a Granny!

the “seriously overcrowded” train finally coming to a halt in Reading more than two hours after arriving in London Paddington. Eh?

Yew 🤭 Thrives on chalk - look on the Downs

Just bought it and am struggling a bit; he does like the sound of his own pen