Shane

That looks so good - very well done. Vicious beastie!

Doesn't the arb assn book include all sorts of vehicle check sheets? You also get arb specific templates for risk assessment, COSHH, etc. Brilliant value and If, heaven forbid, you ever end up in court you can at least say that you were following industry standards as prescribed by the Arb Association. Just download the templates, put your logo on it, tweek as needed - off you go!

Pat, you need to move with the times - as a rule you should get yourself a metre.

Its probably not fair to compare your friend's price with ebay. A lot of the things you see on ebay can be lower quality (though they are never advertised as such). Go and talk to local specialists, there have been a few threads on here about who and where.

Sad news, bleedin helicopters RIP Colin McCrae and Stevie Ray Vaughan - no doubt a few others too.

Looks pretty good, but you've left out Lay-by (As either a home for tree operatives or a disposal venue)

No wonder our rates are so bleedin high. I'm going to offer this service to my local council.

Hydrollox! I used to carry a spare set of main pipes/hose and 2 ltrs of LHM fluid. Had to repair it three times over the years (once on the autoroute near Paris) I call that a lot of faffing about. Rest of the car was brilliant, no engine probs and, you are right, never any rust!

Pah, Ironman. I bet you guys all do front crawl on the 4k swim, Paper-tissue man more like. When I were a lad (in the eighties) we did butterfly for the whole swim. Kids today, I dunno:lol:

We had one of them at school, we used it to sharpen our pencils. Seriously, it looks like a very old model, spare parts might be a problem. Stick with the popular makes, they are popular for a reason.

Thanks for all the replies, Treemonkey - thanks for the offer. I have looked around, and these are just my conclusions (and the input from Mrs Tree) based on my own pig-headed bias and some of the info provided by you guys. I looked at a passat but the back seemed a bit small, the BMs didn't like the high side windows, Audi just not for me (remember the ad in the 80s) Volvos - almost all automatic Saab - lots of reliability questions Skoda - very nearly won the day French cars - suddenly remembered what my old BXs were like to maintain British (ish) cars - can't afford Aston Martin estate, once had a rover. Mercs - mostly older, higher mileage - scared off by maintenance costs Various others looked at but in the end I found... a 2009 focus estate with under 100k on it for just over 3 grand (ex police force). It's the diesel one so no great performance but goes OK for us and good economy. I recon I can afford to replace the bits that will need replacing and have a fighting chance of getting a few years out of it. No lights or nee nahs left on it though. That could have been fun. Thanks for all the input - I hadn't ever considered a focus till some on here mentioned it

Mrs Tree has finally got fed up with the subaru faffing about and wants a newer estate car for the gardening side of things. In ths past she has had a citroen BX, Vauxhall Carlton and lately the subaru legacy. Any suggestions for a solid, reliable estate car (she will NOT use my defender so that's out - as are all pick-ups). I was thinking along the lines of peugeot 406, volvo V70, audi ,saab 95, merc or another scooby??. If anyone knows of any pros or cons I'd be grateful. Budget around 2-3k Thanks in advance for ideas

Nice one Tom D. (Arbtalk's very own Stephen Fry). I find that a fresh brew up on the stove in my landy is always nicer than at home. It might also be that the 'earning' of the brew with all that hard work makes it more fulfilling. Either way there nowt like a nice coop a teeee.

Was there no TPO on it? If there was I'd be interested to see what the TO thinks of it.

Congratulations Steve, loads of hard work to make it all happen and always calming words when things get a bit heated. Good man!

Looks the bizz! Nice work.

Why would someone be jeleous? (however it is spelt/spelled)

Forgot one of the boards when stump-grinding. Pushed ahead anyway on the basis that it 'should' be OK. After a couple of minutes the customer came out and asked if it's possible my machine had done 'THAT' pointing at a nicely frosted patio window. As we went to look closer you could hear it (and see it) cracking more and more. That day was a loss leader! Once tied half hitch/timber hitch wrong and watched sycamore log drop in slow motion through a shed roof (even worse it was not in the customer's garden). And more recently - rolling the chipper, kicking it back into shape while reading my signs saying 'professional tree surgery'. Otherwise perfection.

Do it! Everyone talks about doing things, only a small percentage get off their ar5e and do it. That's the only difference. Every time someone says you can't because.... you can reply NO, I can if..... Looks like you are a positive guy anyway - keep sensible but keep positive. Remember, when the economy goes bad the 'employed' are released just as often as the self employed have to cut back. The security of being employed is not as high as you think so theres not as much risk as you think with going self-employed.

Funny you should mention buses. Theres a tree company round our way which owns and uses an open top double decker for carrying out such work. Perfect really... I hope the stairs are loler tested though.

What if someone I know sees me in there????

A cut above the rest.

We'll do a good jaaab, and we can tarmac ya drive for 3 grand. Sorry, that was facetious - I'll try to think up something sensible later.

Success! East European immigrants!

Why can't someone make a narrower, lighter trolley with more capacity that folds up into the truck in 2 seconds and only costs £20 max??? It's not fair. Oh yeah - and a weightless spare wheel. And free delivery would help. I'm off to the shed to see what I can do.