Pedroski

I think there's a worrying trend with all this Teufelberger "CE approved" stuff - they're based on combinations of readily available components, but given CE approval and sold as pricey kits. What happens when insurance companies or HSE turn round and say that you're only in proper compliance if using a CE approved kit?

Oops, another one..... Buy clothing from the likes of MandMDirect.com - The UK?s leading online discount clothing retailer You can get things like base layers, fleeces, waterproofs etc far cheaper than anywhere else.

Get a food flask. When cooking at home (soup, casseroles, chilli etc) do a bit extra, microwave it in the morning and shove it in a food flask. It's amazing how a bit of proper food gets rid of the urge to waste money on crap. Also, kelly kettle for brew up. Money up front, sure, but fresh brews are much much better than flasked ones, and the fuel is free to saves on gas/electric at home.

For the MS260 you can easily order new piston and cylinder via ebay - only £50ish. We've done this before and received top quality parts. Replacing them is a doddle with minimal tools. Fit the piston in the cylinder first (smear of oil in the bore to help) and then fit the pair together onto the conrod - it's less fiddly as it's easier to fit the piston with piston ring into the cylinder with the whole lot upside-down. Less than an hour.

Can't believe they only knocked a tenner off for that. If I was the bloke at B&Q I would have offered you a tin of paint so you could make the decor match the tree. What the hell were they thinking of?

Yeah, you don't want a flat cut. Definitely looks like it could be a good plan.

Get paid in cash and keep it under your mattress.

Nice one. Looks almost as good as my tree does now

Well, it's that time of the month I'm afraid. She also left £20 cashback in Tescos on Tuesday! And a pair of shoes she bought for one of our daughters 2 weeks ago from Brantano have fallen apart with the sole falling off at the front - just 2 weeks of walking to school - and she's just binned them instead of returning them. Silly mare!

Of course he had an option. It's not like I was gonna go down there and start a fight or anything! But the tree was rubbish - you'd have to have seen it to believe it. He obviously knew that for the shop it wasn't worth making a fuss over, but from the point of view of the customer it meant quite a lot. He's happy - the shop have sold thousands and thousands of trees and lights and stuff. I'm happy as they saw us right. No worries.

Fantastic.... I want the books And the others!

Give it to me so I can hang myself for upsetting everyone over a friggin' Christmas tree

Yes, I know that. But like I said, my Mrs is no expert and it's she who bought it. And when I got back I just ripped it open. With it wrapped there is no way of knowing that the row of branches at the base made up virtually the whole tree. Anyway, like I said...... all is good with all concerned now.

Not in this case they won't. The shop still got good money for the tree and they didn't have to take it back as a returned item.

Oh dear fellas....... perhaps I should explain...... I didn't steal £10, I didn't extort £10, I didn't blackmail them out of £10, I didn't wreck a tree. The trees were netted. My Mrs went down to get a £20 tree. The ones they had were knackered, despite me being told on the phone earlier that they had a dozen nice £20 trees left. They sold my Mrs (who is no expert) a netted tree for £35, they didn't offer to unwrap it so she could see it, she didn't ask them to unwrap it as she just trusted the shop to sell her a decent tree for £35. When unwrapped at home it was clearly not a decent tree, not even half decent. Like I said....it was cut with branches right at the bottom of the trunk....so close in fact that the bottom branches were nipped by the saw. It was clear that once they were off there would be no tree left. So then I had a choice.... either sit here accepting that I've got a POS tree for £35 and the shop have got our £35 for a POS tree, or I could faff about wrapping the tree up again, putting it in my car and wasting a fiver in fuel to drive all the way back down to the shop and arguing the toss about a refund there, or phoning them up and trying to come to an outcome acceptable to all. Phoning them seemed to be the best idea. And it would have been all so easy if the fella on t'other end hadn't tried to tell me that some people like the trees like that and that they don't accept returns on living trees (I had to remind him that it was kind of chopped off at its base so hardly a living tree now). In the end though, we came to something mutually acceptable - they got £25 for a tree that probably cost them £7 or £8 with their buying power and they would have ended up chucking, we paid £25 for a tree that is about what a £25 tree should have been (comparing with the other trees they had), we have a better Christmas because we're not looking at a POS tree that cost £35, I've made a stand against the whole rip off thing that's going on with Christmas, B&Q get to keep a customer who spends a small fortune in there, and we all ended up on good terms. Nowt wrong with that is there?

Definitely interested in the number Dent. We got sorted in the end today, but I'd like the number for next time and also my bro' in Ditchling wants a tree. Mrs went to B&Q hoping to get a 4 footer for £20, but all the small ones left were manky little 2 to 3 footers. So she bought a 5 footer for £35. When I got home to unwrap it, I though WTF! It had been cut in such a way that the branches were right at the very bottom of the trunk. The only way to put it in a stand was to saw off 4 of the bottom branches which then left it really pathetic, just like a 4 footer would have been. So I rang up B&Q and asked for bloke in charge. Had a right ding dong telling them I was disgusted at the price of the tree for what it was. The fella tried telling me that some customers like them like that so that just started me off even more. I then asked him if he was in charge, to which he replied that he was. So I then asked him if he was allowed to make decisions, to which he replied that he was. So I then asked him if he would rather refund me £10 or if he would rather I took the tree back and made a fuss in the shop. To which he made the decision to refund me £10. At least we can now look at the tree without thinking that it had cost us £35. £10 refund was done this afternoon.

The climber mentioned this in one of his posts as well. The groundie had been telling him to take down bigger and bigger chunks, and the climber admits that he shouldn't have just gone and done so. The climber is the one who is up there with the chunks and knows how proper big they are and where they are tied. Could have been much worse - very lucky people.

There's a company down here that started doing that. Gill's Home and Garden in Hove. £20 small tree, £30 big tree. Small delivery charge. You get to foster it over the Christmas period, and then it gets put back out to enjoy the rest of the year. I'll try calling later to see if any left. Also, thinking if Homebase got some cheap, then maybe B&Q have too so will give them a call in a mo. Otherwise.....I'll be dropping £35 on a 4ft cut one

Dunno, I'll give it a go. But look at the link I posted and go to page 14.... seems a non-issue.

Big tree job booked in darn sarf beginning of the week..... looks like Tuesday might be crap up in the air!

And those plastic trees..... beautiful

Cheers all - so it's not just me being a grumbly old cheapskate! I could kick myself really - Mrs bought one of the living potted £15 trees fro Asda last year, and for some reason I gave in when she said she was taking it to the recycling point in the new year! I was working for a customer last week who had a living potted tree she bought several years ago. It lives in a big tub in the garden most of the year and she brings it in for a couple of weeks at Christmas. It's doing great it is. We should have done the same with ours.

Mrs wanted to get a living tree in a pot from Asda...about 4ft tall. They're £15. Today though, all sold out and they're not getting any more in. Went to Wyevale Garden Centre...... potted trees, crap ones, no more than 4ft tall.... £35! And all the cut trees starting at £39.99 for a 4 footer. WTF is going on? There were masses of people in there spending even more for 6 and 7 footers. Flippin' made of money. Anyway, is there anywhere in Sussex, pref within a few miles of Lewes, where I can get a living tree for not too much dosh?

Steve, Icicle Hitch is one of my favourites - I use it for sending drink bottles up to the climber, not dropped a single one yet. Works well on wine bottles too.

Surely it's got to work with a long enough loop in a bowline for rope end, and a constriction band to keep it tidy. Look at page 14 of the Hitchlimbers Guide and you'll see what I mean. It even shows a long loop on the standing line in the. Just specifies that you need a "low profile termination" which is exactly what a long loop with constriction band is. See http://www.treemagineers.com/downloads/hitch_climbers_guide.pdf