Peasgood

I wasn't suggesting he drove, I hope he didn't. My point was the drink drive limit is there because it isn't safe to drive over the limit. Nor would I consider it safe to operate a saw. It was hardly a lecture and if he tells us he'd "had a few" it was deserved. Answer in those circumstances should have been "sorry I am not available until morning" send the housekeeper home in a taxi.

I wouldn't use a chainsaw if I was drunk. Nor would I employ someone who was. I am of course assuming you didn't do it with a Silky. You said you'd had a few, I take that to mean you were over the limit. Drunk driving is against the law for a good reason.

Used both and prefer the smaller ones myself. I find the bigger ones much more awkward. Both have their place I guess.

Pretty sure you won't hit any barbed wire anyway.

Not spikes and shoulder rides though!

A couple of my ex girlfriends have done it. No idea what the connection there is. I did it last year in a Mk1 Escort. J O'Groats is an awfully long way! I'm going to guess you choose the west coast route. Free camping here if you need it (Chester ish)

Ps. It is a Disney film about the making of Mary Poppins

I saw Saving Mr Banks recently. Well worth it IMO

As you are into trees, take a ride up Ghillies Highway and find the treetop walkway up there. Mamu Rainforest Walk Probably a couple of hundred miles round trip but well worth it IMO. Happy New Year too

Hair.

It sounds to me that you need a mifi dongle. You can put them a bit further away from you to get a signal, or even get the version with external aerial. You can tether your ipad to your phone (use the internet off your phone while using your ipad) but usually your phone people want more money (unless on PAYG). Sounds like the signal for your phone isn't good enough to be tethering inside where you live. Something like this is what you need Broadband Internet Base Station 3G with 12dBi Antenna - 3G and Mifi Routers - 3G Broadband - The Wifi Shop - Wifi that Works!

The parts of the tree usable for firewood will be an awful lot closer to 3 ton than 30 ton, and that's if you take every last bit of it.

If you said you would pay by the hour rather than piecework I expect they would have done it. You wouldn't fell a tree with an axe for the same price as with a chainsaw would you

Blundstone non safety rigger boots soaked in mink oil is my choice. I can get nearly 8 years out of a pair, worn every single day. Getting harder to find them these days.

Probably because they normally clamp the key to be copied into their machine, can't clamp the broken key. Well done.

I wish it were true Shane but I have never seen it. I'm a fruit and veg farmer rather than a tree surgeon. Around our fields my Grandfather planted leylands as windbreaks, he then insisted that we didn't top them. Now our hedges are anything up to 90 feet tall. This means at this time of year we have fields that do not get any sunlight on them at all. We cut them down to what we can reach with a hedge cutter, ie. cut 60 foot or more off them. 99% survive and of those they all make new vertical growth. In fact next door did some of them but cut them just too high for the hedge cutter to reach, they are now taller than when they were topped. Also have some that were cut just a few feet from the floor but a "green branch" was retained. These grew in pretty much the same way you would expect a fresh planted one to grow.

We have reduced leylandii by 60' (yes, sixty foot) many many times and they have survived. They didn't just survive, they flourished.

I can't imagine emigrating somewhere without ever visiting the place first, but I guess that is what happened a great deal in Australia. I have been quite a few times and will be there again soon. I love the place, love the remoteness of so much of it, love the lack of people etc. I honestly do not think I would want to live there all the same. The place is enormous almost beyond comprehension and the climate varies a lot. Imagine the difference between your Cornish climate and the Scottish climate and then see what those distances look like on a map of Australia. Don't know how you feel about the dark evenings here but that is the norm out there, no light nights, that would be one of the things I would miss the most I think. So bright you can't see at times, so hot you can't breathe. It most certainly is a land of great opportunity and you might well get out there and make your fortune. It is a damned expensive place to live though.

I am eternally grateful it was them rather than me. One grandfather was a scientist and the other a farmer, both reserved occupations. The one that was a farmer was in "Dads Army" as it was referred to earlier in the thread. I don't know about heroics but I do believe they played an important role nonetheless. He was awarded a medal for his services and it was presented at Buck palace I believe. I do know he was provided with a free rail pass to get there but had to take his own food. They also provided overnight accommodation, in Wormwood Scrubs! My ex's grandfather was a Navy Captain in the Atlantic convoys, he told me a few tales! As I said, I am glad I wasn't there. No wonder so many refused to talk about it.

Have you ever been there?

This years turkey was the best I have ever had. Cooked to perfection. Was only a frozen one from the supermarket, it just turned out right.

Just turned the oven up from gas mark willow to gas mark Leylandii to brown the turkey off. Have a good one folks.

My local B&Q sell them.

I thought it said cider. I nearly fainted at the horror of it.

Arb people buying plastic trees?