wrsni

OK, you're mid-job which is never a good time for a breakdown but equally bad to panic and make a poor decision. Surely that money would go a long way to repairing the Kohler, it'll still be an engine when your "who flung dung" replacement is on the scrap barge back to it's country of origin. Failing that, genuine Honda.

Aye but are they any warmer than you.

Not cold enough for the serious stuff yet so a bit of mixed kindling and then 2 or 3 Verdo briquettes. Put a couple of bits of ash on about a week ago and had to open windows! When the time comes, ash, beech, alder, hawthorn and this year for the first time some oak.

Out checking some cattle this evening and took a bit of a detour back through the woodland. It's really come on this past couple of months I and just had a wee smug feeling for a few moments thinking yep, I done this!

I bought a new 320 a few years ago. The current (at that time) importer was quitting them and I good a real good deal on it complete with bucket, silage grab, and auger. I then also adapted a Montabert rock hammer which I'd had on a mini digger to suit it and made a 5ft land leveller for it. I suppose the main thing going for it was it's transportability, even a decent car would shift it on the plant trailer, and it's potential manoeuvrability. But around the farm it was just out of it's depth, no lift height, stability was poor, probably a tad too much performance for the weight and wheel base. However it was handy on a few jobs that I took it too where I wouldn't have went to the bother or expense of taking something bigger. I eventually sold it with about 400hrs on it and pretty much broke even on it as I'd bought it so favourably in the first place. Went to an auction about a year ago where there was a tidy 635 but caught myself on when the price went over five figures. Good they may be, but not 10 grand + good unless you have a specific job for them.

Will probably take an hour or two next week and go and see a few samples from local suppliers. In the meantime some useful pointers from the responses. Thanks.

Know there's a few digger men on here so maybe someone can help. Going to buy a riddle bucket for the Kubota, have a lot of rubble built up from various jobs so there's tar in it, asphalt, concrete, stone, mortar, all shapes and sizes. So I want the finer stuff to base a new laneway and the coarser clean stuff for drainage work. Having a look it seems there are many different ways of making riddle buckets, some as simple as cutting the arse out of a digging bucket, some with round bars, some with flat bar on it's edge, some with vertical slots, some horizontal, some with a grid, more permutations than you can shake a stick at. So, anyone have one, anyone used one or seen one in use, or just know anything about them, good or bad? The digger is about three and a half ton so I'll be looking a bucket 2-3 foot. Thanks.

Sort of agree with you, but countered by the fact that ebay are such horrible, devious, lying b***ards themselves that in some respects you don't mind someone putting one over on them either.

I got five trailer loads of (mostly) hardwood from a golf course that the young fella was working at last year. It was free of charge, they were having a tidy up around the machinery shed and needed it gone within a couple of days despite some of it having lay there for 3 or 4 years, so I gave him the money to buy the greens staff an ulster fry for breakfast for a few mornings. They were delighted as the wood was nothing to them anyway, and I got five 10 by 5 trailer loads of wood for 30 quid. One of those rare occasions when everybody's happy!

I was thinking 1.6 2 door. Still would be a lot nicer on road than the Jimny and should average mid 30's with a bit of motorway driving I'd have thought. Same engine as the wifes Liana and she gets high 30's regular, any longer runs and it's well in to the 40's so even allowing for the extra drag of the Vitara I'd have thought mid-30's very realistic. Nice engine too, piles of torque and pulls from nothing.

Not sure about prices over there but here that budget would get you a decent Grand Vitara. Be a lot nicer on the road but just as capable off it and the Suzuki robustness is a feature of all their vehicle. But again, stick with petrol.

It's French, thank your lucky stars!

Percy is now just over 4 months and turning in to a proper little collie.

Do a search on this site, some excellent information regarding purchase, installation, etc, etc, was incredibly useful to me about a year ago when I was looking for one myself. However, many of the people will have repeated themselves so many times that they may not bother responding yet again (quite understandably) to another "which stove" thread and you'll miss something. Search, read, inwardly digest. I did and feel certain that I ultimately bought precisely the right stove for my needs pretty much based on past threads on here.

Bugger it, thought I'd found a kindred spirit. Oh, and I wasn't talking about chainsaws.

I got rid of a 3.2 DiD Shogun a few weeks ago. For something I originally bought with such confidence it turned out to be a huge disappointment. Everyone thinks I've lost my mind replacing a Shogun with a little Ignis but I've no regrets,........................well, other than buying the Shogun in the first place!

Never heard the Land Rover thing before but who knows? What I do know however is that there is certainly no similarity between the two companies as far as reliability is concerned. Maybe they should get Suzuki to build everything else they design as well.

...............is the correct answer. You'd be some fella for jetting a two-stroke! As well as that although our house is now 25yrs old, it's still very air tight so there's no issues with draught when lighting it, getting choked when somebody puts the extractor fan on in the kitchen and forgets to open a window immediately, etc, etc. So it's also very practical. Glad I seen it mentioned elsewhere on here last year or I'd never even have looked in to it.

We fitted an 8kW Burley last year and would certainly recommend it. If at all practical to do I would suggest forgetting the air vent and spend a few extra kit for the room seal kit on the stove. If you're not familiar with the idea basically instead of bringing cold air from outside in to the room, you bring it directly in to the stove so no draughts and much greater efficiency.

Indeed they are, we've three. A 1.3 Ignis which we've owned from new, now has over 100,000mls and runs as sweet as the day it was new. A Liana hatchback which we bought secondhand for buttons probably because it was a Liana, and we've just bought what you should probably get, an Ignis 4grip 4 wheel drive which is impressing us greatly so far (but then we knew it would which is why we bought it). If looks and image matter look elsewhere, aside from that they go like stink, are incredibly simple, drive really well, but the biggest thing is their reliability and general toughness, it's just at a level that most european car owners simply wouldn't think was possible.

If ever there was anyone with a complete split personality it was Ian Paisley. I grew up on a farm in the heart of Paisley country during the sixties and seventies, met him personally a few times over the years, was never a member of the DUP or the Free P church but that didn't matter when seeking his help. Head off down the Glens or even into some of the "bandit territories" as we referred to them back then (republican strongholds) and you'd find just as many people singing his praises for helping them as anywhere else. If you were getting hacked off by the powers that be it was amazing how much quicker things happened when you said you were going to see the "Big Man". His capacity for work was intense, he was never too busy to sort out a problem for anyone, it was always sorted and sorted properly and promptly. Never a case of "we haven't go round to it yet" or "well it's not that simple". On top of that he was a very godly man in the true sense, bereaved households, families dealing with illness, whatever the reason many people benefitted in many ways from the power of "Big Ian". Against that there was the public Ian Paisley. Firstly, he didn't start the conflict or propogate it in any way and the main trust of his preaching was for protestantism to defend itself against the aggression being shown towards it but there is no doubt that his words did incite some people to go beyond actions of mere defence. It could also be argued that his views were at the more extreme end of the religious spectrum and at times not very "godly". I suppose ultimately he'll be judged like all of us by a power greater than us and that's what really matters.

My boy is packing the car as we speak to get the boat tomorrow, drive down tomorrow evening, and start study at Myerscough on Monday. Looks like he'll have to knuckle down pretty quick!

This is very true, everything is relative. Over here our own localised vehicle licensing agency was shut down in July (with much hullaballoo) and we now deal directly with Swansea, on top of which they've empowered more post offices to do "over the counter" DVLA business when required. So far it's been a revelation, compared to our outfit the full blown UK system is so much simpler and with more changes to come from the start of October is set to get even better. As an example, I've a collection of old/semi-vintage motorcycles all on SORN. I used to have to renew the SORN on each vehicle every year by post, now a vehicle remains a SORN permanently until you notify them otherwise. I also bought a secondhand car to add to the family car pool a few days ago, instead of an hour to travel to and queue at a government office, five minutes to the nearest post office and the job was done. The refund thing really isn't a big deal, you'll probably spend half an hour haggling over a greater amount when you buy the relevant vehicle anyway so if that's one of the consequences of a generally better system, I'll take it. Not often any government department improves anything!

Ditto. Disappointed with the bad press they've been getting recently as I've been with then four years now and not a single problem. Absolute revelation after the shower of **** I was with prior to moving.

When our two were wee, we had a rule whereby on Christmas day they got to open the presents brought by "Santa" but all the presents given to them by other people were kept under the tree and opened on Boxing day. It was a good job because they had more than enough stuff to play with on Christmas day and then on Boxing day they got to do it all over again. They're now 18 and 20 and still wouldn't have Christmas any other way, in fact they'll probably carry it through if/when they have families of their own, to them that's just how Christmas should be. Everyone else however just thinks we are total lunatics!