What's made you smile today?

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What's made you smile today?

Aye, loads of stuff on the market, I have padded shorts, but bottom line, no pun intended, no matter what you wear, things get numb. That sort of cream is no good for me as my problem is numbness of the buttock area, no chaffing. Ibuprofen gel does help a bit. Bike shops will tell you that finding the ideal cycle seat is the way to go, but you end up spending a small fortune. The seat I have is an expensive quality product. At the end of the day, on long runs, standing up out of the saddle is the only answer.

Okay, numb butt, not saddle ass. The bike shop is right, to a point. Changing the saddle position in small, less than 1/8” can make a huge difference, too, and it’s cheaper. You may be sitting a bit too upright with not enough weight on the handle bar.
The bulk of my bikes, 20 at last count, have leather saddles, split between the Brooks B17 or Wrights W3N, with a B15 and B67 here and there and an Ideale or two. I know cost is a factor as Brooks saddles have become ungodly expensive over here. I’m currently breaking in a Velo Orange version of the B67 and feel I’m going to come out the winner. Eventually. Then there is the Brooks Cambium. :( The jury is still out on that one after 3 years.
 
He wasn't sure, it's one of those things though, due to lock down he's probably spent maybe a combined total of about 48 hours away from one or other of us since he was born. So he's not used to being away from us at all he didn't cry but didn't settle really either apparently. Went bounding over to my wife yelling "it's my Mammy!" at the end of session.

Same with our wee grandson. Although he's not at nursery yet we have him for whole days at a time and he's completely at ease with us but it was noticeable at yesterday's birthday party for another of our grandchildren that he wasn't at all sure about other close family members who were there. Fine as long as they weren't too close but, although he was allowing the other womenfolk to pick him up he definitely wasn't wanting to snuggle in or even get closer than just sitting on the end of their knees. Of course he's not been mixing at toddler groups etc because of the covid so he doesn't really know more than half a dozen other kids and almost no adults.
 
Same with our wee grandson. Although he's not at nursery yet we have him for whole days at a time and he's completely at ease with us but it was noticeable at yesterday's birthday party for another of our grandchildren that he wasn't at all sure about other close family members who were there. Fine as long as they weren't too close but, although he was allowing the other womenfolk to pick him up he definitely wasn't wanting to snuggle in or even get closer than just sitting on the end of their knees. Of course he's not been mixing at toddler groups etc because of the covid so he doesn't really know more than half a dozen other kids and almost no adults.

He had a much better day today, lead my wife into nursery by the hand to show her his peg. Then buggered off into nursery to play :ROFLMAO:
 
Ah the old days...came up on a memory.

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Oddly enough not a car I miss, was a nice enough car but had it 6 years...that was enough. Failed it's mot this year and is dead, unfortunately my cars tend to die young but this had a very hard life.

You can tell it's the old days as tyre socks rather than winter tyres. I still actually have tyre socks that would fit but never had to put them on except for a test fit in about 2014. This wasn't the worst winter it had, one year it ended up with frozen Mudflaps of snow so bad I ended up smashing them out with a spade so I could turn.

Oddly enough remember my ****box punto more fondly...this car the fun happened around it rather than due to it. You could probably say the same of the 3...but the 3 is now old enough to have "character" in the Fiat sense..I.e. it's occasionally randomly broken.
 
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Had a lazy morning this morning. Didn't get up 'till well after 8.00 and then just bumbled around doing not very much until Mrs J suddenly announced "That's me off then". "What, why, where" said I. "Lunch with the girls" was the answer, "don't tell me you'd forgotten". To be truthful I have no recollection of her ever having told me in the first place, but there's a "gang" of them, teachers and admin staff from the schools she's worked in who meet up from time to time. Doesn't involve me so I tend to forget.

Anyway, seeing her set off with great purpose goaded me into "doing something" so I got stuck into my granddaughter's pram repair. She'd managed to tear one of the axles completely off the chassis! actually it's only tied on with a couple of tiddly spots of MIG welding. Here's one of the original welds on the other axle:

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Not all that surprising she managed to tear it out. My friend, who is a much better welder than I, stuck it back on yesterday - or was it the day before? Oh dear! - because I don't have a gas bottle for my MIG just now, having handed my BOC bottle back intending to get one of those rent free bottles - just haven't done it yet. Here's the rather inelegant, but strong, weld he's done on one of the joints:

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That picture was taken after painting. You'll appreciate the welding had burned back the old paint on the tubes which I rubbed back and undercoated with red oxide before applying the top coat. I was very lucky with the topcoat paint in two respects, I got it whilst we were shopping at Aldi yesterday, looked a good match looking at the lid of the spray can and trying to compare it with the remembered colour on the pram in my mind. To my great surprise, it was:

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I'm really pretty pleased with the result. It was the last can in that colour too. But best of all it had been reduced from £3.99 to £1.99!

Here's a picture of it all reassembled and ready to transport dollies again:

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I wasn't going at this "hammer and tongs" and I had a couple of tea breaks for the paints to dry and did a bit of sitting in the garden and light pruning too, but now, at half past 5, Mrs J has returned and tells me she's had a good day _ I suspect "Lunch" isn't what I would describe as lunch, probably includes cocktails and maybe a bit of window shopping around the "posh shops" up in town! I'm feeling very pleased with my endeavours and looking forward to a nice hug from my granddaughter when I get the pram back to her next week.
 
View attachment 220131 more than 44444 miles ago now...I also have 55555, 66666, 77777 and 88888 oh and this amused me
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...but I'm that tragic :ROFLMAO: and yes that is the actual colour of the dash in person it's not a weird camera effect.

Sons first day of nursery today...how the fudge is he 3?
I didn't get to see 44444 on the Grande Punto, but I did see 55555, 66666, 77777, and hopefully I'll get to see 88888 on it next year. I'd ultimately love to see it hit 100,000 but I'll be happy if I see 96,000, as then I will have doubled its mileage. [emoji846]
 
I was having my usual browse of the local charity shops this afternoon, when I spotted a smart looking 12MP Nikon digital camera in 1 of them, with a price tag of... £15! Naturally, I snapped it up! When I looked it up online after getting home, I found it out it's rather old, but good examples can still fetch over £30 on Ebay! Needless to say, I'm rather pleased! [emoji846]
 
I didn't get to see 44444 on the Grande Punto, but I did see 55555, 66666, 77777, and hopefully I'll get to see 88888 on it next year. I'd ultimately love to see it hit 100,000 but I'll be happy if I see 96,000, as then I will have doubled its mileage. [emoji846]

If it wasn't for Covid I'd be well on the way to 100k by now. Buuut last year it did 6k...and that included driving 30 miles a night or so 3 or 4 nights a week to get my son to sleep.

He doesn't need that any more, I also don't commute anymore so the chances are it'll be on 90ish for a long time.

It's already the highest mileage car I've ever had, I sold my Red Punto on 86k but the engine had been open multiple times by then. Between chasing oil leaks, the sump rotting through, head gasket, the radiator dropping its contents and over heating it...requiring headgasket 2 and a block skim. It never got to 100k looking at the mot history failed mot at 99k. Surprised the engine lasted that long if I'm honest as between my "enthusiastic" driving style and the overheating the bottom end was not happy and on cold start it sounded horrific not so much piston slap as Rods attempting to escape.
 
If it wasn't for Covid I'd be well on the way to 100k by now. Buuut last year it did 6k...and that included driving 30 miles a night or so 3 or 4 nights a week to get my son to sleep.

He doesn't need that any more, I also don't commute anymore so the chances are it'll be on 90ish for a long time.

It's already the highest mileage car I've ever had, I sold my Red Punto on 86k but the engine had been open multiple times by then. Between chasing oil leaks, the sump rotting through, head gasket, the radiator dropping its contents and over heating it...requiring headgasket 2 and a block skim. It never got to 100k looking at the mot history failed mot at 99k. Surprised the engine lasted that long if I'm honest as between my "enthusiastic" driving style and the overheating the bottom end was not happy and on cold start it sounded horrific not so much piston slap as Rods attempting to escape.
All going well, my Grande will hit 86,000 in about 10 days time, and it's still an absolute joy to bomb around in! [emoji846] It's the car I've done the most miles in by a huge margin!
 
Bit more gardening today as some poor weather is forecast for the next few days. Got the grass mowed, planted out a Fuchsia I've grown from a cutting last year and divided and transplanted an astilbe - very pleased got 4 plants out of it.

Then made a cup of tea and sat back on my bench when I noticed that the cotoneaster horizontalis, which I've trained to "hug" my fence, is a mass of red berries and the roses are making a last attempt to give some colour to the garden before autumn really bites:

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The variegated bush beside it's looking quite "plush". I keep that trimmed to the fence too.

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In fact there are 3 more 6 foot fence panels to the foot of the garden on that side and I'm considering planting a different bush centered on each panel so that, when fully grown, I'll have a living hedge composed of the different bushes

Gardening is such a wonderful and wonderous activity, There's always something you didn't know and it's just so calming and steadying in this madly rushing modern world of ours.
 
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