Obsessive Research!

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If you or your daughter have not done it before, as long as you enjoy travelling then I would recommend driving as it’s a great experience, although as you’ve found out it’s not the inexpensive option. I’ve never worked out it but I would imagine £500 is still light.

My son was 3 years when we first drove to Italy and it wasn’t a problem at all, but we all enjoy travelling and driving specifically. For someone who doesn’t enjoy it, or perhaps in a small car crammed with luggage, it could be a painful experience!

We have done it before, about 5 years ago in the 968 cab, ferry to Santander then 19 days 2600 miles across the top of Spain to Santiago, back east and through the Pyrenees to Lourdes (guess what religion my Irish wife is!!) then up through France to Epernay area then Calais and home. No more than 250 miles per day, no motorways, fabulous holiday - took a good few weeks to plan the daily routes, find and book accommodation, then figure what bags we could fit into the 968 cab, but well worthwhile, even managed "a few" souvenirs from Epernay area!! In the past we've also done Northern Greece to UK and return many times and UK to Austria and back with a young child or two, so we're not exactly inexperienced at long distance European motoring, but these days hours of hooning it down a motorway does not appeal.
 
Just pressed the GO button on a mculloch chainsaw CS50s . 10 minutes research , didn‘t even have to get a subscription to “What f&£@ing chainsaw “ :)
Im well proud of my decision making and decisive action
 
Just pressed the GO button on a mculloch chainsaw CS50s . 10 minutes research , didn‘t even have to get a subscription to “What f&£@ing chainsaw “ :)
Im well proud of my decision making and decisive action

Admins, please ban this hunt saboteur from our thread.
 
Just pressed the GO button on a mculloch chainsaw CS50s . 10 minutes research , didn‘t even have to get a subscription to “What f&£@ing chainsaw “ :)
Im well proud of my decision making and decisive action

You Maverick you!!! 👏👏👏

Along similar lines I had to buy a new stone saw a few weeks ago as my 23year old Partner had become very temperamental. (Not Mrs Ant BTW 😊)

I took a few days of dithering before buying a replacement. Not as efficient as @W1ghty but I’m getting better of late.

Old V’s New
C4980B66-0FB9-44BB-AC83-A499CD7440A0.jpeg
 
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Sometimes excessive research has benefits! Along with daughter and family we booked a camp holiday in Northern Italy for early September, daughter recently decided they'd rather drive than fly, so researched that yesterday afternoon and found it was 1100 miles each way (they have 2 very young children), so by the time you cost Eurotunnel, motorway fees (including Mont Blanc Tunnel), fuel, 1 hotel overnight, it all came to £500+ and 15+ hours of mainly motorway driving each way! Our original plan (just for us) of taking 3 1/2 days each way - and even going for the weeks' holiday - was a non starter due to Covid, so for us that kicked the holiday even further into touch! Haven't heard back from daughter yet whether they're reconsidering the driving down idea!! Downside is that we probably won't get any refund of what we've already paid, but it was one of those Sun £15 deals (which is actually £15 + this and that so actually about £150 paid already) - and even if we had travel insurance it's cancellation from choice not necessity, so mentally I've already written that money off.
This was till this year our Summer route to Northern Italy and £500+ is about right for driving through Mont Blanc tunnel with the overnight somewhere in France. There are two other options a bit cheaper Northern France, Belgium, Germany, Austria to Italy and France, Switzerland, Italy.
 
My Buck Rogers coffee machine has landed. I’ll now pop it under the stairs waiting for the one in the kitchen to give up. After all that messing around too 😁
Well that didn’t last long! Within 18 months it stopped recognising the spout you insert to trigger the descaling function. Without it you can’t descale, and if you don’t descale every three months then the machine stops working (by design)

I had been putting it off for another day thinking a factory reset or the like might fix it. Well yesterday the machine stopped working, so I tried to descale again, but still no joy. Called technical support, they told me how to factory reset but still no joy.

It has a three year warranty (which is better than I thought) so it will be collected tomorrow, repaired and returned. They’ll leave me with a loan machine but it will be a basic one without milk capability - and we only drink milk based coffees!

Our old machine must be 10 years old now and still gives good service having passed it on to my outlaws. My brand new unused (for years) contingency machine is now in my office at work and still barely used, so we may have to get that back if it drags on!

Apparently it could take up to three weeks and so we will be very close to Christmas…
 
Ive gone vintage with my coffee machine - i restored an old Gaggia classic. That took significant research as there's a sweet spot where they had the best power and solonoid (mine's a 2002, 1425W, made in Milan), and of course you have to source the best one! The Classics are great though as you can buy literally every component as a spare. Ive "tuned" mine down to 10 bar static and upgraded the wand plus a few other tweaks like viton seals etc. With coffee you can go way over the top i think with research and i started to get drawn in. But now i just buy the same coffee from Happy Donkey then i don't have to bother dialling in the grind so much. My wife still takes the mick at my coffee making procedure though!

Im still trying to negotiate the procurement of an old broken Bezzera Eagle, have been for about 6 years! It's a monster - if i can get hold of it the guys in our engineering lab can mend it (it's got a leaking boiler). No idea where id put it.

Looks like this one:

images
 
Personally I like my coffee based on coffee..... Call me old fashioned 😂
What, no nut blend yak’s milk, with matcha, two pumps of caramel and one pump of cherry essence?? I can tell, you don’t do TikTok do you?

😀
 
Well that didn’t last long! Within 18 months it stopped recognising the spout you insert to trigger the descaling function. Without it you can’t descale, and if you don’t descale every three months then the machine stops working (by design)

I had been putting it off for another day thinking a factory reset or the like might fix it. Well yesterday the machine stopped working, so I tried to descale again, but still no joy. Called technical support, they told me how to factory reset but still no joy.

It has a three year warranty (which is better than I thought) so it will be collected tomorrow, repaired and returned. They’ll leave me with a loan machine but it will be a basic one without milk capability - and we only drink milk based coffees!

Our old machine must be 10 years old now and still gives good service having passed it on to my outlaws. My brand new unused (for years) contingency machine is now in my office at work and still barely used, so we may have to get that back if it drags on!

Apparently it could take up to three weeks and so we will be very close to Christmas…
Blimey, after spooking me by saying it could take 2-3 weeks, it arrived at lunch time today. They collected on Thursday and returned it on Tuesday. Great service even if it did fail sooner than expected.
 
Ive gone vintage with my coffee machine - i restored an old Gaggia classic. That took significant research as there's a sweet spot where they had the best power and solonoid (mine's a 2002, 1425W, made in Milan), and of course you have to source the best one! The Classics are great though as you can buy literally every component as a spare. Ive "tuned" mine down to 10 bar static and upgraded the wand plus a few other tweaks like viton seals etc. With coffee you can go way over the top i think with research and i started to get drawn in. But now i just buy the same coffee from Happy Donkey then i don't have to bother dialling in the grind so much. My wife still takes the mick at my coffee making procedure though!

Im still trying to negotiate the procurement of an old broken Bezzera Eagle, have been for about 6 years! It's a monster - if i can get hold of it the guys in our engineering lab can mend it (it's got a leaking boiler). No idea where id put it.

Looks like this one:

images
That is a thing of sheer beauty 😍😍😍😍
 
Blimey, after spooking me by saying it could take 2-3 weeks, it arrived at lunch time today. They collected on Thursday and returned it on Tuesday. Great service even if it did fail sooner than expected.
Ahhh. It seems it’s still broken. Descaled it last night (as it was due before repair). Came to use it this morning and whilst it dispenses Espresso, when the time comes for the hot milk dispenser to do it’a thing jt nonchalantly sits there doing nothing, whilst steam pours from the capsule hole!

Another call to Nespresso Technical line, they talk me through cleaning the milk dispenser (again), and doing a factory reset (again), but still no action from the milk dispenser. They’re sending me a replacement milk dispenser first, to eliminate that. Fingers crossed 🤞🏻
 
My Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrush gave up probably 6-9 months ago. Despite being the third most expensive thing I have ever purchased - after property and cars - it was replaced as goodwill/warranty at 2 years old, and the replacement lasted another 2 years.

So naturally I have spent the last 6-9 months obsessively researching a replacement and psyching myself up to paying fat too much for a toothbrush. But I still have a load of Sonicare brush heads so it kept drawing me back - the force stayed strong though and I resisted buying another.

Until yesterday that is. I’ve really shown Phillips what I think of their too-expensive poor-quality electric toothbrush by buying another which is just like my old one but black and a bit fancier. That’ll teach ‘em. All that time spent on obsessive research over 6-9 months wasted!
 
Ahhh. It seems it’s still broken. Descaled it last night (as it was due before repair). Came to use it this morning and whilst it dispenses Espresso, when the time comes for the hot milk dispenser to do it’a thing jt nonchalantly sits there doing nothing, whilst steam pours from the capsule hole!

Another call to Nespresso Technical line, they talk me through cleaning the milk dispenser (again), and doing a factory reset (again), but still no action from the milk dispenser. They’re sending me a replacement milk dispenser first, to eliminate that. Fingers crossed 🤞🏻
New milk dispenser received (under warranty) and normal service has resumed. Again it arrived much sooner than suggested: under sell and over deliver 👍🏻
 
I now know the real meaning of obsessive research. Having been looking for three new beds and three new mattresses, I must have spent an average of three hours per day, every day for the last 4 weeks, trying to find beds that (a) we liked, (b) are reasonably priced for the quality, and (c) are available without excessive waiting times.

Tonight I have ordered two beds and three mattresses, and the website we want to buy the third bed from won’t accept our address, but at least the decision is made. We went for mattresses which are immediately available but it seems beds are on a 10 week lead time. I’m glad this particular piece of research is behind me…
 

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