These Zamberlan boots were made to fall apart

I don't know what it is about modern materials, but they ain't like they used to be.
A few months ago, my leather Zamberlan boots fell apart. The sole just fell off, revealing a crumbling inner core.  It turns out the sole/core is polyurethane/EVA and the cheaper the boots, the worse the life. Whilst I could get the leather parts removed and a new sole glued on, I've just decided to change brands. Annoyingly, the summer boots I bought in the USA for about €10 over 15 years ago have also failed on the sole. They just sell junk there (in case you are an American reading this, that bit is ironic. Just that bit you understand)
I've gone for a synthetic mountain high boot, 4 hour water proof, semi flexible. Quechua (own) brand for €69.  The branded ones wanted twice the money and then more if I wanted the convenience of dry feet. Didn't see any leather boots. Prices went to €180.
Whilst taking off my trainers (well, light hiking shoes) I noticed the heal is coming away from the outer.  I really splashed out on the cheapest pair of similar shoes for a staggering €13.

LS2 FF396 bike helmet visor repair

On the bottom of the lid, there is a control to drop the sun visor down and up.  There are 2 bits. A substantial red semi-circle and a crappy little black lever on a T stem about 2mm x 2mm. Put the lid on a shelf (who doesn't) and eventually you catch this little lever and it snaps off. You then can't retract the sun visor without forcing it.

The mechanism is easy to remove - 2 screws on the outside of the lid behind a rubber trim.
In the pic above, you can just see where the lever has sheared off - look for the arrow.
I found a bit of small pvc tubing, heated it up and pushed over the remaining stub. Then I hot glued it and put a cross pin in for good measure.

The next time it's caught I think that it will destroy the rest of the flimsy mechanism.

It's a real shame on otherwise a very comfy lid. I bought this April 2016. I notice 7 months later the control for the sun visor is up by your ear.

Waitrose email 'service'

I'm really not sure how to start this rant.  Waitrose and John Lewis sell the idea that they are a bit better than everyone else.  And I'd say that was the case until today.
When you sign up with Waitrose broadband, you get an email address. Having had this  a few years, the spam level received was getting to around 10 / day.  I checked on the web app and found the spam filter was off.  Turning it on made no difference. There were rules to set up so I set up the handful of spammer's email addresses to divert to the bin, but that didn't work either.
I contacted support and after a few days they told me it was working fine as there was spam in the junk folder. Spam I'd put there. So back to support and 2 replies and 1 week later I was told to use the John Lewis web app. So I did this and got server errors returned when reporting spam, and the spam kept coming.
So I contacted support and they finally told me that the Waitrose mail server is very old and doesn't work for spam and filtering and the John Lewis web app doesn't work for Waitrose customers.
So, to summarise, about 5 hours work over the 2 weeks it took them to reply finally made them admit that they have no spam filter. Why they couldn't just tell me this on day 1 is totally beyond me.
Their best suggestion was to get a third party email.  I think I'll just get a new ISP. 

Waitrose Wasters.

Jet wash of deck

Jet washed the deck over the last 3 days.  About 4-5 hours, 600 l of water.

Stone pile

33 barrow loads of stones (1.5t ?) taken from the old log store area (now a planting area) up near to the new wood store area on the north boundary

No 2 rcd trip

During the last thunder storms rcd no2 has tripped. I'd put this down to ground potential differences as 2 outdoor sockets are on this rcd. Another outdoor socket, slightly further away on an adjacent rcd was ok. Last trip, I'd noticed the rcd a bit reluctant to reset, and put this down to water in the outside circuits.
Today, no 2 reset ok; it has been very dry in the last few week, but was pissing down during the storm. As I happened to have a spare AC type, I've swapped out the 2009 nalto 40A/30mA type AC (only 3kva!) for a 2005 10kva 80A merlin gerin.
The fridge/freezer had been on no 2.  I've moved it to a spare dedicated circuit on another rcd, which was for the oven.  There is also another spare 32A circuit for  the cooker if needed.
Also did routine maintenance on the board, rcd trips & screw tightness.

Wood

Well, not wood but logs.
The end of winter 2015-16 saw about 0.75 stere of logs in the store.
6 trailer loads of logs (about 2 hours per load ~0.5st - cutting trees into 25cm lengths, splitting, moving trailer to store, stacking in store) have now been stacked, adding about 2.75 stere
24/8 added another 2 trailer loads. Store up to 4.5 st.