Looks great. The main recipe seems perfect for leaving in the slow cooker all day while you're out - something I've been increasingly doing

Our road is very similar to this although being outside of London it's not got footway bays. It's got a bus that comes down so everyone parks almost entirely on the footway on both sides - some leave enough room to squeeze past but many dont at all. All houses have at least a 2 car driveway.

Quite - they're £60 each. It'd have cost more to pay someone to install it. I've emailed both Lidl and the planning department asking if we can have some more but for now its much better than nowt.

I should clarify - currently they are right that parking on a footway with no parking restrictions is a police matter but in the above photo the van is on double yellows so the council COULD ticket if they wanted.

One stand is pretty stingy as the 4 previous ones were well used, and its position next to the verge limits its usefulness for a second bike, but I'm glad *some* sort of parking is back now - and the location is good.

The planning approval was conditional to appropriate NMU parking which helped.

My local Lidl removed some well-used cycle stands earlier in the year for an InPost locker. It took me complaining to Lidl who initially did nothing, and then the planning department, but as of today they've finally brought one back in a new, better, location: next to the entrance, on the frontage.

Its also caused by the expectation of society that we can get goods next day or same day, and cooked food on demand every day - causing thousands of vans to be driving around and given 30 seconds per stop when the nearest sensible parking space is 60 seconds away.

Also shows how little effect the new laws will have - this is already enforceable by the council but they don't - either because they don't want to or don't have the resource. So why would a new law letting them ticket footway parkers be any different?

I hate how 6Music has news at all - if I wanted news I'd tune into a news station or go online. I've got incredibly good at hitting the mute button at xx:30 every hour and then again at 3 minutes later which is just as its finishing.

You can also get ones that are credit card sized and fit in a wallet, I carry one at all times. Suppose if you want to stop carrying a wallet though that's not much use!

Snowy evening in Lancashire

When it gets really bad I use the grit bin to do the footways on our road, plus dig out and grit the top of our cul-de-sac where there is a crest as it joins the main road as otherwise cars get stuck.

Always impressed by Lancs County Council's extensive gritting network and the gritter comes past every night that is forecast around freezing without fail. They also provide a lot of grit bins for residents to tackle footways and other areas. Always worth giving credit where stuff is done well!

'Metal fatigue' bridge to popular beauty spot taken down due to safety concerns It means a two-mile round trip to get to and from Chorlton Water Park from the 'wrong' side of the River Mersey

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...

It really is very inconvenient when they're out of action and just shows what a missed opportunity it was the councils failed to use the funding they secured for a brand new one at Jackson's Boat back in 2019 and have now lost said funding.

Second bridge condemned in just a few years on that stretch - luckily the Jackson's Boat one was refurbished relatively quickly.

Beautiful! We've been promised it here in Lancashire for a week or two but nothing yet. I always enjoy riding it slowly on an MTB the first day it falls when its still powdery but yeah the second day onwards when the slush freezes it gets a bit hairy!

Heaton Park is almost always the last holdout in a sea of cancellations - I've ended up there a few times for the same reasons! Its a beautiful course although the "B route" they do when it's icy is so hilly :D

I was flying to Jersey for a holiday (and doing the parkrun while there) and a good proportion of the flight were people discussing how they were doing the parkrun then coming home immediately after which I thought was crazy

Yeah that'd be a good idea! With the 5k app becoming official some good info on cycle parking and cycle routes would be useful there too - it usually goes incredibly in depth to driving routes and car parking.

Roads were absolutely dead for most of my cycle today and then there was heavy traffic as I approached the park, with pretty much everyone turning into the park.

I love parkrun - however as usual I was the sole cyclist at the bike parking while the car parks were full to the brim! It does feel like it generates quite a lot of car journeys. I assume a good number do run/walk there though and is hard to see how many.

The pedestrian crossings are supposed to be staggered as there's a feeling that if they're not, VI pedestrians will struggle to discern that the cycle track is crossed by a zebra crossing and the road is crossed by a push button crossing.

There's a few locations in London where the cycle track ends and cyclists are pushed out into a cycle lane because of pre-existing docks by the kerbside.

The London docks can't be easily moved to accommodate road changes (such as building a cycle lane), or to move a dock to a more successful location. The Manchester ones are just bolted to the surface.

Still illegal and good to get it off the roads but there's no need to sensationalise and stoke further misinfo and hate about legitimate e-bikes.

So much wrong with this story. It's an e-motorbike not an e-bike. The standard police method of lifting the rear wheel and giving it full throttle then reading the built in speedo and claiming it can do 100mph when with a person and wind resistance its probably closer to 30-40mph.

*not literally back yard before anyone tries to figure out where I live...

This beauty is in my back yard now. Wasted on 2tph!

Rather hilariously called a Nib Nobbler

www.blackburnandroberts.co.uk/highways-dra...