SNS

Fabulous, fabulous jumper !

Could you not salary sacrifice your car allowance for a leased company car instead ? Obviously depends on the allowance you get but you can get some surprising bargains this way if you go for something with low emissions as that equates to a low tax bill so more car for your car allowance effectively. When I first met my now wife some years ago she had a RAV4- it surprised me with how capable it was in the snow but I never drove it off road. As for a freelander- We had one as a courtesy car a few weeks ago whilst the wife's car was being serviced. I took it shooting and through some pretty soft fields / muddy tracks and it was fine. As ever it's usually the tyres that make the difference- persuade Mrs G down the Freelander route and get some decent tyres would be my view.

I have one of these - lovely gun. And a decent bargain at that price as you wouldn't get a new one for less than £2100 I imagine

Drinking champagne !

Years ago I fished a few times at Mere Beck near Southport - that had quite a few head of salmon stocked but I only ever caught trout there. They had built kind of small rivers between some of the lakes which had a bit of flow and I did get a nice brownie of 3lbs or so from one of them whilst having a lesson

Indeed - and thanks once again. Thoroughly enjoyable time meeting each of you. Am going to keep my eye out for those reversing crows now too......

Likewise I'm up for it too - look forward to further details

Here you go - pics attached, though had to take from my Iphone and then resize so not great quality. Unlike the car, which is of course amazing ! My plan to only insure it for 5,000 miles a year may not work - I cant stop driving it

they are missing out on free cash from the Govt as they are not getting a gift aid declaration - the perks complicate it a little but aside from the bag, I suspect HMRC could be persuaded I wasn't really getting anything in return. I assume they will contact me about the animal I get to sponsor and the name to go on the bike so I will talk them through then what they need to do

Well, after weeks of Internet surfing, magazine reading and some hopeless customer service from a couple of places, this morning all my budget plans went out of the window and I've bought a 3 month old 110 XS ex-demo with black pack and every other needless extra I could think of. I'm picking it up next Saturday. And taking it shooting on the Monday. Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to me !!

Always charges much faster if you have it in Airplane mode

Really helpful - thanks all. I get the point about a Disco, but the thing is if I wanted more comfort I would borrow the wife's Range Rover (which I will when shooting further afield), I'm just really fancying a Defender and so thought I'd give the chance for head to trump heart by conducting a poll of you guys as to your experiences / views etc I've clearly got some swift work to do to research galvanised chassis and the other udeas I really like the look of the 90's but can see that a 110 is probably a better all rounder Thanks again !

Am liking some of those on there - many thanks !

Oh no - I rely on your write ups to shoot Cotswolds pigeon vicariously. I may have to try and shoot some myself now ! Hope it goes well and turns out to be all you both hope for

Am thinking of getting a LR Defender as an Xmas present to myself. Will only really be used for shooting / fishing etc and unlikely to take it more than an hours drive from home. Anyone got any nightmare stories of problems to dissuade me ? Or, alternatively anyone recommend any decent places to get one from ? Am hopeless with mechanical stuff so am thinking fairly new / warranty backed is the way forward- though I'd prefer to keep the bill to about £20k......

I won't post a link to our stuff so as to not be seen to advertise, but a quick google gave me this http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/Journals/2012/09/12/u/p/b/salary_sacrifice.pdfwhich should give you enough for starters. PM me if you need more ?

I should probably point out that a lease via your employer doesn't save all of the VAT as they only get to recover 50% of it. There are also potentially some further VAT nuances if you salary sacrifice for the car. That said, if you can salary sacrifice for a 'green' car given your tax is now by reference to emissions then you can get some pretty decent cars for not a lot of money - many of our junior guys are driving BMW 320d's or C class Mercs with leasing allowances less than yours

I am. Whilst laughing at how much he said he liked the lamb dish (but not the shepherds pie), given I left my lamb dish when I had the tasting menu at his place as it was awful !

962 Best of luck

I shot over in Worcestershire last season (can't remember the name but it was in shooting times a few weeks ago as a feature as they train gun dogs there too), they had some pretty good numbers of greys Am shooting at Wappenshall in Shropshire shortly and I'm pretty sure they advertise as having a lot too

Be interesting to see what happens if an independent Scotland did join the EU - Its not clear that they would be able to use the zero rate of VAT on food, kids clothing, books, new housing etc that the UK enjoys, given the odd way in which the UK was allowed to keep them on entry. But as many of you have already posted above, it does appear a debate that is not focused on such detail

Happened to me a few years back. Got an 'uninterruptible power supply' thing from PC world. Was about £60 I think. It's basically a battery backed big plug socket with some software you install. You plug the PC into it and then that into the normal plug socket. When there is a power cut, beyond a number of seconds, the software saves all open files / work and shuts down the PC. Whilst the battery back up keeps enough juice flowing to work until it switches off. It also does surge protection etc. Worked brilliantly for me !

Guys - many thanks ! Have found the video. They look pretty good. Shall go track down the bits I need tomorrow......

Guys, grateful for some advice - just been given another sizeable permission as 100s (and the farmer is right I've been tonight and seen at least 300) of rooks are damaging barley but also taking all the feed for the lambs. I watched a couple of strong flight lines and shot a dozen or so flighting into a wood (and missed 3 times as many easily !). Am going to try flighting again tomorrow night but my question is - how do I decoy them when I've got a but more time at the weekend ? I've got pigeon decoys and a flapper and rotary - do these work for rooks ? Many thanks in advance SNS